Australian Tumbleweeds

Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.

Game before laugh

Panel games in this country are generally slanted more towards the game than the panel. Giving funny answers to questions isn’t exactly frowned upon, but it’s not the point of the show either – the point is the game.

Shaun Micallef’s involvement in Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation is along similar lines. He’s brought a lot to the show – making it funny and strange enough to delight his base of hardcore comedy fans, whilst not alienating the mainstream, all-ages audience. Ultimately TBYG is just a slightly wacky game show – Celebrity Sale of the Century meets It’s A Knockout – that’s been topped with a little Micallef sauce. You could probably get someone bland in to host it straight and it would still rate just as well.

The big push for the new series of TBYG has been all about the more spectacular End Games, with last night’s show concluding with a race through a maze. It was kinda fun – kids in particular probably loved it – but it was pretty laugh free. At least in It’s A Knockout you were guaranteed a pratfall or two. The punchline to this was that Josh Thomas and Ricki-Lee Coulter were too thick to get through the maze properly. And after two series of this show we probably could have guessed that.

It’s kinda like when Thank God You’re Here got a bigger budget and started putting contestants in helicopters. It’s not betraying the show’s original conceit (because presumably they’d have done this from the start if they’d had the cash) and it’s not making the show better or worse comedically, it’s just being honest about what it really is – light entertainment.

Press Release Me, Let Me Go(!)

Hey look! It’s a press release!

WTF!

KEEPING YOU ‘A BREAST’ OF WORLD EVENTS

Coming Soon to GO!

Do you only have two minutes a day to catch up on the who, why, when, where and what the F of the world’s news? Who would you turn to?

Well if you like your news to taste like bubble gum then GO!’s new and outlandish news service WTF! from the original Chaser’s Charles Firth is the one for you.

Writer/performer Nich Richardson anchors a satirical, pop-culture news show unlike anything seen on Australian television. Joined by a team of good-looking, trusted reporters, Richardson and these freshfaced comedians will bring you celebrity scoops before anyone else even realises it’s news.

Each fast-paced daily WTF! bulletin will feature sight gags such as “live crosses” and pre-recorded reports about the world of modern celebrity while sending up the serious entertainment shows that feed on it.

“Digital television has opened up so many new production options and we felt GO! was the perfect home for our offbeat kind of television,” Charles Firth, WTF! creator and executive producer, said.

“We created WTF! as an opportunity to bring new, young performers to television in our peculiar version of celebrity news.”

Les Sampson, Director of Acquisitions and HD Channel, said: “GO! is excited to welcome Charles and his team to the network. Their Chaser style of humour and unique take on world events will be right at home on our highly successful GO! channel.”

WTF! is currently in production and will screen on GO! later this year.

For those of you a little puzzled as to who’s doing what to where now – Firth’s the big name involved, but some guy named Nich Richardson is the host, it seems – a quick visit here might shed a little light. Specifically, this page here.

Track record aside, this could obviously go either way. There’s nothing wrong with making fun of celebrities comedy-wise, even if it is pretty much the easiest thing in the world to do and all the decent gags are up on Twitter two minutes after anyone even slightly famous does anything even slightly interesting. Not to mention the women’s mags and current affairs show are already so surreal and hilarious any dedicated “comedy” program has their work cut out for them just keeping up.

But Firth was pretty much the stand-out back when he worked with The Chaser, and while his solo career hasn’t exactly taken off – copies of his book American Hoax can be found at the discount chain Book Warehouses across Victoria at least – his various solo projects have at least shown signs of intelligent life. Something that couldn’t really be said for The Chaser’s new election-themed effort Yes We Canberra!.

[To be fair, the ABC seem to have pegged The Chaser as a loveable lowbrow bunch of knockabout comedy blokes (a la The Late Show back in the early 1990s) who can get away with rough-around-the-edges material through sheer charm, not realising that as a near-identical team of male upper-middle class types (whatever their actual social status, you’d hardly mistake any of them for Mick Molloy) their charisma en masse is kinda lacking. When they’re left alone to be smart about stuff they care about – a la the radio series The Blow Parade or Chaz’s solo segments on their TV series – they’re more than capable of doing good work. When they’re doing dodgy ad parodies and getting Julie Bishop to outstare a garden gnome… well, at least they’re trying.]

