Australian Tumbleweeds
A load of balls
New Australian comedy was back on the box this week, with the debut of Santo, Sam and Ed’s Sports Fever! and the return of a few shows including Balls of Steel Australia and Clarke & Dawe.
Balls of Steel Australia was recently nominated for three of our “prestigious” Tumblies for its first series, but bravely fought off strong competition from Good News World and Live From Planet Earth. Its return earlier this week saw it serve up much more of the same low-brow prank-based “hilarity”.
British import Olivia Lee’s sketch saw her auditioning young men for a new reality show which would see them all living together in a house. A gay house. Cue a succession of uncomfortable straight guys being put in to pink singlets, and asked to gay it up with a male sex doll with an erect penis and a real life gay man. Next up was ageing game show legend “Baby” John Burgess, with a new quiz show in which the contestants found themselves answering questions in ways which demeaned them. Then there were two guys setting fire to toilet paper shoved up their arses, and the return of the hot chick stripping off in various shops concept…except this time it was nude twins.
The show’s presumed target audience of teenage males no doubt lapped it up, although in a slight surprise they voted the gay reality show prank as ballsier than the nude twins. It seems a hatred and fear of homosexuality is a more powerful force in a young man’s life than even two hot nude women. Actually that’s not much of a surprise at all, more hugely depressing.
In better news for humanity’s progress away from the primordial soup, anyone who saw this article in the Murdoch press on Tuesday, about how ACMA were investigating a Clarke & Dawe sketch from October which supposedly vilified Christians, needn’t worry. It’s all fine, and here’s a lovely Word document which explains why.
The complaint was made by Perth schoolteacher and BA in Theology Simon Smith, who told News.com.au:
You can clearly see that they are vilifying Christians as insensitive, callous and uncaring with clear inferences to the Opposition front bench and Tony Abbott, many [sic] who are Catholics.
I just sat there for a minute and I thought, they’ve really overstepped the mark.
I am a Christian and I classify myself as a cautious conservative.
ACMA ruled that the sketch, which in part explored the contradiction of Christian members of Parliament voting in favour of mandatory detention of asylum seekers, when the key tenants of their faith should see them voting against it, did not breach code 7.7 of the ABC Code of Practice 2011:
7.7 – Avoid the unjustified use of stereotypes or discriminatory content that could reasonably be interpreted as condoning or encouraging prejudice.
ACMA stated in their ruling that they did
not consider that the comments could reasonably be interpreted as condoning or encouraging prejudice against Christians. In this regard, the comments did not serve to urged [sic] or inflame viewers to form an unfavourable opinion or feeling towards Christians.
Thursday’s Clarke & Dawe sketch saw the pair explore the world of tabloid newspapers, non-stories and pointless audience engagement. It, more than the Parliament sketch, could be said to fall foul of code 7.7…probably, but that’s hardly the point. The weekly brilliance of Clarke & Dawe is that they find the right target and give it a going-over it won’t forget. Some irony and intelligence is required from the viewer, but at least most people, and ACMA, get the joke.
Monday Night Fever
We’re pretty quick to sink the boots in whenever an Australian television network screws up – what, you mean you haven’t seen the results of the 2011 Australian Tumbleweed Awards yet? – so it seems only fair that we be equally as prompt to give them the thumbs up when they get something right. In this case that network would be Channel Seven, and the thing they’ve done right is picking up Working Dog’s World Cup show Santo, Sam & Ed’s Cup Fever (now renamed Santo, Sam & Ed’s Sports Fever) after SBS said they couldn’t afford a weekly sports show. Really SBS? Fine. Just keep in mind that three guys and a desk is now out of SBS’s price range next time SBS reaches into their pocket for whatever Paul Fenech coughs up.
Not that we want to go hard on SBS here either, because this is the way TV comedy is supposed to work: people start out on a public broadcaster and once they hit their stride a commercial network swoops in and picks them up, thus clearing the way for the next round of new talent. Okay, the “new talent” here consists of Santo Cilauro (who’s been around for over twenty years with at least ten shows to his name), Ed Kavalee (two shows on commercial television in the last three years) and Sam Pang (well, he did have that failed history-based quiz show on SBS), but you know what we mean. And what we mean is, at least it’s not Roy & H.G.
