Australian Tumbleweeds

Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.

Raking through the leaves of bad dramedy

Dramedy has killed comedy. Where once we made out-and-proud sitcoms which aimed for laughs (even if they didn’t always succeed at getting any), now we make dramedies where the potential for comedy is sacrificed to ensure there’s room for moving bits, or tense bits, or realistic bits, or, in the worst and most cynical examples of the genre, a bit where the writers can cover for the fact that they’re just plain crap at writing gags.

But dramedies don’t have to be like this. It is possible to create well-rounded, interesting, believable characters, put them into plots and situations full of twists and turns, and give them a healthy and balanced mix of comedic and dramatic things to do. Rake, which does all these things week-in-week-out, is now in its third, and sadly final, series. In years to come people will remember how much they enjoyed it and wish it would come back. Some of them will pay money to see it again on whatever the latest way to enjoy TV is (Netflix beamed in to our Google glasses, possibly). Will they remember Please Like Me or The Moodys with similar fondness?

Part of Rake’s brilliance is down to the main character. Cleaver Greene’s hardly the kind of guy you’d want to marry or be friends with, he’s probably not even someone you’d want to have a one night stand with or have defending you, even though he seems to be pretty good at having sex and being a lawyer, but he’s great television. In his circle of high-earning, well-educated, middle class, successful types, Cleaver’s both the most screwed-up and self-indulgent, and the only one with any sort of integrity. While everyone else’s number one priority is to maintain their position by covering their arses, Cleaver’s crazy enough to sacrifice his for the truth, justice and a good time. Dumb enough to stuff up frequently but smart enough to bounce back endlessly, he’s also the only one prepared to prick the establishment’s pomposity and mock their pretensions. He’s more than the textbook definition of a rake, he’s a social and political satirist, and an anti-hero who’s on the same side as us ordinary folk. And that’s always going to make an audience laugh with him no matter what he does.

The other key to the success of Rake is the way in which the dramatic and comedic elements of the show can exist in the same scene and even the same line of dialogue. Many contemporary dramedies do the opposite, going from funny to serious with gear changes so crunching and noticeable that the whole realism vibe they’re trying for crumbles to dust. In Rake you get reality because people in the worlds of the law and politics are like that, but you get comedy because the situation’s heightened just enough to make you laugh. It’s a perfect, natural combination.

It’s no surprise that the series’ writers have as much experience in comedy as they do in drama (meaning they can do both very well), and anyone who thinks you can skimp on good writing in this kind of comedy is talking out their arse. Watch the bonus mockumentary on the series 2 DVD. It’s Richard Roxburgh as Cleaver improvising answers to a journalist’s questions and it’s not funny. Improv or an improv feel isn’t always a disaster area, but it’s rarely as funny as a well-acted, well-scripted scene. Imagine if all of Rake had that still-oh-so-fashionable-for-some-reason mockumentary feel. We wouldn’t be writing this glowing tribute to the show, that’s for sure. Which makes us wonder why we’ve never really blogged about it before. We don’t quite know ourselves. Maybe we’re so busy watching the Australian shows that billed as comedy that we’re neglecting to watch the Australian shows that contain actual comedy? Mistake acknowledged, correction made, blog written.

Vale Print Media

You may not have noticed, what with that whole “death of print media” thing going on even though we still seem to be getting loads of junk mail in our letterbox every day and what is print media but a couple of news stories stuck on the front of a Target catalogue anyway? We digress: This weekend just gone saw both The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald re-size their weekend editions down to the tabloid format, and they took this opportunity to do some minor house-keeping on their arts pages. Long story short: Age TV critics Ben Pobjie and Melinda Houston have been dumped! Awww.

That’s not to say they’re gone from the Fairfax stables forever. Writers have a habit of being recycled over there and look – Pobjie’s latest online column is dated Feb 28th so who knows? Maybe he’s just moved to online-only, or he’s now writing their weekday TV column along with at least half a dozen other people*. Or editorial didn’t have the guts to tell him he’s was fired and when he sent in his latest column they thought they’d better put it up before he went on another long twitter rant about his depression.

(Houston’s most recent column is dated Feb 23rd, so we’re guessing she really is outta here**)

To get the serious stuff out of the way, it’s never a good thing when media outlets consolidate their voices. Both writers are replaced by SHM regulars; Houston’s replacement is David Knox from TV Tonight, which isn’t exactly a blow for diversity when it comes to variety in reviewing. And losing a job is tough, especially in the current media climate, so to gloat or rejoice in such a situation would be both unseemly and uncouth.

