Worst Game or Panel Show Winner: The Gruen Transfer - 38.46% Nominees Comedy Slapdown - 30.77% Good News Week - 30.77% Last Year's Joint Winners Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? Friday Night Download

	Voter comments This was a programme which superficially attacked the advertising industry but ultimately celebrated it. And anyone who describes an ad campaign as "clever" really needs to kill themselves. - Emergency Lalla Ward 10 The pretensions of The Gruen Transfer, and the resultant humouring of those pretensions by our lemming commentariat put it beyond the other two, which at least aren't pretending. - samadriel Wil Anderson as the biscuit in an advertising industry circle-jerk? Just what the ABC needs on a Wednesday night. - Moribunderast

Every so often, some comedian made famous in the comedy boom of the 80s and 90s will give an interview in which they express concern about how cheaply-made panel games are replacing scripted shows. They're right to do so, as there have been precious few scripted shows on TV in recent years. Of equal concern is that with no scripted shows to work on, comedians have less opportunities to gain experience in doing them well; no wonder the few that do get made are mostly dire.

Meanwhile, comedians are spending more and more time sitting at variously configured tables having to respond in a light hearted, off-the-cuff manner to whatever news items, clips or questions they're given. And many of the leading lights of the 80s/90s comedy generation have gone on to pump out these lightweight improv-based shows, both to satisfy networks eager for cheap shows and to make a quick buck by selling the formats overseas.

Some of these comedians-turned-producers have the gall to argue that what they've produced is every bit as good, if not better, than the scripted shows they worked on early in their careers. This category's winner was one such programme. But the notion that a group of advertising executives were the best people to examine the truth and lies of the advertising industry was not one our voters agreed with.

When The Gruen Transfer launched itself on ABC television in May, it promised to be...

	"...a fast, funny show about advertising that will make you look differently at the constructed world around you. It's not an expose. It's not a satire. It's about truth in advertising. Finally." - ABC Press Release

What eventuated was more like a cross between The World's Wackiest Commercials and The Panel: not in-depth enough to provide any interesting insights, and not funny enough to be funny. The show also generated the level of hype last seen around the time The Chaser team did their APEC stunt. Ultimately, though, it just wasn't funny or even entertaining enough, and host Wil Anderson, in typical fashion, added nothing.

Second place in this award goes to both Comedy Slapdown and Good News Week. What can be said about Good News Week that hasn't been said already? There's plenty more GNW nominations ahead to put that to the test. But it is worth examining Comedy Slapdown, as the only thing that saved this appalling programme from the top spot in this category was the fact that it was screened on The Comedy Channel, home of the barely-watched and easily overlooked.

In case you had the good fortune not to see it, Comedy Slapdown was yet another theatresports show, but with a twist: it was set in a wrestling ring. Two teams of C-list circuit comedians played a series of dull improv games within the ring for what seemed like forever. H.G Nelson took on the role of ringmaster, and an ex-wrestler character called "The Duke" appeared occasionally to move props in and out of the ring and growl fiercely for no particular reason.

The regular cast was completed by Matt Parkinson as a Tom Gleisner-style judge and an Asian woman (or possibly a drag Queen) called Miss Wing Ding, who held up the round numbers and was sometimes allowed to parody the sort of promiscuous Bangkok whore language which the stripper wife in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen Of the Desert did far better.

Miss Wing Ding's material may have been rubbish and even mildly racist, but it was nothing compared to what the teams of comedians come up with in the ring. Most sweaty, fixed-stare politicians can come up intentionally funnier gags than the average Comedy Slapdown contestant - even Australia's King of Comedy Kevin Rudd. How such a long and dull show could make it to air, even on Foxtel, is hard to fathom. An attempt to sell a format combining Whose Line Is It Anyway? with the WWF to the US market, perhaps?

Now, you might think that The Gruen Transfer had advertising covered in 2008. You might also believe Skithouse was the high point of sketch comedy in this country; they're both about as plausible as each other. But there was one controversial area Gruen left well enough alone - well, two if you count why all the commercials had to be sourced from grainy You Tube footage, no matter how you mess them up they're still ads being shown on the ABC - and that's the area of television promos. Andrew Denton clearly didn't want to bite the hand that feeds him: we have no such qualms, as this sneak peak at the ABC promo reel for 2009 will show...

