Australian Tumbleweeds
There’s nothing funny about Hey Dad..!
Go on, admit it: you’ve been making jokes about the Hey Dad..! sex abuse scandal – AKA the “Hey Dad Predator” or “the Hey Dad House of Horrors”, depending on which episode of A Current Affair you saw – ever since you first heard about it. Don’t look so scared: we’ve all been doing it. Even by Australian sitcom standards Hey Dad..! was such a bland, flavourless pile of remorseless unending crap that the juxtaposition of it with something as awful as child sexual abuse can’t help but get a nervous laugh. Hell, one of the main characters was called Nudge: this stuff writes itself.
Problem is, we all know that there’s nothing at all even remotely funny about child abuse. It’s a ghastly, appalling crime that rightly shocks and disgusts us all. So there’s really no other response for a right-thinking person to have than to applaud A Current Affair’s decision to once again highlight its horrors. Night after night. For an entire week. In lurid, lingering detail. Drawing the story out using every trick in the tabloid TV handbook. Making sure the victims signed exclusivity contracts to ensure they didn’t talk to anyone else. Hang on a second!
The question about all this that sticks in my mind isn’t “why, if A Current Affair is so concerned about the sexual abuse that may have happened on the set of Hey Dad..!, did they not only show cast members telling their stories together on-air – thus making any prosecution based on those stories much more difficult – but held off on handing over their evidence to police until after they’d ran the story on-air for over a week” – though that one does seem to come up a fair bit.
No, it’s “why did everyone from Hey Dad..! say that they were too afraid for their careers in Australian television to come forward even after years had passed, when everyone knows that the second Hey Dad..! finished their Australian television careers were well and truly over?” If the entire cast kept quiet in the hope that the sinister forces behind Hey Dad..! wouldn’t crush their careers, then the string of commercial and critical success enjoyed on-air by Julie McGregor (Betty), Christopher Trustwell (Nudge), Chris Mayer (Simon), Simone Buchanan (Debbie) and Sarah Monahan (Jenny) since Hey Dad..! is proof enough that they made the right choice in staying silent. Uh, maybe not.
In fact, looking at the amount of prime air-time Ben Oxenbould – AKA “the replacement Nudge” was given on ACA for his one actual story (he saw something once, he talked to executive producer Gary Reilly, who told him to keep quiet and that he should “consider this a lesson in professionalism”), you’d have to think coming forward would have been a massive boost to their profiles.
Well, at least abuse victim Monahan is getting something out of it now. The exact amount that ACA and Woman’s Day paid her for her story isn’t clear: rival current affairs show Today Tonight has claimed six figure sums were involved, while The Age reported that Sarah Monahan was paid $15,00 for an exclusivity contract with Woman’s Day, on top of a payment from ACA of $40,000.
Really, it doesn’t matter: the fact is that ACA paid someone to talk about their childhood sexual abuse. Isn’t there a law against profiting from sex crime? And if not, isn’t there a law against showing a clearly unsettled Oxenbould talking about how he’d gone onto ACA to help his abused cast-mates because he “felt that, as a man, they needed some male support”? Or that “this is a purge for me”? Or that what he’d seen had “destroyed his faith in humanity”. Which does explain why he could go onto make Comedy Inc with a clear conscience.
Yeah yeah, cheap shot. But why else did A Current Affair run the story non-stop in episode-filling length for over a week, if not to get people talking about it and yes, making jokes? What, you seriously thought they spent night after night on reports of child sexual abuse on Australia’s most wholesome family sitcom because they wanted to warn parents? Of what? Don’t let your kids appear on Australian sitcoms? Sorry, the television industry’s already cleared up that particular hotbed of sex crime all on its own.
[Though it is fun to think that the real reason we don’t make sitcoms anymore has nothing to do with economics or a lack of talent and everything to do with stamping out a wave of sex crime. Somehow, if you’re a fan of comedy, it’s a slightly less depressing explanation than “we just can’t be bothered”.]
With this story, ACA and Woman’s Day whipped up a perfect storm of moral outrage and rubber-necking curiosity. They want people to think up “Hey Dad… stop touching my arse” jokes – c’mon, you know they were making them around the office – but they’ll attack anyone for saying them out loud. Comedy is about telling the truth, about saying what we’re all thinking: these creepy, pandering shows are about pointing at something and saying “don’t even think it”.
[though speaking of pointing at things, here’s a quote from the Murdoch press about the latest round of abuse allegations: “One allegation is that stated Hughes would ask to be woken from a daily “nap” by a female crew member, only to be found in the nude on each occasion, his penis erect.”]
Still, it’s not all bad news. The memory of Hey Dad..! is now so completely tainted that… well, it’s just completely tainted. Which is really how it should be, because even by Australian standards it was total rubbish without merit or virtue. Apart from those “little fat kid” jokes they used to make on The Late Show, of course.
