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Shaun Micallef pulls the pin on Mad as Hell

Started by 13 schoolyards, July 10, 2022, 05:00:46 AM

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13 schoolyards

As tragically revealed here: https://twitter.com/shaunmicallef/status/1545939364319879168

In most other circumstances it'd hardly be terrible news - he's been going for more than a decade, often doing multiple series a year and the man is pushing 60 (and some of the Mad as Hell running gags have been looking a little threadbare in recent years). Plus we do get one final series, which hopefully will go out with a bang. Or just a comedy policeman on a bike riding into a pole.

But having pretty much Australia's only world-class (or even Australian class) comedy series come to an end with no obvious successor in sight is still a bit depressing

neveragain

I love Micallef but have found the show increasingly indecipherable. Or just more dull than not. So I don't have any feelings either way, sadly. Hope it's a good last series.

Urinal Cake

Quote from: neveragain on July 10, 2022, 09:05:21 AMI love Micallef but have found the show increasingly indecipherable. Or just more dull than not. So I don't have any feelings either way, sadly. Hope it's a good last series.
The in-jokes and metaness can get out of hand.

I don't know what Micallef is going to do. Documentaries- Miriam Margoyles has got him beat. Comedies about lawyers- Kitty Flanagan does it better. Old, straight white men know topical comedy.

If they get Pickering\Sammy J to replace him ffs. Atleast get somebody with a bit of danger about them.

Shaky

Yeah, in all honesty I've never thought it was a patch on his earlier work. It seems to get increasingly broad and on-the-nose to it's detriment, with some of the wacky interviews being particularly embarrassing. Still, less-than-stellar Micallef was always welcome. Interesting to read it could potentially return with someone else in the seat - might be what it needs.

Famous Mortimer

I loved it earlier in its run, but my criticism of it is pretty much the same as has been mentioned by everyone else. I think some perceived need to attack both sides has been to its detriment, too.

I do think Micallef at his best is one of the funniest people in the world, so I hope he decides to continue, no matter what he does.

neveragain

(Also, I'm not too fond of the newer cast members.)

13 schoolyards

The last few seasons have occasionally felt like it was sticking around to balance out the rest of the ABC's "comedy" content, which has been fairly heavily skewed towards the right-wing side of things for a fair while now. In isolation Mad as Hell might have seemed like it was attacking both sides equally, but compared to the ABC's other quasi-satirical show The Weekly - which last year ran sketches mocking attempts to police public health orders while praising the bubble in housing prices - it was as left-leaning as the ABC got.

It's (still) astonishing to think that literally no other segment of the Australian media, serious or comedy, ever touched on the fact that the Liberal's Peter Dutton clearly still wanted to backstab PM Scott Morrison, even as we got regular reports everywhere on (non-existent) problems with the Labor leadership - and multiple sketches on other shows on the ABC once Labor won claiming there'd be a leadership spill any day now.

So yeah, ABC satire is currently fucked, and clearly Micallef hopes a new government will mean a new approach to political comedy there. Good luck with that.

It'll definitely be interesting to see what, if any, comedy he has planned for the future. He's constantly been working on side projects, but in the last few years those projects have either been serious documentaries (on religion and sobriety) or involved working as a slightly amusing game show host. Considering just how much of a comedy buff he is it seems unlikely that he'll leave it behind entirely, but for almost two decades now his only regular comedy work has been news satire (going right back to Newstopia), which he's said on occasion wasn't a natural fit for him but was where the work was.

It'd be nice to think he had another sitcom in him, especially as The Ex-PM wasn't all that great, but the ABC seems to like their sitcoms to be closer to lightweight topical dramas these days.

Zetetic

Do streaming services chuck cash around in Australia?

Famous Mortimer

Every now and again, I'll stream an episode of 'The Weekly', and it immediately makes me remember why I stopped watching it regularly very early into its run.

I'd love to see him go back to his roots in sketch comedy, as a performer nobody can beat him.

Nothing on Aus TV has ever reached the heights of the Micallef Programme in its various incarnations, and while I'm sure great work is still ahead of him it will be the core of his legacy and rightly so. Proper old school entertainment legend and they don't make those any more.

neveragain

Quote from: LynnBenfield69 on July 10, 2022, 11:16:54 PMI'd love to see him go back to his roots in sketch comedy, as a performer nobody can beat him.

Nothing on Aus TV has ever reached the heights of the Micallef Programme in its various incarnations, and while I'm sure great work is still ahead of him it will be the core of his legacy and rightly so. Proper old school entertainment legend and they don't make those any more.

Absolutely.

evilcommiedictator

Quote from: Zetetic on July 10, 2022, 02:40:54 PMDo streaming services chuck cash around in Australia?
Only for stuff that will get purchased by Netflix, see Josh Thomas and Aunty Donna at both ends of the scale

Surely the ABC will find something for that writing stable to do, they're doing good work and sure, they won't have three fishtanks and a "Micallef Tonight" sign behind them on set to write for, but the work they do can be done in other places.

Here's waiting for Sammy J's Mad As Hell..........

famethrowa

I drifted away from Mad as Hell for a few years, came back recently and noticed a real dearth of anything clever, it's all been dulled down a lot.

Anyway I see Shaun is going to host some dire-looking kids quiz show on channel 10 where they dress up like hogwarts and SM makes quips about Post Malone. Shall be avoiding, but good for him to grab the commercial dollar again.

13 schoolyards

Quote from: LynnBenfield69 on July 10, 2022, 11:16:54 PMI'd love to see him go back to his roots in sketch comedy, as a performer nobody can beat him.

