Maybe things will get better next year. After all, there are two things Australian television comedy desperately needs if it’s to survive – money and talent – and there’s a fair to reasonable chance the upcoming change of government will see the money tap turned back on at the ABC. Then again, pretty much every... Read More »
The funniest thing about The Weekly this year was the way that during the coup that deposed Malcolm Turnbull pretty much everyone said “gee, wouldn’t it be great if Mad as Hell was on now to make fun of all this?” Because what was The Weekly‘s big satirical contribution to that whole debacle? Oh, that’s... Read More »
It’s been a while since we checked in on The Weekly, which probably makes us a regular cast member because hey look, Briggs is back! For only the second time this year. Remember when they announced he was going to be a regular cast member and then he promptly vanished from the line-up? Good times.... Read More »
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with a show that’s just a jumble of unrelated parts, but there is definitely something wrong with The Weekly. No, we’re not talking about the way its listed as a comedy yet features straight news segments asking why isn’t dentistry covered by Medicare (hilarious!), or the fact it was allowed to... Read More »
So it took maybe ten minutes into 2018’s first episode of Gruen for someone to say “doing no advertising is silly” and fuck, how did that massive foot-shaped hole suddenly get in our television screen? And this was during a segment on the current banking royal commission, which – from our half-arsed reading of the... Read More »
Press release time! Friday, December 1, 2017 — The ABC today revealed a diverse and unmissable line up for the first half of 2018, including a variety of new programming across all genres, Australian premieres and the return of audience favourites. This complements the impressive Comedy, Entertainment, Indigenous, Arts and Children’s 2018 programming already announced. […a... Read More »
Clarke & Dawe returned to our screens last week and once again reminded us how satirists should be doing it: it’s about pointing out where things are going wrong. Satire only achieves what it’s there to do if it leaves the audience laughing, better informed and angry for change. And this is something that’s only... Read More »
Hey, can someone explain this? Because we watched The Weekly With Charlie Pickering – Series 3 Ep 2 (may God have mercy on our souls) and one thing we did not see was “special guests South Park creators Trey Parker & Matt Stone.” Okay, that’s two things. In fact, we went back and checked last... Read More »
Australian comedy hit a new low in 2016, though if you’re anything like us you probably didn’t realise it at the time. Why would you? On the surface it seemed business as usual: a handful of standout shows, one or two duds and a whole lot of stuff forgotten before the end credits finished. In... Read More »
In word terms, 2016 was the year of “democracy sausage” and “post-truth”, but if the world of comedy had its say it’d probably go for “banter”, a term rightly mocked in The Yearly with Charlie Pickering for describing conversation that sounds funny but actually isn’t. Oh, the irony. But as joke after half-arsed observation died... Read More »