But don’t take my word for it; how’s this for a gripping episode (taken from the sleeve of The Best of Hey Dad..! volume 1 DVD): “Generation Scrap: Dad and Debbie just don’t seem to get along. Meanwhile, Betty has become addicted to an electric pencil sharpener”. Actually, that might be describing the deleted scenes. You know, with “the footage they couldn’t show on television”…
Never Can Say Goodbye
There’s been a slight twist in the open question of The 7pm Project‘s eventual fate – you seriously didn’t think it’d continue at 7pm with the ratings it’s been getting, did you? It seems that tonight’s footy-related bumping back to 11pm, while not the first time it’s happened, has people wondering if the show will make a permanent move to a later timeslot once Master Chef returns. After all, Master Chef is Ten’s biggest big gun: having a lead-in that people are avoiding like the plague would do a lot more harm than good.
We’ve mentioned on more than one occasion that the 7pm timeslot is pretty much the worst one possible for a show of this kind. Too early to do anything really funny, up against actual news shows on other channels – the list goes on. But if a shift to a late-night slot is on the cards (and a few official mentions of it as “The Project” suggest the 7pm part is up for grabs), someone might want to mention it to the people putting the show together. Rather than the comedy take on the news that was initially promised, these days The 7pm Project looks a lot more like a half-arsed version of ACA without the Hey Dad..! clips. “Australia’s got a gambling problem” said the promos for Monday night’s show; if the problem really is as serious as the serious music and serious faces make it out to be, what the hell is Dave Hughes doing anywhere near it?
[while on the subject of Hughes, in a recent interview in The Herald Sun Hughes modestly suggested “anyone who doesn’t think I’m funny, I think they just don’t get it”. What’s not to get? Whether it’s him talking about wanting to “kill” people who give him bad reviews or the fact that his idea of a fun afternoon is bidding up the price at a house auction when he has no intention of buying the place – and going on to complain on radio when he accidentally wins the auction, so better luck next time you serious bidders – Hughes is a charming and lovable fellow who’s a consistent source of quality laughs. Ahem]
If The 7pm Project were to go late night, it’d be a great opportunity to really crank it up comedy wise. Supposedly the Martin / Molloy radio show was originally pitched as an el cheapo late-night news comedy show (basically, the radio show with pictures), and Mick Molloy’s original idea for The Nation was something a lot similar. Pickering and the 7pm Posse aren’t Martin / Molloy funny, but outside the family-friendly timeslot and with the freedom that comes from being out of the spotlight there’s little doubt they could do a lot better than they’re doing now on the comedy front.
But as it stands, The 7pm Project is mostly just watered-down current affairs. No-one’s going to want to watch that after dark – hell, no-one wants to watch it now. Pushing the current version of the show (what is it now, mark 5?) into a late night slot is just a slightly less embarrassing way of saying goodbye. And while no-one’s going to be all that sad to see The 7pm Project go, if Ten is serious about it there’s still a chance to turn this lost opportunity into something actually worth a look. As usual, don’t hold your breath.
False Economies
ADbc is back on SBS, and can’t you just feel the excitement in the air? Ok, maybe not: as merely the latest in a long, long, long line of failed comedy panel shows, the return of ADbc means only one thing: SBS ordered an entire series before the show started airing, so after it was pulled the first time due to crap ratings they still had a bunch of episodes left over.
Let’s just contemplate that for a moment: ADbc rated so badly that SBS took it off air. This isn’t The White Room going down the gurgler on the top-rating network during prime time. On the lowest-rating network, in a relatively non-competitive timeslot, ADbc did so badly it was pulled with episodes still in the tank. There’s a message there somewhere, but as it’s the same message the networks have been ignoring for the last decade let’s spell it out one more time.
[At this point it’s only fair to point out that the show itself features a lot of solid work from very talented people. Comedy-wise it’s always seemed especially promising, with host Sam Pang quickly warming to the host’s job while Tony Martin semi-regular and always-funny appearances should have made it a must-see. So why wasn’t it?]
Comedy quiz shows are as boring as watching a turd dry. That’s their default setting. Without the best possible talent available, you will get a shithouse show. This isn’t wild conjecture, it’s a proven fact. Look at actual popular quiz shows – you know, the games shows on before the 6pm news. What do they feature? Massive prizes, loads of tension, fairly easy questions – when they’re not just guessing games – and guests kept as bland as possible so the home viewers can imagine themselves as the person they’re watching winning big.
Comedy quiz shows are the exact opposite: no prizes, no tension, usually obscure or esoteric questions, and guests doing their level best to impress us with their quirky personalities. They’re one step below panel shows, because on panel shows the guests often have to bring along funny stories of their own: on quiz shows all they have to do is answer questions and the hilarity will naturally flow. Or not. Mostly not. Mostly because, despite what TV executive seem to think, answering a question isn’t a natural form for any kind of hilarity more advanced than Mad Magazine’s “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions”.
