Australian Tumbleweeds

Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.

Yesterday’s Zero

So last week this happened:

Which, after a bit of digging around, turned out to be from this story:

On Tuesday, the 34-year-old told The Herald Sun that Chris, 45, ‘won’t learn’ from the backlash he received from his blackface characters in his sketches – stating he ‘hasn’t accepted the ramifications for what he’s done’.

‘Chris Lilley didn’t do these shows last week, and he’s not the only one,’ he said.

‘He became the poster child for that cancel moment… but you can still download and buy his products. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.’

He went on to say that there was many people who sat around and allowed the sketch to be made at the time, thinking it was a ‘good idea’.

Taking a swipe at the comic, he added: ‘This isn’t a teachable moment yet because he hasn’t learnt. He hasn’t accepted the ramifications of what he’s done.’

Which seems to have been set off by this:

Netflix has this morning removed four Chris Lilley series from its library following increased scrutiny over his portrayal of non-white characters.

We Can Be Heroes, Summer Heights High, Angry Boys and Jonah From Tonga have all been removed.

Which happened… three or so months ago? So why is this news now?

As far as we can figure out, a few of the usual right-wing media figures have been banging on about Lilley lately, using the tried and tested “hey, remember how you used to like this thing but now you can’t because of political correctness? Doesn’t that make you angry?” method of trying to rile up their audience.

This is Australia, so who knows? It might work. It was barely a decade ago that we had a Hey Hey It’s Saturday revival that put blackface back on our screens, after all. Though you might have noticed literally nobody is calling for Daryl Somers to make yet another comeback now.

The problem with trying to stir this shit up yet again is that it’s simply not controversial to say in 2020 that Chris Lilley lost his audience because people stopped finding his act funny. They stopped because as social values shifted, the values his shows were built on became outdated and offensive. His comedy didn’t age well and he never moved with the times. He’s old news.

People who want to laugh in 2020 aren’t turning to Chris Lilley, and people in 2020 who are defending Chris Lilley aren’t doing it because they still think he’s funny. They’re trying to make him a symbol of “the good old days”, when it was okay to laugh at a white guy pretending to be Asian or Islander or Black or a teenage girl and shit, we’re still haunted by that scene in the last episode of Ja’mie Private School Girl where Lilley CGI’d his head onto an actual topless woman’s body and fuck it, this conversation is over.

All My Friends Are Getting Mazdas

Press release time!

(geez, it’s been a while – it’s almost as if the industry is in crisis or something)

Comedy series All My Friends Are Racist heading in to production

Image

Enoch Mailangi, Bjorn Stewart, Kodie Bedford

Screen Australia has announced production funding for a new five-part comedy series for ABC iview, with support from Screen Queensland. All My Friends Are Racist follows two Zoomer best friends who make a pact to call their racist friends out, but instead of causing a revolution… they themselves get cancelled.

Created and written by Enoch Mailangi, winner of RAW, a First Nations writers workshop conceived by Artology with the support of Leah Purcell, Wayne Blair and Kyas Hepworth, former Head of AFTRS Indigenous; the series will be directed by Bjorn Stewart (At Home Alone Together, Killer Native) with Kodie Bedford (Robbie Hood, Grace Beside Me) writing and co-producing.

The series is centred on digital natives Casey and Belle who live together in the big smoke. He’s a gay Aboriginal influencer, she’s an Aboriginal budding lawyer. They are the hottest friendship in town and the party is always at theirs. Life couldn’t get sweeter for these first-generation rich kids. But when their ‘burn book’ wall, where they’ve listed all their friends as racists, is discovered, they are suddenly ousted from the friendship group. The pair need to make a decision on who and what they are willing to lose to finally grow up.

Produced and executive produced by Liliana Muñoz launching Maximo Entertainment’s first scripted series, All My Friends Are Racist is executive produced by Hoodlum Entertainment’s Nathan Mayfield and Tracey Robertson (Five Bedrooms, Tidelands), Leah Purcell and Bain Stewart (The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson), with Hoodlum’s Deborah Glover also producing.

Screen Australia’s Senior Online Investment Manager, Lee Naimo, said, “From first reading the scripts for this distinctive project, it was clear that writer Enoch has perfectly created a unique and hilarious friendship between Casey and Belle throughout this outrageously funny and subversive series. Together with Kodie Bedford and Bjorn Stewart who have a solid track record of creating comedy, they are set to deliver a unique series that I’m confident will engage viewers.”

