Australian Tumbleweeds
Thursday Night Fever
Did you hear? It only took the ABC eight months to air their first broad-based sitcom for 2013! You might think we’re being sarcastic; feel free to go back and look over all those years when the ABC didn’t manage to air even one sitcom that could be charitably described as having “broad-based appeal”. The ABC’s always had a remit when it comes to airing the comedy that the commercial networks won’t: it’s just taken them twenty years to realise that pretty much means ALL comedy – including stuff that might actually rate well.
It’s also a sign of the diminished status of Australian comedy that when the ABC was screening dramas like The Slap on Thursday nights at 8.30pm there was a low but steady grumble along the lines of “why is the national broadcaster throwing away quality drama on a Thursday night”. Yet not a word has been spoken up now that they’re “throwing away” quality comedy on that very same night. Though considering the pig’s breakfast the ABC have made of their once-proud Wednesday night comedy line-up, perhaps silence is golden in this case.
General bitchiness aside for the moment, Upper Middle Bogan gets points merely for being an increasingly rare attempt to create a sitcom aimed at a wide audience – so wide, in fact, that the very concept advertises the fact that it’s meant to contain pretty much something for everyone: Bess (Annie Maynard) is a well-off doctor with twin 13 year-olds at private school and an architect (Patrick Brammall) for a husband. Then she discovers her snooty mum (Robyn Nevin) is not, in fact her mother: she was adopted, and her real parents are Wayne (Glenn Robbins) and Julie (Robyn Malcolm), the rough-around-the-edges heads of a western suburbs drag racing dynasty. Hilarity ensues? Well, not quite.
First, some background: this is the latest effort from Wayne Hope and Robyn Butler’s company Gristmill. If you remember their earlier series The Librarians you’ve probably got a bit of an idea of what to expect here. On the whole we liked The Librarians: you might want to keep that in mind as you read on.
While the sense of humour on display here is similar, the approach here is much gentler than the cringe comedy and broad strokes of The Librarians: yes, there are at least two exceedingly stupid young male characters, and Bess’s jittery nature is more than slightly reminiscent of Butler’s character in The Librarians (as is Maynard’s performance). But there’s a lot less laughing at the characters here and the second half of episode one was basically a lightweight drama right up to the point where both families finally met up.
Drama in this country has been moving in on comedy’s turf for a while now and this feels like a continuation of that trend from the comedy side – or just good old-fashioned character-based comedy, where the first few episodes struggle a little until everyone beds in. Based on the first episode it could go either way; there’s enough overall quality on display – seriously, at least all the characters didn’t sound exactly the same, which isn’t something you can say about a lot of ABC sitcoms over the last few years – to keep us coming back.
Slightly shakier was the more obviously trying-to-be comedic Peter Helliar-scripted It’s a Date, which each week follows two couples on, you guessed it, a date. It’s a solid concept and the cast across the eight weeks is great, but going by tonight’s episode Helliar (who co-writes every episode) has learnt a grand total of bugger-all from the fizzle of his last stab at rom-com, the forgettable feature film I Love You Too.
Whether it’s confusing set-ups, strippers, people being urinated on, or the clunky “theme” (tonight’s was “When Should You Give Up On A Date”, which turned out to be totally irrelevant to both stories), the whole thing felt a definite step down in quality after Upper Middle Bogan. Sadly, it’s also the one show out of the two that’s clearly trying to be broadly funny right out the gate: meanwhile, how many billion people did the final episode of Offspring rate? Yeah, crying is the future of comedy. So now we can probably look forward to at least one moronic “think piece” on how the two Thursday night shows’ relative merits are a sign that Australians just aren’t interested in “ha-ha funny” any more.
Which is crap: people aren’t interested in proven dud Peter Helliar’s ham-fisted attempts to cover-up his inability to write characters by piling on increasingly forced “surprise twists” and stupid situations. It’s not quite a total loss: at least the Helliar / Lisa McCune story had an explanation for their painfully crap antics built in – it was an explanation that didn’t really make all that much sense, but at least it was there.
