Best New Comedy

And now we turn our opinionated eye to the comedies which were well made, interesting, original and funny in 2009.

Interesting, original and funny aren't necessarily three words you'd use to describe the prank show. After more than a decade of similar shows (and films) from people like Michael Moore, The Chaser and Sasha Baron Cohen, you might think everything that could be done has been done. That is certainly not true of our winner. And the nominees in this category weren't too bad either.

BEST NEW COMEDY
John Safran's Race Relations - 61.11%
"It's flagging a bit as it goes on, but it's squeezed in a good few laughs, and Safran's mostly shed the tedious, posturing sulkiness that undermined John Safran vs God (it's still there in the intro monologue, but no biggie). Good on him, I'm looking forward to his next work."
- samadriel
"How can ANYONE make a TV show of any relevance or impact after that last episode? He's changed Australian television. Not as focused as his previous serieses, but so different, so personal. Hungry Beast should be eternally thankful they preceded him, and didn't follow him. It's like 'This is amateur hour, annnnnd HERE'S how you do it properly'."
- Shannon
"Funny, smart, surprising...shame he's not on TV more often."
- Bean Is A Carrot
NOMINEES
Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure - 27.78%
Dave in the Life - 11.11%

Last year's winner:
Very Small Business

It was clear right from the start of 2009 that the new John Safran series would be something to look forward to. Always smart, always interesting and always funny, Safran didn't disappoint with his very personal look at love and religion, Race Relations. He dressed up as a black man, he dressed up as a woman, he married a Bin Laden, stole - then sniffed - women's underwear, snogged the mothers of his ex-girlfriend, and got himself crucified. A lot of it wasn't "for real", but it was real enough for there to plenty of potential for car crash television, unfunny self-indulgence or serious injury. Instead, Safran managed to be funny most of the time and not come off as a heartless creep. It's hard to imagine how he can top some of this stuff, but going on past form, in his next series he probably will.

The equally personal, funny and rather sweet Choose Your Own Adventure from Lawrence Leung was an early comedy highlight of 2009. As with Race Relations, there clearly isn't a second series in the concept, but more Lawrence Leung on our screens would certainly be welcome. After all, just seeing his cameo on Shaun Micallef's New Year's Rave was a highlight, and he provided perhaps the only honest laugh on Hungry Beast this year.

Dave In The Life, staring Dave Zwolenski, got a bit of a rough ride in the schedules and was pretty hard to keep track of. This was probably the least original of the three nominated programmes in this category, but Zwolenski's an engaging character and some of the episodes were pretty good.

 The Lifetime Achievement Award For Crap ComedyBest Comedy