It might be an odd idea to put forward in connection with free-to-air television, but comedy quiz shows – unless they feature the aforementioned best possible talent, talent you would pay real money to see live – represent just about the worse possible value for your entertainment dollar. They’re almost always amazingly cheap television – ADbc is seemingly filmed on a giant sheet of A4 paper – and unless the guests or the host supply really first-rate laughs there’s nothing at all else on offer.
Crap dramas or scripted comedies might feature cute cast members or interesting locations or dialogue that roughly approximates human conversation or a vague level of polish that indicates some kind of care. Comedy quiz shows do not. Without – yes, let’s say it again – the best possible talent involved (and in this country that means Shaun Micallef, with the Spicks & Specks team a distant second) you have nothing else at all to fall back on in a comedy quiz show. As ADbc proves yet again, a boring show no-one wants to watch is a boring show no-one wants to watch even if you got it at a bargain price.
And yet, how much more expensive would it be to film a sitcom or sketch show? People on C31 seem to manage it all the time and sure, most of their efforts are pretty rough. But it wouldn’t take much to polish the visuals – Frontline was mostly shot on home video and that was over a decade ago – and even a shoddy script wouldn’t be worse than the flailing and dead air you get when no-one can answer a quiz question. The networks have been trying to cut costs in local television product for the last decade by cutting out the writers and look how well that’s worked out. Maybe it’s time to try cutting some other part of the budget for once.
The Gervais Delusion
As part of my ongoing examination of Australian comedy online (see my last blog) I’ve been working my way through every Australian comedy podcast I can find. I’ll write more fully about more of them in the future, but one thing I’ve been struck by is how few of them contain scripted material.
I suppose that’s not much of a surprise, such is the dominance of the yammer-fest on radio and the panel show on TV that scripted comedy is getting rarer and rarer these days – meaning it inspires less imitators. Similarly, in the world of podcasting, the “small number of people having a chat” model is the one that dominates. Why? Probably because while a microphone/webcam, some software and a decent enough computer are within the budget of the average aspiring content producer, sitting down for ages and writing a sitcom or some sketches, and then spending hours and hours recording and editing it/them, isn’t something most people have the time, inclination or skills to do – it’s far easier to just hit record and have a chat. So, it was refreshing to see Josh Thomas ditch the chat-based format of his previous podcasts and upload a sketch he’d made on video last week.
”I haven’t heard a new or exciting idea on the radio in this country, ever” said Thomas in a recent interview, which covered his podcast, Josh Thomas & Friend, in a reasonable amount of detail. Thomas’ statement is pretty hard to disagree with, for it’s the failure of commercial radio stations to divert from their yammer-fest format and do something different – like produce sketches – that makes them so dull. But while I admire Thomas for making the effort to produce a sketch, with it, it seems, he’s swapped one exhausted style of comedy for another – that of Ricky Gervais.
As Thomas says in the same interview, he’s become obsessed with Gervais’ work recently, because he’s working on his own sitcom (part of the ABC’s STITCH initiative) and has been seeking inspiration. Thomas isn’t the first comedian in Australia, or indeed the rest of the world, to look to the highly successful Ricky Gervais for inspiration, and as such the Gervais style had become pretty tedious. If there’s anything worse than the humour of Gervais – stuffed as at is with jokes at the expense of the victim rather the perpetrator (or as my colleague 13 schoolyards described it in his last blog, “bullying”), jokes about women/gays/the disabled which are supposed to be ironic but in fact aren’t, naturalism that’s nothing of the sort, endless poorly-written lines performed tediously slowly and cringey moments which are supposed to be hilarious but actually just make you physically uncomfortable – it’s the humour of people trying to be him.
In Thomas’ sketch his friend Tom Ward has been taken on to help him market his Comedy Festival show. Thomas’ idea is for the pair to sit down and create some decoupage posters, hand-made things being hip in comedy right now (for which you can thank UK stand-up Josie Long, among others). Ward’s not very keen on the idea, but as the hired help has little choice but to do as Thomas wishes, and starts labouring away, cutting out parts of Thomas’ old promotional material to form the words “Josh is funny” in decoupage on a poster. Thomas, meanwhile, impatiently supervises, ripping up some of Ward’s work because it’s not good enough, and whiling away the time eating rose pannacotta, which he doesn’t share. Eventually he helps a bit, creating a decoupage penis poster, while Ward completes his work. The final scene shows Ward reluctantly wearing the “Josh is funny” poster in the street as a sandwich board, turning ’round at the end to reveal that he’s wearing Thomas’ penis poster on his back.
This isn’t full-on Gervais-style humour – it’s nowhere near as mean-spirited or cringe-making, indeed Thomas’ personality, and the fact that Ward’s laughing along at some of it, enables him to get away with some of his behaviour far more easily than the acerbic Gervais – but it does suffer from being a bit slow, as well as light on laughs. And the fact that the punchline of Ward turning around to reveal that he’s wearing the penis poster was given away several scenes beforehand is a big problem, as is the fact that most of the humour’s derived from Thomas bullying Ward, although, at least with the rose pannacotta, Thomas is made to look like a bit of a git.