The only upside so far with It’s a Date is that at least the generally classy cast and lack of ongoing storylines means each episode could, in theory at least, be better than the last; here’s hoping they didn’t lead with the strongest, because this is a date we’re already willing to break. And who knows? Maybe by week four Upper Middle Bogan will be busting out the hilarity and it’ll actually work because we’re invested in the characters and the laughs are coming from what we now know about them. It won’t make It’s a Date any funnier, but at least it’ll be a sign that comedy itself isn’t dead.
Hilarious Election / Erection Mix-Up!
It’s election time again and what better way to add some life to the seemingly endless parade of clapped-out hacks that the electorate clearly despises than by dusting off the usual comedians and commentators to make the usual comedy and comments? Seriously, what better way? There’s got to be a better way, people. Here’s a suggestion: maybe get Shaun Micallef to handle things next time?
Of the two shows returning to the ABC tonight, Gruen Nation continues to be the one of no use to anyone. The tone was set with the opening with the audience laughing at an old Country Party promotional film, which was funny because… people in the past are funny? Because they weren’t as media savvy as we are today? And then we zoned out for a while imagining a show where old people heaped shit on Wil Anderson for not being able to do sums using a slide rule. So much shit. And when we zoned back in Anderson said “same as last time…” and we zoned back out again.
You know the drill by now: wacky opening monologue, here’s the panel, let’s look at a few ads, the TV screen suddenly shatters under the force of our boot because Jesus Fuck, these smug bastards talk about everything but the one thing that actually matters: how what we’re seeing will affect people in the real world. It’s sooo cool to look at political commercials with a disinterested eye and pretend that there’s nothing beneath them, isn’t it? Caring about actual policy is for losers, right guys? Let’s get some ad agencies to write some funny songs, that’ll be hilarious.
Our griping about that stuff might seem beside the point: it’s still a comedy, right? Well, it’s a shit comedy for starters: you want to gut the running time, maybe five full minutes of Anderson’s opening monologue / clip fest is four minutes too long. The panelists laugh at each others jokes, then we cut to Anderson laughing, then we cut to the audience applauding; why again does this needs to go for 45 minutes? Ha ha, they edited Kevin Rudd to make it look like he’s wanking! Then Russel Howcroft says “in marketing, we know that-” and another television bites the dust.
This veers wildly between lame clip comedy – seriously guys, leave this to the Chaser – and borderline dull analysis of political marketing. They show clips, then they restate what we just saw in their own terms: “it’s the most positive negative ad I’ve seen” “we have two opposition leaders here – they’re both running against the Labour Party” and so on. Which tells us what exactly? Who cares, time for more kak-tastic attempts to out-do each other describing Kevin Rudd’s hand gestures. All this is painful enough when it’s regular Gruen, because at least then the marketing they’re promoting is peddling trivial crap; here it’s-
Look, forgive us for noticing that everyone on Gruen Nation‘s panel is either a straight-up millionaire, someone just a regular shitload richer than you and I, someone connected to one of the political parties or someone who makes a living in the media commentating on politicians: in short, people from the well-off end of the spectrum. Who gives a fuck what they think? These are people with enough money to cushion themselves from the excesses of government policy: they have no skin in this game. Having them talk about politics in Australia is like having a bunch of high-paid architects sitting around discussing the designs of housing commission flats. Sure, you can do it and you can even call it good television, but it’s kind of offensive to the people who have to live under those conditions.
This has an effect on the comedy side of things because there’s a big difference between people making fun of a system that treats them poorly and people who are part of the system having a laugh amongst themselves. For a show that’s meant to be informative, there’s zero attempt – via either comedy or analysis – to get at the real heart of the political system, because this show purposely isn’t about that. It’s just forty five minutes each week of wealthy people who have minimal interaction with the pointy end of government policy – it’s doubtful they use many services with “public” on the front – chortling amongst themselves about what a good or bad job their professional peers are doing selling life-changing policies to the little people.
