Comedy TV

Hung Out To Dry

Considering our recent griping about Tractor Monkeys, it seems only right to start our review of Dirty Laundry Live with this: the ABC have taken exactly the right approach with this show. It’s on at 9.30pm on a Thursday night on ABC2, which is pretty much the textbook definition of “out of the way”, it’s... Read More »

Over the Hill

The strangest clip doing the rounds over the last few days hasn’t been this: http://youtu.be/D29C6S9eSo4 Though that accent does have us scratching our heads so hard it looks like we’re wearing red nail polish. No, it’s been the oddly unavailable online promo for the third series of Adam Hills’ talk show, now just known as... Read More »

Vale Tractor Monkeys

Sorry we’re a bit late with this one, but we’ll be honest: it took us a few days to realise Tractor Monkeys was over. From its nonsensical title to its tried and rejected host to its no-star cast of unexciting personalities to its blatant use of old footage to pad out banter that would have... Read More »

Vale Mad As Hell

It’s rare for an Australian comedy show to be “must watch” but that’s what Mad As Hell has been for the past 12 weeks, and part of what has made it compelling is that it’s a topical comedy show with real... Read More »

The Lights Are Going Out All Over Television. We May Not See Them Lit Again In Our Lifetimes.

First, the bad news: Channel Seven, home of commercial sketch comedy in Australia for close to two decades, now thinks this is a good idea: From Kylie and Dannii to Warney and Thorpey, the celebs come out to play for a new series of Kath & Kim specials coming to Seven. A galaxy of Australia’s... Read More »

Connect the Dots and Win a Prize

Okay, so we know there’s going to be a new head of ABC comedy – one Mr Rick Kalowski – and for once there’s a solid track record of work we can examine to give us an idea of where things might be heading. Time to draw some wild and almost certainly inaccurate conclusions from... Read More »

The State of Play In the World Today

Press release time! RICK KALOWSKI APPOINTED ABC TV’S NEW HEAD OF COMEDY Rick Kalowski, former lawyer turned award-winning TV creator/writer/producer, has today been appointed ABC TV’s Head of Comedy. He will take up his position at ABC TV in Sydney in the second half of 2013. In the meantime, ABC Fiction will continue to manage... Read More »

Details are sketchy

Hmmm…this sure sounds worrying for the ABC… An output deal between the BBC and ABC will end after nearly 50 years following the announcement of a new BBC Drama and Comedy channel on... Read More »

Typing LOL Is Not The Same Thing As Actual Laughter

One of our contacts forwarded us this press release for tonight’s episode of The Elegant Gentleman’s Guide to Knife Fighting: It is random, it’s weird it’s awkward and uncomfortable. It’s not easy to boil down all the current cliches about what makes a comedy “good” in 2013 into a single line, but they’ve managed it.... Read More »

Rubbish Shows in Failure to Rate Non-Shocker

If you ever wanted to whiff deep the odor of desperation, simply hold your nose close to your television set during the ABC’s Wednesday night line-up. How bad has it become? This bad: It was a bad week for ABC’s Wednesday line-up this week and it is wasting no time in adjusting its schedule. From... Read More »