Australian Tumbleweeds
Ebony and Ivory – 8MMM: the reappraisal
Seems we made an error in our review of the first episode of 8MMM Aboriginal Radio. Lots of commenters have told us that the constant racism from the show’s training manager Dave is entirely realistic. Guess there must be lots of white people in Alice Springs who can’t even buy bread in a supermarket without slagging off indigenous folks. They must be quite annoying!
Having said that, this is the kind of thing that the very first episode of a comedy series set in a location that’s unfamiliar to most of its audience needs to explain. Comedians who blame their audience for not getting the joke usually don’t stay comedians for long. It’s fine (and based on the feedback we’ve had, totally correct) to say “that’s exactly what people are like up north”, but if you don’t take the time to set the scene – if you don’t explain that yes, this offensive behaviour is actually considered par for the course in some parts of the country – then you’re not doing your job as comedians.
Because the fact is that for most Australians – us included – this part of Australia is unfamiliar. And if you’re going to use comedy to educate Australians about life in the Northern Territory (a part of the country inhabited by less people than the audience for the Seven Nightly News in an east coast capital city), then “educate” is part of the process. It doesn’t make it impossible to set a comedy there, but it does mean you have to work a little harder to let us all in on the joke.
One positive that came out of our gaff was that we were offered the chance to preview the rest of the series*, which we’re happy to report improves a lot, with all of the characters becoming less cartoonish and more nuanced. Even racist Dave starts to befriend some of the indigenous characters. Kinda. Look out for the scene in this week’s episode where he wakes up with his arm around an indigenous man (we won’t spoil the punchline). And there are more Dave laughs coming in episode five, when his re-enactment of John McDowell Stuart’s founding of Alice Spring is ruined by Jampajinpa and friends, while Koala hilariously proves that he isn’t a decedent of Stuart after all.
This is all classic sitcom humour, and funny because it’s full-of-himself Dave copping it. Less amusing are the moments that reflect the harsh realities of life. In one episode Jake and Lola ask for funding for a new water pump, but in a The Games-esque moment find that while they can’t have the money for the pump they can have as much bottled water as they like. Who needs sustainable solutions?! In another episode the team from 8MMM celebrate with a few (actually rather a lot of) drinks, but on the way home the slightly drunk Jampajinpa is hassled by the cops, arrested and jailed, while the same cops let the incredibly drunk – and driving – Dave go about his business.
The double standards, stupid bureaucracy and in-your-face racism are shocking, but there’s nothing to laugh at here. It’s like watching a 4 Corners story about the after-effects of the intervention or a John Pilger documentary: utterly depressing. But laugh at this we’re invited to. 8MMM actor, writer and producer, Trisha Morton-Thomas, and producer Rachel Clements recently promoted the series on ABC Melbourne’s The Conversation Hour, and spoke, amongst other things, about how they wanted to use humour to explore the truth of life in indigenous communities.
We have to laugh, otherwise we’ll just be a little heap on the floor crying constantly. You can’t do that you, you have to get on with life.
Fair enough, and we’re sure this plays well to those familiar with this world, but for us it’s been more of an “eye opener”. And like most eye openers, it wasn’t that funny. If you disagree we’d like to hear why – tell us what made you laugh.
* Our source wishes to remain anonymous, but we can assure you has no connection with the production of 8MMM.
The Weekly Week Three: Week As Piss
Week three and the deck chairs are starting to be shuffled around. Gone is Kitty Flanagan’s segment; gone too the interview. In their place we get a UK correspondent fulfilling exactly the same role international comedy correspondents have been filling since satellite links became feasible, and Pickering hitting the road as a roving correspondent himself to check out the controversy surrounding a proposed mosque in Bendigo. Was any of this funny? It’s The Weekly – do you have to ask?
After last week’s failure to provide any kind of depth, this week they’ve doubled down and bet the farm on the concept of “breadth”. Well, not entirely: once again The Weekly tackled a big-ish issue – our pitifully low level of foreign aid – and managed to tell us a few things we almost certainly already knew. “Governments can cut foreign aid because foreigners don’t vote” and “most people think we spend way more overseas than we actually do”. There you go, we just saved you five minutes.
No matter how much they tinker with the format, it’s become reasonably clear that the real problems with this show – the ones that are going to hold it back week in week out – are fundamental. The jokes here are good; they’re just not as good as the ones on The Hamster Wheel or Mad as Hell. Pickering, Gleeson and Flanagan can be funny; they’re just not funny enough to have a show all to themselves.
It might be too early to call it, but we’re going to do it anyway: Pickering is screwed. Not because he’s a terrible host, but because he’s an average host stuck in a format that is 80% a showcase for the host. Around half the show is just him being a comedy newsreader, and even Pickering’s biggest supporters would have to admit that he doesn’t have the comedy persona to carry that off.
