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Generic Aussie Comedy Thread

Started by 13 schoolyards, March 03, 2009, 09:55:38 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

A.A

The thing about The Hollowmen, for me anyway, is that, after getting a few laughs out of the very first episode, I sat in complete silence for the entire 30 minutes of the dreadful second episode. I did not get one laugh out of the second episode. I don't think that's happened to me before with short-run comedies...usually if I like the pilot, I'm going to keep laughing for the remainder of the series, even if it's a "poor" episode and I only get one or two chuckles out of it. But nope...not even that. Not so much as a smile.

Thankfully, that didn't happen again.

Biggest compliment I can give The Hollowmen, though, is that it made Merrick Watts actually funny. And not even "sometimes funny" or "occassionally funny"...but frequently funny.

It was very disconcerting at first to find myself laughing at someone I'd always considered an unfunny douchebag.

But there you go...



Famous Mortimer

I bought the Late Show double DVD set a while back, and have been thoroughly enjoying it, and I have this thread's older brother to thank for that. Although it is a little...jarring?...to see Imran Khan referred to as a "p**i bastard" in one early sketch (I'll chalk that up to cultural differences in the term, as there's a bloke who calls himself a "wog" in another sketch too). I am going to go to Youtube and watch all the episodes of "Bargearse" now.

Bean Is A Carrot

The p**i and wog stuff is totally about cultural differences. Australians like to shorten words, we can't be bothered to say "Pakistani", so we say "p**i". It's not a racist term of abuse, it's just us being lazy. Also, whilst in Britain people with brown faces get called a "p**i", in Australia we'd assume they were from India. When I lived in Australian people whose ethnic origins lay in the sub-continent had yet to aquire a racist term of abuse. Lucky them!

The word "wog" refers to Southern and Eastern European migrants, most of whom came to Australia after WW2; in Britain a "wog" is a black person. Until very recently, the only blacks in Australia were Aborigines, who get abused with the terms like "Abo" or "goon". These days there's a growing number of African immigrants, and I guess they'd get the n-word thrown at them a fair bit, but I've never witnessed such an attack myself. Anyway, Italians, Greeks, etc had to suffer with being called "wogs" for several decades, until in the 80s a group of comedians emerged who put on the show Wogs Out of Work. Thereafter, "wog" was reclaimed. You'll notice that in The Late Show the word "wog" is generally used by Santo Cilauro, who's being self-deprecating about his Italian background. The Late Show would be all the poorer if all the Cilauro-penned "wog" sketches were dropped.

Famous Mortimer

I figured as much, and the sketches themselves were of a high quality so it was all good. I seem to recall having seen the daredevil / wannabe record setter character in another series (or maybe in this series, if it was ever shown on British TV). But I could be misrememberating.

Bean Is A Carrot

I read once that sketches from TLS appeared on ITV's 1993 series Bob Downe Under, and at least one other funny clips show in the Britain. Some of the Pot Luck acts, like the dancer who pulled his hamstring have appeared on British bloopers or "worst ever telly" type shows.

Lee

God, Review With Myles Barlow's bloody bleak, isn't it? A comedy of discomfort for sure. Clearly with more imagination than anything Ricky Gervais (for instance) has ever done, but still... Good to see some of the DTF guys doing something different too, especially Craig Anderson.

13 schoolyards

I tended to watch Review over a spread out period one segment at a time, so I didn't get the crushing weight of doom you mention.  But I did think there were a lot more light moments in that show that I'd otherwise expect - the whole bit on "having an idiot for a best friend" really turned the series around for me, as up till then I saw it as just a parade of (well-done, but still) bleak.  The director of Review was the DoP (I think) on DTF too, so there's a bit of back-and-forth there.

I still haven't forgiven The Hollowmen for giving Merrick Watts the chance to pretend he's not a flat-out douchebag.  Sure, he's kind of funny in that role, but simply imagine anyone else in it (I usually go for Ed Kavalee, but choose your own) and it becomes clear that Watts remains the same smug git he's always been.  Working Dog have always been a bit wobbly on casting...