Executive Producer of ABC Indigenous Margaret Ross said “ABC Indigenous are thrilled to be working with emerging screenwriting talent, Enoch Mailangi to bring their creative vision to life with All My Friends Are Racist. Enoch is certainly one to watch, a bold new voice with the comedic flare and timing of a writer well beyond their years. An irreverent and laugh-out-loud web series, we can’t wait to share with our audiences what the talented teams at Maximo Entertainment and Hoodlum Entertainment have crafted.”

Enoch Mailangi said, “I hope this series shows the liberating power young queer people of colour can have when they decide to sleep in, start drama, and more importantly stuff-up whilst trying to figure out who they are. The experience I’ve received seeing this story go from script to screen has been beyond. I’ve learned from professionals who have had a profound impact on the Australian screen industry: Kodie Bedford, Bjorn Stewart, Leah Purcell, Margaret Ross, Liliana Muñoz and Nathan Mayfield. I am humbled and grateful for everything I have been able to learn.”

Kodie Bedford said, “It’s always a privilege getting anything into production and the backing we have received from funding bodies has not only given us confidence in a scary time for artists, but also allowed us to take ownership of our stories and flourish as filmmakers with this unapologetic, gloriously laugh out loud project.”

Bjorn Stewart said, “Enoch has created a world full of eccentric characters that reflect a kick-arse voice of young entitled blackfellas that this country has not seen yet. Look out, because All My Friends Are Racist is a whole new generation of Indigenous storytelling.”

Screen Queensland Chief Creative Officer Jo Dillon, who is also co-chair of the Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network (SDIN) said the state screen agency is deeply committed to fostering an inclusive screen industry.

“Screen Queensland is pleased to invest in productions that contribute to raising diverse voices and creating opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners on screen and behind the scenes. We look forward to seeing this poignant comedy on our screens.”

All My Friends Are Racist will start production in Queensland in November 2020.

While it’s pretty much good news that any Australian comedy series is getting the go-ahead at the moment, we have to ask: do we really need another series about how young people are entitled dickheads? It’s getting so we’re actually nostalgic for the days when sitcoms were based around wacky situations rather than just unpleasantly smug types getting into trouble when their friends get sick of their shit.

Comedies need strong characters, sure, and plenty of successful comedies have been built around thinly disguised versions of the lead creator / performer. But it seems like a decent chunk of the pilot / Fresh Blood / “hey we just got funding!” series of the last few years were pitched as “think Broad City, only bigger!”, which… well, did you see the fourth season of Broad City? No you didn’t. Because nobody was still watching by then.

Obviously this could be totally hilarious; we haven’t seen it, so we have no idea. And with Australian comedy production rapidly dwindling down to a microscopic dot, it’s hardly this project’s fault if there aren’t another half dozen completely different shows in the offing to give the future of Australian comedy the appearance of variety. So we’re still definitely keen to check this one out when it finally surfaces sometime in 2021… we’re just hoping there’ll be a few more wildly different comedy projects announced between now and then.

(also, please: who wants to watch a comedy about smug dickheads who “finally grow up”?)

The Bicentennial Man

This week saw the two hundredth episode of Have You Been Paying Attention? and the show feels as fresh as it ever did. We say “fresh” but we could have gone with “timely”, or “thrilling”, or “topical”, or any number of words that don’t necessarily start with “t”: HYBPA? came out of the gate strong and hasn’t really shown signs of slowing no matter how many sponsors they add, which is good news both for producers Working Dog and Australian television in general.

Working Dog have been fond of the daggier aspects of culture – especially Australian culture – since the days when you could make comedy programs based almost entirely around making fun of daggy Australian culture. Sadly, Australian culture is in short supply these days, which is why HYBPA? looks globally for its subject matter. But you can’t get much daggier than a TV game show, and HYBPA? has proven to be the perfect match – and just possibly final resting place, as they’re all edging closer to retirement age and the show shows no signs of stopping – for their not inconsiderable comedy talents.

The merits of HYBPA? are on display pretty much every week. The pace is fast, the jokes are decent, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the roster seems to have settled down, making each week’s show much more of a sure thing than it used to be back in the day when it was more of a celebrity showcase. Even the complaints about the jokes seeming “too scripted” seem to have faded away, though you’re on a pretty safe bet a lot of the time if you expect two comedy answers before the correct one.