So in this case, WTF! gets a solid “maybe”. If it’s two minutes of rapid-fire material, it could be worth searching out. If it’s one two-minute idea that could be better expressed in 140 characters… well, it’ll be business as usual. And if it ends up being (or even just leading to) a half-hour show – seriously, that press release is way too scanty with the hard facts – it’ll mark a big step forward in the way the commercial networks look at their digital channels. A serious effort at putting local content to air on a second channel? Now that would be worth a press release…

Domestically challenged

Hannah Gadsby is one of the better stand-ups on the Australian scene at the moment, but her recent programme for the ABC’s Artscape strand, Hannah Gadsby Goes Domestic, seemed a bit like a first draft.

The programme was based around the art exhibition In The Kitchen Sink, a group show held recently at MARS in which artists examined the role of domesticity in the suburbs. It’s an interesting topic and ideal fodder for a comedian – Barry Humphries sure got a lot of material out of it – but the programme seemed to focus more on Gadsby’s not-that-interesting interviews with the artists than her take on the topic.

As such, Hannah Gadsby Goes Domestic was an uneven programme which didn’t know whether it was a quirky report for Stateline, a serious arts documentary, or a comedian-presented exploration of a topic.

Hannah Gadsby’s funny, presumably knows a certain amount about art (having led comedy tours of the National Gallery of Victoria), and seems as qualified to talk about the domestic environment as any average Australian, so it’s a shame that her vignettes between the artist interviews felt tacked-on, or like the best bits of a more elaborate series of links or sketches which didn’t quite work out and had to either be heavily edited or dumped.

A better approach to a show starring Hannah Gadsby – one which could work for quite a few stand-ups – would be to semi-dramatise one of her shows, along the lines of the BBC show Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. Or to make a proper, well researched documentary presented by her. This attempt at combing the two was a bit half-baked.

Yet Another Twice-Risen Souffle

If you wanted to make an Australian television drama, or a soap opera, or a current affairs program, or a reality series about car repairs – basically, pretty much anything that isn’t a comedy – you probably wouldn’t go out and make a short film first. Somewhere down the line you’d shoot a pilot or three, but that’d come later: making a short film right at the start as part of your pitch would be kind of pointless because for any kind of on-going program it doesn’t really tell you anything particularly useful. “Ok, that works,” says your producer, “what do you do next episode?”

And yet, while no-one was paying attention, making a short film first has become pretty much the only way to get new scripted comedy up and running in Australia. Beached Az, Wilfred, and now Review with Myles Barlow: all started life as one-offs (though in Review’s case, a series was always the dream).

There’s an obvious upside for the networks: a short film or series of webisodes is a solid way to prove a concept works without sinking big money into production costs. It’s also a good way for newcomers to prove they can actually make something akin to a television show.

But almost by definition, what works as a short film is going to feel a little thin when stretched out over a six- or eight- hour television series. When you get to series two, that ten minute’s worth of concept is going to look seriously frayed at the edges.

Which brings us to Review. The concept is a good one, if slight: Myles Barlow (Phil Lloyd) is a reviewer who reviews the unreviewable – emotions, dangerous situations, life in general. As a running sketch on a show like Full Frontal it’d work fine. Across six half hour episodes though, the first series felt a bit hit and miss (especially as the show tends towards the “dark” side of the comedy street: things rarely work out for Myles). Now there’s a second series, and the concept has well and truly been run into the ground.

As is usually the way, technically the second series is a step up. A bigger budget means overseas locations, a bunch of b-list cameos (often sending themselves up, which is fun) and a generally bigger feel to Barlow’s adventures as he roadtests things like “Imitation”, “Celebrity” and “Cult”. The segments themselves stand up well in comparison to the ones in the first series, with no noticeable drop-off in quality as far as writing or performances go. But it’s the same joke. We get it. We got it the first time.

