“Welcome to Cram!, the only quiz show in the entire world where the players get the answers before they’re asked the question” – well, apart from every other quiz show ever made, because if quiz shows only asked people questions they didn’t already have the answers to then the contestants would never get any answers... Read More »
We know we’ve been focusing a lot on The Weekly over the last few months because Jesus fuck who thinks putting Tom Gleeson on twice an episode is a good idea? C’mon, he’s the weakest link and yet they’re pounding away like somehow after two decades he’s going to suddenly spark up and deliver the... Read More »
Did you hear? It only took the ABC eight months to air their first broad-based sitcom for 2013! You might think we’re being sarcastic; feel free to go back and look over all those years when the ABC didn’t manage to air even one sitcom that could be charitably described as having “broad-based appeal”. The... Read More »
In one of our semi-regular trawls for Australian comedy online we recently came across the web series Lights, Camera, Maction! made by and starring Perth radio personality Sam Mac. Episode 1 wasn't too bad for a deliberately shonky series aimed at the YouTube... Read More »
We all know how hard it is to make a living in comedy. We all know how much harder it is to make a living in comedy when you don’t actually make comedy. Even then, seeing Peter Helliar dust off pointless, annoying, Ricky Gervais-knock-off one-joke character Bryan “Strauchanie” Strauchan this week for a seemingly regular... Read More »
About five seconds into Behind the Lines – the latest in a never-ending procession of sports-themed quiz shows – it suddenly becomes clear why Peter Helliar’s The Trophy Room – the second-to-latest in a never-ending procession of sports-themed quiz shows – tanked: the set! With typical ABC logic, The Trophy Room‘s set was designed to... Read More »
It’s difficult to know which is more unsettling: that the ABC is currently running ads in prime time asking people to vote for Adam Hills in the Gold Logie race, or that the ad claims that “a vote for Adam is a vote for fantastic comedy and entertainment on the ABC”. [yes, there are days... Read More »
It’s no real shock that we like The Jesters a lot. This behind-the-scenes sitcom about a group of Chaser-style comedians and their grumpy producer stars Mick Molloy and is packed with references to and plots based on Australian television comedy; the only way to make a sitcom more to our liking would be to announce that Tony Martin was going to be a regular on the upcoming series of The... Read More »
This time of year usually signals the start of a two month-long drought of repeats and programmes too bad to be broadcast during the ratings season. But in a surprise move both ABC1 and The Comedy Channel have launched new panel shows in the past... Read More »
Australian comedy movies are like buses: you wait for ages for one and then two come along at once and they’re badly designed and clearly unroadworthy contraptions full of scary, crazy, smelly people you’d much rather have nothing to do with. Everyone knows the Australian film industry is in a mess, but it’s hard to... Read More »