Australian Tumbleweeds
Nom Nom Nom
So we finally got around to checking out SBS’s “new” “news” “comedy” show The Feed, and we have one question: what the hell happened to Marc Fennell’s hair? The once curly-haired youth seems to have filled a toilet bowel with straightener and given himself an atomic swirly going by the flat, glossy, unsettling, frozen sculpture now atop his head. Guess even on SBS “curly hair” and “serious news anchor” don’t mix. Just ask Charlie Pickering.
As for the rest of the show… well, Fennell was on Hungry Beast so we probably shouldn’t be surprised that the whole damn thing is just another, slightly shorter in time but equally lengthy in feel, take on that show’s format. Smart arse interviews! Bet-you-didn’t-know-this takes on topics everyone is already fully up to speed on (seriously kids: smoking is bad for you)! Crap off the internet! Quotes from random people talking crap on the internet! Computer graphics!
Presumably if you care more about “content” than what that content actually is then this kind of show – which is, let us be perfectly clear, nothing more or less than a televised version of one of those light entertainment / slightly newsy websites that run the gamut from The Atlantic to Vice – is THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION: a bunch of crap they can source from elsewhere with a layer of snark sprayed over it to differentiate it from, well, the place they sourced it from in the first place. Which is why we care, because for “snark” read “comedy”.
So is it funny? No. It gives off the illusion of comedy – much like it gives off the illusion of everything else, which is why all the quotation marks – but at best all you’re getting here is snark. Comedy contains snark, of course (you’ve got to have an opinion on something before you can make fun of it), but real comedy requires either people who are effortlessly funny – good luck finding one of those on Australian television – or people willing and able to put in the work to come up with funny material.
As a nightly show with a skeleton staff, The Feed almost certainly doesn’t have the resources to generate actual comedy. At least, that’s what we hope: it’d be pretty depressing to think what we’re seeing is the result of people actively trying for laugh-out-loud material. It’s just “yoof news”, that strangely persistent yet never actually successful idea that all the young people really want out of life is to watch news treated like a joke.
As for these shows actually coming up with a joke? Now, that’d be news.
We need to talk about Kevin
From if.com.au comes this…
Angry actor returns fire at critic
Tue 11/06/2013 09:15:19
Actors who get lousy reviews usually ignore them or suffer in silence- but not Kevin Harrington.
The veteran actor was so incensed by a review by News Ltd.’s Leigh Paatsch of the DVD of Cliffy, he vented on Facebook.
The ABC telemovie features Harrington as Cliff Young, who became an unlikely hero at the age of 61 when he won the 875km endurance race from Sydney to Melbourne.
In Saturday’s Daily Telegraph and Herald-Sun Paatsch dismissed it as a “dreadful telemovie that turns the ripping true story of the late ultra-marathon legend Cliff Young into a crap-tastic cartoon. How the ABC ever ponied up a commitment to this dim-witted affair beggars belief.”
Paatsch advised readers who want the “real tale- much of which was ignored or changed by this TV calamity,” to read Julietta Jameson’s book Cliffy: The Cliff Young Story.
His verdict: “1 star, run the other way.”
Harrington, whose credits include the movies Red Hill, Australian Rules, The Honourable Wally Norman and The Dish and TV series Underbelly, Winners & Losers, SeaChange, Blue Heelers and Neighbours, wasn’t going to let that pass, blasting Paatsch on his Facebook page.
The actor queried the critic’s tastes, contrasting the sole star for Cliffy with the 3.5 stars he awarded Fast & Furious 6. He told IF, “A critic is useful if he or she has some academic or practical knowledge of that which they are criticising. The public become enlightened as to the artistic merit of the piece because the critic has the qualifications to steer them towards superior quality work. [The Australian’s] Graeme Blundell is one of these critics. Alternatively a critic may represent Everyman tastes and can therefore steer his constituency towards the popular. [Paatsch] has proven himself hopelessly inadequate according to both criteria.”
Harrington’s Facebook friends were quick to offer their support, with some making uncomplimentary remarks about Paatsch. Judging by some of the comments, film critics are about as popular as politicians.
Ouch!