So far Josh Thomas hasn’t shown himself to be the greatest comedian in the world, indeed he often comes across as dumb, self-centred and annoying – like a real life Chris Lilley character, in fact – but occasionally he shows some promise (check out his Twitter, every so often he’ll post a surprisingly sharp one-liner). However, adopting the style of Ricky Gervais isn’t going to help him – The Office may be considered a classic by many, but besides its many flaws, it’s been copied so often it’s rapidly getting boring. Thomas needs to combine his endearing innocence with his pithy sharpness, and ditch the Gervais-aping and the Chris Lilley-style self indulgence. If he does, who knows, he might start to be really funny.
Thank you Charlie
Am I mistaken, or did I actually see Charlie Pickering laugh so hard he put his head down on the podium and thump it with his fist during a recent episode of Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation? It’s a well-established fact that Charlie is perhaps the most appreciative fan of Shaun Micallef’s one-liners ever, but even based on his past performances this was a new level for him.
And was it on that exact same episode that, while Pickering was once again pissing himself over a throw-away line, that Micallef said dryly “thank you, Charlie?” No doubt he was honestly thanking his co-star for all the support. But as a huge fan of Micallef while not exactly loving every second of TAYG, it’s these moments of wild and groundless speculation – where Pickering’s laughter is maybe more about making sure the camera cuts to him and not either of the other team captains after Micallef’s gags (because after a joke, you want to show someone laughing), and Micallef occasionally feels the need to rein his OTT co-star in – that make watching Josh Thomas rummaging through a garbage bin tolerable.
*
The second series of Wilfred seems to have been picking up mixed reviews – by which I mean, The Age’s Green Guide said “there’s only so far the conceit can stretch”. Yeah, that particular insight was old news by the second episode of series one – it’s a show about a bogan in a dog suit where the only joke is that, well, there’s a bogan in a dog suit and look, he’s got a bong! – so perhaps it might be more useful to, considering they’ve dragged this one-note joke out for another eight episodes, come up with something that digs a little bit deeper.
So with that in mind, and ahead of a no doubt longer (if in no way more insightful) review a few weeks further down the track, it seems only fair to point out that while the “hey, it’s a dog who acts like a bogan” jokes are still being remorselessly pounded into the ground, series two of Wilfred has managed to fix one of series one’s bigger annoyances. Instead of Wilfred being a bogan thug, his owner Sarah being a moody demanding sod and Adam being a nice guy stuck in the middle, Adam is – at least in the first episode – now a annoying pedantic knob (the other two remain unchanged).
It’s a minor shift, but an important one. In series one the comedy was often hamstrung by the power imbalance: watching someone powerless being picked on isn’t funny, it’s bullying… no matter how hard Ricky Gervais tries to pretend otherwise. The relationship was clearly meant to be that Sarah was so hot Adam would put up with both her bitchiness and Wilfred’s abuse, but over eight episodes it just turned into one long awkward passive-aggressive dinner party conversation between a couple everyone else knows is doomed.
With Adam now being a dick, problem solved: everyone on the show clearly deserves each other, and all the shit they put each other through is fair enough. It doesn’t make the show any funnier, but it does indicate that writers Adam Zwar and Jason Gann are stepping up a notch – and makes the prospect of Zwar’s upcoming behind-the-scenes-at-a-newspaper sitcom for the ABC a little more promising too.
*
Part of the reason why it’s been so quiet around here this last week is because I’ve been plugging away at Akmal Saleh’s book The Life of Akmal in the hopes of… well, I don’t really know what I was hoping for. Some kind of review, obviously, but really, if you’re a comedy fan – and not just a fan of Akmal – there’s not a whole lot to say about this one.
Akmal himself comes across as a likable guy here, which is more than he’s done in any of his movie or TV appearances to date, and most of the stuff about his upbringing, religious background and home life is both interesting and kind of funny. But as far as the comedy stuff goes – and this isn’t a criticism really – it’s little more than a collection of slightly amusing stories about being on the road.
It’s not a criticism because this is obviously a book for people who like Akmal, not comedy. Personally, I was hoping for some stories about him television shows (wasn’t he on Mick Molloy’s ill-fated The Nation) and movies (You Can’t Stop the Murders, anyone?), but instead all I learnt was that Austen Tayshus is a bit of a prick. Which I kinda knew already.
Otherwise… well, it is a nice reminder of why Tony Martin’s books are so much better than these kind of things usually are. Akmal can tell a funny story, but – on the basis of this book – he can’t do much more than that, while Martin is always dropping in extra gags that both push things forward and give us a better idea of who he is as a person.