Gruen Nation is a cynical embarrassment, a show that pretends political messaging can and should be divorced from the political message. It’s a show made by an elite condescending to the masses, patting them on the head and saying “here, let us explain this to you” about a subject that for them means little more than who’s going to be signing their next massive pay check. Fuck this show.
As for The Hamster Decides… eh, it was okay.
Wrap It Up To Go
To answer all your pressing questions:
1): Yes, we noticed Twentysomething finished up last week. We enjoyed the series as a whole, but the ending was a little meh – presumably to leave the door open for a third series, especially considering how much effort they had to put into hitting the reset button after they wrapped things up a little too tightly at the end of s1. And if they are going to do a third series they might want to get cracking: Jess’ monstrous self-absorption works just fine for a twentysomething, but we’re starting to get to the stage where she just can’t keep flitting from scenario to scenario. Then again, if they did lock her down into one setting then we’d have a regular sitcom and we know how much Australian television hates those.
2): Yes, we noticed Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year Asia has moved timeslots, but as this is clearly more to do with cramming in yet more utterly pointless reality shows in prime time than it is to do with their ratings (which remain strong), we’re not exactly panicking just yet. On the other hand, the fact that Housos on SBS is rating better than The Americans on Ten is clearly some kind of sign that the end of the world is a-borning.
3: Yes, we did get the following press release:
VOTE GRUEN!
VOTE HAMSTER!
Now that Australia has a Federal Election date, ABC TV can today finally confirm the new broadcast details for the return of its smash-hit TV franchises, GRUEN and HAMSTER.
Gruen Nation– four extra-length, extra-strength, election-oriented specials – will premiere Wednesday, August 14, at 8:30pm on ABC1. Host Wil Anderson will be joined by regulars Todd Sampson and Russel Howcroft, Nation legends Dr John Hewson and Annabel Crabb, and surprise guests too important to mention in this press release. A spokesperson for the Gruen team conceded their disappointment that Kevin Rudd has now scheduled the election on International Vulture Awareness Day, but looked forward to a campaign fought on three word slogans, such as “It’s my round!”, “Spit that out!” and “Darling, I’m pregnant!”
Gruen Nation will then be followed by season three of Gruen Planet – eight episodes of the show that loves spin and marketing like Tony Abbott loves a red tie.
Then prepare yourselves as The Chaser return to our screens to give their version of the 2013 Federal Election campaign trail with their five part series The Hamster Decides – premiering Wednesday, August 14 at 9:15pm on ABC1. The series is described by Chaser member Chris Taylor as “an exciting new iview program, which can also be watched on older content platforms, such as ABC1 television or on LaserDisc”. It promises to concentrate its analysis on the 2013 contest, an election which The Chaser’s previous election shows virtually all but ignored. The Hamster Decides will also be written, performed, directed and produced entirely by Kevin Rudd, as part of his plan to micro-manage every aspect of this election.
Gruen Nation (4×45’) premieres Wednesday, August 14 at 8:30pm on ABC1
followed by Gruen Planet (8×35’)
The Hamster Decides (5×30’) premieres Wednesday, August 14 at 9:15pm on ABC1
** Please note – the last episode of Wednesday Night Fever will move to 9:45pm on Wednesday August 14.
Which has us wondering: what kind of political stance will these guys take with election 2013? Not so much the Gruen team – they’ll obviously be swooning over commercials based entirely on hate and greed because they speak directly to the very core of their being – but The Chaser team seems to have been slowly and ever-so-slightly moving away from the early Howard-era “ehh, they’re all as bad as each other so who cares?” approach to politics that was a trademark of their earlier work.
While it’s understandable that you don’t want to tip over too far too often towards one side on the ABC, it’s slightly less understandable when the result is a program that, for example, makes Julie Bishop seem like a lovable knockabout funster instead of a frontline member of one of the more dubious political teams around. And as for Kevin Rudd, has anyone gone back to rewatch those (yeah, non-Chaser, but we’re making a point here) Rudd sketches shown on Rove? We’re guessing all those “what a wacky prankster” jokes just don’t hold up like they used to back when he wasn’t a remorseless vengeance machine.
