The majority of comedy podcasts have a “sitting around having a chat” format, and almost all of them shit. Listening to these shows is a bit like having no choice but to overhear an increasingly obnoxious pub conversation in which a small group of blokes in their early 20s are loudly making each other laugh with their stupid, and not really that jokey, views on politics, society, sex and... Read More »
As recently as this week, MMM in Melbourne were (and for all we know, could still be) running promos for the Pete & Myf breakfast show that proudly announced it as the show "Melbourne wakes up to". As the show was recently dumped after well over a year of falling ratings, we'd like to suggest that Melbourne woke up to Pete and Myf a long, long time... Read More »
Back in 2006 a person on a forum I frequented asked whether it was true that Shaun Micallef had appeared on Comic Relief in 1999. In order to confirm this I went straight to the BBC's INFAX database, which lists, among others things, who appeared in what programme. I typed in Micallef's name but found he was not listed. Then I typed in Comic Relief 1999, but did not spot Micallef in the cast list. I concluded that Shaun Micallef had not been in the show - it seemed pretty unlikely anyway – and totally forgot about... Read More »
A recent article which appeared in the Herald-Sun and various other Murdoch-owned newspapers and websites argued that The Chaser had “gone soft”, “looked tentative” and was now taking “aim at some easy targets”. It's hard to not ask where Vickery and Horan were during the first two series of The Chaser's War on Everything, or even the first two episodes of the current... Read More »
When you compare Upper Middle Bogan and It’s A Date to the other Australian sitcoms of this year - Housos, Please Like Me, Leongatha, TwentySomething - and the horrors to come, it’s clear that they’ve been the... Read More »
ABC arts programming has been rubbish for years and new effort The Art Of… is no exception. Just how bad is it? It manages to make Josh Thomas seem good. It doesn’t make him seem funny mind you because haha, they’ve got him on the episode about “heartbreak”. Why is a program about the arts... Read More »
Where do you draw the line with White Fever? As previously discussed, it’s perfectly fine for what it is: it’s just that what it is isn’t a comedy. Which is a problem, because if a half hour scripted series airing on the ABC at 9pm on a Wednesday isn’t a comedy, what is? As you’ve... Read More »
For comedy to be funny it needs to be believable and it’s hard to find anything much believable or funny in the new locally made Catherine Tate comedy Queen of... Read More »
The ABC’s 90th-anniversary program ABC 90 Celebrate! was a noble attempt cover nine decades of broadcasting but left some... Read More »
The YouTube series Shut Up and the recently announced series Limbo take two very different approaches to... Read More »