Even though this story wasn’t about comedy we were intrigued when we read it. Even more so when our best efforts to find Paatsch’s review on www.news.com.au and www.newstext.com.au resulted in nothing (has it been removed from those sites?). Also out of bounds for us is Kevin Harrington’s Facebook page. Oh, and we haven’t seen Cliffy either. But…
Is it just us or does the Australian industry prove itself to be unbearably petulant by reacting to bad reviews in this way? (And Kevin Harrington’s Facebook venting is far from the only example of this sort of thing.) Isn’t it best for all concerned – industry and audiences – that a range of critical voices gets a platform? At least then when someone says a film or television show is good there’s a chance they’ll be believed.
Put another way, do we actually want endless newspaper and magazine reviews praising locally-made films and TV shows to the skies when anyone with any sense can see that quite a few are less than perfect?
(don’t answer that – plenty of creative types have made it perfectly clear over the years that they see reviewers as being their publicity arm “for the good of the local industry”. As if the local industry benefits when the public no longer trusts reviewers to tell the truth about shoddy local product. As if the general public can’t tell when they’re being treated like chumps.)
Graham Blundell’s review is well written and says lots of nice things about Harrington’s performance, but if another reviewer can make a reasonable argument for Cliffy being “crap-tastic” (and Leigh Paatsch has enough experience as a reviewer to do so) then it’s reasonable enough to let that review be published. The public can then chose which reviewer to read and/or agree with.
Negative reviews of something you’ve been personally involved in may be difficult to read, but the solution’s simple: don’t read them. They’re not aimed at you anyway. Reviews and reviewers serve the public – not the industry. Or at least they should.
The Big Debate
In Sydney? Free next Wednesday night? Why not pop down to the Belvoir Theatre and check this out:
Want to be part of the audience for a free comedy show? triple j’s Debate Night is a new radio program, hosted by Tom Ballard. Featuring a bunch of comedians arguing about a range of topics, ranging from: Is Kanye West a douchebag? to That Generation Y is the best generation to Do Music Festivals Suck? and plenty more!
Host: Tom Ballard
Debaters: Scott Dooley, Zoe Coombs Marr, Rhys Nicholson, Chris Taylor, Zoe Norton-Lodge, Michael Workman, Michael Hing
When: Wednesday June 12th – doors open 6pm
Where: Belvoir Theatre, 25 Belvoir St Surry Hills
The first 20 people to email us their name and address will score a double pass to this awesome new comedy show. Hurry!
tickets@token.com.au
The show will be pre-recorded to be aired on triple j on Sunday Nights
Okay, so you’ve probably missed out on one of the 20 free tickets (maybe you can sneak in ‘round the back instead?)… Personally, we’ll be waiting for the broadcast, because a scripted comedy show on radio is a real rarity these days and Triple J haven’t bothered to make one since 2010’s The Blow Parade.
Not that this scripted, arguments-based comedy show will necessarily be that funny. Ever listened to ABC Sydney’s Thank God It’s Friday (we mention it in passing here)? That follows roughly the same format as a comedy debate show – comedians gets asked to talk on a topic, they go away and write a couple of minutes of material, then read it out on air to ensuing hilarity – and it’s mostly shithouse.
One of the problems you get with shows like this is that unless each comedian’s several minutes of material is utter genius the show can sink into the ground. Generally speaking, there’s not a lot of scope for hilarious interactions in a debate. A planned interjection can seem lame, and a spontaneous one can really stuff it up for the person who’s meant to be speaking. Part of the problem is that the participants tend not to have worked together much – sometimes they’ve never met – and because they don’t have much chemistry there’s not much hope of them bouncing off each other in amusing ways. Then there’s the problem Mike Moore faced in that episode of Frontline, where he appear on World Series Debating and the host did all his jokes before he could.
Some of the debaters scheduled to appear on this show we like, and they all have experience either on shows like this (Thank God It’s Friday, The Unbelievable Truth) or as stand-ups. This show could be an amusing Sunday night muck-around that turns out to be surprisingly good, or simply a cheap airtime-filler that doesn’t even particularly harm the small numbers of people who happen to tune in for it. Good luck to those involved, obviously, but it’s a shame someone can’t think of a more innovative way to make a scripted radio comedy than to re-hash the comedy debates concept. And making those comedy debates about “youth” topics like Kanye West doesn’t necessarily make them a good idea in 2013, or for Triple J.