On the other hand, screw those guys. Whatever talents and abilities they might have had in other areas, as television reviewers – fuck, they weren’t even reviewers really. They were people who waffled on somewhat adjacent to television groping blindly for points that the television show supposedly under discussion occasionally seemed to support. Unless you had actually watched the show in question, in which case you were almost always left scratching your head so hard you’d need corrective surgery to fill in the grooves.

We don’t ask much from TV critics. We don’t even ask that they know much about television. All we want is critics who can write coherently, review shows purely on their merits – no matter where the shows in question are produced – and who take seriously their responsibility to give the public their opinion. So, uh, yeah. These guys. Yeah.

Who could forget this classic review by Houston of Angry Boys:

that familiar, inspired collision of irreverence, LOL moments and tenderness that define this series at its best.

You might think you know what she’s trying to say there, but read it again: is she saying the show is inspired in the way it mashes elements together? Is “familiar” meant to be a good thing? Aren’t “irreverence” and “LOL moments” the same thing? And why say “LOL moments” when “jokes” or even “laughs” would be more accurate? Oh wait, she’s writing about Angry Boys, none of this makes any fucking sense because the the “tenderness” she’s talking about was actually clumsy mawkishness, the “irreverence” was someone taking a shit on a police car and the “LOL moments”… well, good luck finding any of those.

Other classics from the Houston song book include: the time she felt the need to tell us that in Australia sitcoms go for 30 minutes; the time she loved Randling before even seeing the first episode; the time she said Randling was getting better every week: and of course, the time she said that Randling was the worst show in the history of Australian television.

But while Houston’s steadfast commitment to never saying a bad word about an Australian production no matter how kak-handed it was earned her our ire over the years, it was Pobjie’s refusal to consider that television was even worth caring about that raised an eyebrow or two:

none of that actually means I’m ”right” and anyone else is ”wrong”. When you’re judging comedy, there’s no such thing as right or wrong – there’s just ”I laughed” or ”I didn’t”. Nothing is objectively good or bad, and anyone trying to convince you otherwise is kidding you and themselves.

That’s right: anyone telling you a show is “good” or “bad” is, according to Pobjie, kidding themselves. Hey, let’s make that guy our TV critic!

You could argue – and a few people have over the years – that what he’s really saying here is that strident views do more harm than good and we should all realise that there is room for differing opinions when it comes to discussing a subjective area such as comedy. WRONG.

Everyone reading a television review column – or any kind of review anywhere – already knows it’s just one person’s opinion. Trust us on this: the lamest possible response to a bad review is “that’s just your opinion”. To write in a major daily newspaper that “hey, it’s just one person’s opinion” is to insult your readership: they know it’s just your opinion, that’s why they’re reading it – TO GET YOUR OPINION.

But not in Pobjie’s book. No, time and time again he let us know that having a firmly held opinion and the desire to express it decisively were not attributes he felt were an advantage for a working television critic. Instead, he stood up for the Australian television industry at a time when it only has around fifteen television channels, a variety of glossy weekly magazines and an army of skilled PR operatives telling us all how great it is day in day out. He gushed constantly about Marieke Hardy’s Laid while forgetting to tell his readers he was buddies with her. And he wrote this line while being employed, as we’ve already mentioned, as a television columnist for a major metropolitan daily newspaper:

It’s only TV, after all – it’s important but it doesn’t matter.

We’re not going to miss him.

 

*[edit]: turns out Pobjie is going to do the daily TV column (thanks to Urinal Cake for the heads up) at Fairfax. This is actually good news for both us and him, because that column – unless it’s undergone a radical transformation – requires the writer to talk specifically about the shows that are on that night, not burble on with some half-baked theory about television in general. As our major problem with Pobjie has been the burbling and not the writing (or his opinions when he’s had them – remember when he didn’t like Ja’mie: Private School Girl? ), this is, as we said, good news. Kind of.

**[edit 2]: nope, turns out she’s just on a couple weeks break. That’s right: this entire post was a complete waste of your time and ours as both these critics are still employed in the same or better jobs than they were a week ago. Oh the irony that a post berating people for being bad at their jobs should clearly be the product of people no good at theirs either! Still, at least we come to you, cap in hand, begging your forgiveness for our mistakes secure in the knowledge that our blundering means you’ll now think less of us: these guys don’t give a fuck what you think otherwise they wouldn’t be so quick to talk up complete crap week in week out.