Anyway, to the show itself: three guys behind a desk making ill-informed jokes about sport. Hurrah! Their previous SBS effort was more sketch heavy – and had more special guests appearing in those sketches – but this version still holds up comedy-wise thanks to the easy chemistry between the three. None of whom, it’s a relief to say, is an ex-sportsman, so the serious sports coverage comes second to a bunch of jokes about tennis players texting and hearing commentator John Newcomb speak “Japanese” gibberish (which delivered the first “Me no rikey” of the series).
The hour-long timeslot (up from half an hour on SBS) presumably makes sense for Seven – it’s a live show so running twice as long isn’t going to cost anywhere near twice as much – and while it may be a little on the long side a commercial TV hour is only really 40 minutes anyway so it’s not really like it wears out its welcome. This kind of show is always going to be a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to segments, but a montage of fluffed cricket fielding can still work so long as some decent riffing takes place over it (okay, it didn’t that time).
The real comedy highlight on first viewing is seeing Santo playing a real-life version of his old comedy sports commentator character The Colonel, which alone almost makes up for the fact there actually is a fair amount of sports information (shudder) here. Much of the early comedy in episode one came from pointing out how crap a lot of sports commentary is, which is pretty much an inexhaustible source of comedy, and Santo hasn’t lost any of his skill when it comes to wandering off into odd tangents. Taking a swipe at sports gambling and boring sportspeople’s tweets and My Kitchen Rules gets you points with us, while the guests…
Look, we all know much of the charm of this kind of show comes from the fact that it’s live and kind of ramshackle. Sometimes it’s going to bring up comedy gold, sometimes it’s going to be something you’re going to need to be a sports fan to watch, and sometimes it’s just not going to work. But the cast is strong, there’s a clear and inclusive sense of humour at work here – something you can’t say about the various footy shows – and the whole show doesn’t take itself seriously. Being able to cover all sports, not just soccer, should provide plenty of material (though it’ll be interesting to see what happens when the rugby & AFL starts) and going by the first episode even the guest segments stand a decent chance of working out.
Our advice? if you’re a comedy fan you can probably wander off once the first guest comes out. If you’re a fan of the cast, their love of sport shines through strongly enough to carry you through. And if you’re a sports fan… what do you care what we think?
Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Best Comedy
As always, the three nominees for Best Comedy have turned out to be three programs all but ignored by the Australian press. Not for them the weekly glowing reviews in the Green Guide that Laid got; no steady stream of cover features like the ones Chris Lilley enjoyed throughout the first half of the year. That’s because these three programs actually made people laugh; what kind of a hook is that to hang press coverage on? Far easier to base your value judgements on set design, or being written by a hipster, or featuring a man in a dress. Unfortunately, that does mean you end up largely ignoring comedies that are actually funny, but hey – it’s clearly a price the Australian media is willing to pay.
Well, this is a little embarrassing. It’s one thing for a first-time show to win Best New Comedy, but Best Comedy as well? Didn’t Tony Martin have a new television show out this year? It seems that being one of the few television comedies that put making people laugh front and centre has paid off for the Bazura team, as well it should. The Lonely Hearts Club was hilarious, but a low profile radio show was always going to struggle. The Joy of Sets quickly found its’ stride, but a wobbly start and a format that worked against Tony Martin’s natural strengths clearly put some voters offside. The Bazura Project just did everything right: funny, likeable, informative without lecturing or preaching, it turned out to be a near-perfect mix of smarts and stupidity. Whatever they’re up to next, we can’t wait to see it.
THAT CONCLUDES THIS YEAR’S PRESENTATION OF THE AUSTRALIAN TUMBLEWEEDS. KEEP FOLLOWING THIS BLOG FOR MORE COMMENTARY THROUGHOUT THE YEAR, AND DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW US ON TWITTER OR LIKE US ON FACEBOOK.
Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Best New Comedy
And now here we are – finally presenting some positive awards to the Australian comedy industry. This category is particularly special to our hearts, being about new talent and/or new ideas.