Our strongly held view is that the second you let a politician in on the joke on any level you’re letting them off the hook. And The Chaser, in previous years at least, was just a little too keen to bring politicians on board for sketches and pranks. In a year where the political campaign is basically one insanely power-hungry monster versus his identical twin in a batter to pander to our basest instincts, anything less than kicking both sides around the floor non-stop for the duration of each and every episode would be nothing less than a complete betrayal of the viewing public.
And we’ve already got Gruen for that.
Ashes to Ashes
The Australian cricket team’s performance may have been variable this Ashes, but Warwick Todd’s output in his weekly Ashes column for the Herald-Sun has raised plenty of laughs. Warwick (AKA Tom Gleisner) is a veteran of many an Ashes series and is the author of four volumes of tour diaries (available in all good second-hand bookshops). As sports-themed comedy goes, it’s hard to find anyone funnier – or better able to make non-sports fans laugh.
Take this extract from a recent column, who’s going to argue with a set-up like this?:
Several days of hot weather made it very hard to pick up the red ball against a sea of sunburned English spectators. And talk about a hostile crowd!
Lunchtime on the very first day I actually had someone say to my face that I was a “boorish Colonial who couldn’t bat for sh–“.
Not exactly what you’d expect from Her Majesty the Queen but she was obviously struggling in the heat.
This kind of gag is a Gleisner staple, and he’s got a million of them. You’ll find them in Audrey’s Kitchen, Santo, Sam & Ed, and those news desk segments he did on The Late Show. It’s kind of a shame Gleisner hasn’t got a regular column where he can talk about anything in the news – these are lot funnier than most of the humour columns you get in what’s left of the press.
And it’s not like Australia has a long and proud tradition of comedy columnists either. News Ltd, despite having Adam Zwar as their relationship columnist many years ago, almost never goes for straight comedy, preferring instead a clump of people waffling on with wry observations about fuck all. Realistically, Todd is appearing in their pages because he’s a “celebrity” who’s had a number of books published, not because he’s actually funny; if one of the Masterchef hosts said they wanted to write funny columns about The Ashes, Todd’d be boned faster than, um, something cooking related on Masterchef.
Over at Fairfax we have Danny Katz. Gaaah. Fun fact: in the mid ‘90s The Age had a new editor fresh from the UK who spotted that Katz – already well past his prime even back then so God knows what he’s like now – had written a classic “I’ve got nothing to write about” column and promptly sacked his lazy arse. Cue massive outrage and a good old fashioned letter writing campaign, while Katz himself swanned over to The Bulletin for a year or so until The Age waved enough money around to lure him back. You know those newspaper readers who’d (supposedly – no-one’s ever game to test the theory out) riot if Fred Basset was removed from the paper, despite it literally being the unfunniest and most pointless thing ever created? Danny Katz fans, every last one of them.
No, usually what we get stuck with under the guise of “comedy” is people failing to do the job they’ve been hired to do – hello every single television columnist for The Age in the 21st century (Catherine Deveny, Marieke Hardy Ben Pobjie) -in favour of wandering off topic when it suits them. It’s not that we want these stiflingly unfunny but self-obsessed types to write flat-out comedy, as we’d rather they wrote nothing at all, but at least if they were forced to write columns branded as “humour” it’d quickly become obvious exactly how unfunny they are.
Otherwise, well, the sports pages often have someone trying to be funny, but as we know nothing about sport it’s difficult to judge their success (The Age’s Leaping Larry is an exception; he’s often pretty good). Peter Ruhel was consistently funny right up until his (sadly premature) death. The trashier men’s magazines usually at least try to run more humour-based columns if you dare open them up, and we all remember Mick Molloy’s brief run as a columnist for The Truth in the early part of 1993 (who’s we, sucker?- ed). Someone actually made an archive of Hamish Blake’s columns for Cosmo, if that’s what you’re into.