Sometimes You’ve Got To Take What You Can Get

Most of our objections to the state of modern Australian comedy can be boiled down to two points: most of it isn’t even trying to be funny, and it’s not even any good at whatever it is trying to do. So we’re actually kind of pleased to see both The Checkout and Have You Been Paying Attention? back in 2014. Yes, they’re the kind of diluted crap the networks constantly serve instead of actual comedy – but they’re rare examples of good crap.

Of the two, The Checkout is the one we probably won’t be bothering with much this year. The Chaser are still involved (well, Julian Morrow and Craig Reucassel out front, with Chas Licciardello behind the scenes) alongside a bunch of other comedy faces – and Heath Franklin, who clearly needs the work now that he can’t keep pretending to be Chopper Read – but it’s basically just straight consumer affairs now. And by “consumer affairs” we mean five minute segments outlining the rules and regulations behind the use of the term “Australian Made”. Informative? Sure. Funny? Nuh.

Oh sure, they try to spice things up. But all the wacky animation in the world can’t hide the fact that around a third of the show is basically just reading out letters from grumpy people complaining about stuff. There’s more audience-sourced content too – cue obvious non-joke by Morrow that they’re aiming to have the entire show sourced from viewers soon – but that’s hardly a good thing no matter how severely they edit it. Also, it now features Heath Franklin.

So as comedy fans, we can acknowledge that this show is packed with useful information told in an informative fashion while also pointing out that the comedy content is sinking close to zero. And that’s fine: unlike the various Gruen shows, this at least is telling you stuff you probably didn’t already know in a non-condescending fashion (apart from that guy saying that online “if you’re not paying for something online, you’re not the consumer, you’re the product.” Uh, duh). But if you’re tuning in for the comedy, here’s hoping you find the news that actual food often looks nothing like its promotional photos freakin’ hilarious.

As for Have You Been Paying Attention?, unlike just about every other comedy quiz show in living memory, it’s often actually funny. In part that’s because it’s run as an actual quiz, not as a thinly disguised excuse for the “comedians” to tell pointless and endless anecdotes. A question is asked, someone gives a joke answer, someone else gives the right answer, next question.

Last time around some complained that the show felt overly scripted – or just plain scripted, as the argument seemed to be that no group could be that consistently funny off-the-cuff. Uh, what? You’d rather the show had more people umming and ahhing and making jokes that didn’t work? It’s not like they’re using fake laughter to make shit seem like gold: they’re putting in the work to make an actually funny show, and then people complain that it seems too funny?

Let’s kill this off while we’re here: if you prefer your comedy quiz shows to feature people more obviously fumbling for a joke, you can get out right now. Life is short and we’d like to spend as much as possible of it enjoying comedy. We’re making a firm aesthetic choice here: on this kind of show, where throwaway jokes are pretty much all you’re ever going to get, we want to get as many of them as possible. If that means not having the kind of bullshit “naturalism” that’s been all the rage for the last seemingly fucking endless decade of self-obsessed tosspots thinking that having everyone looking at them was the be-all and end-all of comedy, pardon us while we fail to shed a single solitary tear.

Whether they script all the jokes, or just edit out all the dud moments after filming or the entire show really does happen exactly as we see it on screen, we don’t really care. It’s not a “real” game show; no fraud is being committed. What counts is the end result – and like we just said, this is basically the only funny comedy quiz show this country’s produced in the 21st century. Because here, for once, the joke – not on-screen bonding or establishing someone as “a funny guy” or providing a wanker showcase, or whatever the reason was for The Einstein Factor –  is the point.

Would we rather it was replaced by an actual scripted comedy series that didn’t have to act like a topical news quiz? Of course. But as producers Working Dog seem to have at least two scripted comedy series in the pipeline (one for the ABC, one for Foxtel) plus a honest-to-God play coming up in 2014, we can’t really complain that they’re wasting all their time on this crap.

Not to mention that this kind of crap is the crap they do best: a slightly daggy quiz show featuring occasionally dubious gags (at least when Tommy G said Sam Pang played “The Guard” in the Schapelle Corby telemovie, Pang pointed out that hey, why not have him play all the Asian roles?), shonky segments (there were more jokes about how bad the “Drill Down” segment was than jokes in the actual segment) and Jane Kennedy calling Mick Molloy “Don Burke”.

Everyone seems like friends, but the kind of friends who constantly try to one-up each other with a gag. Which are pretty much the only kind of friends we want to see on our televisions. Most of the time comedy quiz shows and half-arsed panel shows look like something all involved tossed off in their spare time without bothering to hide their contempt for the audience they expect to drool all over their “hard work”. When someone comes along and puts in a bit of effort to make the end product funny, they’re going to get two thumbs up from us.