Not that many other TV Australians could manage it either: even Adam “much-loved” Hill’s talk show struggled. Shaun Micallef rarely does the kind of long, explanatory stories Pickering is trying to pull off here, and his interviews are with comedy characters a lot more interesting than Tom Gleeson. And when you get down to it, Pickering is kind of bland – the only edge he has on television is the kind of vaguely sneery arrogance that makes him come off like a NQR version of Wil Anderson. And even Anderson lets the panel do most of the talking on Gruen.
The Weekly has a format that needs two things to work: a strong host and a smart writers room. So far it’s displayed neither. Seriously guys, “The Insider’s Insider” isn’t a sketch for week three. It’s a sketch for week seventeen when you’re really struggling, and even then the only way it’s going to work is if the real joke is that our much-loved Weekly team are just piss-farting about. Which is never going to happen because even in a scripted sketch it seems the writers automatically give Pickering the role of “bossy arsehole”.
(Micallef has often talked about the way he’ll play an arrogant sod as the host of his various shows then make sure in the sketches he plays the low status character to balance things out. Guess Pickering was too busy laughing at every single thing Micallef ever said on Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation to actually learn anything from him.)
Maybe in the next few weeks they’ll figure out that going deeper – much deeper – into the issues is the only way to make this show worthwhile. Having Pickering go to Bendigo, bung on a Chris Morris voice (hey, it made a change from his Jon Stewart) and mock idiots to their face is only ever going to be more than just a smart-arse making fun of idiots if there’s some actual point behind it beyond “some people are dumb”. You don’t say? We kinda figured that one out when the audience laughed at the intro to “This Is What You Think”.
It’s a weekly show with a smallish staff so no doubt there are limits to what they can do. So do an interview. Do a few bits that are meant to be lightweight and silly. And then when you tackle a topic in-depth, actually have something deep to say. It’s nice that you can make the point that foreign aid helps Australia as much as it helps others; if that’s all you’ve got to say, say it in half the time and move on.
(sure, it’s easier for us to say this stuff than it is for them to go and do it – that’s why they get paid full-time wages to make the show and we’re spotting the reasons why the show is struggling for free.)
At this stage it really does feel like The Weekly isn’t going to improve any time soon. They must know something’s not quite right, but all the changes this week were superficial. Unless there’s a willingness and an ability to go deeper – to make the truly insightful joke, to present the surprising fact, to serve up the unpopular truth instead of saving any mention of the executions of the Bali Nine until a week after they happened and then only mention them just to poke fun at people saying they’re going to boycott Bali* – The Weekly is going to be as worthwhile as a week-old newspaper.
*which in it’s “ha ha, some people care enough about an issue to make an empty gesture” attitude reminded us of way too many previous ABC comedies where the big laughs were always meant to be at the idea that anyone would care about an issue or think that one side of politics was any different from the other. You really think that opposing capital punishment (even half-heartedly) makes someone a loser? Or that as Prime Minister, Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard are basically the same? Then why are you even doing political comedy? Oh right, Hey Hey it’s Saturday isn’t hiring.
Compulsory Logies Wrap-Up Post
Comedy never comes out of a Logies ceremony looking great. Last night we saw the usual mix of light-hearted industry backslapping, and results which ranged from the surprisingly good to the fairly baffling. Here’s a quick run-down:
Most Popular Entertainment Program – Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year South America
No surprises here – kinda like the show itself. After taking Gap Years in various parts of the world Hamish & Andy have a well-honed and very popular formula, and they ain’t changing it. Problem is, they’ve just about run out of continents to eat weird food in. Guess they’ll have to come up with something new. What’s the betting it involves stunts?
Most Outstanding Comedy Program – Utopia
Probably the best of the bunch, government infrastructure satire Utopia beat Black Comedy, Legally Brown, Please Like Me and Upper Middle Bogan to win this award. It was odd to not see Mad As Hell nominated here, but it was entered for Most Outstanding Entertainment Program.
Most Popular Actress – Asher Keddie
Julia Morris was nominated in this category for her role in House Husbands but lost to the Offspring and Party Tricks star. Maybe it was that loss that caused her to mess up and not announce the nominees for Most Outstanding Entertainment Program?
Most Popular Presenter – Carrie Bickmore
The first of several wins for Bickmore, she beat Hamish & Andy’s Andy to take out this award. To be fair, she does a fair bit more presenting than Andy.
Most Outstanding Entertainment Program – The Voice Australia
An odd category this, in which the other nominees were Bogan Hunters, Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell, The Chaser’s Media Circus and The Checkout. Presumably The Voice won because it best fits the definition of an entertainment program, as opposed to the satirical sketch comedies, consumer affairs and exploitative pseudo-comic documentary/game shows it was up against. Oh, and what was Mad As Hell doing in this category and why wasn’t it entered for Most Outstanding Comedy? Do we smell a conspiracy? Your best tin foil hat-esque theories in a comment, please.