ABC-2’s The Bazura Project took a different theme each week – Violence, Sex, Money, Profanity, Drugs and Fame – and showed interestingly, and (more importantly) hilariously, how that theme had featured in and influenced more than a century of movies. Part film buff’s paradise, part sketch show, Shannon Marinko and Lee Zachariah’s “Guide to Sinema” was a detailed and – we really must stress this again – funny look at the topic. It blew similar shows by more experienced talent, such as The Joy of Sets, completely out of the water, although The Joy of Sets did feature some excellent sketches.
The Lonely Hearts Club, was an obscure but joyous late-night experiment which showed that proper radio comedy shouldn’t be forsaken in this country. In many ways it’s a great tragedy that a good show featuring some of this country’s finest comedic talent was barely promoted or acknowledged. On the other hand, it might not have worked so well if more of the callers had been aware of the joke.
Sadly there can only be one winner of Best New Comedy, and we are pleased to announce that it is The Bazura Project. While it wasn’t technically a new show, it and the team were new to most people. It was also an outstanding example of what a passionate team can achieve with a small budget. Sharp, silly and with a consistent commitment to putting funny before everything else, it was a clear comedy highlight of 2011.
THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, BEST COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 8:00PM EDT.
Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – The Lifetime Achievement Award for Crap Comedy
This is it – the big one. Not so much for a single year’s work at making crap comedy as a concerted effort across an entire career, this award salutes those who, year in year out, go out of their way to make comedy that puzzles, annoys, and bores the Tumblie voters. Some might say these winners are often amongst the most popular comedians of the day; we say if popularity is your only guide to quality, enjoy your steady diet of Justin Beiber music, Twilight movies, Today Tonight reports on Centerlink-Rorting Tenants from Hell in Australia’s Worst Street who can Save You Money On Your Power Bills… and, of course, the winner of this years Lifetime Achievement Award for Crap Comedy.
You have to take your hat off to Dave Hughes. A decade ago he was Australia’s angriest comedian, constantly losing it for laughs on youth-orientated comedy shows like Rove and The Glasshouse. Then he sat himself behind the desk at The 7PM Project and started weighing-in on the big topics of the day, and now he’s Australia’s favourite dad, keeping us all up to date with the wonders of parenthood. And yes, those wonders may seen dull and trite to everyone who either has or hasn’t gone through them, but at least he’s out there forging new ground. It’s not funny new ground or new ground to anyone but himself, but hey, let’s not start expecting miracles here.
THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, BEST NEW COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 7:30PM EDT.
Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – The “Pissing on Their Legacy” Award
Legacies are a fragile thing in the “what have you done for me lately” world of comedy. They’re also something that should constantly be on the line as you stretch yourself trying for new and greater things. It’s when those things you’re reaching for involve a surplus of dick jokes or dressing Akmal up as various world leaders that the general public’s support tends to waver. And rightly so. Comedy should always be fresh and surprising, and we don’t mean in a “how the hell did this get 12 episodes” sort of way.
Unlike the other nominees in this category, Ben Elton had a considerable legacy to piss on. And that’s still true even if you’ve been following his sinking comedy fortunes in the UK for the last decade or so. Ben Elton was and remains a noteworthy stand-up, he is responsible for co-writing a number of excellent TV comedies, and some of his novels aren’t bad either. Unfortunately he also has a passion for pop music and stage musicals, and it is thanks to his recent involvement in those worlds that we saw such failings in Live From Planet Earth.
Schlocky song and dance numbers, lame gags and broad characters may be acceptable in We Will Rock You, which Elton co-wrote and directed, but it hasn’t gone down too well on TV since Elton’s boyhood and the last hoorah of TV variety. Elton gave numerous interviews responding to the criticism directed at Live From Planet Earth and he maintained that he was happy with the material he’d written. That’s probably what Chris Lilley and the Good News World team would have said too if they’d ever been called out for their shoddy work. And if that’s not an argument for decent script editors in this country then we don’t know what is.
THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, THE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR CRAP COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 7:00PM EDT.
Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – The “What Happened To That?!” Award for Comedies Which Failed to Appear
Looking over the TV listings this year, the one thought that repeatedly came to our minds is “please Australian networks, hold back on the quality shows for a while, we can barely cope with the ones we’ve already got”. And somehow they heard us, so while classics like The Renovators, and the one about cooking ,and the other one about cooking, and the third one about cooking ran for week after week after week, the occasional comedy series that actually sounded like something we’d like to see was quietly pushed back to the grim meathook future of 2012.