Well, the Hell With This
Press release time! Wait, is it April Fools already?
GET READY FOR ANOTHER HIT OF NOSTALGIA; TRACTOR MONKEYS IS BACK!
ABC TV Entertainment has just begun pre production on the second series of the comedy quiz show that puts the funny filter on the iconic and best loved pop cultural gems of recent decades.
Comedian Merrick Watts will once again be in the host seat with regular team captains Dave O’Neil and Monty Dimond joining him for the eight part series.
Each week a different crop of Australia’s smartest comedians and entertainers will join the Tractor Monkeys regulars for thought and laugh provoking encounters about the twists and turns of being us!
Each themed episode will be a call back to when milk was delivered to the school yard, Summer holidays lasted forever, mix tapes were the new playlist and technological advances like playing pong blew our minds.
Head of ABC Entertainment Jennifer Collins says, “The first series scratched the surface of the moments that defined what it was to grow up in Australia. Merrick, Dave and Monty will put us back in touch with the music, the TV shows, those first celebrity crushes and the best and worst of our fashions.”
Tractor Monkeys will record in its Sydney studio, if you want to be part of the audience please go to: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/tractormonkeys/
The much-anticipated return of Spicks & Specks will kick off 2014.
Jennifer Collins said “It’s an exciting way to launch next year. Casting for the new team will begin later this year. We plan to welcome back some of your favourites as well as testing the musical knowledge of some new and surprising guests.”
Not so much reading between the lines as just plain reading the press release, we can gather the following:
A): They didn’t get their shit together in time to bring back Spicks & Specks for 2013;
B): This left a gaping hole in the schedule;
C): ????
D): Tractor Monkeys is back!
If there wasn’t a new ABC Head of Comedy already on his way – and gee, won’t he be stoked to see the present the departing regime have left him – this would be the kind of bullshit move that should lead directly to sacking whoever the hell is currently in charge.
Lest we forget, no-one liked Tractor Monkeys. Not even regular Australian TV critics, and they like everything. It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t car crash television, it wasn’t insanely misguided – it wasn’t anything. Let alone anything even remotely resembling something worth a second of your time. And now it’s back!
Your ABC at work, Australia. Jesus grumpy stumbling Christ, it’s almost enough to make you vote for the coalition.
Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can’t, Review
If you’re of a particular political bent, chances are you’ve been waiting for The Guardian to set up their Australian branch for a while now, what with Fairfax staggering around like a drunk at a child’s birthday party when it comes to providing a non-Rupert Murdoch perspective on things. Even we’ve been excited: in the UK The Guardian has Charlie Brooker as their humour columnist and he’s generally considered to be fairly competent at it. So naturally their Australian branch would be going after A-grade comedy writers, right? And so we waited.
And waited.
And now it’s here! And it’s hiring all the people sacked from Fairfax for being crap. Ha ha ha, this is what happens when you expect good things. If you read Andrew Bolt you’d know that.
To be fair, only Catherine Deveny was sacked from Fairfax for being crap – well, sacked for making sex tweets about a minor according to the official version, sacked for being too much for the old men at Fairfax to handle according to her and feel free to decide which version has more basis in reality ’cause we’re saying nothin’ – because while Helen Razer was dumped by The Age as a columnist in the 90s she’s been back writing reviews and opinions for them over the last decade. But she was dumped by the ABC in 2008:
In the September 15 episode of Media Watch, presenter Jonathan Holmes charged Razer with “patronising” Berkoff during the live interview on September 7. Less than a minute into the exchange, things became tense when Razer addressed Berkoff as “dear”. He told her he had trouble understanding her accent. Razer then called the playwright a “curmudgeon” and a “pugilist”, before abruptly terminating the interview.
Anyway, that’s all in the past, as they both now have regular gigs in the new left-wing voice of Australia. Razer is the local TV critic:
I’ve been meaning to have a word to my local Labor branch about the quality of their newsletter for some time. “Dear Comrade”, it begins; a salutation that now seems every bit as apt to me as “Yo, Bitch”. Comrade? I am no longer a comrade but lapsed rank-and-file who would rather stay at home and yell at the television that endure another moment spent in hopeless love with a vanished past.