There’s the occasional moment where the creative team (Lloyd and co-writer / director Trent O’Donnell) try to break out of the format’s confines. There’s a tiny bit more continuity for one thing (though the swapping of episodes three and four suggests viewers shouldn’t look closely for any kind of character arc here). But changing Myles or the format in any major way would ruin the joke, so don’t expect anything surprising or new.

What’s really disappointing is that O’Donnell and Lloyd, much like Wilfred’s Adam Zwar and Jason Gann, clearly are capable of doing something different – something bigger, something more challenging, something funnier – instead of just repeating themselves with a second season of their first effort. Yeah, there’s plenty of reasons why bringing back a name series makes sense. Maybe even the creators themselves felt they had more stuff they wanted to say. But returning to a format that was looking worn the first time around doesn’t make good television, and all their good work here can’t help but fall a little flat.

Australia Versus a Frisbee Made of Vomit

In news that might have stunned the nation if anyone had actually cared, Australia Versus has been pulled. We outlined a bunch of objections to its very existence here, but why not throw a few more into the ring – for one, how did everyone at Seven completely fail to notice that pretty much the only thing that makes 20 to 1 work is the fact that it’s a friggin’ list? On the rare occasions where I’ve been trapped in a 20 to 1 viewing situation, it’s been painfully obvious that the viewing dynamic that prevents people from changing the channel is “gee, I wonder where [my fave example of whatever the hell Bert is going on about tonight] will come? They just mentioned [slightly less impressive example of tonight’s brainwipe subject] – surely it’ll rank higher than that…”

Not that that was Australia Versus‘ only flaw, mind you. For a show that was supposedly a battle between Australia and the UK, the format was more like a shopping list that had gone through the wash, as random examples of… stuff were pulled out of nowhere and compared on the basis that, er, they were being compared with each other. “Which song has the better videoclip: Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ or INXS’s ‘Need You Tonight’?” doesn’t make people go “Oh My Fucking God I have to stay tuned to see who wins this!!”, it makes people go “hey, why don’t they instead compare the clip for Morris Minor and the Major’s ‘Stutter Rap’ with The Meanies cover version of ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top (if you want to rock and roll)’?” because they bear just about as much relationship to each other. And how do you get a “winner” out of this kind of competition anyway? You might as well have host Tim “Rosso” Ross end every competition with “and the winner is… CHEESE!” Or Sydney. Or Satan. Not the home viewers though, don’t make that mistake.

It’s easy to slag this latest FAIL by the brains trust over at Seven – what is it now, five failed “comedy” shows in the last nine months? Yeah, thanks for trying – for being yet another unwrapped chokito bar floating in the swimming pool that is Australian television. The real worry here is that… well, usually this kind of limp “mainstream” time-filler does passably well. Just look at 20 to 1 – like you can avoid it, Nine’s showing it every second Two and a Half Men is taking a teeth whitening break. But Seven in 2010 can’t even get something as mind-numbingly simple as a clip show right, and they’re the only major commercial network with any interest in trying anything new comedy-wise-

[Remember all that talk about Ten giving Shaun Micallef a talk show in the wake of his excellent New Year’s Rave? Well, TAYG‘s back in a fortnight, and he’s hardly going to have two shows on Ten at once… so, is 2011 good for you?]

-which means that while they’re stinking up the place with this record string of duds, they’re doing their level best to educate the Australian viewing public that comedy (or at least, comedy on a commercial network, which has to exist if we’re ever going to have any chance of Chris Lilley moving on from the ABC) is a complete and total waste of their time.

It’s seriously at the stage now where the best possible result for comedy in this country is that Seven stops trying to be funny for the next decade. You can’t even give them an “A”  for effort, because all they’re currently doing is throwing frisbees made out of frozen vomit out into the viewing audience and wondering why no-one wants to catch them.

From podcast to broadcast

Unless you’re a bunch of mates having a laugh or foolish enough to think there’s serious money to be made from the world of podcasting (and maybe there will be in the future, but this seems unlikely for at least another decade), you’re probably making podcasts strategically. I.e. you’re “talent” trying to get a paid gig by proving your worth through a podcast, or you’re a broadcaster trying to build an audience for a team or concept through a podcast. The latter strategy appears to have paid off for the ABC with the podcast Is It Just Me?

