Tag: Open Slather

A Failing Grade

So this stirred things up a little over the weekend: Between Hannah Gadsby’s Emmys win, Becky Lucas and Rhys Nicholson landing stand-up spots on the US  show Late Night with Conan  O’Brien and Demi Lardner’s Best Show nomination at the Edinburgh Festival in August, Australian comedy is having a world-class moment. Not that you’d know... Read More »

Sketchy at best: The worst Australian sketch comedy shows

TV Tonight’s recent article on the all-time best Australian TV comedies got us thinking…what are the all-time worst Australian TV comedies? Having been blogging about this for more than a decade, we think we have the answers. First up…sketch shows! If you grew up pre the late-90s, sketch shows were something you saw on TV... Read More »

Gina Minehart Has Risen From Her Grave

If you thought the Australian television comedy scene was dead at the moment, well, sometimes dead is better: Get patriotic on the Aussie comedy day with Open Slather (Seasons 1 & 2), Just for Laughs Australia 2015, Best of the Sydney Comedy Fest 2016, and Melbourne Comedy Festival’s Big Three-Oh! 2016. If you missed Open... Read More »

A Phoenix Rises from the Slather

It’s unusual to hear a TV executive say anything like what we’ve been saying about Australian comedy for years, so we wanted to note this interview for TV Tonight with Foxtel’s Brian Walsh: Last year Foxtel rolled a big gamble on its sketch comedy series Open Slather produced by Laura Waters and Rick McKenna. Despite... Read More »

Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2015 – The Results

Ever get the feeling you’re running in place? That was Australian television comedy in 2015. Not just in the usual “the only way forward is to bring back Fast Forward” sense either, even though once again hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in the firm belief that the only comedy “mainstream Australia” will embrace... Read More »

Vale Open Slather

The final episode of Open Slather aired quietly a few weeks ago, and despite the many twists and turns in its production history it ended how it started out:... Read More »

Change or Die

So it seems How Not to Behave has been bumped for its final episode: What appears to be the final episode of How Not to Behave will air at 10pm on ABC this week. The show has made way for the return of Kitchen Cabinet this Wednesday. Meanwhile, the final five episodes of Open Slather have been... Read More »

Keep Slathering It On

Remember Open Slather? The show that was going to revitalise Australian sketch comedy by harking back to the golden age of the late 80s and… well, that was pretty much it. But the late 80s! When comedy was funny! Not all the quasi-racist material mind you, and a lot of the stuff about women looks... Read More »

Bloodbath Aftermath: Why Open Slather still sucks

Is it just us still watching Open Slather? Assuming so, we can report the following: despite the fact that they’ve sacked a large proportion of their original writing team, and that there are now a lot less Downton Abbey sketches…it’s still crap.... Read More »

Bloodbath at the House of Death 2: Another P.O.V.

Amongst the former Open Slather writers not to contact us about the recent writer's cull was Doug MacLeod, who's previously written for Full Frontal, Fast Forward and various other well known... Read More »