Australian Tumbleweeds
An Anonymous Commentator Speaks Out
Another post about Laid? Really? Surely we should be talking about Ben Elton’s new show – a live sketch show no less – on Nine and Adam Hill’s new comedy-friendly chat show on the ABC, both of which start next week? Hey, don’t blame us – we’re just following the editorial lead of The Age’s Green Guide.
That’s correct: in a move that surprised no-one (well, no-one we know), in a week featuring both Elton and Hill’s debuts, the Green Guide instead decided to give Laid the cover. Not the cast of Laid, mind you, but writers Kirsty Fisher and former Green Guide columnist Marieke Hardy, photographed through such a soft-focus haze of Vaseline you’d be forgiven for thinking Barbara Streisand was back on tour.
At least the Green Guide had an excuse: they just love Laid! Well, they love Hardy, whose “saucy, self-deprecating cheek seems as fresh as when she first sprang to public attention almost a decade ago as the award-winning writer of tween series Short Cuts”.
[Remember Short Cuts? No? Lasted one year on Seven? Launched the acting careers of Damien Bodie and Alex Tsitsopoulos? Hardy won an Australian Writers Guild Award (AWGIE) for it? More behind-the-scenes info here]
Oh well, at least by mentioning a show she did that was critically successful (unlike Last Man Standing, which even the Green Guide has to admit only “found a modest and devoted audience” and was “undervalued”) this two-page story tries to justify why Hardy keeps getting the kind of press most unknown – c’mon people, every single TV writer in this country who’s not also an actor is unknown – writers would kill for. It’s not successful – the correct answer is “She’s the grand-daughter of Frank Hardy, has the right connections thanks to her ABC / Fairfax work, and will probably end up with a high profile commentator gig / big-deal position at the ABC so we’d better be nice to her” – but thanks for trying.
Anyway the real fun in this article (and attached review) isn’t so much the usual chit-chat with she of the “smutty, schoolboy humour” (read: she’s a girl who talks dirty, but she’s not a bogan so it’s ok) , but the way the writers dance around various aspects of the show that seem – to our untrained eye and yes, there’s a proper review coming soon – to be less than successful.
For starters, nowhere on the page does the word “funny” appear. Instead, it’s a “gentle black comedy” and a “sharply observed comedy of manners”. Oh dear. An actually funny comedy show doesn’t ask “is it tasteless and slutty to consider picking up at the wake?”, because who in their right mind thinks “gee, I’ve got a funeral to go to – better watch Laid to see if it’s okay to try and pick up at the wake”. Comedy shows are “funny”, “hilarious” and “laugh out loud”, not “sly”, “winning” and *shudder* “amusing”.
In slightly better news, Hardy says she would “rail against people thinking it’s a feminist fightback show. It’s not.” Really? A show based entirely and completely around the question of whether the female heroine will ever have a loving sexual relationship with a man again isn’t a feminist fightback show? Gee, last time I read The Female Eunuch I must have been holding it upside down.
There is some truth to be gleaned here though: Hardy’s dialogue really is full of “articulate zeitgeist references” and “liberally sprinkled with pop culture references”: why, in the first two episodes alone “assclown”, “sucks to be him” and the (unattributed) “I’m in a glass case of emotion” line from Anchorman get a run (and later on, someone actually says “LOL” out loud! Don’t worry if you miss it, someone then reminds you it happened for double the laffs). Sure, if you’ve actually been on the internet in the last four years pretty much all the references here are old, old news, but we are talking about the ABC here.
There’s more to say, but it can wait for a proper review – sizzle! Not that Hardy and the rest of the Laid team care: as this article tells us, “she’s sanguine about the inevitable brickbats that will be directed her way by anonymous commentators”. Because, as this story – and Hardy’s promo push in The Age over the last few weeks in general – has taught us, getting your name up front and out there as often as possible is what really counts in this business.
Kharma Police
Hey, didn’t Matt Tilley get hit by a car a few days ago? Why, yes he did: he was out riding his bike along Melbourne’s St Kilda Road and BAM: a variety of somewhat serious sounding injuries (fractured vertebrae, bruised kidney) have him bailed up at home with bed rest for the foreseeable future. Ouch. He has our best wishes for a speedy recovery. Sure, rumour has it the person driving the car thought they saw him go for his phone to make a Gotcha call and yelled out “not on my watch!”, but – what, too soon? Too soon for a man who made a name for himself in the comedy world making prank calls notorious for their blunt cruelty and nastiness?