Little sketches of horror(s)

This is Littleton is a new four-part sketch show set in the municipal offices of the fictional City of Littleton. It premiered on ABC2 tonight, and treads well-worn ground in TV sketch in that it features recurring characters (Little Britain, Live from Planet Earth) and is set in the suburbs (The Comedy Company, The Wedge).

The characters are the usual mix of ethnic and gender stereotypes, sociopaths, freaks and weirdos that you get in shows like this, including a wannabe-glam trophy wife of an elderly man, a Schapelle Cordy-esque young woman trying to get out of a Balinese jail, two old Greek men who discuss incongruously youthy phenomenon (such as Snapchat), and an over-zealous IT manager. And based on the two episodes of This Is Littleton we’ve seen so far there’s not much in the way of character development or storylines. Sure, the IT manager gets a bit of plot in episode 2, but those two Greek men? Expect them to perform roughly the same sketch, week in, week out, and for it to be about as funny.

The cast that play these characters are all relative newscomers, with Triple J Breakfast’s Matt Okine and Ronny Chieng the best known performers, and generally speaking they all do quite a good job with the material. But let’s be clear, this it isn’t their material, even though many of the main players are stand-ups and sketch writer/performers. And perhaps if some or all of the sketches were written by or with the cast this show might work better, or at least feel less disjointed. Maybe it might even have some sort of point?

Good sketch shows, like Mad As Hell, are the work of an established team who have a shared vision and understanding. The is Littleton feels like yet another one of those shows where a bunch of people who (mostly) haven’t worked together before are thrown in to a room and invited to deliver someone else’s half-arsed concept. We hate to remind you of The Wedge and Live from Planet Earth again, but The Wedge and Live from Planet Earth! Jesus, when will people in Australian TV learn that this isn’t a great way to do sketch?!

Having said that, here’s an ABC press release we received last week…

FRESH BLOOD FINDS NEW COMEDIC TALENT

ABC TV and Screen Australia will commission 25 projects for Fresh Blood, an initiative to find the next generation of comedy performers and producers.

The successful 25 projects each receive a budget of $10,000 to produce three, 2-5 minute short form comedy sketches to premiere on ABC iview this year.

With a record of 20 million program plays in December, iview  is Australia’s most popular catch-up service and an ideal fit for ‘social sharing’ short form sketches.

“Fresh Blood is one of the most exciting projects for us, “says Richard Finlayson, ABC Director of Television. “Not only does it continue ABC TV’s commitment to nurturing and supporting fantastic Australian comedic talent, it gives 25 aspiring comedians and comedy groups the amazing opportunity to see their ideas turned into content that will premiere on iview later this year.

“It’s the kind of leg up any young, up and coming comedy hopeful would kill for, and I can’t wait to see the results.”

“There’s a rich pool of Australian comic talent working outside the system making quality content for digital distribution,” said Graeme Mason, CEO, Screen Australia. “Through the Fresh Blood initiative, we’re thrilled to offer some the opportunity to take their careers to the next level with this injection of funds, and the relationship with a major broadcaster and Federal screen agency. Fresh Blood is a dynamic addition to Screen Australia’s suite of support for practitioners using newer technologies and platforms to reach their audience.”

ABC TV and Screen Australia have received an overwhelming 492 applications, since the call-out for “Fresh Blood” went out last October. Due to the high calibre of creative entries, 25 projects are to be commissioned, one more than the 24 projects originally sought.

“It was a difficult task to select just 24 from an amazingly talented field, so in the end we had to choose 25 because it was just too hard,” says Sophia Zachariou, Acting Head Entertainment, ABC TV.

“The 25 projects range from puppetry and animation to absurdist sketch and I have no doubt that the clever, funny people in and behind these Fresh Blood projects are going to be big names in Australian comedy in the future.”

Fresh Blood will be produced by ABC Entertainment TV and is the first digital commission for iview. It positions the catch up service as a creative platform for innovative content.

…and while this is a way for up-and-coming established groups to get their unique visions out there, don’t think we’re automatically going to like what they produce. The material has to be good too. And the thing is, if This Is Littleton were funnier we wouldn’t care that the cast didn’t have a hand in the writing because we’d be laughing too much to mind.

What’s The Matter With Kids These Days?