Put another way, Akmal seems like a nice guy but even when he’s talking about his trouble with women (mostly due to his religious upbringing), it rarely feels like we get under his skin. It’s the old stand-up trick writ large: don’t say anything personal or controversial that could put your audience off-side. They won’t laugh if they don’t like you.
So while he’s very open about what he’s done (apart from his TV and movie work, dammit), and his insights into Egypt are interesting stuff, I didn’t come away from this feeling like I knew anything at all about who he really was. Which is fine for a stand-up act:, in a comedy memoir, it’s a bit of a drawback.
A Plea for Preservation (pt 1)
If you’re anything like us, you’re constantly in awe at the vast collection of Australian television comedy that’s been released on DVD. Seriously, there’s a best-of collection of Graham Kennedy’s Coast to Coast: who ever expected that? But in this golden age of plenty, let’s not kid ourselves: there’s a heck of a lot of stuff out there that hasn’t been released on DVD yet, and a lot of it might never get there.
Which is why we figured now was as good a time as any to make a start on our list of shows / specials / whatever that we’d like to see get an official release. This list is only the beginning, so feel free to send us any suggestions you might have. We’re actually going to try and be reasonable about this rather than just making it a blatant wish list: sure, we’d all love to see a proper release – or even a dodgy bootleg – of Tony’ Martin’s Boytown Confidential mockumentary, but there are plenty of good reasons why that ain’t going to be happening (that said, if you’ve got a copy lying around the house, give us a call).
So for the most part we’re going to try and provide at least one decent reason why we think a particular request is reasonable. Of course, we live in a world where Let the Blood Run Free and Bogan Pride are out on DVD, so pretty much anything is possible. And if you’re thinking this is just a fishing expedition to see if anyone out there has copies of any of the following they’d like to share… well, you’re not exactly wrong. But some of these series are readily available through various back channels already: we just think that they deserve, for whatever reason, to be officially preserved for the ages. Or just for a boozey Friday night with some mates and a pizza.
1): Welcher & Welcher. Shaun Micallef’s to date only sitcom didn’t exactly set the world on fire on its’ first screening, but that’s not its’ fault. Some odd timing issues aside (it’s one of the few shows that would have been improved by a laugh track), it’s basically Micallef doing what he does best: being piss-funny. A solid collection of co-stars (Robyn Butler, Santo Cilauro, Francis Greenslade) don’t exactly hurt either. So where’s the DVD release? Don’t ask us, though we hear there’s a bit of a rights issue holding it back. But with Micallef currently riding high, surely this is the kind of release that would make someone some money.
2): Series Four of Full Frontal . The fine folks at Shock released series one, two and three – and then stopped. Why? Lack of interest – on their part, not the general public’s, as series Four is the one with all the really first-rate Micallef material and yes, we know there’s a separate all-Micallef DVD that collects a lot of that stuff. But there’s no harm in asking for the world, especially as they’ve already brought out the first three series. It’s not like we’re talking Totally Full Frontal here.
3): BackBerner. This Peter Berner-hosted slice of strident satire was The Chaser’s War on Everything of its’ day – only without the pranks, which is probably why not a trace of it is available on DVD. And okay, much of it was very topical, and most of it wasn’t exactly funny, which is often the case when you’re more interested in point-scoring than making people laugh. But that approach didn’t stop the ABC from releasing a “Best of The GlassHouse” DVD a few years back, and unlike that show, BackBerner contained actual scripted sketches instead of just Hughsie trying on hats.
4): The Jesters / Whatever Happened to That Guy. Neither of these Pay TV shows were classic comedy, but they were, in their own clumsy ways, at least as funny as fellow Pay TV series :30 Seconds and Stupid Stupid Man – both of which shot to DVD almost before the final credits had rolled. It’s not like either series was a massive flop – The Jesters is even getting a second series – so if Chandon Pictures can get a DVD release what’s the hold-up here?
5): TwentySomething. This Channel 31 comedy series might have been a little rough around the edges, but so was A Hot Dog with the Lot and The Shambles and both of them made it to DVD. And with TwentySomething getting script development funding from the ABC, what better time to raise the show’s profile? It’d be really interesting to know exactly why Shock (who released both Hot Dog and both Shambles DVDs) pulled out of the Australian comedy business a year or two back: without them, there’s clearly a big segment of the Australian comedy market left out to dry.
6): The Gillies Report. This is a slightly different puzzle to the others, in that a best-of was released back in the day on VHS. So presumably all the ABC would need to do is dust off the tape and run it through the converter. Fingers crossed they get around to it – or better still, release the complete series. Hey, if Aunty Jack can get the full treatment, why can’t this? Especially as, with John Clarke on board doing his legendary Farnarkling sports reports, this was easily the best of Max Gillies’ various political series.
7): The Money or the Gun. In a parallel world much like ours, this DVD is sitting on the shelves of ABC stores everywhere. It’s been announced and postponed twice now, for reasons that remain unexplained. Supposedly it’s to be a best-of, but whether that means a collection of segments or complete episodes is also a mystery. Still, why announce such a thing (twice) and then not follow through?