And Deveny seems to be the food critic:
Perhaps it’s genetic. Mum tells a story of driving home late from work one night in the 70s after a long day and deciding to treat herself with a Choc Mint Drumstick on the drive home. It was a perfect summer night, no one on the road and she sang along with the Bee Gees, window wound down, Drumstick in hand, elbow hanging out the window. Luxury. Suddenly she heard through a megaphone: “Two hands on the steering wheel lady, this is the police.” Which it was. She got such a fright she dropped her ice cream on the road. Did it teach her a lesson? She just bought another one. STICKING IT TO THE MAN! YEAH
And The Guardian AU’s comedy? Oh look, it’s the team from The Roast. What, Rodney Rude wasn’t answering the phone?
We bring this up not to point out that despite the new venue these two are operating firmly according to type – Razer’s very first word is a reference to herself, Deveny is “STICKING IT TO THE MAN!” – nor to suggest that opinionated women by their very nature are going to have a rough ride in the Australian media. Nope, today we just want to talk about a sadly familiar wider trend: hiring people not for their expertise in a subject matter, but because they’re meant to be amusing.
We’ve written before on this “just add comedy” approach and why we don’t like it – see pretty much every post we’ve ever made about The Gruen Transfer and its offspring. Basically, if you’re going to be funny JUST BE FUNNY. And if you’re going to discuss a topic then said topic deserves to be treated with respect, not just as a launching point for a bunch of shithouse gags.
Put another way, people who are meant to be actually amusing write humour columns. They don’t need a wider hook to lure people in: they’re funny, and that’s enough. Unless they’re not funny, which is every single Australian humour columnist because it’s hard work writing 800 funny words a week and if you really are funny it’s much easier writing jokes for television. Or advertising.
On the other side, if you’re actually interested in television (we are) or food (kind of), then you want to read someone who knows what they’re talking about. Razer at least has a history of reviewing live shows – reviewing in a snarky, self-obsessed, look at me fashion yes, but she occasionally provides some insight into why something is or isn’t working that you couldn’t get just from reading the poster.
Deveny, on the other hand, seems to treat every single paid writing gig she gets as an opportunity to foist a bunch of her half-arsed stand-up material on her readership. At least when she was writing about television she had a history of writing for television that on the surface justified her employment; as for food, presumably she eats it. Like every single other human being on the planet.
By the way, The Checkout wrapped up its first series last night. Much as we usually hate that kind of thing we didn’t mind it for the most part, because when it tried to be funny it usually was and when it wasn’t trying it had real information to impart. We’re still going to file it under consumer affairs rather than comedy – there’s a comedy show to be made about consumer issues, but it probably wouldn’t have long segments explaining how extended warranties are a rort – but the comedy material was a lot stronger than many of the ‘straight’ local comedies we’ve seen of late.
Our point is, if you’re going to do two things you need to be good at both. To take a non-Checkout example, Clive James’ television reviews were both bang-on regarding the shows he was discussing and funny in their own right. And if you’re not good at two things, you should stick to just the one: if you’re reviewing television (or food), figure out how television (or food) works, figure out how to explain that intelligently to your readership, then JUST DO THAT. Don’t do a half-arsed job then think if you talk about yourself a lot it won’t matter because it’s not a “real” review anyway.
Because just quietly, no-one gives a fuck about you.
The New News
Submitted without comment.
Wednesday Night Fever cast
set for late night comedy antics
Premieres Wednesday July 3 at 9:30pm on ABC1
7×30’
ABC TV today announced that Wednesday Night Fever – its new, late night, weekly comedy series from the makers of controversial hit At Home with Julia – will premiere on Wednesday, July 3 at 9:30pm on ABC1.
Hosted by rising comedian and first-time frontman Sammy J, and featuring tasteful metal outfit Boner Contention as house band, Wednesday Night Fever’s ensemble cast includes some of Australia’s best comic performers and impersonators including: Amanda Bishop (At Home with Julia); Paul McCarthy (Comedy Inc. – The Late Shift, At Home with Julia); Genevieve Morris (Comedy Inc. – The Late Shift); Dave Eastgate (A Moody Christmas, Elegant Gentleman’s Guide to Knife Fighting); Heath Franklin (‘Chopper’ of The Ronnie Johns Half Hour); Melbourne Comedy Festival sensation Anne Edmonds; music theatre star Lisa Adam and Robin Goldsworthy (At Home with Julia, Paper Giants).