Well, guess we all knew this day was coming:

PRODUCTION STARTS ON SEASON TWO OF

JOSH THOMAS’ PLEASE LIKE ME

New cast announced as season one wins AACTA and receives GLAAD nomination.

Production is underway in Melbourne on the highly anticipated second season of Josh Thomas’ award-winning comedy drama Please Like Me. Created, written by and starring celebrated Australian comedian Josh Thomas, the second season was ordered by the ABC and Participant Media’s US television network Pivot following the international success of season one. The 10 x 30 season stars Thomas alongside a host of returning and new cast, and will air later this year on ABC2 in Australia and Pivot in the US.

The critically acclaimed first season of Please Like Me was heralded as one of the best shows of 2013 by The New Yorker, TIME, Entertainment Weekly and the LA Times. In Australia, the series has become ABC2’s highest rating original comedy series and was the recent winner of the 2014 AACTA Award for Best Television Comedy or Light Entertainment Series. In the US it is currently nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, alongside Glee, Modern Family, Orange is the New Black and 2014 Golden Globe® winner the Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Thomas said of going into production, ‘The first season was enjoyed by some people, which is the dream. I’m super excited about season 2. Hopefully we won’t stuff this one up.’

In the first season, Josh was dumped by his girlfriend, gained and lost a boyfriend, came out to his parents, lost his eccentric great aunt, and moved back in to live with his bipolar mother after her suicide attempt. In season two, Josh tries to get through the day without upsetting anyone. The new season also welcomes a new dog, a new rabbit and a new baby. There’s no big twist. It isn’t Lost.

New cast members in season two include the award-winning comedian Hannah Gadsby, iconic Australian entertainer Denise Drysdale, and talented rising stars Keegan Joyce (Rake), Charles Cottier (Home & Away) and Charlotte Nicdao (The Slap, The Time Of Our Lives).

The new cast will be joining Josh and his circle of family and friends from season one including Debra Lawrance (Mum), David Roberts (Dad), Renee Lim (Mae), Thomas Ward (Tom), Caitlin Stasey (Claire) and Wade Briggs (Geoffrey).

Award-winning film and TV director Matthew Saville (The Slap, Cloudstreet, Felony) and producer Todd Abbott also return for the second season. Executive producers are Josh Thomas, Todd Abbott and Kevin Whyte. Executive producers for the ABC are Rick Kalowski and Brett Sleigh, and for Pivot, Jeff Skoll and Holly Hines.

Rick Kalowski, ABC Head of Comedy, said “We couldn’t be prouder at ABC to be going into business with Pivot on season two of this outstanding show. I’ve never read new scripts as assured as these. Please Like Me fans all over the world are in for a major treat.”

Pivot (Pivot.tv), which launched in August 2013 with Please Like Me, is a US television network from Participant Media serving passionate Millennials (18-34) with a diverse slate of talent and a mix of original season, acquired programming, films and documentaries.  Pivot on Twitter @pivot_tv and Facebook at facebook.com/pivottelevision.

What is there to say about this that a heavy sigh follow by an exaggerated eye-roll hasn’t already expressed? The hilarious under-stating of pretty much everything reads to us more like blunt statements of fact, while “I’ve never read new scripts as assured as these” only sounds like a compliment until you realise it’s coming from the producer and head writer for Wednesday Night Fever.

The real bit to take notice of is, of course, “Please Like Me fans all over the world are in for a major treat”, because as we all know Please Like Me was a largely ignored ratings fizzle here, as well as pretty much the only show to date to be dropped from ABC1 to ABC2. But it was picked up by new millennial-friendly US cable network Pivot due to.. well, it had a lead actor under 30, so let’s go with that.

(and also it being the six weeks between America falling in love with Chris Lilley and then falling out of love with Chris Lilley, which made awkward Australian comedy flavour of the month. Well, flavour of the six weeks.)

So celebrations are in order: Australian television has finally become a direct link in the American supply chain, right down to calling what should be series two “season two”. What was formerly seen as bland, inept characterisation can now be sold as “addressing the international marketplace” while a lack of jokes is clearly “ensuring it remains accessible to a global audience”.

Presumably they’re saving the announcement that Thomas’ hairstyle is “Donald Trump Jr.” for season three.

Come on, entertain us!

Yesterday it was announced that Jon Casimir, currently an executive producer at Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder, will start work as the ABC’s Head of Entertainment in April. Sophia Zachariou, who has been acting Head of Entertainment, now has a new job as Deputy Head of Entertainment (overseeing entertainment and non-narrative comedy), while Rick Kalowski (producer of Wednesday Night Fever) remains as Head of Comedy (responsible for sketch and narrative comedy). This isn’t exactly a comedy dream team.