8): The early work of Bob Franklin. When The Comedy Channel first started up in Australia it was basically run by Artist Services, and Bob Franklin took advantage of his in with them to get two separate series up: Small Tales & True (a series of mockumentaries) and Introducing Gary Petty. And who doesn’t love Bob Franklin? He was hilarious (and very popular) on Thank God You’re Here, he’s always turning up in old-timey movies (watch out for him in the upcoming World War One film Beneath Hill 60), he’s even got a collection of his excellent creepy short stories out (Beneath Stones). And with a supporting cast that includes the Librarians trio of Wayne Hope, Roz Hammond and Robyn Butler, not to mention guest appearances from pretty much everyone in Australian comedy (including Shaun Micallef), if they could ever get the rights sorted out this would be the comedy DVD release of the year.
Sam Simmons scores a duck
It’s time for a shocking admission: I have close friends who are fans of Sam Simmons. It’s safe to say that we agree to disagree on the quality of his work. But the relevant point here is that my Simmons-loving friends are big fans of live comedy, and they base their love (okay, enjoyment) of his work on his live performances. I’ve never seen him live so for all I know he’s a stand-up genius: what I do know is, his television work sucks.
I bring this up not only because word has reached us that Simmons isn’t exactly happy about the almost entirely negative coverage we’ve given him over the years, but because with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival looming it’s as good a time as any to point out the one comedy-related thing that this blog doesn’t do: care all that much about live comedy.
Don’t get me wrong. We’ve seen our fair share of live comedy over the years, and no doubt we’ll be checking out shows at this year’s Festival too. But given the choice, the kind of comedy our tastes tend toward is – for the most part – the kind of comedy people do on radio or television or (on a good day) movies. Just check out the Australian Tumbleweed Award categories and compare the double-digit number of television awards to the single, solitary one for stand-up.
That’s partly because stand-up in Australia is pretty much split into two groups: unknown up-and-comers, and long-established safe nights out. For those whose interests fall in the middle – for those who like their comedy competent, but not mainstream – there’s just not all that much on offer. Perhaps that’s why this years Festival line-up looks so dire. None of the up-and-comers (a few exceptions aside) seem to have acts polished enough to make a night out worthwhile, while the polished acts are mainstream faves like Charlie Pickering (doing a best-of, just in case you can’t spell CELEBRITY CASH IN), Dave Hughes, Dave O’Neil (whoops, he’s just pulled out) and Wil Anderson’s Wil-Pun Express.
Some might argue that the previous paragraph is the explanation for our long-standing dislike of stand-ups on television like Dave Hughes and Wil Anderson. Unfortunately for those people, there are stand-up comics in this country that we do enjoy – Judith Lucy for starters, and at least one of us has enjoyed the work of Justin’s Hamilton and Heazlewood in recent years. No, we don’t like Anderson and Hughes, but it’s not because they do stand-up. It’s because they’re not very funny. And as far as television goes, neither is Sam Simmons.
To be fair to all concerned, Anderson and Hughes are crap because all they do on television is bad stand-up. Hughes “tells it like it is”, which translates as bog-obvious observations delivered in a nasal whine that gives cicadas the shits; Anderson is the right-on comic who secretly votes Liberal in the desperate hope that his George Bush and John Howard gags – the only things on planet Earth to have aged worse than he has – will have their day in the sun once again.
Simmons though, makes the effort to try something different on television. His work on jTV with his “Man and Man” and “Human News” sketches shows that he’s someone who knows you can do more on television than just deliver monologues. It’s just a shame then that all he does with that knowledge is babble on at random for roughly a minute to no worthwhile end whatsoever.
Again, let’s stress here that we haven’t seen his live act. For all we know, given the proper context his random wordplay and obsession with farmyard animals could become comedy gold. But in small doses on television his act comes off as nothing but the results of a random word generator stuck on “annoy”.
Worse, he’s been shoveling the same shit for over two years now. His 2009 13 part series of 5 minute episodes The Urban Monkey showed a few hints of promise, but Simmons’ inability to come up with a comedy character that isn’t “Hi, I’m a blabber-mouthed arrogant moron who doesn’t know when to stop… and then does just so we can have an awkward pause” is holding him back in a serious way. Even Ricky Gervais has pretty much given up on that act.
Being roughly on par with Chris Lilley when it comes to working with others doesn’t help much either. Every single other character in a Simmons sketch has the arduous task of looking puzzled and annoyed while Simmons makes a dick of himself. Even in The Urban Monkey, where you might have hoped there’d be room to develop something of a comedy dynamic, he played an aggressive dick while his sidekick suffered. That’s the sum total of his television work: he’s annoying, everyone else suffers. And that includes his audience.