Seriously, it’s only a misdialled number that separates Tilley’s work from ‘vile’ Kyle Sandilands’s efforts in the phone stunt arena – unfortunate Tilley’s current personal plight might be, but he’s hardly a celebrity with “much-loved” in front of his name. And how much must that suck? When you work in the public eye for as long as Tilley has, chances are you’d like to think you’ve built up some level of goodwill out there – if only so that when it comes time to re-negotiate your contract your bosses don’t just laugh and go “sorry, everyone hates you”.
And yet, despite disliking Tilley’s work enough to actually follow this story in the newspapers and on the internet, I’m yet to find much in the way of actual public outpouring of sentiment. Well, that’s not strictly true, as the 48 comments on this story would seem to suggest… until you read them and discover they’re almost entirely about cyclists vs cars, not Tilley himself. And sure, I haven’t actually tuned into his breakfast show to hear the “we miss you Matt” callers there, but if you’re someone who believes those shows get the entirety of their callers from outside the office they broadcast from then I have an underwater tunnel to America you might like to invest in.
This relative silence is even more damming because Matt Tilley isn’t just (supposedly) a nice guy: he’s meant to be a comedian. No, this isn’t the set-up for a “he’s meant to be – but he ain’t!!” style gag: he works on radio as a comedian and while I find mysterious facial lumps more hilarious than his “work”, he does seem to be kind of popular amongst people who listen to breakfast radio. And making people laugh is a pretty likable thing to do when you think about it: you’re making people feel good, you’re not really asking anything from them for it (well, you do have to listen to a shitload of ads and promos, but you know what I mean), and it’s usually the kind of thing that makes people feel good about and towards you.
So the question here is: what kind of comedian are you when you get in a no-joke-serious accident that leaves you with broken bones and busted parts and the general public’s reaction is “meh”?
As a comedian, what kind of connection do you have with your audience when – and let’s not forget that Tilley is a top-rating radio jock, not some unknown comic – the general public (most of which have at the very least heard of you and your work) seemingly couldn’t give a shit about you after a major accident?
What must have gone wrong in your career if even making people laugh – ok, not me, and not anyone I know, but supposedly lots of breakfast radio listeners – on a daily basis isn’t enough to make them stop and care about you for a single second after the laughter stops?
You don’t have to be a comedy fan to think of a half-dozen Australian comics who seem to be nice guys you might say hi to on the street who you’d feel sad about if you heard they’d suffered a serious misfortune. Matt Tilley, on the other hand, made a career out of prank calls. Hey, how’s that working out?
Late Arrivals at the Comedy Boom
You probably saw the story in the Herald Sun the other day that Hamish & Andy are “close” to finalising a deal with Nine. This came as a bit of a surprise to those of us who expected them to sign with Ten (who screened their radio spin-off TV shows), but apparently what swung it was that Hamish & Andy “like that Nine is backing comedy”. And who can blame them? 2011 looks like being one hell of a year of comedy on Nine – Ben Elton’s chat show Live From Planet Earth starts next week, and later in the year there’ll be a new series of The Games from John Clarke, and Tony Martin and Ed Kavalee in the Zapruder’s Other Films-produced The Joy of Sets – who’d have guessed that just a few months ago?
Before the announcement that Hamish & Andy were coming on board you could have written these signings off as a struggling network finally catching-up with the late 80s/early 90s comedy boom (Seven, Ten and the ABC all did well out of the comedy boom – Nine made All Together Now and The Bob Morrison Show…instead of shows with John Clarke and The D-Generation, although to be fair to them Ben Elton turned-up on Ray Martin’s shows a fair bit), but now Nine’s interest in comedy is looking serious. Any network would have fallen over itself to get Hamish & Andy, and yet Nine, with several decades of comedy failures hanging around its neck, took the prize.
For Nine getting Hamish & Andy is great business because it completes a group of comedy signings that spans the key demographics – from the intelligent end of the Boomers and Gen X (The Games), through to Gen’s Y and Z (Hamish & Andy) – making their claim to be “The Home of Laughs” look pretty accurate. And for comedy fans it should hopefully be good too.
John Clarke, Tony Martin & Ed Kavalee, Ben Elton and Hamish & Andy are all solid, experienced, funny comedians. While some of them seem a little too “ABC” for Nine, they’ll hopefully get a chance to prove themselves. The days when Nine would axe new comedies after a few episodes (Rove, The Mick Molloy Show, Micallef Tonight) seem to be behind us. Mick Molloy’s The Nation struggled through its run in 2007, but made it to the end, as did Hey Hey It’s Saturday last year. Neither got renewed, but they were given a chance. Also, they genuinely deserved to be axed.