It definitely doesn’t hurt that Tom Gleisner is a truly great host, which is to say he keeps the pace fast, his jokes are decent and he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’s the rare Australian game show host – and probably the only Australian comedy game show host – who acts like the show itself and not just his own screen time is what’s important. Whether it’s thanks to his lengthy career or being one of the show’s producers, he’s a funny guy who knows that as the host he’s there to support the guests, which goes a long way towards making the whole effort run smoothly.

Much like Gleisner himself, the show’s off-screen achievements often fly under the radar. For one thing, it’s the show that destroyed the ABC’s attempts at panel comedy. If you’ve ever wondered why, with the ABC currently struggling to afford programming more complicated than pointing a camera at a wall, they haven’t stuck a bunch of comedians up against that wall and got them to banter away for half an hour a week, you have HYBPA? to thank.

Up until relatively recently, we’d get a handful of shit comedy panel / game shows on the commercial networks each year – remember Behave Yourself? Cram!? Those shows Rove would do with little kids? But while both Seven and Ten would occasionally try a bit of late night panel comedy then quickly pretend it never happened (unless it was sports related, in which case it’d run for a decade), the ABC – no doubt inspired by the UK’s seemingly never-ending range of comedy panel shows and the glory days of Good News Week and The Glass House – wouldn’t let go of the comedy panel concept.

Spicks and Specks worked; Gruen is a television series they still put to air. But otherwise? Even the ones that were good weren’t that good, and the ones that were bad were awful. Randling? Tractor Monkeys? How Not to Behave? At least one of Peter Helliar’s sports shows? Having HYBPA? corner the market was a mercy, and it wasn’t until Hard Quiz – which is no more comedy than that run of early evening quiz shows hosted by Paul McDermott that everybody’s forgotten – that the ABC managed to keep a prime time quiz show alive.

In theory, of course, there’s room for more than one comedy panel show on Australian television. The talent is definitely there, and it’s not like putting some comedians behind a desk is expensive television. But thanks to close to a decade of what can only be described as “fucking it up”, the ABC is out of the panel show business. This was sweet relief in 2017, but now? They should maybe take a look at all those former HYBPA? regulars who can’t get a gig this year* and think about taking another crack at it.

If nothing else, HYBPA? has shown that the way to make a comedy panel quiz show work is balance. Panel shows often go after big name guests and deliver a bunch of aimless banter; quiz shows focus too much on the questions; game shows end up taking a third of the show explaining the rules. What needs to come first is comedy: get that right – make sure you go for people who are funny and give them a format where every joke counts – and the show takes care of itself.

Here’s hoping HYBPA? keeps on showing the rest how it should be done for another 200 episodes.

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*ha ha, who are we kidding – a 2020 ABC comedy panel show would be Benjamin Law, Annabel Crabb, a couple of ex Triple J announcers, Ray Martin, some head of a literary festival and your host Joe Hildebrand

The Man With the Getaway Face

Is it just us, or has Shaun Micallef been losing his grip a little lately? Not that he’s ever really been known for his iron grasp on things, but the occasional smirk at an over-the-top performance has, in recent weeks, seemingly blossomed into a lot of near-corpsing in the face of what’s become a regular installment of “let’s see who can make the host laugh”.

Weirdly for a news satire program, this isn’t really a bad thing. Micallef has never pretended to be a “real” newsreader, let alone whatever it is that Charlie Pickering is doing on The Weekly, so there’s no character to break by breaking character. And it’s never the kind of forced laughter that, well, we’ve already mentioned Charlie Pickering once in this paragraph. Faced with a laughable performance, he laughs: what’s wrong with that?

Usually a run of breaking character by laughing (aka “corpsing”) is less than ideal because it turns the performance away from the audience: they’re making each other laugh, not us. But Mad as Hell has a slightly different feel to it. It’s not as ramshackle as, say, The Late Show was (that was a show where the comedy was almost entirely based on the idea of “look how pissweak this is”), but there’s definitely an element of watching a group of performers putting on a show that’s not quite as polished as it could be.

In those circumstances, occasionally breaking character to laugh at an extra hammy slice of performance is as much part of the show as dodgy wigs and wobbly sets. No doubt the lack of an actual audience at the moment plays a part too – performers love a reaction, and if there’s not a crowd handy to give them one it’s hardly surprising that they’re going after laughs anywhere they can find them. And having people actually laughing during a comedy show? Not a bad thing.

