Comedy TV

Sammy J’s Democratic Party is the worst form of satire, except for all the others

Remember Playground Politics? Sammy J’s 2016 election satire in the style of Play School? It’s back (on ABC on Wednesdays, as well as iView and Facebook), as part of a new short-form sketch show Sammy J’s Democratic Party. Set in a secret bunker under Parliament House, Democratic Party offers a sneaky peek into the backroom... Read More »

It Pays to Pay Attention

It’s taken us an extra week to get around to the return of Have You Been Paying Attention, because quite frankly we were shocked. Shocked! Ok, maybe just shocked. Who would have thought that Australia’s most steadfast and reliable laugh-delivery-machine – well, once they fine-tuned the shift from half-hour to hour episodes at least –... Read More »

Tonight…Aaron Chen

It’s now been two weeks since there’s been an episode of John Conway Tonight, but according to TV Tonight the show may be back soon… Rising comedian Aaron Chen may be getting his big chance at his own show on ABC2. Chen, who has appeared as the sidekick on just 3 episodes of John Conway... Read More »

Circling the Drain

We know we’ve been focusing a lot on The Weekly over the last few months because Jesus fuck who thinks putting Tom Gleeson on twice an episode is a good idea? C’mon, he’s the weakest link and yet they’re pounding away like somehow after two decades he’s going to suddenly spark up and deliver the... Read More »

Forty Three Episodes Standing Still

It’s easy to point out the general shittiness of The Weekly, but what about specifics? What are some of the concrete things it’s doing to make it just so hard to watch? *heavy sigh* Look, this is a show where someone was paid very well indeed to write “we’ve all seen your military muscle, now... Read More »

Thanks for your time, again

The best thing you can say about a tribute show like John Clarke: Thanks For Your Time, a show which ideally wouldn’t exist because we’d rather John Clarke was still with us, is that it made us want to re-watch various John Clarke shows. It was only half-an-hour, and it was put together in a... Read More »

Call to John

The final skit of the first episode of ABC2’s John Conway Tonight has host John slapping on a mortarboard and giving a dodgy speech about having to leave university for reasons (“you all know what I did”) to the general befuddlement of his audience. It seems like the kind of random, ill-judged sketch you’d expect... Read More »

The Boys Are Back, The Boys Are Back In Town

Back on @theweeklytv tonight! — BRIGGS AKA BIG SIGH (@BriggsGE) April 12, 2017 And thank fuck for that, because he’s pretty much the only thing that separates The Weekly from an especially shithouse extended episode of Media Watch. And that’s on a good day: week in week out we struggle to detect any concrete difference... Read More »

John Clarke, thanks for your time

We honestly thought Clarke & Dawe would never end. Two men, a couple of chairs, a great script – the perfect satirical format. Things were looking a bit shaky for John Clarke and Bryan Dawe towards the end of the Howard years, when Gerard Henderson was banging on about left-wing bias in comedy and shows... Read More »

The Abyss Gazes Also

Aww, wasn’t that opening bit of this week’s Weekly nice? The gang was all there – even Briggs, which was actually kind of puzzling because it’s hardly like he’s a series regular or anything so for all we know they pre-recorded this back when he actually was a series regular – looking up at the... Read More »