The worst network for comedy is now Seven (The White Room, The Bounce, Australia Versus), while a “source” close to Hamish & Andy is telling the world that Nine will give them “complete creative control”. And while there’s no doubt a certain element of bullshit to that quote, the solid facts of this story – that Nine has signed a large number of quality comedians in a short space of time, and is going to town to promote them – show us that they’re taking this comedy thing pretty seriously. So let’s be optimistic: it’ll be great!
2010 Awards Winners Announced!
The winners of the Australian Tumbleweeds 2010 have been announced. See who won at http://www.australiantumbleweeds.com/2010/.
If you’re of the Twitter persuasion, tweet your views on the results using the hashtag #tumblies.
Otherwise, just leave a comment here. We’ll approve it eventually. Unless you’re a spambot.
A message from Julian Assange
The official hashtag for the Australian Tumbleweeds is #tumblies. We don’t actually expect you to bother, though.
Power Without Glory 2: Check Out My Sweet Tatts!
The Tumbleweed awards might be right around the corner (we’re still aiming to have the results up Jan 26th, but don’t be worried if they’re a little late: 2010 was a big year in comedy and Hey Hey-hating, and it’s taking us longer than expected to tidy up the mess), but don’t think we’ve taken our eyes off the future of Australian comedy here at Tumbelweeds central – and, according to the Life magazine found in this Sunday’s Age and Sydney Morning Herald, the future of Australian comedy (until mid-March at least) is Marieke Hardy and her new dramedy Laid.
If you’ve ever wondered why we bother writing a blog like this, this three page cover story on Hardy and her work pretty much ticks all the boxes. And not just because for a mere two pages of text we get four photos of Hardy looking “sexy” (the cover, contents page, two page spread at the article’s start, one more pic on the second page – oh, forgot the Age’s cover where we learn Hardy’s “passion is drunk men”). Wow, if they’re focusing that much on her looks, her writing must be awesome!
For those not in the know, the premise of Laid is that a 20-something gal discovers that all the men she’s slept with are now mysteriously dying off. Let’s quote the article itself: it’s “a six part TV series whose central character, 29 year-old market researcher Roo McVie, might be somewhat unremarkable if she didn’t apparently have the power to inadvertently kill men by sleeping with them”. This premise, according to article author Alyssa McDonald, is “intrinsically funny”.
No it’s not.
Let’s go over that premise one more time: a young woman learns that all the men she’s ever slept with are dying off one by one. Maybe if you’re an emotionless psychopath this is hilarious. Perhaps if you’re a sex-hating ball-buster that set-up might bring the kaks. Could be the idea of sending a young woman into a spiral of self-doubt and loathing over the murderous intentions of her genitals makes you split your sides. But in the real world pretty much everyone actually feels at the very least a slight twinge of sadness and loss over the demise of a former lover; having this happen over and over and over again to someone is intrinsically shattering – the comedy is something you’re going to have to work at.
Yeah yeah, we know about “dark comedy”. We’re also fully aware that in the hands of a skilled practitioner just about anything can be spun into comedy gold. Which is where this article’s real problems begin. See, by assuming that Hardy and her once-mentioned writing partner Kate “Fisho” (that’s not us – the article actually calls her that) Fisher have come up with an “intrinsically hilarious” concept, McDonald feels no need or desire to actually explain to the reader why Hardy is a name they can trust in comedy. As pointed out above though, this concept is actually not spun comedy gold. In fact, it’s kind of a tricky one to make work (for one, what can Roo do about it? It’s not an idea that lends itself to action unless her ex’s are being killed by someone, and then it’s just a shit episode of Murder She Wrote). So where are the reassurances that Hardy is a writer of sufficient talent to bring it off?
Well, we’re told that Hardy “has worked, on and off, as a TV scriptwriter” since her teens. Oddly for an article about a television writer, no actual TV shows she’s worked on are listed (don’t worry, there’s two fat paragraphs about her quirky character-defining adoration for Bob Ellis), so let’s fill in that gap: Packed to the Rafters, anyone? Got yourself some cutting-edge comedy there. She did also quit her job writing for The Age –
[what’s that? You didn’t know she was a former Age TV columnist, because this article in The Age about how awesome this former Age writer is doesn’t mention that she worked for The Age’s Green Guide for years? How odd that they didn’t mention that in The Age…]
-to go work on the second series of :30 Seconds, only that never actually happened. And let’s not forget her real main achievement in Australian television: Last Man Standing, a justly forgotten Secret Life of Us knock-off for Seven notable largely for not being very notable at all. Though that episode that had the same plot as that episode of Andy Richter Controls the Universe where Andy dated a hot racist was pretty funny.