(they’re hardly playing characters that demand a subtle touch either. Not every interview subject requires a performance dialled up to 11, but when they do the cast aren’t going to hold back)

Over the last few years Mad as Hell has quietly expanded its approach. It’s been taking advantage of the ABC’s dwindling comedy output to push things, safe in the knowledge they won’t be infringing on anyone else’s turf. Not that telling topical news stories through the medium of interpretive dance was ever a regular feature on, say, Tractor Monkeys, but there is a bit of a sense that, as the last comedy program left on the ABC, they might as well take advantage of all the tricks nobody else is using.

One of those tricks is to invite the audience in by making the occasional dud moment part of the performance. Sometimes a comedy (especially a parody) has to be flawless to work; other times, being a little rough around the edges makes the end result more grounded and welcoming. Mad as Hell is the latter, and Micallef occasionally over-reacting to an especially egregious piece of over-acting is just one more way to get a laugh at home.

Or, you know, they’re all cracking under the strain of Melbourne’s lockdown. If that’s the case, look out for a rash of sketches in the next few weeks that end with the men in white coats turning up to take away someone from the cast. That stuff’s always comedy gold.

Pissed At the Wheel

So Channel Ten’s finally realised they still have the Australian version of Drunk History on the shelf and figured they’d slot it into the coveted “stand up clips from that Canadian comedy festival” slot. Has anyone ever mentioned before just how good-looking most American stand up comedians are? It’s like it’s an audition for a television gig or something.

The cast of Drunk History Australia

We said just about everything we had to say about Drunk History Australia back when 10 made it available online back in April:

Drunk History Australia isn’t always hilarious, though, as its charm depends a lot on whether the comedian telling the story is the sort of person you’d like to get pissed with. Something which is especially important if you, the audience, happen to be sober.

Basically it’s a show that has its moments, though possibly not enough of them to make it any kind of classic. It’s hamstrung a little by the way it feels like this format’s moment has passed, what with True Story with Hamish & Andy already having made a pretty good local fist of the “check out this wacky tale” genre a few years earlier, followed by 10 giving this (and season 2 of How to Stay Married) the binge treatment on their website half a year ago. People who don’t have the internet, finally your chance to laugh has arrived.

(Comedy Central has also just gotten around to axing the US TV version after six seasons. Guess they finally ran out of both booze and history)

But just because it feels like the product of a previous administration (the pilot aired in 2018) and there’s pretty much zero chance of their being a second season and The Weekly tried to get in on the act with that occasional segment about forgotten but true tales from history and Shaun Micallef already spent three hours earlier this year sadly informing us that drinking isn’t funny with Shaun Micallef’s On the Sauce doesn’t mean this particular run at the concept isn’t worth a look.

For one, it’s often pretty funny. And these days, who’s going to say no to that?

Jungle Juice

Finally, an international Aussie comedy success story that we won’t have to pretend never happened in a decade or so:

There are just a handful of independent production companies with three or more half-hour series currently on U.S. television. One of them could surprise you: It’s Australian indie Jungle Entertainment, owned by CEO Jason Burrows, director Trent O’Donnell, writer Phil Lloyd and COO Chloe Rickard.

You know Jungle, the artists formerly known as Jungleboys: they’re the producers behind Squinters, the various Moody series, No Activity, Sando, Here Come the Habibs and of course, The Elegant Gentleman’s Guide to Knife Fighting.

Basically, they’ve been at the heart of Australian scripted comedy, especially on the ABC, for most of the past decade. Unfortunately, most of the scripted comedy on the ABC for the past decade has been shithouse. Slightly surprisingly, this article provides some clues as to why.

Jungle, whose portfolio to date includes 12 comedy and drama series and documentaries, is currently prepping two more of its Australian formats for American adaptations: drama Bad Mothers and comedy Squinters. They also are looking to begin producing series for the U.S. market in Australia — shows they originate as well as shows from American creators and producers — offering creative input in addition to attractive tax Australian incentives, lower production costs and a safe environment for filming during COVID-19.

Unlike Australia, where the networks often act like they’re doing us a favour by even bothering to make Australian programs, Hollywood is a content creating machine. They are constantly scouring the world for anything they can use to create more television: actors, concepts, formats, you name it, they’ll use it.

If you’ve ever wondered why clearly average Australian actors can go to America and make a go of it – that it’s somehow easier for Australian actors to make a living acting in another country entirely than it is in their home industry – you’ve probably thought about it too much. It’s like living in a small country town and wanting to be an astronaut: sometimes the good jobs are somewhere else.