Casimir is best known for co-creating The Gruen Transfer with Andrew Denton, and working on other Zapruder/Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder productions such as Enough Rope, The Joy of Sets, Randling and Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery. According to his biography on the (mysteriously still on the web) Randling website, before moving in to television Casimir spent almost two decades working as a journalist and editor at the Sydney Morning Herald, whilst also dabbling in radio and writing books.

On the one hand, Casimir’s appointment makes sense, he co-created a massive and continuing hit for the ABC in the Gruen franchise. On the other hand, he also co-created Randling, an epic fail of a panel show that cost the ABC more than whatever 27 half hours of shithouse panel show costs to make, it cost them in ratings, audience goodwill and credibility. You know, the kind of things you don’t wanna lose.

Still, we should probably wait until Casimir actually commissions some shows before we judge him. Unlike Rick Kalowski, who looked like a bad bet going in to the Head of Comedy job with a CV that included being producer of Double Take and script editor of Comedy Inc, Casimir has worked on some decent shows. And he may not necessarily give us a Wednesday Night Fever. Our fear is more that he’ll commission more of the sort of not-really-comedy comedy that he’s best known for. Shows which feature smug people behind desks spouting light-hearted waffle. And that may be the sort of thing that some people like to watch, but for us that’s not entertainment.

Mad About The Boy

Hey, the cast are in the opening credits now! Micallef doesn’t have the beard he was sporting in all the promos! There’s the Micallef Tonight sign! And a bunch of political observations that are actually funny! Yes, Mad as Hell is back and it continues to be good. Oh sure, there are always quibbles to be made – the ten minutes on border protection was more clever than laugh-out-loud, though as always there were a bunch of good lines and concepts in there – but if you make a show with the line “featuring a who’s that of Australian talent”, you’re always going to get the thumbs up from us.

It does, of course, raise the question of why there isn’t more Mad as Hell, especially as Micallef isn’t also doing Mr & Mrs Murder this year. Maybe there’ll be a load more episodes this season; maybe there’ll be a second season later in the year. It’s still not enough.  There’s an argument that too many episodes might dilute the quality, but we’re clearly looking at a well-honed comedy machine by series three and considering the strength of this first episode it certainly doesn’t feel like they couldn’t handle a few extra weeks of work.

Because seriously: Mad As Hell is the kind of show Australia should have on the air pretty much all year round. Well, if we still cling to that idea that political satire is A Good Thing. It’d be nice to see other people trying their hand at political comedy at the moment, but considering the number of folk trying to tell us The Roast isn’t crap with a straight face – tests have shown telling lame jokes while wearing a suit does not instantly turn said lame jokes into “satire” – we’re not entirely sure everyone out there can tell the difference between decent political comedy with something to say and a one joke idea that goes nowhere much past “oooh, Abbott’s not much chop, is he?”

We’re not saying Mad as Hell is genius-level brilliance that will outlast Western Civilisation itself or anything; we are saying that, as a show able to make fun of Australian society without dumbing it all down to “Abbott wears speedos” levels, it should be on our screens as often as possible. Especially as its rivals are a bit thin on the ground at the moment: The Chaser increasingly do their best work in other areas, Gruen is a show based entirely around the profit motive and Wednesday Night Fever was shit.

In short: Mad as Hell is smart, funny, and makes jokes about Million Dollar Hot Seat. Good luck finding that anywhere else on Australian television.

Vale Before The Game

This one kind of passed us by, happening as it did during the off season and coming as more of a “hey, guess what’s not coming back in 2014” announcement: Before the Game is no more. The popular and long-running sports… wait, “sports”? Why are we mentioning it? Oh yeah: despite being AFL-focused it featured a number of comedians as regulars, including Mick Molloy. It also featured a number of “comedians” as regulars, including in its early years Peter Helliar – remember his popular yet rubbish “Straunchie” character? – plus Anthony “Lehmo” Lehmann, and Dave Hughes, about which more later.

On the surface there’s not much here to report. The show ran for a decade, so it’s hardly like it was cut down in its prime. While it remained a strong performer in Melbourne, reportedly the ratings in other states (especially non-AFL states) were weak and with Ten no longer having broadcast rights to AFL matches it was seen by some as no longer fitting in with the rest of the network’s programming. Sure, that doesn’t make much sense – Nine has been running the massively successful AFL Footy Show for the last 600 years without having broadcasting rights to AFL – but hey, let’s let Ten boss Russel Howcroft explain it (as told to last week’s Herald Sun Confidential):

“Unfortunately, it’s a show that costs money to make”, he told Triple M’s The Hot Breakfast.