Most Popular Actor – Stephen Peacocke
Chris Lilley and Josh Thomas were beaten by the Home & Away star in this category. We guess comedians will never be as popular with the kids as hunky soap stars.
Graham Kennedy Award For Most Outstanding Newcomer – Miranda Tapsell
Sketch comedian Troy Kinne was nominated for this award but lost to Love Child star Miranda Tapsell. She made a much-acclaimed speech about the need for more people of colour to be on Australian TV. We completely agree.
Most Outstanding Actor – Luke Arnold
Luke Arnold won for his portrayal of Michael Hutchence in INXS: Never Tear Us Apart. Other nominees included Rake star Richard Roxborough, who at least was in a show that was meant to be funny.
Most Outstanding Series – Wentworth
Rake also lost in this category to Prisoner re-make Wentworth. Wentworth is way less funny than Prisoner, which is a shame for those of us who like their drama tempered with a little bathos.
Gold Logie – Carrie Bickmore
Bickmore beat nominees Hamish Blake, Andy Lee, Scott Cam, Asher Keddie and Stephen Peacocke to take out her first Gold Logie this year. Whilst clearly not nominated for being funny, it’s interesting to note how many comedians/funny folk have won the gold over the years – Hamish Blake, Denise Drysdale, Norman Gunston, Graham Kennedy, Rove McManus, Bert Newton, Daryl Somers and Steve Vizard – and yet comedy’s greatest hope of the present day, Shaun Micallef, will probably never make it. Kind of a shame, that.
Modesty Forbids
We often cop some flack when we mention the many and various foibles of Australian television critics. That’s partly because – unlike actual Australian comedians – some of them have active fanbases, and partly because some readers think we should stick to what we do best: incoherently slagging off sub-standard Australian comedy.
But the poor quality of Australian television critics is part of the problem. By consistently refusing to point out the obvious – that most Australian comedy is pretty arse – they contribute to an environment where half-baked ideas and haphazard execution reigns supreme. Often because they’re angling for jobs making the same kind of crap themselves.
So you night think then that Fairfax TV writer David Dale’s “Bogie” awards – which, in his words, “celebrate all that is tacky, annoying and manipulative about Australian television” – would be right up our alley. Sadly, no: presumably it’s being used ironically, but the mere presence of the word “celebrate” is the big giveaway. Even our own annual Australian Tumbleweed Awards know enough to know that shit shows deserve to be treated like shit. As for jokey awards about “bad” television? Into the bin.
To be fair to Dale, we detected enough venom here to at least keep reading through to the end, which with our short attention spans has to count as some kind of win. Though this bit about the Logies did interest us:
After complaints by this column (among others) that there was no category for Outstanding Comedy, they’ve included a comedy category this year
That’s because the version that went to print in our local rag ran more like this:
After complaints by this column that there was no category for Outstanding Comedy, they’ve included a comedy category this year
Oddly, the time and date on the online version reads “May 3, 2015 – 10:38AM”, which suggests to us that some tinkering may have taken place after the print edition was filed. Maybe someone in editorial realised that the heroic Dale wasn’t the sole voice complaining about the Logies lack of a comedy award?
Brilliant news today from TV Week that it has restored Most Outstanding Comedy to its 2015 Logie Awards.
The jury-voted category has been absent since 2009.
TV Week says the change has come about after consulting with the industry, as well as listening to feedback from readers, viewers and voters.
Even we had words on the topic:
Mad as Hell was beaten by The X Factor? All the comedy categories replaced by “Best Presenter” and “Best Light Entertainment”? It’s enough to make you think The TV Week Logie Awards are nothing more than a promotional tool for the comedy-free commercial networks.
Of course, re-instating the Comedy award is nothing to be proud of if it goes to a show that sucks. Here’s the 2015 nominations (oddly, Mad as Hell, The Chaser’s Media Circus and Hamish & Andy’s South American Gap Year are in “Entertainment” categories):
*Black Comedy (ABC)
*Legally Brown (SBS One)
*Please Like Me (ABC2)
*Upper Middle Bogan (ABC)
*Utopia (ABC)
They’re certainly representative of Australian comedy, we’ll give them that…
Blackfella/Whitefella
Many blackfellas, understandably, have a cynical view of whitefellas. 8MMM Aboriginal Radio, a new ABC1 sitcom set in an indigenous radio station in Alice Springs, says this in its name. From the press release: “non-Indigenous people who come to work in Aboriginal organisations easily fall into one of three categories – missionaries, mercenaries or misfits – the 3 Ms”.*
The attitudes of white people and white organisations towards indigenous people and indigenous organisations are a big theme of this show, and are well illustrated by a scene where a number of new-looking four wheel drives belonging to indigenous charities are shown to be driven by white staff members while the black people they’re supposed to be helping and empowering are either in the passenger seat or not in the car at all. Cut to the radio station where the white people in charge are supposed to training the indigenous people to take over from them…except that’ll probably never happen. These are fair points, perhaps expressed in a heavy-handed way, but they set up the series in a way that suggests that this will be a satire. And let’s face it, after 200+ years of us white folk buggering up this country, it’s about time we saw some indigenous satire on ABC1.
