Australian Tumbleweeds

Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Most Deservedly Axed or Shunted-Round-The-Schedules Program

Australian Tumbleweeds 2011 - Most Deservedly Axed or Shunted-Round-The-Schedules Program: Nominations: Good News World (10), Hungry Beast (ABC), Live From Planet Earth (9).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.

Australian Tumbleweeds 2011 - Winner - Most Deservedly Axed or Shunted-Round-The-Schedules Program: Live From Planet Earth (9) - 50.70%. Runners-Up: Good News World (10) - 37.30%, Hungry Beast (ABC) - 11.90%. Voter Quotes: "While I couldn't stand to watch a comedy legend like Ben Elton be crucified by critics and social media alike, I did think that his stubborn refusal to ditch the unpopular 'Girl Flat' was slightly despotic. A live show should be tweaked and adapted to fit the mood of the public, but instead all Twitter users were labelled morons, and the material-that-just-didn't-work kept getting a run. In this case, the axe was right to fall. But, I say so bitterly. I'm still shocked and saddened by this hero's fall." "Watched all 3 episodes out of sheer bloody-mindedness and the eternal hope it would get better." "A mercy killing, consisting of ten thousand online stabbings." Last Year's Winner: Hey Hey It's Saturday (9).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

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Most Irritating or Pointless Cameo / Guest Appearance. Nominations: The special guests on The Joy of Sets (9), Julia Morris - Good News World (10), Don Burke - Can of Worms (9).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?

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Winner - Most Irritating or Pointless Cameo / Guest Appearance: Julia Morris - Good News World (10) - 45.30%. Nominations: The special guests on The Joy of Sets (9) - 40.60%, Don Burke - Can of Worms (9) - 14.10%. Voter Quotes: "This one's for JMOFEST. I thought it was an awful parody. I wish it was." "She wasn't funny in the nineties. She wasn't funny in the UK. Why the fuck is she on television again?" "Her friends even groan when she makes a guest appearance at their house." Last Year's Winner: Tony Abbott on Hey Hey It's Saturday (9).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 Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Themed Comedy. Nominations: Good News World (10), Gruen Planet (ABC), Good News Week (10).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.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Winner - Worst Themed Comedy. Good News World (10) - 63.10%. Nominations: Gruen Planet (ABC) - 24.60%, Good News Week (10) - 12.30%. Voter Quotes: "The theme in this particular show's case being 'shit'." "They have an entire globe full of news to make funny every week, and I always seemed to see Akmal playing Gaddafi." "I'm guessing the theme was 'Making a Poor Show Worse'." Last Year's Winners: WORST POLITICAL COMEDY: Good News Week (10), WORST "SPECIAL EVENT" COMEDY OR ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME: The National IQ Test (9).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.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Coverage of Comedy

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Coverage of Comedy. Nominations: Tabloid outrage about the flag sex scene in At Home With Julia, The endless puff pieces about Laid (Fairfax), The entire media's refusal to accept that Angry Boys was awful.Ah, for the good old days, when the Australian media would desperately latch onto the slightest whiff of controversy about a show or comedian and never let go until someone was sacked or taken off air for a few weeks. These days even Marieke Hardy having to cough up $13,000 for “outing” the wrong man for being responsible for a disgusting hate blog barely rates a mention. Of course, the Fairfax press couldn’t say enough good things about her or her series Laid, so maybe that’s a bad example. But if the Murdoch press couldn’t find it in their hearts to seriously rally the troops around a comedy where a fake PM had fake sex on a real Australian flag, the sun had clearly set on the days when the Chaser were (metaphorically) spitting on sick kiddies with every sketch.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Winner - Worst Coverage of Comedy: The entire media's refusal to accept that Angry Boys was awful - 48.60%. Runners-Up: Tabloid outrage about the flag sex scene in At Home With Julia - 27.10%, The endless puff pieces about Laid (Fairfax) - 24.30%. Voter Quotes: "The Australian media won't accept a lot of things- like most illegal immigrants arrive by plane, most welfare fraud is committed by aged pensioners and the murder rate in Victoria was higher in the 1950s. There are some facts you cannot accept and Chris Lilley not being a genius is one of them." "It was awful, wasn't it?" "I made it to episode 4 and still hadn't laughed." Last Year's Winner: The endless puff pieces about Hey Hey It's Saturday.To be fair, there were a few reports on the ratings slide for Angry Boys, but for the most part the media had so firmly jumped the gun with their praise of Chris Lilley (remember that story in The Monthly calling him a genius? How about the one in The Age calling him a genius?) before Angry Boys aired they couldn’t point out the fact it was a flop without looking like they didn’t know what they were talking about. It’s interesting to note that while the claims that Lilley is a genius are still loud and strong, the example now used to back that claim up is the older (but ratings-winning) Summer Heights High. Man, there must be a lot of commentators out there praying that Angry Boys turns out to be a blip in Lilley’s career and he re-connects with audiences when his next series arrives in 2018.