But one thing that does help in Hollywood is giving the power brokers something to look at. There are a number of reasons why movies based on comic books are currently a big deal, but one that doesn’t get mentioned often is that making a comic book first for your movie idea gives you a big advantage – a comic is something a producer can read and go “ahh, I get it”. And what’s better than a comic book?

“Generally, our best-selling tool has been the Australian version of the show that we’ve made, and when we’ve managed to sell the formats, it tends to be that as much as we’re selling the format, we’re also selling the voices behind them,” Lloyd said. “We’re not as much in the business of making a format and sort of just pushing it out off a cliff into other territories as much as being able to be creatively involved.”

Hollywood has next to zero interest in actual overseas shows: they’ll just take the ideas and make their own version. So being a production company who can turn up with shows that the money men can actually watch (ten minutes of) is a huge advantage.

Of course, first the production company has to make their own version so they have something to sell, and if they want to stay involved it really, really helps to have a presence in Hollywood: if you’ve ever wondered why Squinters – an Australian series that was filmed entirely inside cars inside a studio with a green screen background behind them – was half filmed in LA, you’ve been reading this blog too often.

Squintaaaaaaaaas

We’re not saying that Jungle made their local products as basically test reels for ideas they wanted to sell to the US, nor are we saying that being able to make them in-house on the cheap made them attractive to the ABC. But even if we were, why would that be a bad thing? The ABC is broke: cheap programming is better than no programming, and considering the web of funding deals that lie behind every single local show that makes it to air in Australia, having a company show some faith in their own ideas makes for a refreshing change.

“At the moment we’ve got new film and TV production incentives that add up to 30% of qualifying Australian expenditure. We’ve got a very competitive exchange rate now. We’ve got very, very low COVID-19 cases in New South Wales. We’ve also got very film-friendly regulations, and we have world-class infrastructure, studios and talent. We’ve got more talent home now than we’ve ever had, obviously, because COVID has been so terrible in a number of territories, including the U.S.”

If there is a problem with all this, it’s this: if a production company is pitching cheap shows to the ABC with an eye to recouping from overseas sales, and if the cash-strapped ABC is happy to say yes to shows made by a production company that can keep overheads low, at what stage do the viewers become relevant? Because if the deal is you make shows for cheap, persuade the cheap-content-needing ABC to put them to air, and make your money back by selling the now proven shows to Hollywood, it seems like the actual quality of the shows stops being much of a factor.

Obviously, this is just crazy speculation on our part. It’s not like there’s been a steady decline in the quality of Jungle’s comedy output over the last decade or so. Sure, Review with Myles Barlow was great, then the various Moody series were just maybe okay, then Squinters and Sando were shit, but it’s not like we’re saying the more successful they’ve been commercially the less successful their comedies have been as comedy. Definitely not.

Whatever’s really going on, there’s no denying it’s working out for them; this article is just another sign of their success. And it’s not like they’re only churning out crap: Mr Inbetween, despite not really falling under our remit, is a pretty decent crime series (though the creative input of the original creator and star, who is not a member of Jungle, plays a big part there).

But the way things are set up, there’s simply no incentive to made good shows here: just come up with a cheap idea that’s flexible enough to work when remade with US talent and everybody wins.

Apart from the chumps watching the end result.

A New Day Dawns

Press release time!

This came as a bit of a surprise here, as we’d thought he’d nabbed the top job months ago:

Producer Todd Abbott (Please Like Me, Micallef Tonight, Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals, Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey, Rove) is the hot tip to join the Entertainment and Specialist division.

ABC has been without a Head of Comedy since Rick Kalowski departed in February.

And just look how well they’ve been doing since then! Seriously, we’d hazard a guess there was more new comedy commissioned this year (what with the rush of corona comedy) than the last… three years of Rick Kalowski’s reign, so somebody must have been left behind to push the big red button marked “go”.

Anyway, big congratulations to Todd Abbott, who clearly has an extensive resume as far as decent comedy goes* and also Please Like Me. Maybe he’ll bring back The White Room! Finally its time has come.

Of course, these days at the ABC The White Room would literally be just an empty white room, as they don’t have the money to put anyone in it. It’s not exactly a good sign that he’s taking on the job (if he is actually starting this week; we’re going by a media newsletter, not an official announcement) at a time when the ABC can’t even manage 90 minutes of new comedy content on a Wednesday night.