Is It Just Me? (which I reviewed in March as part of this blog’s first look at online comedy) was made by ABC Local in 2008-2009 and featured Wendy Harmer and Angela Catterns having a bit of a light-hearted natter about life. The show was aimed squarely at middle-aged women, an audience largely uncatered for by online media, and seems to have achieved a certain popularity. Now Harmer and Catterns are back with It’s News To Me, a similar but more news-focused show, broadcast on ABC NewsRadio every Friday from 6pm and also available as a podcast.

ABC NewsRadio has a demographic which I’m guessing has historically been middle-aged and male but, with Q&A attracting a larger, wider and younger audience than the ABC’s traditional news and current affairs coverage, you can see why trying something a bit different looks like a good idea. There’s also the wider global trend of younger people rejecting traditional news sources for comedic alternatives, and broadcasters trying to respond to that.

But will bringing two middle-aged, semi-amusing woman who’ve done quite well with a podcast aimed at middle-aged women work well in the hard news environment of NewsRadio? Maybe. There’s a long tradition in news and current affairs of the “Friday Night Funny Man” (although I’m struggling to think of any Friday Night Funny Women), and ABC Sydney’s Friday evening panel show Thank God It’s Friday has been on air for almost five years – so clearly it’s doing something right.

Except Thank God It’s Friday (on which Harmer turns up every so often) suggests that if your brief is to be funny about current affairs on early evening ABC radio, it’s best to pitch things light, bland and only nominally satirical. It’s News To Me does all of those things – meaning that it’s not particularly funny and largely a waste of your time.

A better bet for vaguely current affairs chat, but with much more of a pop culture and personal anecdotes focus, is The Sweetest Plum podcast with Declan Fay and Nick Maxwell. You may remember Fay from Triple R’s The Pinch, but he and Maxwell are probably best known for writing the Kevin Rudd PM sketches for Rove Live. Fay contacted us recently about The Sweetest Plum and invited us to have a listen. So I did.

After a bit of a shakey start with episode 1 (in which whoever did the edit figured it would be best to cut most of the anecdote build-ups and just leave in the punchlines – it wasn’t, it was just confusing) this podcast is getting into a more relaxed stride. It’s not amazingly funny, but it’s funnier than a lot of chat-based podcasts out there. There’s also the odd sketch (a real rarity in the world of comedy podcasts, sadly), one of which is a special appearance from Kevin Rudd PM, in which he responds to the Leadership Spill.

While The Sweetest Plum is far from perfect, Fay and Maxwell show some promise. The sort of promise that could get them a radio gig – which I imagine is what they’re hoping for. Better people with promise than some of the others out there.

The Resistable Rise of Hamish & Andy

Over the last few weeks word has been filtering back from the UK division of 21st Century Daryl Worldwide about the massive – well, noticeable at least – impact Hamish & Andy’s recent visit has had over there. Supposedly they made a surprisingly good impression on The Graham Norton Show (shown recently on the ABC… not that they bothered to publicise H&A’s appearance), making the usual guff reported back here about them sounding out UK work seem slightly more plausible than usual.

[That’s not to say the rumours that they’re headed overseas are on-the-money, of course. Every single time Rove McManus opened a magazine containing a picture of an aircraft the media started talking up the massive career that awaited him the second he decided to fly to the US, and yet now that Rove has finally decided to take a chance in the big leagues all he seems to be getting over there are tiny guest roles and doomed pilots.]

The real issue here is, if you were Hamish and / or Andy, why the Hell wouldn’t you be looking overseas for the next step up? They’ve dominated the radio ratings here for years, and continue to do so in such a convincing manner (yes, that is 20% of Melbourne radios tuned into H&A) that there’s no competition left – in fact, all their competitors are putting to air remarkably similar teams. Remember just a few years back when guy/guy radio teams would have a woman shoe-horned in to provide some balance / dead air? Triple J’s Jay & The Doctor gained Myf Warhurst, Nova’s Merrick & Rosso were teamed with a series of soapie actresses… bad luck ladies, looks like that door’s closed shut once again.