It’s tempting – and probably accurate – to see this as a reflection of Australia’s largely stand-up based comedy culture, where good material (or more realistically, “good” material) is seen as something to be carefully treasured and guarded, rather than seeing the ability to write comedy as something that should be exercised as often as possible. Instead of writing a funny column, having it see print, then starting again next week to develop the ability to actually be funny, our comedy writers and performers seem to see writing actual comedy (in contrast to talking crap on panel shows and radio) more as something you do in brief spurts then try to stretch out the results for as long as possible.
But thinking about it, the lack of comedy columnists makes sense: why throw away good stuff in a newspaper when you could tour it for months, then try and sell it to a sketch show? It also explains why most of our comedy writing in this country is rubbish. Here’s a tip: the more you do something, the better you get at it. That awesome joke you came up with? It’s not that awesome. Trying to train yourself to become able to create jokes that awesome every week would be a lot more awesome, really.
As evidence we cite Clarke & Dawe, which started as a newspaper column featuring a different “interview” with a public figure each week. As legend has it, British comedy superstar Peter Cook, during his late-80s visit to Melbourne for the Comedy Festival, suggested John Clarke start to perform the columns. So, Clarke contacted radio comedy producer Bryan Dawe, they tried it out, it worked, and they started performing them each week on ABC radio. Then a A Current Affair came calling…and the rest is history!
Highway to Hell
The community TV sitcom Leongatha finished up on Melbourne’s Channel 31 a few months back and is now airing on Sydney’s TVS. Set largely on a mini bus, it’s a six-part show about a family’s stilted journey to a wedding. In the first episode we meet Denny (Chris Gibson) who’s reluctantly agreed to film cousin Darryl’s (Bryce Hardy) wedding (“This is the last time I do this!”). And at the last minute has to step in as Best Man when Darryl’s mate has to pull out due to a football semi-final. Darryl still wants Denny to get good shots of the bride and bridesmaids going in to the church, though.
Joining the increasingly put-upon Denny and anxious Darryl on the bus are Darryl’s parents and sister (Roy Barker, Jane Menze and Kate Mulqueen), Denny’s Dad (Trevor Major), Grandma Lorna (Maureen Andrew), who has a poorly-guarded secret she doesn’t want the rest of the family to know about, and Mazzy (Sarah Ranken), a mysterious stranger Denny first met when he was buying a wedding present from unhinged shopkeeper Terry (Bob Franklin).
There’s a lot of set-up in episode 1 and a lot going on between the characters, but oddly the pace is quite slow. Stretching a two hour journey to a wedding over three hours of sitcom means there’s a fair bit of padding, and the show would benefit from some editing. (Leongatha might have worked better if it’d followed the lead of the British sitcom The Worst Week of My Life and set the action over a week, with the final episode being the ill-fated wedding ceremony.)
What doesn’t necessarily help is that there’s a clash of styles between the realistic production values and the more traditional broad dialogue and comedy performances in some of the scenes. A Moody Christmas took a similar approach by mixing dramatic and comedic styles, but Leongatha probably does it better. Having a strong comic performer like Bob Franklin, doing what he does best, at the start of the show is a statement of intent – they want this to be funny – and as the show hits its stride it probably will be.
Australia, Land of Mineral Exports
Pivot, launching August 1st, is a new television network from Participant Media serving passionate Millennials (18-34) with a diverse slate of talent and a mix of original series, acquired programming, films and documentaries. Pivot focuses on entertainment that sparks conversation, inspires change and illuminates issues through engaging content, and its website TakePart.com to continue the conversation and connect audiences to a wealth of content and customizable actions. Pivot is also changing the media landscape, available via traditional Pay TV subscription to 40 million-plus homes and integrates a Live and on demand streaming option via its interactive, downloadable Pivot APP. In both content and delivery, Pivot is TV for The New Greatest Generation. Follow Pivot on Twitter at @pivot_tv and on Facebook at facebook.com/pivottelevision.