Not that he’ll be responsible for the majority of the ABC’s “comedy” line-up either. For a while now the ABC’s increasingly shoddy Wednesday night has been roughly as follows: one game show or lightweight interview thing at 8pm, one news satire show at 8.30pm, and one sitcom. sketch show or slightly more serious interview thing at 9pm. Things may have changed since we last knew what we were talking about, but from what we remember of how things work, out of these three, only the scripted comedy – sketch or sitcom – counts as “Comedy”; everything else is light entertainment, including Mad as Hell and The Weekly.

Things could obviously be worse – it’s not like Abbott has arrived threatening to “axe left-wing comedy” like in the UK – but you couldn’t seriously say ABC Comedy is in glowing health. It’s hard to know exactly why the comedy department shrank so severely under Rick Kalowski’s leadership. We weren’t the first to note that practically nothing new was commissioned during his tenure; whether that was thanks to dwindling budgets or a decreased appetite for risk from head office we don’t know.

What we do know is that without a couple of rushed-out lockdown series the only ABC sitcom this year would have been season four of Rosehaven, and we’ve yet to hear anything that makes next year sound any more promising. Hopefully Abbott’s brought a truckful of money with him; without that, those repeats of Utopia are going to become permanent fixtures.

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*It’s interesting to compare his resume – which is mostly talk shows and live stand-up recordings, AKA the cheapest possible comedy television you can make and still be making both comedy and television – with Rick Kalowski’s, which was mostly based around (very broad) scripted comedy. Around the time Kalowski was hired there was a bit of talk that bringing him on board was going to signal a new direction for ABC comedy towards more mainstream fare; that didn’t really happen, but if we assume a Head of Comedy’s past work is an indication of where the ABC sees its comedy future, then it looks like they don’t expect a boost to the budget any time soon.

Vale Rosehaven series 4

So ends another series of the slight, very slight, adventures of Emma and Daniel in Rosehaven. And by Rosehaven standards, this episode was action-packed.

Four episodes previously, Emma (Celia Pacquola), Daniel (Luke McGregor) and Barbara (Kris McQuade) had attended a regional real estate conference, where they’d met big-shot agent Donovan (Josh Quong Tart), who’d tried to head-hunt Barbara for his agency. Now Donovan’s arrived to set-up shop in Rosehaven, is spending big on marketing and has even shouted the entire town a drink. How can our heroes at McCallum Real Estate compete with that?

Like we said, as episodes of Rosehaven goes, this was high stakes. Or had any sort of stakes at all. Usually, Pacquola and McGregor fill their allotted 25 minutes with little more than a flimsy plot (half the town’s on work experience), some pointless banter (we have double chins and we should do something) and the odd zany character, such as Anthony Morgan as local idiot, Phil.

Phil’s occasional appearances are especially welcome, as they provide almost all the best comic moments. In last week’s penultimate episode, when half the town seemed to be on work experience, Phil volunteered to let local cop Greg (Phil Hardwick) show his work experience kid what it’s like to arrest someone. Cut to a few seconds later when Phil decides to let the kid see what it’s like when an arrested criminal escapes, and runs off, still in Greg’s handcuffs, hotly pursued by Greg who doesn’t find this at all amusing.

In this series finale, sadly, there was very little Phil. But there was a nice moment where Phil tried to drink all of Donovan’s bar tab himself. Ah, Phil, if only he was in the show more often…

Rosehaven’s problem is that the style of comedy it revels in – not much happening – is also its greatest problem. And we, the audience, need something to happen. A decent plot to keep us watching, for instance. And this week aside, there haven’t been a lot of those this series. That and sometimes it’s a bit grating when Emma and Daniel start up on the banter. Yeah, OK, it’s fun when you’re doing it with your friends down the pub (or more latterly on Zoom), but it can get a bit draining when you’re watching third parties do it.

But four series in, who’s going to listen to us critiquing the signature style of a sitcom which has got four series and will no doubt get a fifth. So, see you in a couple of years for our review of series five, when we’ll be making all these points again.

Comedy Stans

Press release time!

STAN ACCELERATES GROWTH STRATEGY AS NINE THROWS WEIGHT BEHIND ORIGINAL PRODUCTIONS

Expanded slate of upcoming Stan Original productions also announced​

Followed by a bunch of stuff that isn’t really of interest to us here today. Basically, as various international streaming services look to expand their operations, Stan is increasingly in a bit of a pickle. Showtime (who provide a lot of Stan’s high end product) are planning to move on, and to stay viable Stan needs a new source of shows people want to watch. Their solution? The same as everyone else’s: start making their own shows.