Not only have H&A put their stamp on Australian radio so firmly that it’ll take, oh… at least six months from the point of their departure for every station to revert back to a drive time schedule based on bloky DJs playing 45 minutes of non-stop cock rock every hour, they’ve also ruled the school with their television specials. Okay, it’s not like they’re pulling in those figures every week, but it’s fair to assume that if they did turn their hand to television – as many expect them to – they’d be a powerhouse it’d be hard to defeat. And yet…

Let’s step back in time a decade or so to a radio duo known as Martin / Molloy. The Hamish & Andy of their day (only slightly less good looking and slightly more interested in making actual comedy sketches), Mick Molloy and Tony Martin helmed a drive-time radio ratings juggernaut that dominated the airwaves nationwide. When they went off-air at the end of 1998 it was a): their own decision, and b): generally seen an opportunity to take their skills to the next level. After all, they’d totally dominated Australian radio for close to four years; what couldn’t they do next?

Put together a successful television show, for one thing. Actually, that’s not fair: 1999’s The Mick Molloy Show had a very sloppy start but pulled itself together quickly, though even that wasn’t enough to save it from a tabloid hate campaign of rarely seen vitriol. Still, both Rove McManus and Shaun Micallef – hardly slouches when it comes to the Australian television scene – had their (far better received) shows on Nine axed from under them at around the same time, so there’s a good chance Mick’s show would have got the chop no matter how smooth its run.

After that Tony Martin made a movie that didn’t do well at the box office (Bad Eggs) , Mick Molloy made a movie that did do well (Crackerjack) so he got to make another one that didn’t (Boytown), they both returned to radio (separately) where they either fizzled out (Mick) or got the chop (Tony), and these days they’re either making appearances on sports-themed panel shows (Mick) or directing other people’s television shows (Tony). Hardly career trainwrecks there, but they never quite managed to hit it as big elsewhere as they did on radio – which is the lesson you’d have to assume Hamish & Andy would be taking away from the whole thing.

Even if H&A did decide to make the move to television in Australia, what kind of show would they be allowed to do? Television’s once-seemingly endless battle between format and personalities has been firmly won in recent years by formats: you don’t make a show about a chef (Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares) anymore, you make a show about cooking (Master Chef). And on the commercial networks at least, comedy formats are as appetising as used food: remember The White Room, The Bounce and Australia Versus? Neither do we, and the last one’s still going… just.

Making the leap to television has always been tricky for radio personalities, but the gap between the two in this country has never been bigger. Radio is largely personality-driven, while unless you’re Bert Newton “television personality” is about as thriving a career as “professional dragonslayer”. It’s the shows that make the stars in Australia, not the other way around, and even massive media personalities are lucky to get to rub shoulders with music industry nobodies as judges on talent shows in 2010. In that kind of environment, scoping out overseas opportunities is the smart thing for Hamish & Andy to do.

For the rest of us… well, having the biggest comedy team in the country basically say “there’s nothing for us here” and pull up stumps would be a huge wake-up call to the fact that something is severely wrong with comedy in this country. If you can call getting belted in the face with a shovel a “wake-up call”. Then again, considering the “intelligence” Australian commercial television brings to making comedy, a belt in the face with a shovel would most likely make no difference whatsoever…

Start Digging Some Nerd Holes

Hey Hey it’s Saturday isn’t dead yet, but it’s sure coughing up blood (from The Age)

Having already come back from the dead once, Hey Hey It’s Saturday will go into suspended animation in a fortnight fervently hoping that no one accidentally flicks the switch while it’s off air.

Nine today confirmed that the July 21 episode of the variety show hosted by Daryl Somers will be the last for the first half of the year. Kylie Minogue will be the special musical guest on that episode, and is slated to perform a couple of songs with the full array of costumes and back-up dancers.

In the understatement of the year, we then get this:

The news is not unexpected.