*points at Kate Langebroek and Fif Box*

... so I suppose I really should just be greatful that they didn't hire Sam Simmons for the job.

A.A

I thought Review ran out of legs pretty quickly, myself. The format did not lend itself to longevity. And the second-rate Micallef try-hard speeches in-between the sketches didn't help things.

But it had it's moments. I personally rather loved the short, 30-second reviews. Nonsense stuff a lot of the time, but they often made me giggle the most. 

And any Aussie comedy nowadays that "has it's moments" could well be crowned a grand success, I guess. 

Bean Is A Carrot

Despite the inventiveness of the show and the surprising number of laughs it raised, I really can't see how a second series of Review... wouldn't be a flat out repeat of the first series. Unless they can come up with a twist on the original concept which would give them more scope. They did seem to be favouring "bleak and sometimes funny" over "funny", though.

13 schoolyards

There's always the Double the Fist route - the second series could be the one where Myles realses reviewing is just a tool to keep the masses subdued and decides to lead a one-man rebellion against The Movie Show from the cockpit of his giant walking robot.  But otherwise, it's pretty much a played out idea, and if it comes back I'll be blaming the ABC's narrow submission guidelines more than anything else.

I think Ryan Shleton's on Rove this weekend, if anyone cares, for only the second time this year.  Which, in my opinion, sucks.  A couple of episodes of the old Seven Hamish & Andy show have surfaced, and Shelton does a few brief audience gags there.  Meanwhile, Lilley does a Mr G running segment, which seems (from my brief glimpses so far) to suggest that he stuck his head up his arse the second Big Bite ended.  Heck of a lot of "look at me... making it up as I go along..." material from what I've seen.  But there are also some Extreme Darren skits from Lilley as well, so hopefully they won't completely stink up the place.

A.A

Steve Coogan and the delectable Ruby Rose are on Rove this week too.

Think I might actually have to watch the damn thing this week.


13 schoolyards

Rove is usually almost kinda knowledgeable about nerd stuff, but his basic crapness as an interviewer makes his chats with pretty much everyone worth hearing about a nightmare.  Plus his decent guests are usually new to Australia so they don't really know that he's rubbish and it's be okay to mess around a bit with him, so they tend to just play along / sit there looking worried.  Don't get me wrong, it's not as bad as it was with Hey Hey, but Rove seems to usually involve the guests sinking to his level (quick, cut to Peter Hellier on the couch!) rather than any moments of classic television.

I still will tune in for Coogan, mind you.  So I guess Rove's got me beat there.

joelde

Quote from: Bean Is A Carrot on March 16, 2009, 03:49:11 PM
. Until very recently, the only blacks in Australia were Aborigines, who get abused with the terms like "Abo" or "goon".

i think you'll find the correct term is "coon". get your racial epithets right please.

Bean Is A Carrot

Quote from: joelde on March 19, 2009, 06:20:49 PM
i think you'll find the correct term is "coon". get your racial epithets right please.

What about the phrase "goon bag"?

13 schoolyards

Quote from: Bean Is A Carrot on March 19, 2009, 07:34:21 PM
What about the phrase "goon bag"?

Which I'd never heard until this year, and even then only on the internet.  But it does seem to be a proper term.

"boong" was the one I use to hear growing up.  And "boorie".  Not so much in Victoria, but when I'd visit my S.A. relatives they'd bust out all the racist tales involving not wanting to work, etc.  Even as a wee tacker I wasn't down with that.  And as the years went past, most of my rellies turned out not to be either.

But much more importantly, this (from the Green Guide):

QuoteMarch 19, 2009

Lawrence Leung's quest for coolness is a laugh. By Bridget McManus.

LIKE many '80s children, Lawrence Leung laments the lost dreams of his youth. Indeed, Generation X's was a glorious decade of greed and opportunity, reinforced by the shiny pop culture of the times.

Dream hard enough and anyone could be a top gun, a flashdancer, a working-class girl with her own office, or a hip-hop god like Shabba Doo from Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo.