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, WORST THEMED COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 4:30PM EDT.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Non-Broadcast Comedy or Comedy Product

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Non-Broadcast Comedy or Comedy Product. Nominations: The Bolt Retort (Online Videos), You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead by Marieke Hardy (Book), The A to Z of Mummy Manners by Libbi Gorr (Book).Last time we checked, The Bolt Retort’s most viewed clip on YouTube had 1,623 views. The second most viewed clip? 206 views. So presumably not only did those 1,400 people not go back for a second look, they all came over here to vote for a (in our opinion, pretty funny) five minute show by Shannon from The Bazura Project pointing out inaccuracies in Andrew Bolt’s show The Bolt Report. Hey, we just report the winners, we don’t pick ‘em.

Remember that time Libbi Gorr had Mark “Chopper” Read on her ABC talk show? We do. Oddly, we couldn’t find any mention of that in The A to Z of Mummy Manners, her twee guide to making friends with the parents of children your children are friends with. Seriously, why bother? Most parents we know just want someone to look after their brats for a few hours, not a freakin’ soul-mate.

Marieke Hardy makes a living by talking about herself. At the heart of everything she says and does in the public eye is the conviction that it’s interesting because she’s the one doing it. Maybe she’s right? 50,000 twitter followers can’t be all wrong. Or even all actual people.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Winner - Worst Non-Broadcast Comedy or Comedy Product. You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead by Marieke Hardy (Book) - 48.40%. Nominations: The Bolt Retort (Online Videos) - 32.30%, Mummy Manners by Libbi Gorr (Book) - 19.40%. Voter Quotes: "Is that title a challenge? And how many other Tumblies voters will make that same joke?" "Aren't you supposed to have led an interesting life before you write a memoir?" "I know she's the darling of the left but she shits me." Last Year's Winners: WORST PODCAST OR CD: Josh Thomas and Friend, WORST ONLINE COMEDY VIDEOS: Julia Spillard/Gabby Millgate, WORST BOOK OR ITEM OF SPIN-OFF MERCHANDISE: Beached Az Stubby Holder with Sound Effects, WORST DVD: Best of the Footy Show Comedians Twin Pack.The continuing rise of Marieke Hardy is no doubt a delight for both Ms Hardy and the large number of people who wish they were her. For those trapped in an outdated way of looking at books, newspaper columns and television – as something providing the public with more than just the author’s efforts at self-promotion – it’s all a bit of a puzzle. Writing a book about your various mildly salacious relationship escapades (group sex, hiring prostitutes, etc), putting a picture of yourself on the cover, then inviting those you’ve written about to comment suggests levels of self-absorption barely sustainable by people who’ve actually achieved something with their lives. And we’re talking here about someone whose greatest achievements to date involve reviewing books on television and flashing their breasts.

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, WORST COVERAGE OF COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 4:00PM EDT.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Contribution to Radio Comedy

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Contribution to Radio Comedy. Nominations: Matt Tilley's prank calls (Fox FM/Triple M), Hughesy & Kate (Nova), Rabbit's prank calls (SA-FM/Triple M).Over the years we have resigned ourselves to the fact that the comedic aspirations of commercial radio stations extend no further than idiotic yammering and prank calls. Matt Tilley is of course the ultimate exponent of this, successfully combining the two on an increasing number of Austereo breakfast shows. Over in Adelaide, Rabbit from the SA-FM breakfast show is doing much the same.

