Australian Tumbleweeds
Down Down, Deeper & Down (redux)
Considering the track record of the people behind them, it’s safe to say that both Yes We Canberra! and Gruen Nation have proven to be pleasant surprises to us here at Tumbleweed HQ. For the most part they’ve been smart, funny programs that have done almost everything right as far as getting laughs without selling their audience short. Unfortunately, that “almost” is nowhere near good enough, because while they may only have one real flaw, it’s a doozy: they let their targets in on the joke.
It seems a small thing, and at least in the case of Gruen Nation, it’s seemingly easy to justify. If you’re talking about political advertising, who better to discuss it than (ex) politicians and advertising executives? Well sure, that makes sense. Then again, does this mean that if you’re talking about racism you really should staff your show with supporters of the White Australia policy?
There are plenty of experts in both advertising and politics clogging up our universities who could point out the flaws in both: by instead bringing in the people responsible, Gruen might be educating us, but they’re also making sure that nothing they say against advertising has any real bite. I mean, unless you happen to think people who work in advertising are really going to have real, root-and-branch criticisms of the industry that pays their wages and shapes their thinking, or that ex-politicians can say anything bad about the system that never quite carried them to the top without having it dismissed as sour grapes.
Yes We Canberra! is less obvious about it, but that only makes it worse. If The Chaser were doing their jobs properly, no politician would want to go within a hundred miles of their studios – and they wouldn’t let them in even if they did. Because when they have politicians on the show, they’re showing them as being in on the joke. The politicians then are simply making fun of themselves, telling us that “hey, we’re just like you” – and then they go back to telling us how we should live our lives and we’re supposed to go back to letting them.
An oft-repeated story about the old Martin / Molloy radio show says that at one stage, when Tony Martin and Mick Molloy were riding the Liberal party hard over their attempts to de-unionise the docks, they were asked to have prime mover behind the anti-worker push Peter Reith on “for balance”. Supposedly, Mick said fine, but that he’d have only one question for Reith: “why are you such a cunt?”. And he was going to keep asking it until he got an answer.
That’s pretty funny: it’s also the level of respect our politicians all too often deserve. It’s worth noting that Martin / Molloy got a lot of mileage out of the politics of the time (as did Martin’s later radio show Get This) without ever having major politicians from either side on as guests. Why would you? Politicians aren’t exactly short of venues where they can speak to the public; worse, it would blunt the comedy and humanize the butt of the joke.
Make no mistake: no politician can seriously survive sustained ridicule. And sustained ridicule is what most of them deserve. But for every joke The Chaser makes about our crap politicians, there’s usually one about the crap attitudes of the general public not far behind. Yeah, we all know large sections of the Australia public are largely ignorant and openly racist. But when The Chaser are out there doing vox pops getting knee-jerk responses from a manipulated and lied-to general public, then getting Julie Bishop – one of the leaders of a party that’s repeatedly proven itself eager to whip up and manipulate racist feelings through blatant lies (two words: Children Overboard) for cheap political gain – on to outstare a garden gnome and look like a good sort simply for turning up… well, maybe they’ve forgotten who the real bad guys are.
So what, you might say. What’s wrong with giving ad men and politicians a chance to reply to the shows that mock them – it’s only fair? Fuck fair. Advertising has a billion dollar industry backing it up: politicians literally control our daily lives. Why should one of the few ways ordinary, average folks can take back a tiny amount of the control these massively powerful organisations have over our lives – by making fun of them – be handed over to them as well?
Good comedy should resist these forces. It should mock and humiliate them – not invite them in for a cuppa tea. Shit, it’s not like the ABC doesn’t know how it should be done. It’s not like Media Watch gives Andrew Bolt a quarter of every episode to playfully mess around with Jonathan Holmes and prove he’s human too, or has a panel of current newspaper editors on to chuckle and go “yes, under the pressures of deadline, sometimes you do have to steal entire articles from the internet and stick a staff reporters name on it.” It points out and makes fun of the media without giving the media a “fair go”, because the media (like advertising and politicians) is a massively powerful force in our society; Media Watch could run four hours a day every single day of the year and it still wouldn’t begin to balance out.
Whether the real blame lies with the ABC’s slavish devotion to an insane “equal time for every side” idea of balance, or in Gruen and The Chaser’s long-held traditions of allowing themselves to be captured by the people they’re supposed to be mocking, it doesn’t matter. Comedy should be the weapon of the weak against the strong. Without that, all we’re getting from the ABC’s “comedy” election coverage is one massive vote for the status quo.
The least worst we could expect
Week two of Yes We Canberra! was always going to be the real test. The Chaser had got rave reviews and high ratings in week one, so were bound to get a big audience for the second episode…but they’d had less time to write and film, and their stock of pre-written material was dwindling – and in some cases no longer relevant. Not that the latter has ever stopped them.
Their parody of Hawke – the much-hyped telemovie which aired more than two weeks ago – wasn’t exactly topical. Still, at least they told those boat shoe-wearers where to get off – the posh bastards!!!
There were some highlights. Chas Licciardello can always be relied upon to put together a well-researched and funny segment, and his segment with Andrew Hansen, “How To Turn This Boring Shit Into Great TV”, was an amusing and incisive look at how the commercial news media handles politics. But the much-trailed “Negotiate” song (written by Chris Taylor, sung by Hansen) felt like something we’ve seen several times before, even if it was totally new.
The other great problem with Yes We Canberra! is that it’s just a little too cosy, with politicians seemingly queuing up to play parlour games with the team. It’s all a bit of fun, of course – and yes, it can be funny – but is this actually what we want from a satire show? The Chaser should be ripping the hell out of these people, not giving them the chance to show us what jolly good sports they all are.
