Remember the “good old days” of Australian comedy DVD releases, where extra features were a joke instead of actually containing more jokes? But as everyone who scored a copy of series 3 of The Librarians for Christmas now knows, All That’s Changed: not only does this particular slice of Aussie comedy hilarity contain a descent... Read More »
A week or so ago a reader commented on one of our recent blogs: “The networks are useless, dying and clueless. I really hope that Australian comedy can find it's way online. There are some excellent US comedy websites with loads of little web series on them.” And because we take your feedback seriously down here at Australian Tumbleweeds - well, that and there's almost no Australian comedy on that isn't a panel game - I've decided to dip my toe into the wonderful world of Australian comedy content online, starting with... Read More »
Watching tonight’s episode of Rove – in which he attempted to interview 60 guests in an hour - was always going to be worth a look for comedy... Read More »
Reviewing Tony Martin’s second book, A Nest of Occasionals, is easy: in pretty much every way it’s just like his first. So if you’re a fan of Lolly Scramble,... Read More »
This weekend Sydney-siders had the chance to attend World's Funniest Island, a two-day, Big Day Out-style festival of comedy on Cockatoo Island. Amongst the acts were Alexei Sayle, The Goodies, Jane Bussman, Merrick & Rosso, the Scared Weird Little Guys and a host of others. The Goodies' show, featuring Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden with Bill Oddie on video (he's currently ill, so couldn't make it) in conversation with The Chaser's Andrew Hanson, is of particular interest as it featured censored footage from The Goodies which was recently discovered in Australia but no longer exists within the BBC Archives. With recent talk about how “political correctness” and media OUTRAGE is, or may be, resulting in the censorship of comedy, it's interesting to examine what was actually censored from comedy almost 40 years... Read More »
Sam Simmons must be kicking himself. If only he’d done The Urban Monkey with Murray Foote in blackface, people might be actually talking about it... Read More »
Here’s a question: what makes the Hey Hey it’s Saturday blackface controversy different from the controversy over The Chaser’s “Make a Realistic Wish Foundation” sketch, or Hungry Beast’s promo for a fake story about netball rape,... Read More »
Yes, it’s time once again for yet another slice of manufactured, pre-packed outrage – courtesy, as seems to be increasingly the case, of Melbourne’s Herald-Sun. In case you missed it here, pretty much all you need to know is this: THE ABC is facing another barrage of public anger over a new TV show in... Read More »
This week's most overlooked debut was Hungry Beast, which inevitably stood no chance against the Hey Hey reunion and the premiere of Celebrity Masterchef. That's probably just as well for those “19 newcomers to television” who are involved as “tell us something we don't know” - the show's motto - it... Read More »
Press releases are supposed to be full of over-oxygenated waffle designed to fan the flames of interest in a program that otherwise would barely rate a grunt as your average viewer clicked past it to repeats of Seinfeld... ... Read More »