It was the latter on which the young Lawrence Leung, growing up in suburban Melbourne, in the shadow of his trendy, multi-talented older brother, pinned his hopes. Well, one of them. In his debut comedy series for ABC, Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure, Leung, now 30, revisits his childhood ambitions. Over the six-week series, he attempts a world-record sky-diving Rubik's Cube trick; wages battle with the meanest street rappers in LA; becomes a rock singer at MTV's The Lair; jumps into the ring with Australia's Rock'n'Roll wrestling champion, The Ox; and searches for his grade-three crush Angela, and the elusive Shabba Doo.

"The guy is a childhood hero of mine," says Leung, during a break from rehearsing his Melbourne Comedy Festival show, Time Ninjas, with Andrew McClelland, his real-life friend in the series.

"When I was a kid I wanted to be a break-dancer. I used to practise the moves," Leung says.

But to his dismay, the moonwalk did not come naturally. He was better suited to more intellectual pursuits, such as solving his Rubik's Cube, playing Monopoly, or watching The Goonies (Data, played by Jonathan Ke Quan, was the first Asian he saw on television), and MacGyver and conjuring up boys' own adventures with his friends.

"It was a time when I was climbing trees a lot, I was running around shooting water pistols and daydreaming all the time. My parents used to say I was daydreaming and I wasn't concentrating on the really important things but I didn't know what I wanted to be, I just wanted to do everything."

He may not have become a doctor, as was his parents' wish, but Leung has a comedy career in full swing. He is consulting on magic and illusion for Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd, starring Julia Zemiro and currently playing at the Malthouse. "I don't do magic but I know how everything's done because I'm a nerd," he says. The Chaser's Julian Morrow, who co-produces Choose Your Own Adventure, is talking of a second series, before the first has gone to air. Still, the disillusionment of Leung's generation resonates with him.

"Can anyone really truly find themselves?" he asks. "At the end of the series, it just confirmed what I went into the whole process thinking, which was people need to have more adventure in their lives. I know a lot of friends who I went to high school with and they've got serious proper jobs now and all they want is a holiday in their spare time, and when I catch up with them we always reminisce about the old times. I was reaching the end of my 20s and I thought, 'who am I really, what am I supposed to be doing?' I found this diary and old journals where I used to draw some things that I was usually into and I remembered all the cool stuff I was supposed to be doing, that I'd planned for myself when I was a kid and completely forgot about, and I thought, 'why not try and do those adventures?' "

Leung's fabulously funny parents, Leo and Doris, play themselves in the series, providing a quaint domestic commentary on their son's valiant pursuits of love and coolness. In the series, he moans that he still lives at home, sleeping in the bunk bed he grew up in, but he appears to have an exceedingly cool relationship with his parents — Leo, an office worker, and Doris, a Cantonese broadcaster on SBS. Their episode-closing double acts, in which they dispense wickedly warped pearls of wisdom, are a highlight.

"I never thought of my parents as funny," says Leung. "I just thought of them as Mum and Dad, but crazy things happen. It's like reality TV, you put a camera in front of someone and they go, 'Oh, this will be funny'. Actually they're a lot funnier than I am in the TV series so who knows? Maybe they'll get their own series. They have a good sense of humour."

Julian Morrow was so taken with Leo and Doris that he shot extra scenes for them, to "augment some of the episodes".

"I love them, they're great. I found them really charming. That's an aspect of the show that I was keen to have flourish as much as it could. I hope they become a cult success."

Morrow first stumbled across Leung at his 2001 Melbourne Comedy Festival show, Sucker. Morrow was in town reviewing for The Chaser newspaper. Word of mouth was that the geeky Chinese kid with his gentle, brainy humour was one of the festival's hottest tickets.

Unfortunately, Morrow did his "usual thing of hearing that something was worth seeing and then never actually getting around to seeing it".

Sucker was voted that year's best solo show.

Morrow caught up with Leung at his 2003 Comedy Festival show, Skeptic, during which Leung sold his soul on eBay, for about $4.80.