The only slightly interesting thing about this is that they’re going to be teaming up more directly with Nine as far as the production side of things goes, which presumably means that some if not all of the series they’ll be making for Stan will also turn up on Nine eventually. Which explains the bit about this press release that is interesting to us: they’re only doing one comedy. After all, what would Nine do with new comedy?

Dom and Adrian: 2020, an original comedy special from the creators of the Bondi Hipsters, Christiaan Van Vuuren and Nick Boshier, is currently in production.

This lack of comedy (the other four projects announced are all pure drama) is how you know they’re serious about things. Comedy has always been the cheap and cheerful side of local production, but on streaming services comedy has basically been a procession of filmed stand-up specials and the occasional “wacky” game show, with the rare ultra-low budget sitcom (remember No Activity?) thrown in.

Streaming services are all about luring viewers in, which means streaming services are (mostly) all about quality drama. That’s because quality drama is the kind of thing people will pay money for: unlike cheap, throwaway comedy, it seems like good value for money.

But weirdly, comedy is what people actually want to watch a lot of the time. That’s why pre-streaming television (which actually had to keep people watching, rather than just get people to pay up front for something they might rarely glance at) was packed with shit, utterly forgettable drama and sitcoms that people are still happily watching and laughing at today. People are still watching Friends and Seinfeld; who’s watching The Wire?

So while there’s little doubt that this –

Australia’s leading local streaming service Stan today announced it is ramping up its slate of local and internationally produced Stan Original television series and films, with volume to increase to over 30 productions a year over the next five years.

– is going to also mean more filmed live comedy and other super-cheap local laff-getters to make the numbers add up, the sad fact is that comedy is no longer seen as a quality premium product by Australian networks (and probably audiences). New comedy is something cheap you bung on to make it look like you’re a real network and not a warehouse full of old VHS tapes of 90s sitcoms, even though most of what people watch streaming for – old sitcoms – is comedy.

Anyway, that’s a problem for twenty years from now when we’ll all be dead anyway. Meanwhile, we have this to look forward to:

Dom and Adrian: 2020 is a mockumentary chronicling their journey through the garbage fire that is 2020.

Having been billed to play at a premier bush doof, Dom and Adrian’s USBJ’ing (DJing with pre-loaded USBs) career was on precipice of taking off… when the bushfires hit. They were next booked to play a bushfire fundraiser when the floods washed through. Then they were going to headline a flood-relief show when the hail storms came down. And now, the night before their biggest gig yet, raising money for the #PanelBeatBondiAiD movement, the whole country was thrown into lockdown because of one little global pandemic, “Such a nanny state!”.

In spite of the initial personal turmoil, the two best friends quickly see all this as an opportunity to refocus, “pivot” and evolve creatively – but as time goes on, it’s not only their creativity and entrepreneurial-ship that’s tested, but their friendship and sanity.

Across the mocumentary special, Dom and Adrian try desperately to remain positive, make rent and redefine their lives. And hey, there’s always regrowth after a fire – so by traversing madness, 5/6G conspiracy theories, being baited by the illuminati and philosophical clashes, Dom and Adrian are forced to rediscover why they’re best friends in the first place.

Dom and Adrian said: “The number 2020 used to be synonymous with good eyesight. But given how much of a bin fire 2020 has been, we’re fully going to have to find a new number to define good eyesight. “The fall of capitalism has made us a lot more resourceful and there’s a lot of interesting ways you can eat ibis.”

Nick Forward, Chief Content Officer at Stan, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Christiaan, Nick and the team. We’re huge fans of everything the boys have done and we’re really looking forward to being able to bring some laugher and lightness to 2020 – all through the lense of the Bondi Hipsters.”

Lee Naimo, Senior Online Investment Manager at Screen Australia, said: “We are delighted that Christiaan Van Vuuren and Nick Boshier are teaming up with Easy Tiger Productions and producer Julia Corcoran to bring the unique and often hilarious points of view of Bondi Hipsters Dom and Adrian to Stan and YouTube.

“The Bondi Hipsters were part of that first wave of Australian online content creators to carve out a niche with online sketch comedy and we can’t wait to see them further develop these iconic characters as they cope with isolation and the challenges of 2020.”

