Online Comedy

Great Comedy Myths of Our Time #1 – Twitter is killing comedy

We've all heard them, people in the media droaning on about how awful it is that decent, honest, talented comedians and shows are being ruthlessly picked-on by bored, unidentifiable people on social media, tweeting and Facebooking their vindictive opinions with the express purpose of KILLING PEOPLE'S... Read More »

Appy Appy Joy Joy

A year or so ago, when the iPad was released, there was a brief period in which a small number of well known local comedy groups, well, two local comedy groups - Working Dog and The Chaser - released their own apps. Now with smart phones and tablet computers to be found in every second person's bag, including our own, we assumed there must be stacks more Australian comedy apps to download.... Read More »

Repeat viewing

In one of our semi-regular trawls for Australian comedy online we recently came across the web series Lights, Camera, Maction! made by and starring Perth radio personality Sam Mac. Episode 1 wasn't too bad for a deliberately shonky series aimed at the YouTube... Read More »

If you can’t say something nice…

As a result of our minor reputation for reviewing Australian online comedy we get the odd e-mail from Australian online comedy makers asking us to review their... Read More »

Travelling North

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 »

WTF! off

Back in July we noted the announcement of WTF!, a send-up of fast-paced entertainment news shows created by ex-Chaser member Charles Firth. We were fairly sceptical about whether this show would be any good or not, and after two weeks of episodes on GO! (and the thecompleteandutter channel on YouTube) it seems were right to be... Read More »

Election 2010: Rise of the Impressionists

The comedic story of Election 2010, which we can now finally close the book on, was this: while the ABC broadcast the “official” election comedies, Gruen Nation and Yes We Canberra!, online venues, such as YouTube, were full to bursting with impressionists. So much so, that there came a point towards to end of the election campaign when the joke switched from being about Julia Gillard, to about the people impersonating Julia... Read More »

From podcast to broadcast

Unless you're a bunch of mates having a laugh or foolish enough to think there's serious money to be made from the world of podcasting, you're probably making podcasts strategically. I.e. you're “talent” trying to get a paid gig by proving your worth through a podcast, or you're a broadcaster trying to build an audience for a team or concept through a podcast. The latter strategy appears to have paid off for the ABC with the podcast Is It Just... Read More »

Milsom making a play to be our Tina Fey?

It was inevitable that at least one of this country’s female comedians would attempt a Julia Gillard impersonation sooner or later. Sure, someone from Double Take did it last year, but with Gillard now running the country there’s a gap in the market – an opportunity to fill the shoes of Anthony Ackroyd, whose Kevin... Read More »

The Wonderful World of Australian Comedy Online Part 4: Sketch comedy

In yet another indication that the future of entertainment is online, a recent-ish episode of the Mediaweek podcast revealed that Andrew Denton's production company Zapruder's Other Films has employed nine members of the Hungry Beast team to work on “online projects”. What exactly these projects are was not revealed; it's also not terribly clear at this stage what types of entertainment will work best in an online... Read More »