"He got one of my friends out of the audience and correctly picked his pin number. He did a whole lot of mentalist tricks that were really, really impressive. I thought that the ideas behind Lawrence's comedy were really interesting, and perhaps in the same ballpark, although at different ends of the ballpark, as stuff that The Chaser had been trying to do with the newspaper and then later on television. So we got in touch with him about contributing ideas to The War on Everything."

Leung wasn't a novice, having written for and performed in The Sandman's 2004 ABC comedy, In Siberia Tonight. And it turned out Morrow's hunch was right — he was a perfect fit for The Chaser's gonzo comedy style. Leung was the brains behind many of the headline-grabbing Chaser pranks between 2006 and 2007.

Neither will be drawn into specifics about who wrote which sketches, but Leung denies any connection with the APEC prank. He says his creations usually involved "a giant stunt in some sort of inappropriate position, or the ones involving politicians". He is modestly pleased that he may have caused John Howard a sticky moment or two.

"Comedy is kind of interesting now that we're in a different political climate," says Leung. "Particularly now with a bit hope and passion in the air, although we've got a whole lot of negativity with the whole credit card crash and things like that. But John Howard was great fodder for comedians and so was Bush, and so is Robert Mugabe."

Choose Your Own Adventure is the first television show that The Chaser have produced that is not their own.

"Any time you embark on any television series it's an act of faith based on your judgement about the quality of the ideas and the abilities of the performers," says Morrow. "We were crossing our fingers but we were pretty confident when we saw the early scripts."

The open-ended storylines had Leung and his film crew of two travel from Box Hill to Hollywood, in pursuit of the likes of '80s pop starlet Tiffany, and the homies in LA.

"It was guerilla filmmaking," says Leung. "But it's probably a lot easier to go into some places, than if we had a proper crew and trucks. Because we were just a crew of three, it was less intimidating when we ended up in situations which were kind of unpredictable, and naturally we just had to follow that and see where it led us."

More than once, the crew feared for their safety, he says.

"We got out of our van with the camera crew in LA and we didn't really know where we were and this lovely old black lady sees the camera man, this white guy from the Hunter Valley, and she says, 'What you doin' in these parts, cracker?'

"But as it turns out when I finally got to meet Rifleman, who is one of the fastest rappers on the West Coast, he's held in high esteem in those parts. When the others saw us with him it was OK."

It was Rifleman who perhaps held the key to Leung's ultimate goal of the series: to "be myself".

"I didn't really know how to rap, but Rifleman kept on saying the only way you can do it is to be yourself, so rap about what you know. I kept trying to ask him what was cool, and he was such a lovely guy despite his tough persona. He just said, 'I'm not cool, I just do what I do and I do it very well, and if you're passionate about something and you practise it really well then that will make you cool because you're comfortable in your own skin'.

"That was a really good lesson. So I stopped trying to be cool and realised all I had to do was not be cool and just be myself."

Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure premieres Wednesday at 9.30pm on ABC1, and is repeated Thursdays at 9pm on ABC2.

So Leung's to blame for the Chaser's lame stunts, huh?  Good to know...

Bean Is A Carrot

Maybe the goon/goon bag thing is South Australian...then again, people all over the country seem to use it. To return briefly to Famous Mortimer's point about racist terms, it's interesting how a phrase like "goon bag" seems reasonably acceptable to use in Australia, whereas here in Britain only actual racists would bust it out.

Interesting how Leung's been framed as the mastermind behind the Chaser in that article. It's clearly an exaggeration, but one day I'd like to know who came up with the "hugging John Howard with a chain saw" sketch. Or the one where Chas had to wear a mermaid outfit (something to do with Tony Abbot objecting to the use of stem cells...and no, it didn't work as satire).

samadriel

Quote from: Bean Is A Carrot on March 22, 2009, 12:24:30 PM
Maybe the goon/goon bag thing is South Australian...then again, people all over the country seem to use it. To return briefly to Famous Mortimer's point about racist terms, it's interesting how a phrase like "goon bag" seems reasonably acceptable to use in Australia, whereas here in Britain only actual racists would bust it out.
I can't speak for Adelaide, but my god, you wouldn't want to say it in Brisbane (Landsborough maybe; ahh, the Sunshine Coast, land of contrasts...)

