We don’t normally get much mail here at Tumbleweeds Central, but our recent post on Lawrence Leung’s new show Unbelievable drove someone to write in with a John Safran / Leung connection we’d missed*. It seems that, for once, our comparison of Unbelievable with Safran’s earlier shows had some basis in real-world events: There is... Read More »
We all know how hard it is to make a living in comedy. We all know how much harder it is to make a living in comedy when you don’t actually make comedy. Even then, seeing Peter Helliar dust off pointless, annoying, Ricky Gervais-knock-off one-joke character Bryan “Strauchanie” Strauchan this week for a seemingly regular... Read More »
We all know television doesn’t work this way, but still: It’s tempting to think the decision to team the second half of Chris Lilley’s Angry Boys series with Lawrence Leung’s new series Unbelievable (ABC1, Wednesdays, 9.30pm) was guided by more than just the programmers grabbing whatever was next on the shelf after Hungry Beast finished.... Read More »
With Angry Boys debuting in the UK this week, the usual gushing waves of praise re: the genius of Chris Lilley have broken on a new shore. In Australia too, the fans have been fighting back against the dwindling ratings and general feel that this time out Lilley's gone off the... Read More »
The final episode – possibly ever – of Hungry Beast goes to air later tonight and, while we've sort of pointed this out before, we think it's worth remembering that when it started out Hungry Beast was supposed to be at least as much about comedy as it was about current affairs. Which makes our number one question at this slightly pre-emptive wake for the programme: What... Read More »
If, like us, you're often sceptical of Australian TV comedies then consider this: is it better to give comedy a try and not always succeed, or to give up entirely and just import it? All too often we get defeatist about it and chose the latter, but down that path dangers lies, for history tells us that when there isn't much original, locally-made comedy on TV not only do we get lots of imported shows, but local re-makes of British shows – and is that actually what we... Read More »
It was announced the other day that Rove McManus has become the latest Australian to score a gig on American TV, and that's all well and good but why him? There are lots of other far better Australian comedians having a crack in the US, why aren't they getting... Read More »
Okay, so over at The Age this just happened: throughout Angry Boys the language is appalling, family interaction is wholly dysfunctional and there are repeated references to all manner of sexual deviations – dog-wanking and grandma-groping chief among them. If this is comedic genius, Rodney Rude and Kevin ”Bloody” Wilson deserve lifetime achievement awards. The... Read More »
It’s taken us a day or so to process the news that Spicks & Specks – a show we honestly figured that at this stage would keep on keeping on until at least the next Ice Age – will in fact be gone before the next Ice Age movie comes out. Not because we’re going... Read More »
The original Balls of Steel (made in the UK) started off with someone placing hundreds of turds on the pavement of a heavily-congested London bridge just before rush hour and filming the hee-larious results, the Australian version was going to be, at best, equally... Read More »