Russell Coight and USA Kath and Kim

[Barry Admin]

Just chatting to an Aussie about Bargearse and this Paul Hogan bit that's never far from my mind:

And he's told me about an American version of Kath and Kim that I had no idea about. Sounds absolutely fucking awful and well worth a hate watch. He said don't watch it, it's an insult to all people, everywhere.

But he also told me about Russell Coight's All Aussie Adventures, and says it's amaaaazing.

Anyone seen these shows? Kind of a placeholder post til I check them out myself.

[Barry Admin]

Okay yeah, this is epic 😂 need to see the full show now.

[Famous Mortimer]

"All-Aussie adventures // time to hit the road"

One of the great comedy characters, even if he's got a lane which he sticks to fairly closely.

[Old Nehamkin]

All Aussie Adventures is great, yeah. Came across it as a kid when my uncle visited from Australia and brought over the videos of series 1 and 2 - very quickly became a staple in our household. It's kind of just the same thing over and over again (Russell Coight very confidently explains a bit of bushcraft he's about to demonstrate, he completely fucks it up, the all aussie adventures jingle plays) but the sheer cumulation of it and the anticipation of how each bit is going to go wrong is very infectious. Also lots of funny little gags with the editing and the narration and some great weird little running bits like how every time he introduces an interviewee and shakes their hand it always cuts to a close-up shot of him shaking an entirely different hand.

[Wacky Homemade Badges]

I saw Jane Turner being interviewed onstage easily ten years ago, and her being asked about the US remake of K&K. She attributed the failure to show lead Molly Shannon, describing the latter, if my memory for her exact words doesn't deceive me, as a "cunt".

[Old Nehamkin]

"This is the Mitchell track. Named after the bloke who first opened up the area: Mitchell Track."

Just a million daft jokes like that. Love it.

[jobotic]

Thanks for this. Someone mentioned All Aussie Adventures on here on an Australian comedy thread a while back and I watched a couple and loved it. Then forgot all about it.

[neveragain]

I also love All Aussie Adventures. One of those shows, as jobotic says, that you can just forget about for ages and experience these short bursts of joy for a period before putting it aside again.

[famethrowa]

Just chatting to an Aussie about Bargearse and this Paul Hogan bit that's never far from my mind:

I always think that to myself when getting bread out... "the top slices are poison!" Totally ingrained in my mind, not bad for something I saw once in the early 80's.

[Oosp]

I saw Jane Turner being interviewed onstage easily ten years ago, and her being asked about the US remake of K&K. She attributed the failure to show lead Molly Shannon, describing the latter, if my memory for her exact words doesn't deceive me, as a "cunt".

This is amazing and I hope there's more on this online. Wow

[Lemming]

Love All Aussie Adventures, one of those things where you can see the joke coming a mile off, but that only makes it funnier when it inevitably happens. The new series from a few years ago was just as good as the originals. The big slapstick moments are gold but Russell's bizarre narration is the real highlight.

"Many have paid the ultimate price. Others have actually died"
"If you're not careful around here, you could end up as lunch - or worse, dinner"
"This place gets more rain in twelve months than some places get in a year"
"And remember - if it's not on, it's not on!"

[Famous Mortimer]

This thread has sparked my memory so I've enjoyed the Shaun Micallef tilted room sketches:

and a bit of Roger Explosion (I ought to make a socko with that name):

[Barry Admin]

I always think that to myself when getting bread out... "the top slices are poison!" Totally ingrained in my mind, not bad for something I saw once in the early 80's.

That's the exact bit I quoted earlier to the guy I was chatting with :-) yeah, I just love it.

Need to track down All Aussie Adventures now, the posts here have also made me absolutely desperate to see it. I started tittering out loud in public earlier when I was reading the post by @Old Nehamkin.

[zip o lightning]

I'm glad to See Russell Coight here. It's a perfect piss-take of a TV genre that I don't think has ever been that big in Britain - Australian travel guides. Back when I lived there in the 90s they filled up the commercial TV schedules there much like 'Comedian tours around Country X' seem to do now in Britain. Filmed on the cheap, and utterly predictable, some of them were so un-remarkable that they ran for many years yet only get  a two line Wikipedia article.

I'm sure some know this, but if you don't, Coight was an expansion of the Wallaby Jack segments of The Late Show which are themselves worth watching:

and

(those are terrible quality rips - they're on the Late Show DVD in much better quality)

[Des Wigwam]

I always think that to myself when getting bread out... "the top slices are poison!" Totally ingrained in my mind, not bad for something I saw once in the early 80's.

Same. And I'm a shop when I'm with someone who takes the thing they want from behind the one at the front I always say "yep - 'cos the front one is poison". Every time.

I saw Jane Turner being interviewed onstage easily ten years ago, and her being asked about the US remake of K&K. She attributed the failure to show lead Molly Shannon, describing the latter, if my memory for her exact words doesn't deceive me, as a "cunt".

Of course this prompted me to look it up on Wikipedia. It's very vague mentioning "casting choices". Will have to dig more later. Very interesting that the character of Sharon was dropped because Magda Szubanski objected so much to the casting choice. How can you not have Sharon?