“It actually is only watched in Melbourne – you’d think maybe Adelaide and Perth would watch it, so it’s hard to get the ratings to the point that you need them.”

Business-wise, it had to go. “Commercially, it was hard to argue for it.”

Really? Sticking five people behind a desk is now too expensive for Channel Ten? If they can’t afford to make a show that involves pointing a camera at a desk, presumably they’ll soon be abandoning their broadcasting operations entirely and moving into the far more lucrative storage space business. Don’t nobody tell them that their Melbourne news doesn’t rate at all in Adelaide and Perth or they’ll be axing that too.

But networks make dumb moves every day of the week, so this is still straightforward stuff. Except for one thing tucked away at the bottom of this report in the News Ltd papers:

The decision to axe Before the Game comes days after Hughes stepped down as one of the presenters of Ten’s The Project.

Wait, what? Ten lost ratings-winner and all-round top bloke Dave Hughes from one program then decided “Hey, why even be in the Hughsie business?” and axed his other show? Considering the massive yet utterly inexplicable popularity of the “I’m angriiiii” comedian, that doesn’t make any sense. Which is why it’s not true:

With his final appearance on The Project desk occurring tonight, comedian Dave Hughes has confirmed to this website that he is also stepping aside from popular AFL program Before The Game.

Hughes will have a greatly reduced role on Before The Game in 2014 however has promised to still “be involved” after making the decision to solely focus on his stand-up comedy career.

That report’s dated December 11th; the news that Before the Game had been dropped by Ten broke on December 13th. And with Hughsie saying he would still “be involved’ with Before the Game in 2014, it sounds like they were still planning for there to be a Before the Game in 2014 when he decided to quit.

So the real story is this: without Dave Hughes, Ten was no longer interested in Before the Game. So why not just say that? Maybe because it makes the rest of the cast look like worthless hangers-on. Maybe because they still want to be in the Hughsie business and don’t want to paint him as the bad guy. And maybe because it would make it look like the Ten executives couldn’t hang onto one of their biggest stars.

After all, it’s always better to be the one doing the dumping.

 

Picking Up the Pieces

So… what if the ABC’s revival of Spicks and Specks doesn’t work? Obviously it’s too soon to tell either way*: great ratings could come from interested passers-by stopping by to check it once before deciding never to return, while poor ratings could be turned around by word-of-mouth and a big promotional effort. Sure, that second one hasn’t worked in living memory – once people decide you’re a dud, a dud you shall remain – but with a new version of a much-loved franchise it seem reasonable to allow the new team some settling in time.

And it is a new team, difficult as that may have been to tell on a casual glance what with the same music and set and guests and jokes and taking four minutes to actually get around the starting the show. Whereas the old version had Alan Brough as the knowledgable, occasionally grumpy one, Myf Warhurst as the knowledgeable, generally nice one and Adam Hills as Your Genial Host, now we have Adam Richards as the funny voice-pulling bubbly fun one, Ella Hooper as the over-emoting and touchy-feely bubbly fun one, and Josh Earl as… Your Genial Host 2.0 It’s not a big change, but as the weeks wear on the difference will become more stark. Or at least, slightly more noticable.

Likewise, the show itself is basically the same show. We’ve read reviews saying some of the games are different; we didn’t watch the original often enough to confirm that. What we can confirm is that this most certainly feels like an episode of Spicks and Specks, even with different faces behind the desks: loads of tolerable banter, a handful of questions just obscure enough to make answering them feel like an achievement, “wacky” games designed to provide laughs when the guests can’t, the occasional musical number to make it feel like more than just another no budget panel show. Boxes: ticked.

But we say again: what if this fails? Ever since the ABC pushed the original Spicks and Specks out the airlock in 2011 they’ve shown themselves utterly incapable of putting together a panel show that’s been even marginally watchable. As for merely replicating Spicks and Specks‘ ratings success… nope, couldn’t manage that either. It’s not like they had a top-rating panel show that they wound down so they could replace it with an equally popular program; they gave it the boot then revealed themselves completely incapable of doing it again.