Hughesy & Kate of Melbourne’s Nova are more focused on the yammering side of commercial radio comedy; trying to grab attention with their loud-mouth tomfoolery as their half-listening audience spoon cereal in to their mouths, gets the kids organised or travel in to work. As such it is hard not to interpret Ed Kavalee’s decision to leave their show as cut and dry editorial comment. Making films that never seem to appear in cinemas or appearing on a sports panel show has got to be better than hanging out with them.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Winner - Worst Contribution to Radio Comedy. Matt Tilley's prank calls (Fox FM/Triple M) - 53.10%. Runners-Up: Hughesy & Kate (Nova) - 34.40%, Rabbit's prank calls (SA-FM/Triple M) - 12.50%. Voter Quotes: "News of the World had nothing on Tilley's phone evils - Milly Dowler was a puff piece compared to 'Arjib' and 'Bang'." "This is still a thing? You sure you're just not copy/pasting from 2007?" "If I could kill Matt Tilley and get away with it, I'd try it again so I wouldn't get away with it because I want the fucking credit." Last Year's Winners: WORST RADIO ENTERTAINMENT OR COMEDY SHOW: Kyle and Jackie O (2Day FM), WORST RADIO PERSONALITY: Kyle Sandilands - Kyle and Jackie O (2Day FM).On the one hand it is hardly worth analysing the work of Matt Tilley. He is basically just a man putting on stupid accents and trying to make someone get angry by bullying and haranguing them. If you find that sort of thing funny you’ll be pleased to hear there’s lots more of it coming up in 2012. We, on the hand, have been somewhat disturbed to find ourselves nostalgic for the days when Merrick & Rosso would leave a message on people’s answering machines from Dr Sarkis Kockoff – at least there was wordplay in that one.

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, WORST NON-BROADCAST COMEDY OR COMEDY PRODUCT, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 3:30PM EDT.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Overall Channel / Network for Comedy

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Overall Channel / Network for Comedy. Nominations: Seven Network, Nine Network, Network Ten.All three commercial networks have been doing their best to make Australian comedy a no-go zone for years now. Ten may have made a concerted effort to at least show some comedy, but Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation has trapped Shaun Micallef in an increasingly tired game show and Good News World was an insult even to the fans of its previous, almost as dull and predictable incarnations. Seven left comedy well alone in 2011, which isn’t going to get any complaints from us after the string of rapidly cancelled quasi-game shows they tried in previous years, and Nine… well, their heart was in the right place.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Winner - Worst Overall Channel/Network for Comedy. Nine Network - 46.90%. Nominations: Seven Network - 34.40%, Network Ten - 18.80%. Voter Quotes: "C'mon, pre-emptively axing a new series of The Games, during Tumblies voting time? They’re trying to throw the awards! It's all a fix!!" "So over-hyped as 'The Home of Comedy' how many of those comedies lasted? Although on the plus side they did air Joy of Sets completely." "Hamish & Andy, Tony Martin, Ben Elton. It'd take a bit to fuck all that up. Now I'm not saying it's all Nine's fault, but it probably is." Last Year's Winner: Nine Network.Nine tried to get into the comedy business in 2012 in a way no commercial network had tried in more than a decade. They hired big name stars, they promoted the hell out of them and they put them on in prime time where people could actually see them. Unfortunately, they did all this on Channel Nine, the oldest-skewing of the networks and the one where viewers – families and old folk, in the main – had the least possible interest in being made to laugh. Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year kind of worked, thanks to a massive pre-existing fanbase and a general likeability that didn’t scare the oldies away; nothing else really stood a chance.

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, WORST CONTRIBUTION TO RADIO COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 3:00PM EDT.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Overall Comedy

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Overall ComedyIn previous years many of the results thrown up by the Tumblies have been dismissed as simply the scowling of haters opposed to anything mainstream or popular. Unfortunately for those people, the main players in this year’s awards were high profile, well-promoted ratings flops, suggesting that – for once – our voters and the mainstream are on the same page. Self-serving tripe that seems to have been put together more to stroke the egos of the creators or fulfil some regulated programming need doesn’t seem to have put bums on seats in 2011; turns out people actually do want to watch comedy that’s funny after all.

Australian Tumbleweeds Awards 2011 - Winner - Worst Overall Comedy. Angry Boys (ABC) - 50.00%. Runners-up: Good News World (10) - 31.80%, Laid (ABC) - 18.20%. Voter Quotes: "Why is Lilley so obsessed with dicks and balls? Did the ABC castrate him or something?" "Arragh! Every character was an odious cretin! Lilley, write actual jokes you fetid scab. Stop forcing pathos down the throats of audiences who have come looking for laughs. Take your unfunny iPhone app/ tie-in merch shit back to Youth Group theatre where it belongs." "Who said Laid and Angry Boys were comedies? Loooong bow there." Last Year's Winner: Hey Hey It's Saturday (9).What, it seems fair to ask at this stage, is Chris Lilley trying to do? Usually with a comedy show answering that question is simple: it’s supposed to make us laugh. But for large stretches of Angry Boys it was obvious that Lilley didn’t want laughs – in fact, laughing at Gran’s Alzheimer’s announcement (for example) would be exactly what he didn’t want. This is hardly new or original in comedy – the end of both Blackadder Goes Forth and the second series of the UK Office pulled off the same trick – but those shows used sentiment as a twist ending, adding a surprise layer to a previously purely comedic character. Lilley puts sentiment at the heart of his characters from the outset. Presumably it’s some kind of achievement to make an audience care about a senile old lady or loutish teen who is clearly played by a 40-ish man in a wig: it’s just not an achievement in comedy.