None of this is to suggest that Simmons will never do good work on the small screen. If you were putting together an old-style sitcom and you wanted a crazy neighbour, he’d be the man to call. But until then – or until he comes up with a new act that doesn’t involve saying “duck” a dozen times in a row and expecting laughs like it’s the Nazi-killing joke from Monty Python – his television appearances will fill the hearts of many with dread. Because whatever the virtues of his live show, his television work aint no damn good.
The wonderful world of Australian comedy online – Part 1
A week or so ago a reader commented on one of our recent blogs:
“The networks are useless, dying and clueless. I really hope that Australian comedy can find it’s way online. There are some excellent US comedy websites with loads of little web series on them.”
And because we take your feedback seriously down here at Australian Tumbleweeds – well, that and there’s almost no Australian comedy on that isn’t a panel game – I’ve decided to dip my toe into the wonderful world of Australian comedy content online, starting with podcasts.
Before I go any further, however, I should declare that while I listen to a lot of podcasts, very few of them are comedy, and even then they’re almost all podcasts of radio comedy shows it’s not convenient for me to actually tune in for. The later is clearly a habit I’m not alone in, as a quick look at both the “Top Podcasts” and “Featured” sections of iTunes shows that the majority of the most popular Australian comedies are either radio best-ofs (Hamish & Andy, Roy & HG), or entire episodes of radio or TV shows (Good News Week, Sunday Night Safran). The only exception, in “Top Podcasts” at least, is Josh Thomas & Friend, in which everyone’s favourite Gen Y has a chat with fellow young stand-up Tom Ward (although their effort can hardly be said to represent the vibrant world of user-generated content given Thomas’ current profile).
Anyway, if I’m going to conduct any kind of survey of Australian comedy online – and that’s the plan for the next few posts from me – I’m going to need some word of mouth recommendations (leave a comment if you have any, be they podcasts, YouTube videos, or internet radio or TV shows), because what I’ve found so far via Google and iTunes has been mostly awful. A fact which is hardly surprising given the medium’s domination by amateurs.
Now, I don’t have any thing against amateurs making podcasts, in fact there are some excellent ones out there focusing on the sorts of specialist subjects that the traditional media have never covered in any depth, but when it comes to comedy there’s always been a lot of it on TV, radio and elsewhere, and whether it’s to your taste or not, it’s put together by professional comedians who’ve been practising their craft for years. And it’s experienced personnel on board that gives a comedy podcast the edge because despite our occasional successes, amateurs like you or me generally aren’t that much of a cack, even by the standards of the average “people sitting around having a chat”-style podcast. Yet there are probably thousands of Australians just like us currently involved in such productions, getting together ’round a microphone or on Skype every week or so to record their latest show.
One such example is Two Schooners, with Dave Gray and James Williams. Dave and James are two ordinary, middle-aged, Aussie blokes, having a beer and a chat and a few laughs. They’re not actually in a pub and they’re not always having a beer, in fact they’re just nattering away to each other on Skype, but they like to pretend they’re in a pub, so the first minute or so of their show has some pub background noise sound effects dubbed under it and they keep their conversation blokey as.
Fair enough, there’s clearly a section of the population who likes to listen to ordinary blokes who are supposedly funny and “telling it like it is”, but on the other hand, isn’t that what a great many radio programmes (many of them with podcast best-ofs) already do, but with vastly better production values and presenters who know how to keep things concise? Dave and James’ approach, by contrast, is to conduct a largely unplanned and rambling conversation, and then make it public, seemingly oblivious to how much better the show could be if they a) planned things a bit more and b) edited the show. And with Dave and James rarely approaching the realm of comedy, it’s hard to work out why this show has made it to “Featured” status in the comedy podcasts section of iTunes.
If Two Schooners had a sister show it would be Is It Just Me? with Wendy Harmer and Angela Catterns. Produced by ABC Local, Is It Just Me? appears to be one of the ABC’s first podcast-only productions. Producing podcasts is something that a lot of established broadcasters seem to be getting in to, for one thing it’s a good way to reach niche audiences, and in the world of podcasting what could be more niche than a show aimed at one of medium’s smallest audience segments: middle-aged women. And indeed, what could be more middle-aged woman-friendly than two such women having a natter about such never-dealt-with-by-the-existing-media subjects as troublesome teenagers, plastic surgery, and growing old.
But compared to Two Schooners, Is It Just Me? is a far better programme – the chat’s punchier and funnier (and so it ought to be with a professional comedian and a well known radio presenter on board), and the show’s tightly edited into a number of sections lasting a couple of minutes each – a welcome contrast to Two Schooners, whose episodes get increasingly longer over time. It’s still a bit of a stretch to label Is It Just Me? comedy, but at least there are some laughs to be had.
Another largely laugh-free podcast is Josh Thomas & Friend, currently doing very well in the iTunes comedy “Top Podcasts” chart. It’s another conversation-based show, and is currently in its second series. So far there have been three episodes in series 2 (series 1 is no longer online for some reason), and in episode one Josh has something he wants you all to know: he’s gay and in a “semi-open relationship” with Triple J breakfast host Tom Ballard.