So instead they’ve brought the corpse of the original back to life. They clearly have so little idea of what it was that made Spicks and Specks work that their only hope of replicating its success is by doing the exact same thing all over again and hoping for the same result. This is not a procedure that delivers results. It’s not even a procedure people expect to work out well. There’s a reason Frankenstein has been a classic for 200 years while I Brought My Wife Back From The Dead And She Was Perfectly Normal And It All Worked Out Just Fine And Nobody Even Noticed The Difference is just a stupid joke title. Sometimes, dead is better.

If this revival tanks, that’s it. The ABC are done as far as panel shows are concerned. Where else can they go? What else can they do? They clearly can’t make ones that aren’t Spicks and Specks, and if they can’t make Spicks and Specks either… what then? Don’t ask us – we’re going to say “make more scripted comedy”, and they’ll never go for that.

Presumably if it does tank the blame lies with the hosts (like we said, everything else is exactly the same), which means the ABC should have taken the approach that got them Spicks and Specks in the first place – unknown yet likable hosts, a subject that encourages performance and also has some general interest, a decent mix of banter and scripted jokes – and tried it with different subjects. But if it was that simple they would have tried that instead of broadcasting Randling and Tractor Monkeys. Right?

 

*though the first episode’s ratings were in the “good but not great” range of 598,000 nash.

The Moodys’ blues

There are a lot of potential laughs to be had in a family sitcom. Shows like Upper Middle Bogan and Arrested Development got it right by creating families full of distinctive, rounded characters and putting them in situations where they’d, say, get in to conflict or need to work together against an outside foe. Add in some funny lines and the odd believable yet bizarre situation and you’ve got a good comedy.

The Moodys (which premiered tonight on ABC1) is sort of in that tradition, and sort of not. It takes the Moody family from 2012’s A Moody Christmas, the comedy drama which followed an average suburban family over six consecutive Christmas, and looks at the clan’s get-togethers over a year, starting with their annual Australia Day barbeque at the beach.

Many members of the family aren’t just at the start of a new year but at the start of a new life. Maree and Kevin (mum and dad) have just retired and sold the family home, much to the annoyance of dodgy son Sean because it means he’s lost his home at a time when he’s struggling to start his business. Other son Dan is back from London for good and living with Cora, but struggling to find a good job and impress her father. Uncle Terry continues to have a series of inappropriate and slightly odd relationships with colleagues (in episode two you’ll see lots of his new girlfriend), while daughter Bridget seems to be the one with the most stable life, even if her gay ex-husband Roger still seems to hanging around for some reason.

As always the fireworks go off when the Moodys get together, and things get pretty tense at the barbeque. Cora’s parents have been invited but they’re less than impressed with Sean’s Australia flag cape and beer-swilling antics, and Roger’s turned-up too, even though Bridget didn’t invite him. Meanwhile an Aboriginal family (father Fred, mother Sue, and daughters Lucy and Ruby) claim they reserved the barbeque spot earlier in the day, which sees several of the Moody men getting in to an argument with Fred. Things calm down after a bit and the family eventually join the Moodys’ celebrations, but the situation deteriorates when Terry accidentally sets fire to Fred’s Aboriginal flag.

With all that going on, the stage seems well set for laughs galore but very few arrive. The plot about the Moodys taking Fred, Sue, Lucy and Ruby’s picnic spot is a laboured satire on land rights (see BabaKiueria if you want a better one) and trying too hard to ape the cringe comedy of Ricky Gervais et al, while the disgust towards Sean from Cora’s father can be seen coming a mile off. As for Roger’s presence at the barbeque…what the hell was he doing there? His divorce from Bridget should have been the end of his involvement with the Moodys but he’s still hanging around. The reasons will no doubt become clearer as this series progresses but in this episode he seemed crowbarred in to the show rather than a natural part of it.

Inconsistencies like this are a key problem in The Moodys, while the stock characters and over-the-top situations might work if the show wasn’t also trying to be a realistically-shot dramedy. And perhaps because of those dramedy ambitions the show contains a number of bland characters who seem unnecessary. In A Moody Christmas Dan’s everyman persona made him perfect as a temporary observer of some of the weirder members of his family, but now that he’s back fulltime his character’s not only struggling to find a place in Australia but as a character worth being in this series.

The Moodys has rightly chosen to focus more on the characters who’ll get laughs, cause conflict and drive action (Sean, Terry, Roger and bit players like Cora’s father), yet more than half of the main players (Dan, Maree, and to a certain extent Kevin, Cora and Bridget) don’t seem to do much of interest at all. If The Moodys wants to be funny and/or dramatic it will need to find a role for the (currently) less interesting characters, which in the first couple of episodes it struggles to do.

Australian Tumbleweeds is Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.
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