Most of our objections to the state of modern Australian comedy can be boiled down to two points: most of it isn’t even trying to be funny, and it’s not even any good at whatever it is trying to do. So we’re actually kind of pleased to see both The Checkout and Have You Been... Read More »
Well, looks like a): all our speculation was wrong apart from b): the part where we guessed Chris Lilley was completely out of ideas: Australia’s favourite mean girl is back Ja’mie King returns to her private schoolgirl roots for ABC TV After months of speculation and rumour, ABC TV is pleased to confirm that Australia’s... Read More »
When was the last time the ABC commissioned a sitcom directed at old people? Oh God, was it Mother & Son in the 1980s? Yet here we stand, only midway into 2013, and already we’ve had a pair of sitcoms fired directly at the strongly beating hearts of da yoof: First was Please Like Me,... Read More »
What are we, four episodes into Please Like Me? And it’s not really a comedy at all, is it? It’s yet another one of those ABC “light dramas” where some self-obsessed “funny person” is given the go ahead to make a show pretty much entirely about themselves just so long as there’s some hook the... Read More »
It took us a while, but we finally managed to track down a copy of “Switched On”, the TV guide that came with today’s Herald-Sun newspaper. Why bother, you might ask before recoiling in horror as we wave it under your nose and you see the cover tagline: “SITCOM SCANDAL: Is Josh Thomas’ new show... Read More »
While we’d like to thank everyone who sent in cards and letters over the last few hours congratulating us on taking over the role of Head of Comedy at the ABC, bad news: we didn’t get the gig. It’s an easy mistake to make though, considering this was one of the main planks of today’s... Read More »
This is it – the big one. Not so much for a single year’s work at making crap comedy as a concerted effort across an entire career, this award salutes those who, year in year out, go out of their way to make comedy that puzzles, annoys, and bores the Tumblie... Read More »
Looking over the TV listings this year, the one thought that repeatedly came to our minds is “please Australian networks, hold back on the quality shows for a while, we can barely cope with the ones we’ve already... Read More »
With short episode runs and rapid axings preventing a lot of new talent from getting any real experience before being thrown onto the main stage, new comedy usually deserves a bit of... Read More »
It must be hard to know which way to turn sometimes when you work at the Melbourne Herald-Sun. One day you’re gleefully running columns calling the Prime Minister “Julia-in-wonderland” (Terry McCann, July 13th) and claiming “either we’re smarter than every other country [for installing a carbon tax] or Gillard is dumber than every other leader”... Read More »