Airing over seven weeks, the 30 minute weekly program will feature an array of topical impersonations, satirical characters, musical comedy and special guests – all in front of a live studio audience.
Jennifer Collins, ABC TV’s Head of Entertainment, said “It’s a stellar cast with the smart and witty Sammy J at the helm. The series will be a playground for these great comedic talents. We’re thrilled to have satirical sketch comedy in prime time, delivering a unique take on the latest news from around the world and here at home.”
Creator/Producer Rick Kalowski said, “I’m relieved to finally have a host and cast after it fell apart with Rolf Harris and The Comanchero bikie gang”.
Wednesday Night Fever is a Quail Television and ABC TV co-production for ABC1. Quail Television Executive Producers are Rick Kalowski and Greg Quail. ABC Executive Producer is Sophia Zachariou.
“We’re thrilled to have satirical sketch comedy in prime time”. So no-one at the ABC actually watches Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell then?
Okay, we do have a comment: Sammy J is good, some of the other cast members are not. Well, not bad-at-their-job bad – they’re just people who’ve been associated with so many duds at this stage that they really need an extended break (the old “you’ve got to leave before you can make a comeback” theory) to avoid that feeling that we’re just seeing the same old faces. And as that’s the feeling that’s killed at birth pretty much every single ABC panel show of the last five years, that’s not a good thing.
This is a problem that’s hardly ever addressed: after so many lean years Australia’s professional comedy talent pool, for whatever reason, is largely tainted with the stench of failure. Again, it’s not a slight on them as comedians, as often the problem with the failed shows wasn’t their fault. But it remains a fact: there are comedy performers out there whose names are associated with failure, who are firmly linked in the public’s mind with unfunny shows that tried too hard or not hard enough, who actively turn viewers away from trying something new by reminding them of shows they didn’t enjoy.
Whether seven episodes is enough to turn around those perceptions remains, like everything else about this show, to be seen.
Hey, There’s a trailer for Border Protection Squad
We liked Ed Kavalee’s Scumbus – mildly controversial move on our part there, but what can we say? Being stupid isn’t always a bad thing – so we’re actually looking forward to this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPEL82KplX4
Your mileage may vary.
Old-fashioned charm
Considering how often we used to bang on about how shit The Chaser’s War on Everything was, it’s hard not to feel a little nostalgic for the team’s comedy days (as opposed to their consumer rights TV days) when you read Charles Firth’s recent article for The Citizen, which recounts the early history of the group. Having met at university, The Chaser team really got started almost a decade and a half ago when they brought out a satirical newspaper. This quickly achieved legendary status, but principally online – finding a print copy was difficult, especially if you didn’t live on the east coast.
But halfway through his article Firth brings us back to the present day with some musings about The Roast…
In my latest venture – The Roast (on ABC2 – 7:30pm weeknights) – our correspondents travel the world without ever leaving the comfort of the green screen. There is a charm to this that has surprised me…
The green screen is an invitation for the audience to imagine what this show could be if its correspondents were able to go anywhere. The gap between its actual resources and its ambition allows the audience a role in its success. The Roast requires the audience to fill in its (considerable) gaps with their imagination in order to enjoy it. It’s far more satisfying – and far more theatrical – than, say, Iron Man 3, where every twist and turn is replicated in such detail that no imagination is necessary. That’s not to say Iron Man 3 is bad (it is), but simply that it is not theatre – it’s spectacle…
…at least part of the enjoyment, and part of the reason why people became so evangelical about it [The Chaser newspaper], and why our readers would continue to turn up to our parties despite their increasing frequency and rising entry price, was because of the theatre surrounding it.
The audience was imagining the mythical drunken brainstorm that led to the front page where we published John Howard’s personal phone number, when in fact, the decision to do so was made at the last minute and was largely because we couldn’t think of anything else to put on the cover…
It was the theatre rather than the actual subscriber numbers that kept The Chaser growing. The Chaser was appealing to read because it invited the readers to use their imagination to fill in the gaps. You could just imagine how amazing it would be to be one of The Chaser editors. Constantly drunk, constantly witty, constantly partying, and rarely even turning up at the office. It was a wonderfully attractive conceit, even if it was completely untrue.