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, WORST OVERALL CHANNEL/NETWORK FOR COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 2:30PM EDT.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Film Comedy

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Film Comedy. Nominations: The bits in Snowtown where you can hear The Comedy Company on the TV in the background, Big Mamma's Boy, Little Johnny the Movie.Snowtown is what Australian film does best: a grim tale of bogans murdering each other. Well, okay, it’s not what Australian film does best – it’s more that it’s what the people who make Australian film like to think they do best. Go on, go enrol at a film school and tell everyone you want to make light-hearted romantic comedies. We’ll wait here.

Big Mamma’s Boy was a return to the classic wog comedy that… wait, wasn’t there a wog comedy just last year? And wasn’t that the only real candidate for this award then? Surely it’s the Vietnamese’s turn by now?

Here’s a test: have you ever heard anyone tell a “little Johnny” joke? Do you even know what a “little Johnny” joke is? Because we don’t and we’re supposed to be experts in this kind of Ocker down home Aussie comedy thing. And by “experts”, we mean we’ve listened to our fair share of King Billy Cokebottle.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Winner - Worst Film Comedy. Big Mamma's Boy - 45.60%. Runners-up: The bits in Snowtown where you can hear The Comedy Company on the TV in the background - 33.30%, Little Johnny the Movie - 21.10%. Voter Quotes: "How is this even a thing? How can so many people say 'Yes, this is a good idea' so many times in a row? I almost want to applaud its incredibly-improbably existence but my hands are sore from poking out my own eyes." "Didn't see it. So this snark is particularly jaundiced then. You're welcome." "On the plus side, at a time when Australian comedy barely rates a mention on the big screen at least Big Mamma’s Boy actually made it to cinemas. On the minus side, Big Mamma’s Boy made it to cinemas." Last Year's Winner: Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos.In yet another dire year for Australian big screen comedy, Big Mamma’s Boy basically wins here by default. That’s not to say it didn’t have problems: in 2011 a romantic comedy where the lead rushes to get married largely to prove he isn’t gay isn’t so much hilarious as offensive. But it least it tried. Mostly it tried to see how many times it could get away with the old “It looks like he’s getting a blow job – BUT HE’S NOT!!” joke, but when it comes to getting laughs from Australian film that’s still a big step up from the usual pile of dismembered bogans.

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, WORST OVERALL COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 2:00PM EDT.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – Worst Sketches

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Sketches. Nominations: Balls of Steel Australia (Foxtel), Good News World (10), Hungry Beast (ABC).Sketch comedy, like radio comedy, is a writer’s medium. Performers are important too, but unless the writing is sharp a sketch show is sunk.

Balls of Steel Australia, being a pranks show, didn’t really have writers, just some obscure attention-seekers who’d been assigned an annoying character or quirk. On one level it was better than Good News World – the level where it didn’t have aspirations to be anything other than a pointless time-filler, and can therefore be said to have not failed.

The now axed Hungry Beast focused a bit more on the serious side of its remit in 2011. Much of their comedy output seemed to be sub-Chaser street interviews or sketches which assumed hilarity would ensue if serious topics were expressed through hip hop. See “I’m A Climate Scientist“ if you want an example of the latter.

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 - Worst Sketches. Good News World (10) - 48.50%. Nominations: Balls of Steel Australia (Foxtel) - 28.80%, Hungry Beast (ABC) - 22.70%. Voter Quotes: "Improv comedians in heavily scripted (and not very funny) sketches. Why did no one at Ten see this could be an issue?" "Is it just me, or did the sketches look a LOT like the sketches in Live From Planet Earth or Let Loose Live?" "GODMONKEYFUCKINGAWFUL." Last Year's Winner: The Matty Johns Show (7).Many of us would like to see a revival of good, topical sketch comedy on Australian television, but this year’s winner did little other than prove once again that this will not be possible without a Year Zero approach. Good News World had a very experienced cast and writing team, many of whom have written for some decent and notable shows, so…what went wrong? Did an entire world of news not provide enough scope for them? Given the number of times Akmal turned up as Colonel Gaddafi that is a distinct possibility. Or was it more that those involved just aren’t very good at their jobs?

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, WORST FILM COMEDY, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 1:30PM EDT.