Nothing on Aus TV has ever reached the heights of the Micallef Programme in its various incarnations, and while I'm sure great work is still ahead of him it will be the core of his legacy and rightly so. Proper old school entertainment legend and they don't make those any more.

He said a bunch of times early on with Mad as Hell (and Newstopia) that the whole news satire thing was really just a way to sneak in a bunch of sketches. I suspect that in recent years the budget cuts across the board at the ABC really hacked away at his ability to do sketch comedy on Mad as Hell - the last few years were mostly just pieces to camera and desk interviews, with a very small number of pre-recorded bits. Even the studio sketches they used to do were dropped.

A more cynical man than I would wonder if Micallef didn't figure out that a new government means more money at the ABC, and ditching doing 20-odd episodes of Mad as Hell a year might open the door for him to do a shorter but more ambitious comedy series for them.

Quote from: evilcommiedictator on July 11, 2022, 12:30:32 AMSurely the ABC will find something for that writing stable to do, they're doing good work and sure, they won't have three fishtanks and a "Micallef Tonight" sign behind them on set to write for, but the work they do can be done in other places.

Here's waiting for Sammy J's Mad As Hell..........

The Mad as Hell writing stable seems to have largely been Micallef and a couple of his close buddies, then a bunch of quasi-freelancers pitching bits that usually didn't get picked up. I distantly know someone who worked on it for a year or so and I don't think they were alone in not getting much of anything on the air (though politics wasn't their comedy specialty).

Not to mention even a brief glance at social media will reveal pretty much every Australian comedy writer with an ABC credit to their name is publicly angling to create a Mad as Hell replacement. If only their "proven track record" wasn't from a string of forgettable duds.

famethrowa

Quote from: evilcommiedictator on July 11, 2022, 12:30:32 AMHere's waiting for Sammy J's Mad As Hell..........

Ugh that guy repulses me and I'm not quite sure why. Just no

sambwel

Quote from: LynnBenfield69 on July 10, 2022, 11:16:54 PMI'd love to see him go back to his roots in sketch comedy, as a performer nobody can beat him.

Nothing on Aus TV has ever reached the heights of the Micallef Programme in its various incarnations, and while I'm sure great work is still ahead of him it will be the core of his legacy and rightly so. Proper old school entertainment legend and they don't make those any more.
all these years later and still, barely a week passes without an echoing in my head: "dracoola.. like, west coast cooler!"

13 schoolyards

The moment where Dracula changes a car tire is without a shadow of a doubt the funniest three seconds ever shown on television

Famous Mortimer

His tilted room sketches have me in bits every time.


evilcommiedictator

Quote from: 13 schoolyards on July 12, 2022, 08:10:40 AMThe moment where Dracula changes a car tire is without a shadow of a doubt the funniest three seconds ever shown on television

This sketch at this timestamp

Shaky

Been watching The Micallef Program again and it's interesting to see the influence of Partridge and (possibly) Morris/Iannucci in places. There's definitely a bit of Alan in Shaun's brittle, pedantic host persona. Has he ever publicly mentioned this?

neveragain

Seems a huge influence but I've never heard or read any reference. Micallef has mentioned KYTV though, funnily enough.

Before the internet I'm not sure how someone would have seen IAP in Australia.

Even with the internet I only saw it for the first time after moving to the UK.

neveragain

Interesting. He is a bit of a comedy aficionado though, so could have sought it out somehow... possibly...

famethrowa

I got hold of a DVD of IAP here in oz land in 99-2000ish, fairly sure it was a bootleg, but those of us in the know could find these things. Pretty sure KMKY was on the telly before that though, maybe SBS?

13 schoolyards

#25
Quote from: LynnBenfield69 on July 17, 2022, 03:08:54 PMBefore the internet I'm not sure how someone would have seen IAP in Australia.

Even with the internet I only saw it for the first time after moving to the UK.

KMKY was shown here in a throwaway timeslot - something like midnight on a Monday night - on one of the commercial channels in the mid-90s (probably Seven, come to think of it - they had a lot of UK comedy lying around they'd air at odd times).

I think Tony Martin mentioned it a bunch of times on his Martin / Molloy radio show (or possibly even earlier). He definitely mentioned it somewhere because that's how I knew to tune in, but scanning the TV guide for interesting late night shows was par for the course in Australia as loads of decent shows would air from midnight onward just to fill in time.

As the UK had the same TV format as Australia, it was also (relatively) easy to get ahold of UK shows on tape here, unlike US series which were a massive pain to obtain. And even then much of Australia's television was just straight rip-offs of overseas formats well into the 90s and beyond, as the networks would bury the originals and make their own crap versions with local "talent".

neveragain


Famous Mortimer

I don't really see much of KMKY in the Micallef Program, perhaps the odd bit here and there but as has been mentioned, KYTV feels like more of a spiritual forebear. He feels more like he's in charge of proceedings than Alan does.

I just saw what I assume to be a trailer for the new series and Roz Hammond is back? That's good news, her and the Greenslade boys (not related, I know) were always my favourites. Or maybe she's just doing pre-recorded stuff.

neveragain

Roz Hammond is amazing and should be in everything. Honestly her comic character work is up there with Michael Palin or Julie Walters.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: neveragain on July 18, 2022, 05:15:17 PMRoz Hammond is amazing and should be in everything. Honestly her comic character work is up there with Michael Palin or Julie Walters.
Absolutely yes.