	ABC PROMOS: 2009 REEL PROMO ONE AN EXPLOSION FILLS THE SCREEN. SHOUTY VOICEOVER Double the Fist is back! That's right! Get ready for an all-new season of your favourite CGI-heavy Australian comedy/drama/whatever programme! Only this time there's been a change! SLIGHTLY WORRIED VOICEOVER CUTS IN Okay, the show kinda changed between series one and two from an extreme game show to some kind of action drama, and series two did sometimes go back to being a comedy before piling on the drama again, plus there was all that weird time-travelling stuff and was Steve Foxx a bad guy by the end or what? SHOUTY VOICEOVER There's been an even bigger change! Now it's all computer-generated! And with none of the original cast! And an all new title! And Robots! Even More Robots! Standing around waiting for the writers to stop wanking off over the special effects! ABC VOICEOVER Waiting for Gobot, Thursdays, 1am, ABC2 PROMO TWO ANDREW DENTON IS SHOWN ON HIS BACK ON AN INFLATABLE RAFT FLOATING IN A POOL. VOICEOVER He's finished with Enough Rope - now Denton takes television in a whole new direction. WE PULL BACK TO SEE THE POOL HE'S FLOATING IN IS FULL OF MONEY. VOICEOVER He's talked to all the famous faces. He's made you laugh. He's made you cry. He's even made you think about laughing and crying. Mostly he's made you feel like a horrible voyeur as he's exploited the tears of others for personal gain. THE RAFT SPRINGS A LEAK AND STARTS TO SINK. DENTON IS STILL SMILING BLISSFULLY AT THE CAMERA. VOICEOVER And now it's time he got paid. That's right: In 2009 Denton is staying at home thinking up ideas for panel shows and sitcoms and selling them for big bucks. THE RAFT SLIPS BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE MONEY. DENTON IS STILL SMILING AS THE CASH CLOSES IN OVER HIS FACE. VOICEOVER His on-camera days are over. But don't worry: that didn't stop David Tench from being great TV. DENTON I'm rich, bitch! PROMO THREE. VOICEOVER From the accounting department that bought up then brought to you such pay TV comedy classics as Stupid Stupid Man and Chandon Pictures comes the new wave of Australian comedy! Coming soon to your ABC direct from Pay TV, the smash hit Mother & Son! And if you like satire, you'll love The Games! We've also got...what? LOW KEY MUMBLING IS HEARD. VOICEOVER What do you mean they're our shows? We just bought them from Foxtel! We didn't... MORE MUMBLING. VOICEOVER But that's two thirds of our comedy budget there! You're telling me we bought back... A DOOR SLAMS. VOICEOVER Um, well, we seem to have made a...had a bit of a mix-up. Please enjoy the five new no-budget comedy panel programmes we'll be bringing you in 2009. PROMO FOUR GENERIC FOOTAGE FROM SUMMER HEIGHTS HIGH. VOICEOVER Thinking about comedy? Why not try Chris Lilley. He's the funniest man in Australia. He's at least as good as Barry Humphries. And he's back with your favourite characters! RAPID-FIRE CLIPS OF JA'IME, JONAH AND MR G. VOICEOVER Chris has taken all the dozens of hours of extra footage shot during the making of Summer Heights High and hired some grad students to re-edit it into a brand new series! JA'IME I'm really hot. JONAH Puck you, miss! MR G Rape! VOICEOVER This twelve part series will take you even further into the lives of all your favourite Summer Heights High characters as they go about their days! This series promises to be even more "true-to-life" than the first, thanks to its lack of storylines, in-scene continuity and coherent dialogue! And all your favourite lines are back again and again, in slightly less effective forms! JA'IME I'm really hot. JONAH Puck you, miss! MR G Rape! VOICEOVER So if you've been waiting for Chris Lilley's next big hit, wait no longer! And who knows: when he finally gets around to making a new series, will it really be that much different from this one? JA'IME I'm really hot. JONAH Puck you, miss! MR G Rape!

Worst Film >>