Thus, if I have any advice for the editors of The Citizen, it is this: allow your readers the space to imagine what you want to be. Don’t let reality get in the way of your ambition. Let the readers fill in that gap. That way, it’s much more satisfying for them, and it’s much cheaper for you.
…which is all very well, but doesn’t really justify the continued existence of The Roast:
- The Roast is not charming, because of its use of green screen or otherwise. It’s a poorly-written topical comedy that even YouTube turns its nose up at (check the stats, they’re not very impressive).
- “Old school” TV technology like green screen isn’t automatically more charming the CGI-heavy approach used in action films like Iron Man 3. It may remind us of charming old TV comedies like The Goodies, but a large part of the charm of old TV comedies like The Goodies was their scripts were full of original ideas and lots of good gags –or certainly more original ideas and good gags than you get in The Roast.
- The idea that the audience fills in the comedy details with their imaginations is true, but applies mainly to radio comedy. In TV comedy visuals are kinda important. One way in which The Roast could add some comedy details, and be funnier, is if they included some gags going on in the background. Or some gags with a bit more complexity than they’re currently managing.
- There are two main reasons why the thing everyone knows about The Chaser newspaper is that they published John Howard’s phone number: 1) it was deliciously dangerous, and 2) it presumably caused a man who was disliked by the paper’s readership a lot of bother. Can you imagine The Roast doing anything like that? They can barely work themselves up in to being satirical…which is a bit of a problem if you’re a topical comedy.
Obviously most of the team from The Roast are barely out of university and perhaps when they’ve got as much experience under the belt as The Chaser they’ll be producing shows of the quality of, say, The Hamster Wheel, but the only way they’ll get there is if they spend a bit more time off-off-Broadway. The Chaser team didn’t just turn up on the ABC one day, they struggled to survive as a newspaper and gradually did more and more radio and TV. They built up experience and learnt what did and didn’t work. The best we can hope for The Roast team and the comedy they produce is that the show’s axed and they’re forced to learn the hard way.
Spit roast hog
If you gave a video camera to a student revue and asked them to make a news parody The Roast is probably what you’d get. Indeed, if you look at the biographies of the show’s cast and writers it’s notable that many of them are barely out of university. Not that this automatically makes them or the show bad – inexperienced writers can’t be expected to produce a good program – what we question is why a show which was a proven dud in its earliest incarnation as WTF! (2010), and then as a web series (2011), made it to TV for a first series (2012) and is now back yet again. For 150 episodes.
The Roast sets itself up as a long-running news show which reports from around the country (and the world) on the issues of the day. Its team of reporters play it relatively straight (unlike in news parodies such as Mad As Hell and Brass Eye which got laughs by making their reporters “characters”) meaning that on The Roast the stories have to do the heavy comedic lifting. The Roast has also chosen to keep it very topical, focusing on real world headlines rather than current affairs. In the hands of a more experienced team these restrictions wouldn’t be such a problem, but it’s hard to avoid wondering whether a bit more freedom in the format might have given the team at The Roast a better chance of getting laughs.
The best episode of The Roast that we have seen was a “from the archives” special parodying period reports of the disappearance of Harold Holt and the introduction of Random Breath Testing. Here, the writers and cast could get a decent amount of laughs from old-style clothes and modes of TV production and presentation. Whereas in a story about a contemporary issue they have to find a way of making that issue funny.
Often, The Roast’s formula is to take an aspect of a topical issue to the extreme and hope for laughs. When Myer boss Bernie Brooks said a levy to fund disability care would mean less people spent money shopping, The Roast did a sketch about a new government levy to help big department stores. They also sent one of their reporters around stealing money from people on behalf of the retail giant. While the basic satirical ideas for this were fine – you could imagine Mad As Hell doing something similar – Mad As Hell would also have done it a lot better. The reason for this is tone – Mad As Hell’s angrier, rantier approach is a lot funnier than The Roast‘s reporter David Ferrier playing it alternately straight and cheeky.
Great topical comedies like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Mad As Hell and Clarke & Dawe are fuelled by anger. One of the many problems with The Roast is that there just doesn’t seem to be any drive or passion behind it. And that’s the death knell for a topical comedy, because if there’s no passion or rage behind the material why make it topical? Why not just broadcast 10 minutes of dinner party sketches? Or Justin Bieber gags? Or dead air?