Heh, I'm surrounded by gushing Glasshouse fans in my media studies class ("Howard brought them DOWN 'cos they were too DANGEROUS, man!"); serves me right for choosing it!

13 schoolyards

For a long while there the ABC was repeating The Glasshouse at 3am a couple of times a week.  I was almost tempted to record it, to see a): if the hand of Richard Marsland (who wrote for it) could be detected, and b): how badly it had stodd the test of time.  For I have a sneaky suspicion that now that howard is but a fading memory, it's pathetic and pissweak stabs at "satire" would come across as exactly what they were at the time: a massive bag of wank.

I think it's Spick & Specks getting the 3am treatment at the moment.  So no worries there.

(and Leung got at least one "meh" review in the Sunday papers - which, in the Aussie media, counts as a massive slam.  Guess "likeable" doesn't always trump "funny" after all)

Ality Atwo

After lurking for years, I have to register so I can say that "goon bag" doesn't refer to race - not where I grew up anyway. I have never heard of the term "goon" for an Aborigine - it means "cask wine". Fortunately a bit of a troll around the net reveals most people agree with me! ...not to say that Australia doesn't have its fair share of racists. It's this sort of thing that makes me doubt I'd ever be bringing my wife back to live there:

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2505205.htm

To be fair, if "goon bag" was a racist term, I don't think we'd have seen this article:

http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/11/10/It_may_be_time_to_say_goodbye_to_the_goon_bag

As I now feel guilty for only delurking to post "corrections" - i.e. I am a nerdy internet arguer - I am going to post a bunch of mid-90s newspaper clippings about the D-Gen which I just found on an old CD-R. Give me a few days to dig em out and I'll pop the links here and on CC.

P.S. I still think "Bloody Asian drivers!" in The Olden Days is piss-funny.

Bean Is A Carrot

Quote from: Ality Atwo on March 23, 2009, 11:23:58 PMAs I now feel guilty for only delurking to post "corrections" - i.e. I am a nerdy internet arguer

So you should, it's the second forum you've done this to me on. Are you stalking me?

Quote from: Ality Atwo on March 23, 2009, 11:23:58 PMI am going to post a bunch of mid-90s newspaper clippings about the D-Gen which I just found on an old CD-R. Give me a few days to dig em out and I'll pop the links here and on CC.

Hooray!

joelde

why wouldnt you bring your wife here? is she a bit of a goon bag?

13 schoolyards

Having Gruen on in prime time is reason enough to stay away, I would have thought.  Anyone watching this years effort?  Anderson seems to have scored a WWII-era haircut and, well, with Wil it's all about the hair really.  Leung starts tonight too, but it's the poorer of the two episodes I've seen so if you want to wait until next week's one you'll get bonus points for making the right move.

And I second Bean's Hooray, Atwo - it's always interesting to read how the media deals with comedy at the time it happens.  Which is why I've got a box full of magazine articles telling me that Chris Lilley is funnier than Ricky Gervais, Barry Humphries and Larry David combined - they get funnier with every passing day...

joelde

having recently been forced to sit through ricky gervais's 'animals' live dvd by a friend of mine recently i have to admit chris lilley is probably funnier than gervais. it wasnt so much having to watch it that hurt, it was having to pretend to like it that made me feel cheap and dirty.

13 schoolyards

#53
I feel your pain - in recent weeks I discovered that one of my closest friends is a huge fan of The Age's "don't go there" TV writer Catherine Deveny.  A long, long silence followed that revelation as I tried not to vomit in horror at my chum's erroneous life choice. And Gervais is really just a no-go zone now, as even I'm sick of the long explanation when people ask "but you like comedy - why don't you like him?"