We point this out because it’s handy to have in mind when you read this:
! ANNOUNCEMENT ! Series 2 of @Please_like_me was just announced!!! 10 episodes! Produced by US channel @pivot_tv and @ABCTV.
— Josh Thomas (@JoshThomas87) July 26, 2013
Which does not qualify as good news in our book.
All we can do at this stage is take note of the way the US network that’s picking up the tab here calls itself “TV for The New Greatest Generation”. Which certainly seems to fit in with the attitude expressed by Please Like Me during its initial run. “Passionate Millennials”? Good luck getting those guys to look away from their tumblr porn long enough to realise you’re on the air.
Less sarcastically, it’s fairly clear that this is a new network desperately looking for US-friendly programming and Thomas’ show fit the bill. Thomas’ bizarre accent finally pays off!
This is actually bad new for Thomas as well, or at least it is if you share our opinion that he may have talent but he’s in no way ready to be single-handedly crafting his own sitcom. This is pretty much the same thing that happened to Chris Lilley: both young and moderately talented, they were handed too much power too quickly and their poor habits – largely revolving around their self-obsession and the way it prevented them from actually being funny outside of “cringe comedy” – solidified. Insert snarky comment about “typical Millennials” here*.
Now it’s 2013 and all Lilley knows how to do is ask people to take him seriously when he’s dressing up as guys half his age: having now staked his entire career on being a “millennial”, Thomas is going to struggle once he outgrows his boy-man image. Yeah, we’re sure he’s all broken up about that; he’s just got a big time US sitcom deal. Now he can finally join that elite group of Aussie comics who’ve made it big in America: Chris Lilley and the guy in the dog suit from Wilfred. Congratulations, you’ll fit right in.
*this whole “self-obsessed Millennials” thing is crap anyway. Some people are always going to be self-obsessed; younger people are often self-obsessed but grow out of it. Probably part of the reason why Lilley has a devoted fanbase of teenagers is because his self-obsession speaks to them, especially as he’s gone from making fun of that kind of thing (early Ja’ime) to reveling in it (all of Angry Boys).
Something Something Something.
What is there to say about This Week Live that hasn’t already been said about The Panel fifteen years ago? Or Before the Game five years ago? Or The Project five hours ago? Yet again Channel Ten edges one step further towards becoming a 24 hour all-desk network: did they get bought out by a furniture barn when no-one was watching?
The big problem with these shows is that, unless you have someone keeping a firm hand on the wheel, you end up with a bunch of people talking all over each other trying to make each other laugh. The only firm hand in evidence on the first episode of This Week Live was, well, there’s a wank joke in there somewhere. And while the cast did a pretty solid job of punching out the jokes, the whole show did feel like a bit of a wank. We’re over here guys! We’re the people you’re meant to be trying to make laugh!
Otherwise it really was just The Panel, which makes sense for Ten because The Panel was a big hit for them back in the day, only The Panel was put together by a team who’d worked together on radio and television for well over a decade and even then it was kind of crap. This is just breakfast radio with pictures, and don’t we already have breakfast radio? It’s on during breakfast. On the radio.
Snark aside (briefly), this kind of show is a cheap way to fill in air time, a cheap way to cross-promote other programs on the network, a cheap way to get passing movie stars and celebrities on to add a bit of star power to the network, and a cheap way to… do whatever the first one was again. The big problem is that they actually look cheap, so unless you’re Network Ten they tend to lower the tone of the joint. And unless you have some really, really skilled comedy performers involved the end result tends to look like a crap talk show where you need four people to do the job of one decent host. Ahem.
Oh, alright; it did a better job of being what it was than Wednesday Night Fever does of being whatever the hell it’s meant to be. It was pacy, the sketches were brief which is a good thing when you don’t really have any jokes (it’s a clip pretending to be from the 80s! People are dancing!), it had running gags that were mostly rubbish but at least they came at the jokes from various angles (ie, that whole “schongs” thing was lame, but at least they had the fake on-the-street endorsements to mix it up) and while if they completely changed the cast by week two we wouldn’t complain, it’s not like any of them plumbed the depths the way Kate Langbroek did week after week on The Panel.