Further potential for laughs and satire comes in the form of the station’s new training manager Dave. He’s got decades of experience in broadcasting, he isn’t pleased to be there, and he’s more than happy to express his strongly-held views…views so strong and so often expressed that they make Reclaim Australia look subtle. While no doubt a very real character type encountered by the indigenous community, it’s hard for us whiteys to view him as anything other than a comic book racist. As programs by Louis Theroux, John Safran and others illustrate so well, racists aren’t as dim-witted as we’d like them to be, they can be very subtle about how they express their racism, and all the more dangerous for it. Most racists would never be racist to black people’s faces, as Dave is. Maybe white people act differently in central Australia, but for us Dave’s racism was unrealistic and overdone.
Equally unrealistic, stereotypical and poorly realised are the indigenous characters, who are variously portrayed as militant, dumb, lazy, guided by weird myths or just plain nuts. Watching this show you wonder if indigenous cynics wrote the white parts and white supremacists wrote the indigenous parts. But in reality, it’s just bad writing. The characters and situations have lots of potential for comedy, but when there’s an attempt at comedy at all – for much of this show is a meandering light drama – it’s not exactly top shelf stuff. There’s some slapstick that isn’t timed quite right, there’s some zany characters who either don’t get to do much zany stuff or who do zany stuff that isn’t set up well enough, and that’s kind of it.
We assume (hope!) that this show works for an indigenous audience, but we’re city slicker white folk and we can’t even laugh in recognition. And so, without the context explained (which it mostly isn’t) or any funny characters to enjoy, we found 8MMM a difficult watch. We can’t think of another sitcom set in either Alice Springs or an indigenous community, let alone an indigenous satire, so we’re glad someone’s tried it, but that’s all we can say that’s positive about this show. Like the radio station and the other indigenous non-profits depicted in this series, its heart’s in the right place, but its execution leaves a lot to be desired.
* This gag would have worked better in Victoria, where radio station call signs start with 3, but it still works.
The Weekly Week Two: Still Weak
Do you think they’re regretting those fake news headline jokes in the opening credits? They’re not bad jokes, but they’re not classics either, and seeing them for another 18 weeks is going to take the shine off them so hard we’ll be lucky if there’s even any bare metal left underneath. Man, they really did not think this through, did they?
And that impression was only further re-enforced when host Charlie Pickering told us right off the top of the bat that don’t worry – he wasn’t going to be making fun of any of the news out of Nepal or Indonesia. Jesus, really? Okay, this is a new show and they probably felt they needed to let the viewers know that this isn’t the kind of show that’s going to “go there”. They were wrong.
If you’re doing a news satire and you start saying up front “there’s nothing funny about this particular big news story so we’re leaving it alone”, you should quit. There’s next to nothing on the news that isn’t going to offend someone if you make a joke about it. And obviously there are going to be some stories where the simply isn’t a funny angle that’s easily available. But to say up front “these stories are out of bounds”? Just pack up and go home.
Especially if your first big run of jokes for the day turn out to be about ISIS. ISIS are somehow less offensive on a moral level than the executions of the Bali 9? Sure, repeated exposure to the horrors of ISIS have worn away at our disgust, thus opening the door for hilarious comedy – and even for the stuff The Weekly does – but still: opening your show with a “don’t worry, we’re not going to make jokes about touchy subjects” really does utterly fucking defeat the purpose of a show making fun of the news.
Wait, our mistake – the next target in The Weekly‘s comedy sights turned out to be a boxing match. Sorry, we thought this show was going to be a news satire. Then again, the boxing jokes were almost kind of sort of actual jokes, so maybe boxing comedy is the future of The Weekly. They have massive heavyweight champion fights for the world title every week don’t they? Oh.
Tom Gleeson was moved up to the front of the show for a segment that seemed to be largely about him informing us that he “doesn’t give a shit” about the upcoming Royal Baby, or who would be on the currency if not some royal, or various redheads. Then again, he was the ‘ginger ninja’ for a while. And Pickering seemed to find it hilarious, a trick many of you may recall from his years of laughing hysterically at everything Shaun Micallef did on Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation.
Hey, here’s a fun thing to think about while you’re waiting to laugh at The Weekly: remember all those times when some wastrel or another brought up the “fact” that “young people all get 100% of their news from comedy” and tried to use it to justify creating a news satire show? Thank god no-one said that about The Weekly, because judging by this week’s episode it’s hard to imagine a news satire less interested in actual news. An extended story about possible Olympic bids a decade from now? Did literally nothing happen in Australia over the last week?
If our big worry last week was that The Weekly wasn’t going to be smart enough, then this week our big worry was that it was going to dissolve into a lemon-scented mist before our very eyes. There’s lightweight comedy, and then there’s a show that has no point to it whatsoever. And somewhere well past that The Weekly was wandering around in circles while Kitty Flanagan gave us an important update on people taking selfies on Anzac Day.