Okay, the one comedy series we really did want to see (the ABC assures us the other two nominees will screening in February) was pushed back to “yeah, nah, we’re not going to be making that one, thanks”. Exactly why remains a minor mystery, though we’re willing to blame everything on Nine right up until the moment John Clarke and Ross Stevenson come out and say “we had a lot of trouble coming up with ideas”. Which, considering Clarke’s been talking up doing a sequel since at least the 2008 Olympics, seems a little unlikely. Let’s not forget the classy way Nine treated most of their 2011 comedy output either: if The Games: London Calling actually had happened, an 11pm timeslot by week four would have been firmly on the cards.
THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, THE “PISSING ON THEIR LEGACY” AWARD, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 6:30PM EDT.
Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Most Deservedly Axed or Shunted-Round-The-Schedules Program
Sometimes a show’s just gotta go. Live From Planet Earth and Good News World were instant failures and their respective axings weren’t much of a surprise, even if the latter’s took a long time coming. Hungry Beast on the other hand managed to last three series, which is pretty good for a show of its type and quality. Those involved were really lucky to have been chosen for it, making their howls of protest when the show was axed seem more than a little disingenuous.
The result of this category, however, is far from disingenuous. More a sledgehammer-obvious statement of 100% dissatisfaction.
Live From Planet Earth isn’t exactly a surprise winner in this category – its name will be a byword for comedic failure for decades to come – but it’s debatable that it was more deserving of the chop than Good News World. Good News World was an equally poor program which also got slaughtered on social media, it just happened to stay on air because it was on a lower-profile network who currently have a policy of sticking rigidly by any new show…until it’s obvious even to them that they totally messed-up.
THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, THE “WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT?!” AWARD FOR COMEDIES WHICH FAILED TO APPEAR, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 6:00PM EDT.
Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Most Irritating or Pointless Cameo / Guest Appearance
A special guest appearance from a well-known face should be a show highlight. Unfortunately special guests these days seem to be there purely to earn some easy coin or revive their careers. Don Burke’s appearance on Can of Worms had all the hallmarks of someone attempting the latter – you could tell by his swearing and attempts to shock. Julia Morris has much the same tactic when she’s a guest, except she’s less about swearing and more about being a gabbling loud-mouth.
Mistakenly, The Joy of Sets gave over a third of its airtime to a special guest. This should have been a showstopper, sadly it just stopped the show. Dead. Instead of hilarious behind the scenes insights from an industry figurehead we got Deborah Hutton talking about…oh, we forget. Even Pete Smith with his decades of TV experience and noted wit didn’t manage to shine. Those who went to the recordings say they were great and that the guests made the show. Which for us begs this question: what happened in the edit?
Julia Morris turning up anywhere – even that short film festival / self-promotion carnival she runs – is irritating and/or pointless, but to be irritating and/or pointless in comparison to Good News World? That’s a far more impressive achievement than her victory on The Celebrity Apprentice.
THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, MOST DESERVEDLY AXED OR SHUNTED-AROUND-THE-SCHEDULES PROGRAMME, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 5:30PM EDT.
Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Themed Comedy
Australian comedy has a hard enough time getting laughs when absolutely anything is fair game: why would you purposely limit the targets you’re swinging at? Which is why, on even the briefest of examinations, it’s clear that while all three shows in this category claim to have firm targets in sight, they always just end up cracking jokes about anything they feel like. And good on them for it. If they’d just get around to cracking funny jokes, they might have something worthwhile to offer.
Paul McDermott is a great comedy host. He’s charming, he’s expansive, he’s got a great singing voice. He’s not someone who comes off all that well when he has to share the spotlight though, so one of the many, many mystifying choices that came from turning the stale Good News Week into the failed Good News World was to have him conduct bogus interviews and appear in sketches. And then there were all the other mystifying choices which would take at least three thousand worlds to list here so let’s just boil them down to “give Sammy J & Randy their own show and fire everyone else out of a cannon”.
THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, MOST IRRITATING OR POINTLESS CAMEO/GUEST APPEARANCE, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 5:00PM EDT.