Actually, those after a good scrag fight could do worse than check out the letters page of (all things), the Australian Big Issue.  Kaz Cooke writes in to tell Helen Razer she's crap, Razer replies with the "it was a joke" defense, and whoever wins, we lose.

*edit* seems Tim Minchin was on this week's Spicks & Specks.  I missed all but the final minute or so, but it's repeated on ABC2 tomorrow night if anyone cares.  And in other Minchin news, it seems that while his shows in SA (and Geelong in Vic) will be some two hour thing, for the Comedy Festival he's doing the more traditional hour-long show.  so if you want more Minchin foir your buck you may have to do some travelling.

A.A

I would like to know in what way Lilley is funnier than Gervais.

Because he just isn't.

Ja'mie is the most repetitve, annoying piece of s*** of a character this side of Kath and Kim.

13 schoolyards

Much as I hate defending Lilley, his early stuff - I'm only talking about his work on Big Bite, mind, with lame sports idiot Extreme Darren and a much more joke-based Mr G - is pretty funny and shows a lot of promise (no sign of Ja'ime there either).  I'd always thought being given free reign with We Can Be Heroes is what turned him shit and self-indulgent, but recently seeing some his work on the axed Hamish & Andy show from (2003?) when 7HD repeated it a month or so back reveals him to be a performer rapidly disappearing up his own arse even then.

Gervais, on the other hand... well, I can't really think of a time when he was all that funny.

A.A

Meh. Each their own.

But The Office, as a whole, is better and funnier than any 5-minute sketches Lilley managed to come up with in what was an otherwise dreadful, long-forgotten sketch show.

The man's a douche, though. We can all agree on that much, anyway.

Watched Lawrence Leung's show tonight.

Affable fellow, isn't he?

Didn't laugh much, but it was good-natured and relatively painless. 

Kudos for that much.

That said, watching it made me wish John Safran was back on television already.

(I know he technically is, with Speaking in Tongues repeated on SBS Sunday nights/Monday mornings, but I obviously mean NEW Safran).

Bean Is A Carrot

Quote from: A.A on March 25, 2009, 11:54:14 AMWatched Lawrence Leung's show tonight.

Affable fellow, isn't he?

Didn't laugh much, but it was good-natured and relatively painless. 

Kudos for that much.

That said, watching it made me wish John Safran was back on television already.

(I know he technically is, with Speaking in Tongues repeated on SBS Sunday nights/Monday mornings, but I obviously mean NEW Safran).

I agree with that. Leung's a nice character to spend some time with and he was funny a couple of times. If only the kind of show hadn't been done to death by so many others.

I'm also looking forward to Safran's new series, even if he's been going around making copyright claims on anything featuring him on You Tube (including one of my vids). I can understand him wanting the extras from his DVDs taken down, but some people (like me) have put up stuff that hasn't been released and probably never will be. Or is that Best of Safran DVD actually going to come out some time soon.

13 schoolyards

I'm increasingly hostile to the idea of TV shows having any kind of worth because they're hosted by / featuring "nice guys".  If I want that, I'll go hang with my friends.  That said, Leung's show does get better - that is to say, he actually does stuff - as it goes along.

I'd love to know something of the back room politics at the ABC at the moment, considering Leung's very Safran-esque show is done by the Chaser at a time when Safran himself has something coming up.  The Chaser is Sydney-based while Safran is Melbourne (like Lilley), so.... I'm probably making things up in my head.  But unless Safran's show is completely different from anything he's done before - which I currently doubt - it is a little odd that they're running two fairly similar shows in the one year.  Especially as they don't seem to want to do the screamingly obvious movie version of Spicks & Specks they trialled on The Comedy Hour last year.

Bean Is A Carrot

Maybe the ABC have thought a) Lilley's out of the picture this year, b) Double the Fist didn't work c) The Chaser won't be back for a bit, but people really like what they do, so d) Let's commission a load of shows which are basically pranks and stunts. Anything new or a bit weird will presumably be on ABC2 from now on, such as another series of Review... (is that expected?) or that threatened Sam Simmons series.