It might be hard to spot from beneath the cloud of gloom and despair that hangs over the Australian televised comedy scene, but at the moment we have two – count ’em – decent local comedy programs currently airing on Australian free-to-air television. We’ll spare you the suspense: we mean Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell... Read More »
For a few years now – well, it feels like years at least – we’ve been complaining / warning that Australian television likes everything about comedy but the making-people-laugh stuff. Of course, who listens to what we have to say? And so it has come to pass that in a few short weeks (July 25th)... Read More »
Ben Pobjie would be the first to tell you he isn’t a TV critic. Rather, he’s just a guy with an opinion about television and who really cares what he thinks because everyone’s opinions are equally valid and it’s just television anyway, right? Let’s pause to salute the Fairfax press for giving someone with such... Read More »
You know us, we're not exactly the home of Australian comedy positivity. So as balance here are a small number of Australian comedy things which may not want to make you slash your wrists. Well, not slash them heaps of... Read More »
Just to cap off a week of Randling posts, let’s pause to note the fact that – unlike, oh, every other Wednesday night ABC comedy show in living memory – Randling is now being repeated on ABC1 Friday nights in prime time (9.30pm to be exact). Wow, who would have thought the demand for a... Read More »
We may have been a bit hard on the ABC of late, what with all that pointing out that their current Wednesday night “comedy” line-up is not only a bit shit but currently rating like people have realised it’s actually a bit shit. Don’t worry though, we’ve just been forwarded a press release letting us... Read More »
Sometimes it’s good to take on board opinions diametrically opposed to yours to broaden your view on a subject. Other times you find yourself reading something that’s just plain wrong. Guess which is which with regards to The Sunday Age‘s Melinda Houston and her most recent write-up of Randling? Everyone, including the audience at home,... Read More »
A brief glimmer of hope came when watching Randling last night – before we realised wait, we’re watching Randling – with an increasingly rare appearance of one Anthony Morgan. Hurrah! It’s always far too long between television gigs for this particular funnyman (he moved to Tasmania around a decade ago), which prompted us to wonder... Read More »
Is there anything more insufferably cringeworthy than announcing to the world your 'love of words'? Some go one step further, however, and devise entire quiz shows based on their self-congratulatory linguistophilia, of which Randling (which began tonight on ABC1) is the latest in a long and woeful... Read More »
In yesterday’s Green Guide Debi Enker wrote something that will come as no surprise whatsoever to long-suffering readers of this blog: “Wednesday night ratings are not giving Aunty much joy”: In recent years, the ABC has established Wednesday as a home for crowd-pleasing light entertainment. Reliably anchored by Spicks & Specks, it offered a selection... Read More »