Anzac Day! We knew something vaguely interesting had happened during the last week. Not that The Weekly mentioned it or the events that took place during it or people’s reactions to it or the growing feeling that Anzac Day is actually starting to become a bit divisive as the nation splits between those who see it and “our Diggers” as scared figures and those who think that maybe worshipping war is bad. Guess it wasn’t as news worthy as a bunch of jokes about giving away kangaroos.
So it was kind of ironic that the final joke of the evening was a swipe at commercial news for not doing due diligence on the Belle Gibson case. “We can’t blame the media for letting stories like this go unchecked,” smarmed Pickering, “there are just so many important stories they have to cover”. WHAT, LIKE ALL THE REAL NEWS STORIES YOUR SHITHOUSE “NEWS SATIRE” SHOW JUST COVERED YOU SMUG CHUNK OF UNDIGESTED-
– sorry about that. There’s just something about a news comedy show that’s spent 27 and a half minutes studiously avoiding making any comment at all about any actual news deciding to wrap things up with a swipe at the news for being lightweight that just, you know, doesn’t quite sit right with us.
Still, we are willing to admit that we did get one thing majorly wrong about The Weekly in our review last week. Remember how back then we called it “a Daily Show rip-off”? After seeing this week’s show, we unreservedly take that back.
Whatever the similarities in format, this pissweak, half-arsed sleepwalking crap is nothing at all like The Daily Show.
Checkin’ Out
We don’t really cover The Checkout much these days. Here’s why:
THE CHECKOUT SNIFFS OUT THE BULLSHIT IN A2 MILK
In The Checkout this week, 8pm Thursday 30 April on ABC:
– A2 Milk is Australia’s fastest-growing milk brand. What’s the story – clever marketing, or is it really better for you? Kirsten Drysdale brings us up-to-date with the latest bogus developments in milk science. No stranger to milk, Kirsten wrote and presented Milk, White Lies and Permeate for The Checkout in 2013.
– Alex Lee (The Roast and ABC News 24) joins The Checkout to examine who really owns your books (and other media) now in this age of Kindle. The digital licence you agree to when you buy a lot of digital media online is not always the same as ownership.
– Count Snackula complains about Oral B in the latest ‘Complaint Letter’ received in The Checkout’s inbox.
– CHOICE’s Kate Browne returns as ‘The Guilty Mum’ and loads up the weapons in the war on nits.
– The uppers and downers in chocolate in ‘Source of Confusion’ with Zoë Norton Lodge and Kirsten Drysdale.
– In F.U. Tube this week, Craig Reucassel deals with consumers who’ve been FU’d by Hungry Jacks, RACV Roadside Assistance, Chupa Chups and NAB Fixed Home Loan rates that weren’t exactly fixed.
Don’t get us wrong; when we actually watch the show much of what we see certainly looks like a comedy. And not just because “the latest bogus developments in milk science” sounds hilarious. But comedy is about finding things you find funny and making jokes about them: The Checkout is about taking consumer affairs and slapping a few jokes around the edges to prevent the audience from dying of boredom.
It’s not surprising that The Chaser – well, members of it – have gone this way. Much of the appeal of their best work (that’d be The Hamster Wheel) came from the way they really burrowed down into an issue to find out what was really funny about it – a lesson we’re hoping The Weekly learns sooner rather than later. So applying this approach to consumer affairs is kind of a win-win, as it takes something popular but dull and makes it slightly less dull.
What it doesn’t do is make it a comedy. With The Hamster Wheel, The Chaser could roam pretty much wherever they liked around the world of politics following the funny. “Who really owns your books in the age of Kindle”? That’d be the publishers and distributors, as they’re only renting the text of the book to you. Next segment please oh wait this one’s still got five minutes to run because it’s got to explain a whole lot of things before it can even get to the jokes which are just bolted on in the form of wacky presentations and cute visuals.
This is in no way a slam on the show itself. It’s doing what it set out to do skilfully and well, and it has the ratings to prove it. But it’s infotainment with a comedy slant, a show where getting laughs is always going to come second to providing information (actually more like third, once you factor in “audience participation”). The comedy is a spoonful of sugar; we’d rather take our medicine straight.
Time Once Again to Crack Open Another Kinne
It may have snuck back onto our (digital) screens with a lot less fanfare than it did in 2014, but Troy Kinne’s 7Mate sketch show Kinne is still well worth checking out. What’s that? An Australian sketch comedy show that’s actually not all bad? And it’s on a commercial network? Yeah, we’re as surprised as you are.
In part our surprise comes from the fact that Kinne suffers from the same, usually fatal flaws that have crippled sketch comedy in this country for a decade or more: running gags and plenty of them. Is the Impromptu Lifeguard back? Yes he is. Is “Things Never Said” back? Yes it is. And yet for the most part Kinne makes this stuff work by keeping his various standard premises (relatively) wide open.