Slightly more interesting than the way this article glosses over her somewhat chequered TV writing career is the way that her teenage scriptwriting career is in no way linked to the revelation (carefully distanced over on the next page) that both her parents are writers and television producers. Ah. Okay.
So what this article really should have been about is how a skilled self-promoter (sexy photos? Don’t see Judith Lucy posing for a lot of those) and general media dogsbody (12 years on radio, you say? Columnist for the Age and ABC? Panellist on the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club too?) overcame a limited resume, no actual comedy experience (she’s not a stand-up and she hasn’t worked on any of Australia’s purpose-built comedy shows) and a high-profile flop to get a six-part comedy series on the ABC.
That’s not even a negative story: surely overcoming the fizzle of Last Man Standing is a triumph? Especially when it involves working your way up through the ranks again on commercial television and making loads of important contacts all over the ABC (did we mention her big paid radio gig was on ABC youth station Triple J? No? Oddly, neither did this article).
Problem there is, then you might get the idea that Ms Hardy is someone who actually works for a living, getting ahead in the Australian media the way lots of people do: through contacts and networking. She worked for The Age: now she’s getting a profile in The Age. She worked for the ABC on radio, as a TV panelist and an internet columnist: now she’s got her own show on the ABC. Mystery solved.
And it’s hardly like this article paints a picture of her as a big league television talent anyway – as pointed out, it only mentions her previous efforts in the vaguest of terms. Her blog is named; none of the television shows she worked on are. But don’t worry: she’s still a vegan. Like anyone gives a shit.
In a perfect world, there’d only be two reasons for this kind of pointless puff piece: either Hardy is so amazing an individual she’s worth reading about simply because of who she is, or she’s a writer so excellent and exciting we need to know more about the person behind such fascinating work.
In the real world, where quirky hipster chicks aren’t exactly thin on the ground, skilled soapie writers have entire careers without a single name-check in the press and columnists who ignore the “thought” side of “thought-provoking” clog the internet, the only reason to read this article is to see how utterly irrelevant hard work and talent are when it comes to getting media attention in this country.
In Laid’s case, whether they’re equally as irrelevant when it comes to making television comedy remains to be seen.
Yet Another Thing to Thank Tony Martin For
Remember the “good old days” of Australian comedy DVD releases, where extra features were a joke instead of actually containing more jokes? But as everyone who scored a copy of series 3 of The Librarians for Christmas now knows, All That’s Changed: not only does this particular slice of Aussie comedy hilarity contain a descent chunk of extra features (inc all of the Sir Robert Franklin clips and a couple of table reads, which is really going above and beyond the call of duty), but there’s also an easily found and highly enjoyable selection of Easter Eggs as well. Hurrah! Especially as one of those EEs consists of Tony Martin singing “US Forces” in the style of the Federal Environment Minister.
The reason why Tony Martin’s getting all the thanks here – it’s a Gristmill production, after all – is down to a): his near-constant presence in those extras, and b): a scene where Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope basically say “is that going to be enough extras to keep Tony happy?” Yes, it seems that Tony’s love of DVD extras isn’t just part of his comedy persona, it’s reached out into the real world – and we’re all the better for it.
Of course, some may point to the amazing amount of extras available on Chris Lilley’s DVDs. And sure, hour upon hour of deleted scenes seems pretty impressive there. But let’s be honest: you’re not getting Lilley doing commentary on any of his shows, are you? All you’re getting are the plentiful offcuts from a filming process that generates deleted scenes at the same rate as a ACA “special report” on youth crime churns out cliches.
No, it’s Mr Martin who we (mostly) have to thank for the current golden age of DVD extras… or we do until we realise The Chaser aren’t too shabby with the DVD extras either. Ditto John Safran. And those Micallef P(r )ogram(me) DVDs… ah heck, just forget we said anything…
(The Librarians s3 DVD does have some excellent extras though)
Don’t forget to cast your vote in the Australian Tumbleweeds 2010. You have until 31st December 2010 to register your votes and snarky comments at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/tumbliesvotes.
