Newstopia and Australian comedy

I'm a bit worried about Newstopia. (I've gone beyond being worried about The Chaser, so let's ignore its contribution to Australian topical humour and concentrate on someone new for a change.)

First, let me say that I'm an enormous fan of Shaun Micallef (he and John Clarke are without doubt the two cleverest, most inventive and funniest Australian comedians on TV, and I say that despite Clarke being a New Zealander). Click on the YouTube links in the above sentence and you'll get some idea as to why.

Having said that, I can now unsympathetically slag off Shaun's new show. Because, although there's been some gold in the first few episodes (the ALP and Liberals degrading themselves to try to qualify for "underdog" status, for example), there's clearly too much weak material going to air. Gags that give Shaun nothing to do but mug awkwardly in a "ho ho, isn't it funny how lame that dad joke was" kind of way.

You get the feeling that pretty much everything anyone hesitantly suggests in a writers' meeting is going to air, and the stuff that should be pruned, isn't. Being pruned. My understanding of producing comedy (honed over many years of never having produced comedy) is this: you have to keep throwing ideas out, and then you sift out the good ones and kill the ones that don't work. Sure, it sounds harsh, and cruel - euthanising the ideas which simply aren't good enough in some kind of superjoke eugenics program - but that's the bloodthirsty abattoir that is comedy. For a half hour show to be good, you need an hour's worth of material, ruthlessly cut back.

And you can't honestly tell me that each of the jokes that were broadcast in last night's Newstopia went through such a process. That .111 recurring joke was pointlessly pissweak, the "worm" being bored wasn't any better, and the Al Qaeda training sketch simply didn't work. Did they honestly run that past some kind of independent observer with a functioning sense of humour before deciding to film it? You get the feeling that it went in simply because they had half an hour to fill. Same with the Nazi month SBS promo, although I think the problem with that one wasn't so much in the idea as in the execution.

Now I'm sure it's easier for the big American topical satires The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, because they have much larger writing teams, and one third of each episode is simply an interview; but there still seem to be a fair few writers in the credits for Newstopia and it's only on once a week. And I know the Australian campaign has been fairly boring so far, but I'm sure there's more comedy gold if they look closer than just the stereotypes. There are entire parties who've so far escaped/been denied any attention (eg *cough* the family family family family family party *cough*). Issues full of contradictions (eg our on-again off-again love-hate affair with talking about the death penalty) which haven't yet been mined.

I just don't want to see Newstopia going the way of Micallef Tonight.

UPDATE 31/10: Next episode much better. Many lols. Yay for Shaun.