While the Impromptu Lifeguard is a regular character, he’s dumped into a bunch of different circumstances where the main factor is that he’s a bungling dickhead: it isn’t the kind of sketch where he does the exact same thing as every other time only the big joke is that the setting’s changed, which was a problem that killed off more than a few of the sketches on Black Comedy.
Likewise, “Things Never Said” is a premise that’s loose enough to cover pretty much anything in the public conciousness – and it’s usually rapid-fire enough to ensure by the time you’re tired of this week’s target the segment’s over. It’s basically a YouTube clip (unsurprisingly, as YouTube is where Kinne first made his mark), but at least the comedians learning their trade on YouTube are learning that packing a lot of jokes into a small space is a good way to ensure that you at least get a few laughs.
Kinne’s added Roz Hammond and Ronny Chieng to the cast for this series, which means he’s now able to cover pretty much the full range of human relationships (plus, you know, they’re both funny). Which is important, because relationships are a very large part of what this show’s about. Yes, as we said last year, Kinne largely looks at relationships (and society in general) from the POV of a straight white vaguely sports-loving dude in his 20s (which is basically the most boring possible standpoint to approach comedy from these days) but Kinne and his team put in a solid effort to ensure the jokes come from a variety of angles – and that the kind of characters Kinne himself plays are the butt of the joke at least as often as not.
Mind you, it’s not all gold here: The on-the-street stuff is a bit wobbly at times – using as-seen-on-Tinder pick-up lines in real life is funny if you like awkward encounters, not so funny from any other direction, though the actual sketch turned out to be a bit less creepy than it could have been – and there’s only so much “have you ever noticed” material we need to see in half an hour.
The real strength here is Kinne himself: he’s blokey enough to have the kind of mainstream appeal required on commercial TV, but he’s able to undercut or play against the blokey stuff when a joke requires it (as seen in the early sketch where he plays a game show host nowhere near over his ex). Despite butting up against the occasional limits of his chosen subject matter (there’s a lot of “guys are like this, girls are like that” material here and his insights range from sharply observed to “yep, guys sure do like fixing stuff”) this is still the best traditional sketch show Australia currently has going.
And yes, we wish that was higher praise.
A Weekly Is a Long Time In Show Business
Well, don’t we look like dickheads. There we were just a few weeks back boldly claiming that it was plain to all and sundry that Charlie Pickering’s The Weekly was going to:
…make a much more concerted effort to rip off The Daily Show. You know the drill: wacky opening monologue, slightly more in depth report on something (presumably from Kitty Flanagan and / or Tom Gleeson – you know, the cast members not featured in that clip – which will in no way prompt comparisons with John Oliver), a guest from the real world, then roll credits. Remember all those times you got Charlie Pickering and Jon Stewart mixed up? No? Better not tell the ABC that.
Of course, now that we’ve seen the show it’s obvious that… oh, right.
Word is that around at least a few ABC corridors The Weekly is being described as “A John Oliver type show”. You know, in much the same way that Tonight Live with Steve Vizard was “A David Letterman type show”. But hey, it’s a perfectly good format that no-one in this country is using, so clearly it’s fair game. Especially when the media around here kept running stories like:
Will Charlie Pickering’s The Weekly Be The Home-Grown ‘Daily Show’:
“never underestimate the power of ridicule to keep the powerful under control. If someone in a position of power, whether it’s a politician or a very wealthy businessman or a sports star, if they’re just one step away from the entire country laughing at them, then they tend to behave themselves a little better… It actually means I think, to some degree, that power stays with, you know, the people.”
The Weekly is not The Project on ABC:
“It will be the funniest take on the week’s news that we can muster with the resources of the national broadcaster behind us: a high speed internet connection and a room full of comedians,”
Charlie Pickering Is A Total Legend:
(oh dear, The Vine.com seem to have realised the error of their ways with their link-based praise-fest and taken it down. Jump on the google cache while you can)
While he denies wanting to compare The Weekly to shows like The Daily Show in the US, the demographic is essentially the same. And for a generation who trust comedians more than traditional journalists to tell them about what’s going on in the world, Pickering’s integrity tour is exactly what he needs to capture the audience.
With a now slightly embarassing headline, here’s The Guardian with: Charlie Pickering on The Weekly: ‘There is plenty to joke about in the news’: ABC’s new host on the ‘complicated calculus’ of satire, Aunty’s creative freedoms (and tough standards) and why he’s not remaking The Daily Show (presumably because Last Week Tonight was a slightly less obvious show to rip off):
“The fodder is the news and there is plenty to joke about in the news. But our fodder is also issues … Everyone is stuck in the 24 hour news cycle so they have to talk about the news straight away and we’ve got a bit of time to sit with it maybe. We can connect a few stories.”