[Speaking of which, the real story with Chas’ doorstepping of Julia Gillard wasn’t about embarrassing her with his killer line about “cash for clunkers”, but how that young boy interrupted proceedings by asking Chas for his autograph. Remember how The Chaser couldn’t do pranks in this country anymore because too many people recognised them? That, times a million.]
So, any hopes we had that something related to this election would deservedly unite the nation have faded and The Chaser are once more delivering their usual lacklustre effort. It’s probably funnier and more entertaining than Gruen Nation, but it’s hardly what you’d chose if you had a real choice. As a metaphor for the current state of politics, where we’re all basically having to vote for the lesser of two evils, Yes We Canberra! is definitely on the money.
You Gotta Keep ’em Seperated
If you had any doubt at all about what market Ten is going for with their upcoming series Offspring, consider that doubt flushed after the first 90 seconds as our heroine Nina (Asher Keddie, last seen as a topless Blanche in Hawke) a): acts all clumsy in front of a buff and shirtless man, then b): delivers a baby. That’s right guys, out of the pool, tonight is ladies night. Specifically ladies of the “Ally McBeal” variety: ditzy, self-deprecating and yet somehow still lovable and adorable even though out in the real world these are the kind of self-obsessed pains in the arse you’d run a mile from.
Tempting as it might be to only review the first 90 seconds of the latest effort from the producers of The Secret Life of Us – or to instead review the 2009 movie of the same name, which sounds like exactly what Australian television needs going by its imdb synopsis – Offspring does deserve serious consideration by what is supposedly a comedy blog. The sitcom is basically dead and buried in this country, and for good or ill this kind of lightweight series – I’d call it a “dramedy”, but these days that pretty much means a sitcom that just doesn’t have any jokes – is what has taken its place.
That’s not to say this is a laugh-fest or anything. Let’s jump ahead another 90 seconds: There’s been one not-really-at-all-amusing squabble between the baby’s parents, at least two close-ups of the not-really newborn infant, Dr Nina leaning against a wall looking satisfied while a voice-over tells us that the magical power of a newborn can make the world seem new, and another hunky guy shows up – though to be fair, he is the show’s regular hunk (Don Havel). And that’s pretty much the balance for the series set: two or three parts soft focus drama to one part soft focus comedy.
Unfortunately, a lot of the “comedy” here seems to involve gimmicks like cutsey writing on the screen (scribbling mathematical diagrams over babies to show they have the right numbers of fingers), voice-overs like a list-making speech that ends with “make time for fantasy about sexy new doctor” and fantasy sequences where a group of families throw their babies to each other to illustrate the deep idea that perhaps some kids might be better off with different parents. It’s enough to make you long for the return of Scrubs. The crap final season.
Gradually the other pieces of the puzzle fall into place: Nina’s dad (John Walters) turns up outside a house sans pants; her older sister (Kat Stewart, whose work on Newstopia doesn’t even rate a mention in the promo material) is a snappy bitch, her younger brother (Richard Davies) is a liar and flirt, and her ex breaks into her house, steals her favourite chair, and blows it up. Hang on a second – he’s blowing up household furniture? Is this meant to be a quirky look at a single gals complicated life or an episode of The Three Stooges? Unfortunately, the rest of the episode rules out a Stooge-fest: even Dad eventually puts on a pair of pants.
Obviously there are no hard and fast rules about comedy. There is a kind of spectrum when it comes to jokes though, with totally generic gags that work no matter who says them (ie, knock-knock jokes) at one end and completely character-specific material that only gets laughs because of who’s saying it at the other. You can have both in a show, but the further you go towards either end the funnier things usually get: ideally you’d get to a stage where just having a character enter a situation is funny (because we know how they’ll react to what’s happening) while everyone’s random observations and smart-arse lines are hilarious no matter who says them.
Problem here is, this kind of show exists in the wishy-washy middle of things: when Nina makes an offhand comment about eating some kind of muesli bar that tastes like “Horse chaff” we’re expected to laugh (or at least smile) because it’s a funny observation and because she’s the kind of ditzy person that would eat something without knowing what it is. Out in the real world though, it’s barely an observation nor is it specific enough to make her character interesting in any way. She’s busy, you say? Gee, so was Stalin.
At least one way to make this moment funny isn’t exactly difficult to spot: have her eating something crazily inappropriate – maybe briefly followed by a spit-take, maybe for an extended period without noticing. Of course, this isn’t that kind of show. But if it’s not that kind of show, why have that kind of set-up and then wimp out? If you want to go for subtle observations and character-based laughs, why not take the time to think of ways to do that that aren’t simply neutering the kind of set-ups and straight lines you’d expect to find in a broad sitcom? And if you want to go down the surreal path – let’s repeat: Nina’s boyfriend steals her favourite chair and makes it explode in the street outside her house – why not go all-out with the strangeness and come up with some stuff that might actually make us laugh?
This kind of program is sold to audiences as classy viewing largely on the back of having a good-looking and well-dressed cast hanging around a string of attractive and carefully-filmed inner-city locations. The actual quality of the writing rarely gets a look-in. As for the idea that perhaps this kind of show should figure out what it’s trying to do and then do it – if it wants to be funny then work hard at being funny and if it wants to be a lightweight look at a single gals life then perhaps the exploding chairs and quirky screen-scribbles should hit the bricks – well, that’s clearly crazy talk because adding some watered down “comedy” to a family drama might pull in a few more viewers. Locally produced television shows these days have to be as many things to as many people as possible: unfortunately, “good” isn’t always one of them.
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…
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…