As we’ve been banging on about for weeks, Hey Hey‘s ratings are in a death dive. And watching tonight’s episode, it’s clear that Daryl continues to refuse to make even the smallest changes to his proven dud formula. Which is pretty bizarre, because – unlike just about every other comedy show in this country, which gets chopped off at the knees the second there’s a dud week in the ratings without being given even the slightest warning or time to change course – Hey Hey could easily make quite substantial changes if it wanted to stay on air. It’s a live show done on a weekly basis after all, not a pre-recorded series with a load of episodes already in the tank: once the ratings started to slip, they could change pretty much everything if they wanted to try and lure people back.

But they haven’t changed a thing. It’s exactly the same show with exactly the same guests every single week, even as the ratings fall through the floor. Rumour has it that, inbetween last year’s specials and now, at least some of Hey Hey‘s production staff moved on and the ones there now simply aren’t able to stand up to Daryl. As as I’ve said here before, Daryl has Hey Hey just the way he likes it and he doesn’t give a shit what anyone else thinks. Remember all those promises Daryl made about “If we do come back there’ll be new people, new media, new segments but with the same Hey Hey flavour” and “It’s one of those shows that is always changing and morphing into something else.” 10 episodes in and BULLSHIT. BULL-FUCKING-FLAMING-SQUIRRELS-SHIT.

Show me the new segments – not moments, not jokes, not retreads of old ideas: NEW SEGEMENTS. Show me the new regular, high-profile, allowed to say two sentences in a row castmembers. Show me one single moment that doesn’t seem to be exhumed from the glory days of 1996. I’ll be out the back starting up the hearse.

Hey Hey‘s been frozen in ice like a Captain America made entirely out of turds since the early 90s, and defrosting it in 2009 only proved that some smells don’t fade with time. Why won’t they make changes to keep it on air if that’s what they want? Why doesn’t someone tell Daryl that his holding the hand of the Chooklotto girl is the most amazingly creepy thing shown on Australian television this year – yes, even worse than all those smug sweaty fat tools on The Gruen Transfer? Why doesn’t someone just say STOP instead of giving us vague “it’ll be back after the Commonwealth Games” lines? This is car crash television at its finest: Nine really should hire the voice-over guy from NZ TV’s classic Police Ten-Seven to voice the promos.

Abuse News You Can Use

… or alternatively “Actor Best Known for Substance-Affected Violent Bogan Character May Be Substance-Affected Violent Bogan Character” (from The Age):

AUSTRALIA’S latest Hollywood hopeful, comedian Jason Gann, might be flying high in Los Angeles, but he’s facing trouble at home after revelations he drunkenly punched a shuttle bus driver on Derby Day in 2007.

Gann, in case you somehow missed his meteoric rise to “oh, that guy” status, is the one inside the dog suit on Wilfred. And he seems to have some form in playing an aggressive dick off camera as well as on:

The Sunday Age understands he also pleaded guilty to assault in a criminal case in 2008, but was not convicted.

Normally this kind of news would result in a rush to re-watch the actor’s comedy series in the hope that this real-life controversy would add both depth and humor to their on-screen work (a la Hey, Dad..!). But here… what’s the point? Gann may have been just playing, if not himself, than a fairly close version thereof as the annoying thug Wilfred.

Co-star Zwar, on the other hand, gets bonus points for his role: putting up with someone who may have been like Wilfred off-camera as well as on deserves some kind of TV Week-endorsed award.

*

Meanwhile, Hey Hey keeps on sliding in the ratings (from The Herald-Sun):

HEY Hey It’s Saturday is under renewed pressure after it posted dismal ratings figures on Wednesday night.

Hey Hey averaged 801,000 viewers nationally – just over half the figure it rated for its 2010 return and a mere third of the audience who watched last year’s reunion specials.

Hey Hey was smashed by MasterChef (2.012 million viewers). It was also soundly beaten by Highway Patrol (1.211 million), Police Under Fire (1.134 million), Spicks and Specks (1.318 million) and Lie to Me (1.11 million).

All together now: AWWWWWW. Sure, we’re rubbing it in here; it’s no secret that we all loathe Hey Hey here at Tumbleweeds central. But it’s just as important to highlight the show’s falling ratings as a counter to all that glowing press it got in the lead-up to its revival.