Thomas choosing to tell the world he’s gay on this podcast is kinda interesting, but the fact that he’s gay – or at least the way he talks about it – isn’t interesting, or indeed funny, so devoting an entire episode to the subject probably wasn’t the best move. In fact, after 15 minutes or so of listening to this show, I had to conclude that Thomas’ decision to talk about this topic came about either because he’s a massive ego maniac, or because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Seriously, Josh, we don’t care who you’re sleeping with – just be funny.
To be fair to Josh Thomas & Friend, things pick up a little in the second episode, when another comedian, Melinda Buttle, joins Thomas and Ward. Again it’s a small group having a chat, but Thomas has worked out what they’re going to talk about, and Buttle in particular gets some good gags out of it. In the third and most recent episode it’s back to just Thomas and Ward, but again there’s been a bit of planning, with the pair spending most of the show trying out the gay dating iPhone app Grindr. This is kinda funny, in a part John Safran’s Race Relations, part commercial radio segment way, and if this podcast is what I suspect it is – an audition for a radio slot – then working out something to do other than yammer on is a wise move.
But if podcasts are a way to get in to radio, they’re also an option once you’ve been kicked out of radio, hence The Chat hosted by the original members of Triple M Melbourne’s The Cage: Matt Quatermaine, Tim Smith, Andrew Goodone and Matt Parkinson. Tim, Andrew and the two Matts are old mates from the Melbourne comedy scene who get together every week or so at the Maori Chief Hotel to record their show in front of a live audience. Each episode is around 45 minutes of, well, chat, in which the four of them go through the sort of weird news stories which are a staple of most commercial radio comedies. Given the quartet’s experience in both comedy or radio it’s no surprise that The Chat is the best of the four podcasts I’ve listened to in preparation for this post; it could probably benefit from a tighter edit, but it’s a mostly funny and entertaining listen.
And it’s here in this first attempt to survey Australian comedy online that I should stop, because like many of the shows I’ve mentioned, I’ve crapped on long enough. Don’t forget to leave a comment with your suggestions of shows I should check out – good or bad – but before I go, and because I’m feeling a bit devils advocate today, I’ll leave you with something to ponder…
Market dominating podcast catcher iTunes offers only 16 categories to those wishing to submit their shows: Arts, Business, Comedy, Education, Games & Hobbies, Government & Organisations, Health, Kids & Family, Music, News & Politics, Religion & Spirituality, Science & Medicine, Society & Culture, Sports & Recreation, Technology, and TV & Film. While some of these categories have sub-categories (click here to see them), Comedy has none, yet huge numbers of comedy podcasts, including at least two of those I’ve just reviewed, would probably sit better in either a sub-category of Comedy called Chat, or a category in its own right called Chat. And with no Chat category or sub-category currently existing, are the makers of some shows being unfairly forced to label their shows as Comedy? Or do they really think their show is worthy of being categorised in that way? Clearly, if a category or sub-category called Chat existed then such shows would still suck, but wouldn’t it be better to produce a crap chat show which is occasionally funny, than a chat-based comedy which is just crap?
“Self-Indulgent? Moi?” or “We’ve created a monster!”
Taken from the Chris Lilley fansite:
January 26, 2010
Angry Boys updateI just wanted to quickly update you on the progress of Angry Boys. We’ve been shooting for a few months now and have started up again for 2010. It’s a really long shoot. And a really big show. So it’s going to take a while to put together. But its looking pretty good so far and hopefully quite funny. We’ve been shooting in all sorts of interesting places and we’re heading overseas in a while to shoot another component of the show. There’s lots of new characters, new wigs, new situations and surprises. The supporting cast is huge! And they’ve all been really good so far and it’s been really fun on set. Lots of laughs. Thanks for all your messages of support and for being patient in waiting for the new show. The shoot is flying by for me so hopefully we’ll have it all together and on tv before you know it. It’ll be on HBO in the U.S., BBC in the U.K. and ABC in Australia so stay tuned.
What didn’t get mentioned there – and only seems to have been announced in the middle of a press release yesterday – is that Angry Boys won’t screen here (or anywhere) until 2011. So we’re being told right now, in the second month of 2010, that Lilley’s latest series will not be finished for at least another year. What the hell is he doing? Building an atomic bomb from scratch?
At a guess, I’m betting the “huge” supporting cast is mostly supporting Lilley in his need for drinks and snacks when the cameras aren’t rolling, because the only way this timeline makes any kind of sense is if he’s playing every single on-camera role himself. Which, judging by the obvious trend in his work over the years, is in no way meant to be a joke. Fingers crossed that Angry Boys turns out to be a classic of the genre whenever it finally screens: at the rate he’s going, none of us will live long enough to see him finish his follow-up.