Stop It, He’s Already Dead
While there hasn’t yet been an official announcement – and who knows, the way things work these days there may never be one – it seems increasingly likely that we have, finally, seen the last of Hey Hey it’s Saturday. It’s a result that should surprise no-one capable of rational thought: for all the cheering from the peanut gallery when Hey Hey moved to a Saturday timeslot after frankly disastrous ratings on a Wednesday night, a Saturday timeslot didn’t make it any cheaper to make and made it a lot harder to attract enough viewers to make it worthwhile. After all, viewers on a Saturday don’t count double ratings-wise.
For some reason, many Hey Hey fans couldn’t figure this out. Seemingly driven entirely by nostalgia cut free from any real-world constraints, they asserted that once Hey Hey was back on Saturday nights its long-lost audience would somehow rise from the dead to watch it in droves before heading out for a big night at The Chevron or The Metro (feel free to add further early 90s nightclubs as appropriate). They were wrong. Very, very wrong. So wrong in fact that anyone who joined the “bring back Hey Hey” Facebook page should be banned from any job requiring decision-making skills for the rest of their now-meaningless lives.
But it’s not entirely their fault. Strong ratings for the first few episodes of Hey Hey this year suggest that people actually do want to see live entertainment and comedy on in prime time – they just didn’t want to see the same old crap Daryl Somers has been serving up since 1992. The success of the 2009 reunion specials was so obviously down to nostalgia even mainstream TV writers picked up on it: why Nine let Daryl return with 20 episodes virtually unchanged from the show that was axed due to low ratings a decade earlier would be a mystery if not for the fact that the networks are always pulling bonehead moves like that.
As for Daryl… who gives a shit? He’s already proved he doesn’t give a shit about his viewers, constantly talking about the ways he was going to make Hey Hey into a new and more attractive show before he got on air, then claiming the fans would riot if he made a single change once he was back. Yep, Celebrity Head was that big a cultural icon. Well, in one particular “celebrity” head at least.
If you’re an Hey Hey fan, ask yourself this: by bringing back basically the same show that had been axed, what did Daryl think had changed since 1999? By the mid-1990s Hey Hey’s best years were obviously behind it, the hilarious segments and quirky sketches and a general feeling that anything could happen replaced by drawn out banter that went nowhere, Daryl convulsing with laughter at jokes no-one else found all that funny, and a man in a duck suit running around in circles for minutes on end before dry humping some stage equipment. Yep, a million people every week were going to turn their backs on downloading the latest overseas comedy and YouTube clips of wacky pranks to check that shit out in 2010.
Let’s be blunt: from day one it was obvious that Daryl felt his show was stolen from him in its 27-year-prime when it was axed the first time and by putting to air the exact same show (ok, he tinkered around the edges) in 2010 he hoped to prove these nameless executives wrong once and for all. Well, he sure showed them. Bet they’re still smarting from that one. Ouch.
So Hey Hey’s done: why dredge up the past? Well, for one thing because the past just might be repeating itself. When Hey Hey was grinding to a halt the first time, Nine – wanting to keep the variety show crown that Hey Hey had helped them hang onto for decades – commissioned a bunch of new shows hosted by promising talent. For a brief moment, it looked like Nine seriously wanted to get into the comedy business, with shows from the then-unknown but promising Rove McManus and the critically successful Mick Molloy and Shaun Micallef. Hurrah!
And then it all went wrong. Rove and Micallef’s shows lasted one series; Molloy’s show was axed after eight episodes. After that Nine gave up on comedy for the most part, handing the variety crown to the various Footy Shows. It’s not that hard to see why either: Nine’s “corporate culture” (for want of a better word) likes its comedy and variety broad, blokey, and obvious – Sam Newman in a dress / Warnie talking to his mates stuff. Hey Hey delivered that by the bucketload: whatever their flaws, Rove, Micallef and Molloy aren’t the types to let a blackface act on their shows.
So around the turn of the century you had a situation where the network was still comfortable with the Hey Hey style but the viewers increasingly weren’t there. The network’s replacements were all shows they didn’t really like, and when the ratings weren’t massive out the gate they each got the axe. Ten years later, and what has Nine lined up for 2011 light entertainment-wise? Ben Elton’s got a talk show, John Clarke’s doing a new series of The Games, and Tony Martin and Ed Kavalee are doing a show making fun of television called (currently) The Joy of Sets. See where this is heading? Anyone think any of those shows will get the 20 episode commitment Hey Hey got?