For weeks – months – there was a barrage of reports in the Australian media on how a): great it was that Hey Hey was coming back, b): how amazing it was that so many people loved the return of prime-time variety, c): what a great host and entertainer Daryl Somers clearly was / is, and d): how the nation was obviously clamouring for the return of good old-fashioned family television in a prime-time slot.

Well guess what? WRONG. So wrong a daily “we we wrong” apology wouldn’t start to scratch the surface. To The Herald-Sun‘s credit, while they were the first to jump on the Hey Hey revival bandwagon, they’ve also been the first to leap off:

Nine executives are said to be discussing the show’s future.

“I’d take it off air immediately and put something else on next week,” media analyst Steve Allen said.

The ratings slide has been particularly steep in recent weeks – from 1.101 million to 1.003 million to 995,000 to 908,000 to 801,000.

At the moment Nine is hanging tough – hoping the July 21 show featuring Kylie Minogue will give the show a ratings boost.

“Would they be happy with the figures – no,” a Nine spokesman said.

“There is not a lot of options (to move it to another time slot or night).”

“If it doesn’t hit a million, it is a big problem,” a Nine insider said.

It is believed Nine originally wanted to run a small number of Hey Hey It’s Saturday specials this year. Somers persuaded them to blow that out to 20 episodes.

“We’ve always said that Hey Hey doesn’t have 20 episodes in it,” Allen said.

“It’s a joke that can’t go 20 times. It was loopy to run it continuously.”

Allen said that going up against the MasterChef juggernaut has hurt Hey Hey but a bigger problem was that the show lacked new segments.

“It’s not fresh, they haven’t renovated the format, it’s not compelling viewing,” he said.

“People have abandoned a tired format that doesn’t have legs.”

All of which was pretty much obvious the second Daryl opened his mouth. There’s never been even the slightest suggestion that Daryl had anything new or different in mind for the return of Hey Hey, because even before the show was taken off the air Daryl was blaming everyone else but himself for the show’s falling ratings. In his mind, Hey Hey was perfect just the way it was, and only the evil execs who yanked it off the air prevented it from running unchanged forever. Guess what? Turns out that Daryl was wrong, audiences were over Hey Hey the first time, and by pushing his luck too far Daryl has basically thrown his television career off a cliff.

I can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. For all his “man of the people” act, the whole “return of Hey Hey” has been little more than an ego tussle between Daryl and Television itself: Daryl felt he got the shitty end of the stick when Hey Hey got axed after 28 years (he felt he deserved 30), and wanted to come back simply to prove the execs wrong via a wave of audience adulation (or at least, some Facebook friends and a few positive tweets). He didn’t want to return to make good television or entertain audiences – seriously, if he had he would have made at least some changes to the format wouldn’t he? – he was just a bully with something to prove.

Looks like he succeeded there.

Milsom making a play to be our Tina Fey?

It was inevitable that at least one of this country’s female comedians would attempt a Julia Gillard impersonation sooner or later. Sure, someone from Double Take did it last year, but with Gillard now running the country there’s a gap in the market – an opportunity to fill the shoes of Anthony Ackroyd, whose Kevin Rudd is no longer required. Step forward Veronica Milsom.

Milsom, latterly of Hungry Beast, appears as Prime Minister Gillard in a video uploaded to the YouTube channel of fellow Hungry Beast cast member Nick Hayden yesterday. After just hours online a user called carlitosm posted the comment:

Laaaaame! (voice ok but writing’s crap).

I agree with carlitosm’s assessment. Milsom may have got the look and the voice pretty much right, but her monologue was only superficially parodic, and it seemed more like a check-list of oft-laughed-at Gillard and Labor government cliches than anything else.

If you want satire with depth on this topic, go to Clarke & Dawe. Their take on Gillard’s first week in power, broadcast last night, captures the language, the speech rhythms and the attitude of Gillard perfectly and hilariously. It also gets plenty of mileage out of the factional dealings that got her the top job, which is far more to the point than references to Tim Mathieson’s hair-dressing skills.

To be fair to Veronica Milsom, this is her first stab at impersonating Gillard, and it may well develop over time. But then again, Milsom has a history of appearing in crap series of sketches that are all roughly the same, so development is not something I think we’ll see.

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