[Pink Gregory]

Just chatting to an Aussie about Bargearse and this Paul Hogan bit that's never far from my mind:

Loved that.  Seems like one of those actually quite obvious jokes, but given the care of writing and performance it becomes brilliant.

[famethrowa]

Wallaby Jack

He doesn't have a single care
or realistic facial hair

[13 schoolyards]

Coight's most recent appearances have been in a string of car commercials - which makes slightly more sense if you've been watching producers Working Dog's (very funny) Have You Been Paying Attention?, where they've been inserting live reads advertising Mitsubishi for years and have presumably built up a decent working relationship:

[jobotic]

Okay yeah, this is epic 😂 need to see the full show now.

Camp Mate bit so obvious but throwing his phone in the bush was hilarious.

[madhair60]

Either of you lovely ladies care to join me for a dutch oven?

[Angst in my Pants]

Early December I saw that all Kath & Kim content was going to be removed from Netflix on 27 December, so I binged all four seasons and the two movies in the space of three weeks.

It all got added back onto Netflix on 4 January.

Good job I've got a sense of yumour!

[Sonny_Jim]

Diminishing returns with K&K, can't remember if I watched the last movie or not.  Always found it slightly odd it managed to find an audience on BBC2 as it's apeing a very specific subset of aussie culture.

Cheers for the All Aussie Adventure recommendation, somehow I've never seen it.  Russell is also good in 'Upper Middle Bogan' but I never had as much fondness for it as K&K, gets a bit too sitcommy and twee sometimes.

[Des Wigwam]

Diminishing returns with K&K, can't remember if I watched the last movie or not.  Always found it slightly odd it managed to find an audience on BBC2 as it's apeing a very specific subset of aussie culture.

I didn't care for it first time around maybe for that reason. Rewatched it during lockdown on a bit of a binge schedule and got really into it. I get it's probably even more relatable with some cultural connection but thought they were all recognisable enough -maybe due to intensive Aussie soap-watching since my teens.

The characters I didn't feel worked were the two shop assistants who are snobs. They did always come across as having to know who was being mocked.

[Urinal Cake]

I got the feeling Russell Coight  wasn't as popular by the Australian public- maybe a bit of cultural cringe. Sort of background tv. But Kath & Kim was always popular.

[13 schoolyards]

I got the feeling Russell Coight  wasn't as popular by the Australian public- maybe a bit of cultural cringe. Sort of background tv. But Kath & Kim was always popular.

Kath & Kim was huge for a while there, a rare Australian comedy success that actually pushed some sportspeople out of the way to fit into mainstream pop culture. Coight was always popular, but just regular decent comedy popular - most people had a vague idea who he was, but he didn't have a "look at moi" level catchphrase out there or anything.

It wasn't cultural cringe or anything like that, you're only ever going to get so popular in Australia doing comedy unless you're a once-in-a-decade hit (and there hasn't even been one of them here since Chris Lilley). Kath & Kim just hit a nerve.

[Barry Admin]

Diminishing returns with K&K, can't remember if I watched the last movie or not.  Always found it slightly odd it managed to find an audience on BBC2 as it's apeing a very specific subset of aussie culture.

My sister got me into it originally. The big set pieces, brilliant wordplay and exceptional performances made me utterly fall in love with it. Agreed with Urinal Cake that the two shop assistants were the only time I felt lost without knowing the specific cultural reference.

[Sonny_Jim]

The characters I didn't feel worked were the two shop assistants who are snobs. They did always come across as having to know who was being mocked.

Pru and Trew (I think that was their names) were based on the type of stay at home Mums you'd get around Prahran/Toorak.  Rich enough to not have to work hence why they work in an upmarket cookware shop with a massive disdain for their customers.  More than likely one of their husbands owned the shop so they could get away with absolute murder.

Exactly the sort of person who would stop their massive Volvo SUV in the middle of the road to have a chinwag with a mate, oblivious to whoever they were holding up.

Edit:  almost like an Aussie Hyacinth Bucket in that they always thought they were higher class then they actually were.

[famethrowa]

brilliant wordplay

This is a very underrated feature of K&K, there's a joke in almost every line, most of which sails over the heads of the viewing public.

[Barry Admin]

This is a very underrated feature of K&K, there's a joke in almost every line, most of which sails over the heads of the viewing public.

Yeah, I've really, really gotta watch it again. I was sceptical when my sister put it on at first, but ended up absolutely in love with it.

This quote has rarely been far from my mind in the intervening years:

Now you've heard of those Nancy Gantz pants? Well I call these the Kath Day enhance your fancy dance pants."

https://m.facebook.com/kathandkim/videos/kath-kim-tuesday-910pm-channel-9/1432322413470848/

[jobotic]

This is a very underrated feature of K&K, there's a joke in almost every line, most of which sails over the heads of the viewing public.

How do you know it did? It's pretty popular.

I always found the shop assistants really funny. Kind of obvious the kind of people they're mocking even if you don't know certain areas of Melbourne.