Stan Original special Dom and Adrian: 2020 is created by Christiaan Van Vuuren and Nick Boshier and produced by Julia Corcoran in partnership with Easy Tiger, with Christiaan Van Vuuren also directing. Additional social content will be developed by the creators to accompany the special on Stan.

A viral hit with millennial audiences, the Van Vuuren Bros, Bondi Hipsters and Soul Mates YouTube channels have a collective subscriber base of over 150,000 and boast over 25+ million views to date.

And who’s going to argue with those numbers?

Paper Champions: A Movie Review

Remember movies? Worse, remember Australian comedy movies? Oh sure, there was that Paul Hogan one a few weeks back, but aside from that? Nothing. Well, nothing unless you’ve been scouring the listings for the various Australian film festivals that have been forced to relocate online thanks to 2020 being garbage, in which case you may have spotted a little film called Paper Champions.

Usually a film screening at MIFF (the Melbourne International Film Festival) would be tough to catch: films showing at festivals usually only get one or two sessions at one location, so while it’s all nice and exclusive for those who can make it, everyone else is out of luck. But this year, things are different: MIFF is now entirely online, which means that anyone anywhere can watch the films on offer. The films (aside from a handful of high profile titles) can also be watched at any time you choose once you fork over your money. All of which means you have roughly four days left to check out Paper Champions from the comfort of your own home. The real question is… should you?

The story of a subdued-to-the-point-of-comatose photocopier salesman, it’s the kind of Australian comedy film that’s more about the “film” side of things than the “comedy”; anyone expecting a laff riot should keep on scrolling. Though probably not scrolling through the MIFF listings as there’s bugger-all else as far as comedy goes this year. But as is often the way with even low budget Australian films these days, Paper Champions looks okay, has a decent cast, and has a clear beginning, middle and end story-wise so even if you don’t laugh (and you probably won’t) you’ll still leave feeling like you saw an actual film.

You may even feel like you’ve seen a number of films, as the big problem with this small film is that there’s just too many subplots. Subdued dude Rey (Luke Saliba, who also produces and co-wrote the script) is trying to get his mana back (think of it as a Polynesian version of “his groove”) and so he goes through a range of situations trying to figure out how he can regain his spark. Part workplace comedy, part awkward family comedy, part awkward family comedy only with his best friends family, part wrestling movie, part rom-com, part dance movie, part jokes about photocopiers and there’s a rugby game in there too, this really needed to pick two or three subplots instead of spraying ideas all over the place.

It’s all largely held together by Rey – he’s the one constant in all this, so the constant shifts aren’t as annoying as they might have been – only Rey spends a lot of the movie just sitting there being a sad sack. It’s a slightly odd choice for a movie that’s clearly been put together as something of a showcase for Saliba (co-writer and producer, remember), as it feels like the kind of thing you’d do if you were making a movie around a lead who wasn’t that compelling a screen performer. But Saliba does come across well throughout, and the rare scenes where he perks up do register as big moments. Hey, maybe he’s just a generous guy who wanted to let just about everyone else in this film steal almost every scene he’s in. Being the straight man in a comedy is a thankless job.

But is it funny? There’s two possible scenarios to consider here:

A): Australian film is so firmly built around the grants system these days that you can hardly blame film-makers for wanting to tailor their product to funding bodies rather than audiences. Even if they didn’t get or need a grant this time around, who knows when they’ll have to knock on (say) Film Victoria’s door, cap in hand? And with comedy still seen as something popular that doesn’t need funding, increasingly Australian screen comedy looks like Paper Champions: a film that often feels like it really wanted to be funnier, but then remembered it was time to drop in some family drama just to make sure we knew we were watching a “real” movie.

B): There’s a lot of things going on here that feel like they probably seemed funny written down, but don’t really work that way on the screen. The wrestling subplot is pretty over the top; Rey’s work features more than the usual amount of kooky characters; someone dances really, really badly. And there are a handful of moments here that are legitimately laugh-worthy, alongside a lot more that feel like they’re meant to be running gags or quirky observations. It doesn’t try so hard to be funny that it’s failures are painful to watch, but that also means there are long stretches of this film that are just… you know, pleseant.

Either way, the end result isn’t the worst Australian comedy film of the year. Which has got to count for something even if there’s only been one other Australian comedy film this year. Supposedly Paper Champions will be getting a cinema release once people feel safe enough to go into cinemas, so you might want to hold off and see this one on the big screen… but probably not.

Australian Tumbleweeds is Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.
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