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The older you get, the more used you become to disappointment, right? And you'd think that after all these years, we at the Tumblies would have learnt our lesson. But no, back we come, time after time, still hopeful, still waiting for that brilliant, brilliant comedy. What fools we are!
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Usually this category is all about shows that disappoint simply because they exist. Denton's putting together a work experience programme and it's being shown in the ABC's prime comedy slot? Seven's ripped off yet another UK format and got it wrong? Oh Australian comedy, when will you stop churning out crap. But not The Jesters. For once we have an Australian comedy that disappointed not because it got everything wrong, but because it just didn't get enough right.
The original idea of doing a comedy set behind the scenes of The Chaser (well, not really, only yes really) was rubbish and a lame cash-in on The Chaser's already shaky success: the decision to then use The Chaser angle to mostly make cheap swipes at the real Chaser's fondness for limp pranks worked out OK. The idea of getting Mick Molloy onboard to play the producer was a good one; not sacking the rest of the cast after episode one and making the show entirely about him...not so good.
If you want to turn The Jesters into a show worth watching, simply edit out every scene that doesn't feature Molloy. If you doubt he was really that good, just watch the scenes where he has to act with his bitch assistant Kat and compare them to her scenes with everyone else. Next to his "jolly fat prick" act, her bitch antics work; next to anyone else, she's just another one of those hard-faced comedy-free females that pay TV sitcoms seem to be packed with. It's not even like he was given better material to work with: his character is as one-note as everyone else on the show, his subplots are wafer-thin and as the surly boss his dialogue mostly consists of dodgy insults and whiney complaints. And yet he made it all work, because he's a funny guy who knows how to deliver a line in a way that gets laughs. The Jesters was disappointing because Molloy gave a rock-solid comedy performance in a show that not only didn't deserve it, it didn't know what to do with it.
Not quite knowing what to do was seemingly the problem Seven had with translating hit UK comedy clip-show TV Burp to the Australian small screen. Maybe it was that the original was partly written by its host Harry Hill, while Seven chose Ed Kavalee - an actor not a writer - whose comedy skills rely on having other people to bounce off. Maybe it was that the TV Burp team seemed to be trying to re-create the UK original rather than come up with something which would work for local audiences? Or maybe it was that the more obviously suited host for an Australian version, Shaun Micallef - a writer and performer well suited to British-style comedy - was otherwise engaged?
As for Hungry Beast, it was placed in a comedy slot so audiences presumably expected some comedy. They got some comedy, but it sucked, and mostly clashed horribly with the moving stories about immigrants or serious stories about military robotics. The common complaint was that no one knew what the show was, or was trying to be. An edgy, youth-led magazine show, is presumably the answer to the later question, but it was such an incoherent mix of awkward student-y earnestness - stuff you'd seen done better and the sort of sketches even The Chaser would reject - that any open-minded optimism you had for the programme faded pretty quickly.
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Least Hoped-For Return