Is all Australian TV comedy now a lame panel show with next-to-no laughs? Seemingly thousands of such programmes have either returned or started-up in the past few weeks, with only Hungry Beast and Clarke & Dawe suggesting there's an alternative approach to getting laughs. In this climate I'm almost pining for that STITCH thing 13 schoolyards mentioned in his last blog - at least it'll offer something... 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 »
Yeah, yeah, we’re just re-printing the press release. But it’s still big news – after all, when was the last time a comedy CD came out in this country that wasn’t just a collection of radio prank calls or a live stand-up set? Plus it’s Micallef mucking about for just under an hour, making it... Read More »
So farewell then TV Burp, the bought-in British format that could have worked. Some have argued that TV Burp wasn’t good enough to care about but, while it wasn’t the funniest thing ever, it was getting better. It certainly got more praise than its partner show Double Take (admittedly, not difficult), hence Seven swapping the... Read More »
It’s fairly easy to overlook Rove’s stranglehold on Australia comedy at the moment. Even on Ten, Good News Week and Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation aren’t from the Roving Enterprise stable. But Nine has no Australian comedy to speak of, and Seven’s efforts are token at best (Kath & Kim every few years and Thank God... Read More »
On JJJ a few weeks back, while talking up his upcoming ABC television series, John Safran described it as being full of pranks and making fun of people – basically, “everything people don’t want in comedy anymore”. And he has a... Read More »
With hindsight the upcoming return of Hey Hey it’s Saturday to our screens (link) was obvious, an excrement-laden juggernaught bearing down on an unwilling nation like a strident university student’s clumsy rape metaphor...... Read More »
TV networks don’t like talent. They’re in the business of making programs, not making stars. Which is hardly surprising: once you’ve seen Eddie McGuire become a household name, clearly that side of things is in the hands - or tentacles- of some kind of morality- and sanity-free Lovecraftian Elder... Read More »