The question is, considering it has nothing going for it beyond having a bunch of marginally tolerable people talking random crap over the top of each other in a never-ending race to make each other laugh, is that going to be enough? Is this going to be able to survive in the current cut-throat climate of Australian television? Considering it’s currently up against Wednesday Night Fever for the all-important “news laffs” audience… eh, probably.
Mind you, if Ten was really in the entertainment business, they would have put to air the board meeting where they decided to screw over Working Dog by ripping off The Panel‘s format. Guess they never did get over Thank God You’re Here jumping to Seven…
The Houso Of The Rising Sun
Hey, remember how Paul Fenech was so annoyed SBS didn’t instantly greenlight a second series of Housos after the first that he went off and made a movie instead? And the movie was released into cinemas? Where people were expected to pay to see it? Guess the jokes on us: not only did the movie make money, now there’s a second series of Housos as well. Nice to see Fenech actually can make a joke work when he tries.
As for the second series, well, Ian Turpie’s still dead but otherwise everyone else is back. As is the brilliant dialogue. Take this sex scene that’s also the first scene in the show:
“Oi Daz?”
“Are you coming?”
“Fuck, as if! Look, oi need you to gimme something good this year right, none of them shit fuckin’ presents that you usually get me”
Cut away to the spray-painted “CONES MATE” on the wall of their bedroom.
So, you know, if hitting a midget bikie with a thong then stealing his bike sounds funny to you, good news! Well, not really good news, as we just ruined that joke for you. But don’t worry, there’s plenty more like it here. Well, there’s an attempt to make “thonging” a thing, so presumably that’ll stir up some media interest if anyone’s stupid enough to try it in the real world. Roll credits! Oh crap, they’re just the opening credits.
Considering the second series of Fenech’s Swift & Shift Couriers sat on a shelf for years – as mentioned by us here – the relative success of Housos must be good news for someone. Sure, it’s exactly the same kind of erratic shouty crap Fenech’s been pumping out since everyone with talent abandoned him after a couple of years of Fat Pizza, but at least it’s only offensive because it’s rubbish, not because it’s spreading some message of hate. There’s your quote for the back of the DVD right there. Housos: At Least It’s Not Fascist Propaganda.
And it’s not like there aren’t jokes here. Take this witty exchange:
“You know why we eat fast food?”
“Why?”
“Because fat fuckers like you ‘ave already gobbled up all the slow shit, so fuck off”
Or this classic line:
“Rootin’ in a park’s so fuckin’ romantic, makes me feel like I’m thirteen again”
Look, it’s not like we don’t get it: Fenech makes live action-cartoons full of crazy comic exaggerations, where energy is prized over subtlety, nothing’s funnier than smashing things up and a swear word is as good a punchline as any. It’s just that, to coin a phrase, they’re shit at it. Having a mentally retarded character throwing plastic army men at the bum crack of a guy passed out on a couch might be funny to someone, but cutting back to it four or five times sure isn’t.
Then you’ve got a narrator – what happened to Russell Gilbert anyway, he was the guy who took over from Turps in the movie – saying lines like this: “If you’ve ever had an alcohol blackout, the only person that would remember what happened is the Maori you were drinking with”. Buh? Our two leads go see a mate of theirs to find out what happened last night when they blacked out. Why not just say that? It’s not a joke and it’s hardly something that’ll have the viewers nodding their heads and saying “very true”. It’s just shit.
There’s perhaps five minutes worth of actual material here, padded out with a bunch of shouting and chase scenes. Maybe if you find Fenech throwing up two or three times an episode, a load of arse cleavage and a bunch of people being hit with thongs funny… nah, you’re still going to struggle getting through a whole episode. Eventually a story turns up as the Housos go to a snobby cafe, but there’s no clash-of-cultures going on here as the restaurant stuff only lasts a couple of minutes before we’re back to crazy useless Asian cab drivers and bolting from the cops as per usual.