And our personal favourite, from John Safran himself, Chasing Charlie Pickering:
“Someone asked me about my old job, The Project, and asked why I left,” he ranted into the microphone. “I just couldn’t watch the news any more. It never changes: bad theatre by poor actors every night in perpetuity, it’s always the same.”
Guess he must have got over that.
As The Weekly wore on it became obvious that this was a show aimed at an Australian audience desperate for something like The Daily Show yet completely unaware that The Daily Show is a thing that actually already exists. Which seems fairly cynical, even for Australian television. When Pickering told TV Tonight “I want a format that I’m allowed to throw out”, maybe he should have considered exercising that option before the first show went to air.
But format aside, did the show work? Well, there was an opening swoop over a cheering audience. Really? Isn’t it enough that we just hear them cheering? Oh wait, this is the nation where a legion of dickheads spent half a year claiming that Mad as Hell used a laugh track. Let’s move on.
And here comes Charlie, cheerfully informing us that “We’ve got a big show tonight”. And right there our dreams of seeing anything even remotely original died a death. No, you don’t have a big show tonight: you have your first show tonight. And maybe you should have started it without using the oldest cliche in the book. Yes, the thanks you gave to Micallef and to us for tuning in were nice. But not as nice as starting with a joke. And then we got fan reactions to the Star Wars trailer. Isn’t showing YouTube clips The Footy Show‘s thing now?
All of this no doubt seems kind of petty to you; it did to us too. And then we remembered that this is the most important part of the most important episode of The Weekly ever. Sure, it might improve in the weeks ahead. But with the way television works in this country in 2015, there’s a very good chance it will never have a bigger audience than it does for the first few minutes of this first episode. Star Wars fan reactions, people. And then a “Margaret & David” joke. And then a “Walt Disney on ice” joke followed by “yes, I know that’s an urban legend”. Is it such a great idea to make a joke and then tell us the joke is based on something that’s not true? Does it make for a funnier joke, or does it make you wonder “why tell that joke”?
The big problem here wasn’t the format, or a bunch of jokes that seemed weirdly stale (a Tony Abbott VB ad? Do they even still use that “matter of fact, I’ve got it now” jingle?). It’s that the show just wasn’t as smart as it needed to be. Take the extended segment on piracy, which bought out and bought into this somewhat dubious argument trotted out by the big corporations: every time someone illegally downloads a movie (in this case the small Australian horror films 100 Bloody Acres and Wyrmwood) that directly equals one ticket to those movies that wasn’t sold.
Hang on a sec: do you know anyone who happily downloads stuff that they’d never actually pay money for? Those guys kind of throw the whole “every illegal download is a lost ticket sale” argument out of wack. And do you know of any cinema near you that was even screening either 100 Bloody Acres or Wyrmwood so you could pay to see them if you wanted to? Wow, this whole piracy thing is a bit more complicated than it first seemed. Maybe just focus on the jokes next time.
It was the same problem with Kitty Flanagan and Tom Gleeson. Their bits were good as far as they went – they just didn’t go far enough. If you’re really going to do news-based comedy – even in Australia, where Mad as Hell and The Hamster Wheel made a decent fist of it in living memory – you have to be smart. Not smug, smart. Not “hey, we made a joke based on an urban legend and now we just pointed out that we know it’s an urban legend,” not “hey look, I’m making dumb jokes about something smart and complicated, the joke is that I’m too dumb to realise this is more complicated than the simplistic approach I’m taking”. Actually smart. And based on the first episode of The Weekly, it just isn’t smart enough.
Watching The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight, you’re never going to die wondering about the issues that those involved with those shows feel passionate about. Even watching Mad as Hell, there are enough moments where clearly someone was mad as hell about something (even if it’s the way giant supermarket chains treat their produce suppliers) to give the show some bite.
The Weekly felt like a toothless operation complied by a bunch of cosily comfortable comedy professionals (head writer: Tom Gleeson – hey look, Pickering’s old co-host from The Mansion days, Michael “Chambo” Chamberlin’s got a gig here too) who are perfectly happy to wave at issues with an ornate feather-laden novelty comedy fan rather than let us know how they really feel. Because they feel nothing beyond paying their bills? These days, who does?
Gleeson’s vaccination rant towards the end of the show was a perfectly decent piece of comedy business that even managed to raise a chuckle or two at Tumbleweeds HQ. But we never got the impression for a single solitary second that Gleeson gave a shit either way about the issue. Sure, we’ve never got the impression Gleeson really gives a shit about much of anything; like Kitty Flanagan, he’s just not that kind of comedian. So what is he doing on this kind of show?
Maybe this’ll improve in coming weeks. We doubt it. The ABC have put together a team of safe hands to do what they’re best known for doing; so far they’re doing that just fine. And if the result is a largely insipid, dumbed-down take on an all-encompassing media environment where everything else – commercials, politicians’ gag writers, our corporate masters, tumblr activists, the guy sitting behind you on the bus – is so much smarter than this aspires to be… well, guess we’re the idiots for expecting a Daily Show rip-off to rip-off what really makes The Daily Show work.