We’ve said numerous times on this blog that the reason why we hate on the bad as well as praise the good is because Australian television comedy is a zero-sum game. There are only so many timeslots to go around, and every time a bad show gets one a good one is pushed out of the way. So while some might say 2011 looks like a great year for local comedy thanks to Nine’s promising line-up, it’s just as important to realise that 2010 was a shit year because the resources that might have gone into three promising shows instead went into a pointless revival of a proven turd.
Idiots often say “if you don’t like it, don’t watch it”; we say “what are we supposed to watch instead?” Having Hey Hey it’s Saturday back in 2010 meant that we couldn’t watch a bunch of new or different shows we really might have liked, because its return meant they did not exist. Make no mistake, we’re celebrating its demise now. But those suckholes in the media that talked it up beyond any reasonable level and those chumps on the internet who demanded its return shouldn’t get away scott free. A “we were wrong” note in the local paper would be a good place to start.
Don’t forget to cast your vote in the Australian Tumbleweeds 2010. You have until 31st December 2010 to register your votes and snarky comments at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/tumbliesvotes.
A flannelled panel and a premier premiere
This time of year usually signals the start of a two month-long drought of repeats and programmes too bad to be broadcast during the ratings season. But in a surprise move both ABC1 and The Comedy Channel have launched new panel shows in the past week.
You can see the thinking behind it. 2010 has seen a number of panel shows premiere to great hype and then be swiftly axed. In the relatively low pressure environment of the summer, new shows should have an easier run.
Not that they necessarily need the help. ABC1’s offering, The Trophy Room, is basically a sports version of Spicks & Specks. Sport’s something a lot of people like, Spicks & Specks is something a lot of people like – how could it fail to run for years?
Like Spicks & Specks, The Trophy Room seems to have been designed with a variety of audiences in mind. The very knowledgeable and the almost novice can all find questions to answer in the quiz rounds, and if you didn’t enjoy that don’t worry, there’ll be a wacky party game along any second now.
Apart from that, the team captains are inoffensive, host Peter Helliar manages to get some laughs, guest panellist and very good friend of the Tumblies Sam Simmons was quite entertaining, and there are some nice little sporting touches like oranges being brought out at half time and spoof post-match interviews with the panellists running during the credits.
The problem with The Trophy Room is it’s just not that exciting. Like Spicks & Specks it’s destined to be the sort of show you don’t dislike, but don’t watch religiously. Or at all, unless someone you really like’s on.
A better watch, if laughs are your priority, is The Comedy Channel’s Statesmen of Comedy. Hosted by Trevor Marmalade this is a very light-touch panel show which is more about the chat than the games. Three comedians talk about various topics for most of the show and there’s a quick quiz at the end where the winner gets a slab.
What made the the first episode work was the chemistry. Host Trevor Marmalade and guests Shane Bourne, Jane Kennedy and Tim Smith all know and like each other, meaning the chat and the laughs flowed easily. This is quite a feat for a brand new show, as well as a useful reminder of the importance of good casting.
You can’t just stick a bunch of different people behind a desk and expect the good times to roll. Great comedy’s about timing and chemistry, and generally involves a small group of people who understand each other, working together to get laughs.
According to TV Tonight upcoming episodes of Statesmen of Comedy will feature Glenn Robbins, Jason Stephens & Greg Fleet, and Peter Rowsthorn, Rachel Berger & Anthony Morgan. They sure sound like good trios – could this be the surprise comedy hit of summer?
Don’t forget to cast your vote in the Australian Tumbleweeds 2010. You have until 31st December 2010 to register your votes and snarky comments at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/tumbliesvotes.
Voting starts now!
The nominations have been counted, the donkey votes weeded-out and the attempts at vote-rigging discarded (we’re naming no names, but let’s just say the attempts to skew the results in a particular way were screamingly obvious…partly because they were completely out of step with how most people were nominating).
That aside, we now move on to voting. Head to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/tumbliesvotes to make your choices.
As usual we’re inviting you to comment on your choice in each category. The best comments will appear in our glittering awards ceremony to take place on or about Australia Day.
Voting closes on 31st December 2010. One vote each, please. Votes from obvious fraudsters will be discarded.
With voting now under way we will resume blogging, although only about shows and people not up for an award. Look out for our incisive views on The Chaser’s 2010 Annual Eat, Pray, Vomit very soon. In fact here they are…
Meh.
And don’t forget to fan us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. You can tweet your whatever about Tumblies 2010 using the hashtag #tumblies, and follow the lucky nominees on our almost pointless Twitter list.