“When it comes to sodomi, you can’t afford to be a tight-arse”. Would you look at that: an actual joke on an Australian comedy shown on ABC2. And from one of the guys behind Beached Az! We should just pack up and quit, clearly we’re in a world where all the old signposts mean nothing.... Read More »
In Helen Razer’s recent examination of the history of the laugh track for The Saturday Paper – – which is something of a must-read, if only for the part where she says: It is not so much that the laughter is immediately infectious – psychological studies indicate that a laugh track or an enhanced “live”... Read More »
Comedy: the ABC’s got you covered! Actually, maybe a little too covered – with four new comedy series starting in the one week you’d think they were having a closing down sale or something. We’ll give each series the extended treatment in the coming weeks, but just to get the ball rolling here’s our initial... Read More »
Press release round-up! ABC Mental As… reaches Australian audiences on TV, radio and online and raises $1.47 million for mental health research It was the week the ABC went dotty and audiences answered the call to support ABC Mental As… On TV 5.9 million Australians tuned in during mental health week and $1.47 million has... Read More »
The fact that the final episode of Utopia involved the Nation Building Authority missing out at an awards night was yet another might big clue that whatever Working Dog were seeking to achieve with this sitcom, a bluntly realistic look at the infrastructure management of this once-great nation probably wasn’t it. (ok, sure; there probably... Read More »
And so Greg Fleet’s long awaited sitcom Die On Your Feet died the way it lived: ignored by pretty much everyone. Hey, members of the Australian media rabbiting on about how Please Like Me is “the best comedy you’re not watching”; how about mentioning the comedy starring actual big comedy names like Greg Fleet and... Read More »
Nice things: we just can’t say enough of them about Shaun Micallef. It’s not just that he (and his trusty regular cohorts, co-star Francis Greenslade and writers Gary McCaffrie and Michael Ward) are funny: he’s hard working too. Not for him vanishing for a few years in some behind-the-scenes gig or personal project no-one ever... Read More »
Has anyone put together a program to randomly generate Utopia episodes yet? It shouldn’t be all that hard, going by this list of discussion points we just whipped up: *Malfunctioning office equipment / computer (VERY IMPORTANT) *Interchangeable dialogue for the two ditzy office assistants (though their running jokes don’t overlap – if one is struggling... Read More »
Submitted without comment from TVTonight: It’s no laughing matter when a network picks the wrong timeslot for your show, and it’s a fate that appears to have befallen Please Like Me for Josh Thomas. Last year it launched to 176,000 viewers on Thursday nights on ABC2 and was the channel’s highest-rating scripted show. This year... Read More »
First, an apology: We honestly thought we’d covered Back Seat Drivers (Tuesdays around 10pm, ABC2) back when it first started a few weeks ago. But then we realised we only thought we’d covered it because it was exactly the same as a dozen or more equally forgettable shows we’ve dozed off to over the years.... Read More »