Again, there’s a case to be made here that at least Fenech is making comedy about (and for?) someone aside from the usual inner-city and middle-class types that have turned Australian comedy into a humourless grind. But to put it in words even the Housos can understand, who gives a shit if it’s not fuckin’ funny?
The Housos are cartoon characters with nothing to say about reality and very little to say about anything else, which would be fine if endless references to stealing bourbon and having sex with the mentally handicapped were actual jokes. This show is fucked in the face.
History Does A Double Take
Heads up, Wednesday Night Fever fans! Does this look at all familiar to you?
http://youtu.be/bCAQo8GubGo
That’s right, it’s Wednesday Night Fever‘s trademark hilarious Margaret & David parody! Only it’s on Comedy Inc: The Late Shift around eight years ago.
For those of you that don’t remember, Comedy Inc: The Late Shift was complete crap. But it was crap with one important advantage: it was screening on Channel Nine at a time when a): local scripted comedy counted as local drama as far as meeting broadcast licensing requirements went, and b): Channel Nine had a serious shortage of local drama. Would you like to know more? We waffle on about it here.
Short version is, it ran for years despite no-one actually watching it. Which in a far better world than this one would have given the creative types running it full reign to go nuts and try to make something really good. Just think about it: they were given hours of air time to play with by a network that didn’t really care what they got up to. Instead they churned out pretty much the exact same generic sketch shit that had failed to impress with Totally Full Frontal and SkitHouse, and would go on to fail to impress in Let Loose Live, Big Bite, The Hamish & Andy Show, Double Take and now Wednesday Night Fever.
According to wikipedia, Double Take also featured the return of Margaret & David – which would mean that producer on both shows Rick Kalowski had used the exact same joke in two firmly mediocre comedy series before bringing it back for Wednesday Night Fever – only they don’t seem to be in the ten episodes collected on the DVD release. Maybe they’re on the 11th episode that IMDB claims exists? We can’t be bothered going back through our off-air recordings to check.
And to be fair, that Comedy Inc clip is misleading: for starters, it’s kind of funny. From what we dimly recall (and if anyone has any complete episodes of Comedy Inc, please get in touch) the Margaret & David sketches on Comedy Inc: The Late Shift usually ran a lot longer than this clip and provided viewers with a lot less to laugh about. But that’s a problem with pretty much every show associated with Comedy Inc / Double Take / Wednesday Night Fever / future ABC Head of Comedy Rick Kalowski: not only are the sketches often lame, they go on forever.
For example, the Margaret & David sketch above goes 30 seconds: this one from Wednesday Night Fever runs six times as long:
http://youtu.be/dmoXDyRmd3g
At this rate they’ll be getting their own spin-off by 2018. Maybe they’ll even get a new joke to go with it.
All this would be bad enough if we were just pointing out that they’re re-re-using impressions that’re close to a decade old, and they’re impressions of people who’ve never been more than niche figures in the media: after all, it’s not like they’re dusting off impressions of important political or social figures who’ve stuck around for decades. These impressions have never made any kind of impression on the general public either. John Elliott and “Pig’s Arse” this is not.
http://youtu.be/vsshTU05rZM
But the icing on the cake is this:
Didn’t we just get two full series and a Christmas special of the exact same “reviewers reviewing non-art things” jokes in the form of Review with Myles Barlow? Sure, the last new episode of it aired Xmas 2010, but we are still talking about a recent and (relatively) long-running series based on one joke… the same joke that Wednesday Night Fever is now doing all over again using a pair of impressions that first aired on another series eight years ago.
We’re not usually ones to give out advice on how to improve shows, but here’s a tip: last we heard Steve Vizard and Peter Moon weren’t up to much. If Wednesday Night Fever wants to revive a comedy double act that people actually laughed at, and they’re obviously not worried about the whole blackface thing (can’t wait for that upcoming Royal Birth sketch, complete with Prince Phillip doing “Mammy”) why not bring back these guys?
Or just get them to run the ABC Comedy department. We’re cool with either one.