Vale the Betoota Advocate Presents and Deadloch
The Betoota Advocate Presents and Deadloch were mostly serious shows made by funny people. What does this tell us about comedy in... Read More »
Comedy TV
Pan(ning) For Gold Diggers
Okay, so our expectations weren’t all that high for Gold Diggers. Australia’s proud history of proud historical sitcoms doesn’t quite begin and end with Bligh, but good luck topping the “big tits, small dicks” scene from The Olden Days. And both those examples are old enough to be historical comedies in their own right. Why... Read More »
Win Big With Gruen
Gambling ads have been in the news recently, what with an exciting new proposal to ban them because they’re pure fucking evil. “Gambling advertising and simulated gambling through video games is grooming children and young people to gamble and encourages riskier behaviour,” she said. “The torrent of advertising is inescapable. It is manipulating an impressionable... Read More »
The less than wonderful Queen of Oz
For comedy to be funny it needs to be believable and it’s hard to find anything much believable or funny in the new locally made Catherine Tate comedy Queen of... Read More »
Vale The Weekly 2023
You know what they say – you cannot kill what does not live. And so trying to shovel some dirt over The Weekly once again proves to be utterly pointless, because across 19 episodes the whole thing showed about as much life as your average Dodo and yet it’ll somehow be back again next year... Read More »
Betooting in the Back of the Ute
Once again we return to what seems to be increasingly familiar territory: new Australian series that you’d think would be comedies, but are not. And not in the “because they’re not funny, geddit?” sense either. The Betoota Advocate Presents is a perfectly well made and successful program that just… isn’t really trying to be all... Read More »
Utopian Fantasies
Ok, so Utopia is back for a record-breaking (not really – ed) fifth season. It’s been almost a decade since season one first aired – surely after a tumultuous decade in politics this particular satire has morphed into something all but unrecognisable? Yeah, nah, it’s business as usual once again. You can’t really fault Working... Read More »
It’s a Tie
There was only ever one of two ways Deadloch could go. One way had us excited; the other… yeah, not so much. So what exactly have Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan served up with their big budget Amazon murder mystery series? And why aren’t we super excited about what’s to come? Behind door number one,... Read More »
Taking the Dirt Nap
In Limbo is the ABC’s latest dramedy, and in classic dramedy fashion it’s about a topic so hilarious you don’t even need to write jokes to get laughs: a husband and father kills himself and nobody knows why. Comedy gold! To be fair (why? – ed), that isn’t really the comedy part. Oh no, the... Read More »
Have you been paying attention for 11 years?
We’re two episodes into series 11 of Have You Been Paying Attention? but is there anything left to say about why Have You Been Paying Attention? is still a great... Read More »