*update*
Dammit Fairfax, we called it a rip-off too!
Charlie Pickering says he wants to create TV similar to that made by veteran presenter Clive James, but some viewers think he’s trying to be like US host, John Oliver.
Pickering’s new ABC show The Weekly aired for the first time on Wednesday night, during which Pickering and co-presenters Kitty Flanagan and Tom Gleeson took a satirical look on the issues of the week, including internet piracy and vaccinations.
Before the show aired, Pickering revealed he had been re-watching old episodes of Australian presenter Clive James’s TV show on YouTube.
“As a kid I used to watch the TV that Clive James made and think it was the best in the world,” Pickering said.
However, Pickering has been criticised on Twitter for trying to emulate US satirical host, John Oliver who presents Last Week Tonight.
(at least one of those positive tweets comes from a media comrade of Pickering’s, by the way)
Vale Mad as Hell (again)
Once again the internet was flooded with an outpouring of grief at the news that the current series of Shaun Micallef is Mad as Hell will be the last. Well, a few people mentioned it. To us at least. Fortunately this seemed based largely on Micallef ending the series pretty much the same way as he’s ended every other one – like he wouldn’t be back. What else is he going to do, say “see you next year” halfway through April? Even the ABC don’t know what they’re planning for 2016 yet.
That said, there are two fairly obvious scenarios that could play out: either The Weekly becomes a hit and is the ABC’s first choice for news-based satire, or it tanks and Mad as Hell is left as their first choice (the third option involves The Chaser wanting to do another news-based show, but that seems a little unlikely at this point). Sure, the ABC could keep both on – they had both Mad as Hell and The Hamster Wheel for a while there – but giving twenty weeks to The Weekly is a pretty firm sign that the ABC want it to step up to the lead role.
(as an aside, has anyone else noticed that that a): it’s always the shows that come from management rather than creative that get the massive episode runs on the ABC, and b): it’s always the shows that come from management rather than creative that are the long-running disasters on the ABC? Of course, the shows that come from creatives are often disasters too, but at least then there isn’t a massive stockpile of episodes to burn off)
Having the ABC position The Weekly as Mad as Hell‘s successor is a little bit irksome, because despite being easily the funniest news satire show the ABC’s had this century, Mad as Hell has never quite been the one in the spotlight. For most of Mad as Hell‘s run The Chaser were still seen as the ABC’s go-to guys for making fun of the news (with The Roast inexplicably kept in the mix there somewhere) ; now that they’ve finally stepped aside, here comes another show getting the big boost.
Some may say that this lower profile enables Micallef and company to get away with more. No doubt not being the ABC’s main political comedy was a help early on – The Hamster Wheel did all the “proper” news comedy while Micallef messed around releasing the Kraken and dropping pianos on guests and so forth. But as pretty much the only Australian comedy show this century to actually improve over the years, now really should have been its time to shine.
Then again, has anyone else noticed a small but growing number of people stepping forward to say that they “don’t get” Micallef? A lot of TV critics have started peppering their “Australian comedy is stronger than it’s ever been” bullshit with lines like “Micallef’s Mad as Hell has its fans”, which is critic-speak for KILL IT WITH FIRE. And didn’t Fairfax waffler supreme David Dale recently say Micallef was reaching his use-by date? Geez, if people in the media have use-by dates someone might want to tip Dale over and check the number stamped on his arse.
We’d see their comments as more than just a nasty whisper campaign if they actually backed it up with, you know, the occasional reference to the actual show. Is it so hard to write “Micallef’s increasing reliance on references to his own back catalogue – less of the Micallef Tonight sign, guys – worn-out running gags (the Kraken’s been unleashed one too many times) and Blade Runner jokes signals a show that’s increasingly insular.”? Look, we just did it then and we don’t even believe it.
Because the fact remains – and it is a fact, all that crap about how it’s impossible to critique comedy needs to go into the bin, to coin a phrase – that Mad as Hell is the funniest show on Australian television. Sure, it’s not funny at all if you don’t find Micallef and co’s kind of humour amusing, but that’s a pretty good sign your idea of a laff-riot is a double feature of chin-stroking during The Agony of Piles and The Gruen [subject to be confirmed]. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Mad as Hell features non-stop jokes that range from wordplay to political observations to silly character stuff to the kind of “hey, this SBS report about the Reserve Bank is illustrated entirely with slightly different shots of the outside of the bank” bits that used to make The Hamster Wheel worthwhile. There’s a live audience to keep the energy up, there’s Micallef gurning away to do the same, there’s material that actually has an impact on the wider nation – the focus on Bill Shorten’s amazingly poor zingers really has shaped the perception of him out in the community – and there’s a reference to The Baldy Man that we’re deeply ashamed we got.
It’ll be missed.