★★★★★ 0/5

The Bounce

On Seven's new AFL entertainment show, Pete Helliar looked like he was living his ultimate dream: television, comedy, footy.... who can blame him?

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First a disclaimer: AFL just isn’t my thang. So I probably won’t be a regular viewer to The Bounce. I’m essentially in the same for The Footy Show, Before the Game, Footy Classified and the rest of them. I don’t really dig motoring either, but I will happily kill an hour with Top Gear.

Clearly I’m not the target audience for this one, but it’s still possible to take a considered view on what the show is trying to achieve.

Last night, host Pete Helliar looked like he was living his ultimate dream: television, comedy, footy…. who can blame him?

From the moment he emerged from the audience rafters, with Sherrin footy in hand, he was gushing with enthusiasm in his opening monologue. From there he introduced resident rock band led by Kit Warhurst plus Dave Lawson and Catherine Ellis, both of whom bantered about pet memberships, team slogans, and membership recruitment. But who are they? Should we care? Probably not yet.

Helliar frequently cut away to comic photos and clips, and interjected with gags all of which were going over well with the audience (especially a few ladies who sounded like they were laughing at just about everything). Unlike The White Room, which made negligible interaction with its studio audience, The Bounce was happy to embrace the crowd. and all the more better for it.

It was more than 23 minutes before we got down to discussing the coming games and shifting to a serious tone. Nobody seemed to mind. Veteran coach Leigh Matthews and former player Matthew Richardson did the bulk of the heavy lifting here, dissecting each of the teams. How serious it gets when politicial and social issues extend from the footy field into headlines is unclear. Maybe they will just be a punchline. Will The Bounce be breaking news and being opinionated in a 7:30 timeslot?

Comedy sketches featured Peter Rowsthorn, Ellis (and even Wilfred‘s Cindy Waddingham), revolving around Helliar as an office footy tipping nut, a devoted fan with a face permanently painted with team colours, and more. They were a little uneven. Guest Western Bulldogs Adam Cooney spoke about his team’s chances and was so relaxed he managed a shout-out to his grandmother for her birthday. Yep, it’s a footy show alright. Thankfully no footballers in tutus just yet.

The show didn’t yet make much of its own AFL rights with footage and access, an asset it has over Nine. Perhaps that will shift once the season gets underway from tomorrow.

There was also something about the show that constantly felt like it was Rove meets The Footy Show. Was it the set? The host doing an “Are You Smarter than a Footballer” sketch? How ironic that Helliar, once asked to be dumped from the Rove on-air team by Nine, is now hosting a challenger to Nine’s own long-running football show…

That said, the best thing about the show is it doesn’t have Sam Newman. The worst thing about the show? It doesn’t have Sam Newman. Nine’s court jester is their trump card, but also a liability as he polarises an audience. In theory there should be enough footy fans who are happy to have another alternative.

It’s hard not to notice too, that Seven owes a debt to Nine for doing the groundwork in this genre. After all, with a few handballs and meat pies World of Sports years ago with Ron Casey was poles apart from this.

To really take it up to Nine, Seven’s needs to think about broadcasting live to air.

Still, the fact this didn’t ‘bounce’ all over the place on its first outing, is an achievement. As AFL entertainment goes, it was a promising pie night.

47 Responses

  1. David i was thinking the same thing when i was watching….. well similar! I thought rove was hiding somewhere in the background pulling his mates (peter h) strings.

    It was very rove.

  2. Watched a bit of it on prime wollongong at 1030 last night, but then flicked to seven Sydney and watched highway patrol repeats. Being from nsw I find afl just isn’t my forte, although I do respect the game. I’m wondering how the Marty johns show’ll go tonight.

  3. I think entirely the wrong approach was taken with this show. Given the early evening timeslot the opportunity was there to do a serious, hard analysis football show with detailed covered of players, performance and team management. Indeed, something almost po-faced in tone would have been appropriate – something like a more sober version of the ABC’s Sunday Outsiders program. We desperately need an analytical style football show on commercial television. Football is a serious endeavour which should not and must not ever be devalued with frivolity.

  4. Good old channel 7. Haven’t learnt a thing in 10 years. It was utter sh*te. This was pretty much Rove Live with a footy. Whoever decided to give this 3rd rate hack his own show should be sacked. He hasn’t got a hosting bone in him. Mumbling and stuttering his way through introductions and 3rd grade humourless one liners. And what was the use of the band? It’s unbelievable how crap like this still gets on air.

  5. I think the show was OK, but the first episode went too long and some boring segments should be dropped before moving to its regular timeslot of Thursday nights from next week.
    There was a long discussion on the morning program on ABC 774 this morning with Green Guide editor Debi Enker, and listener feedback was generally positive.
    David, will you be able to write a review on the debut of The Matty Johns Show tonight as well? (Although you may need to tape the show as it does not air in Melbourne until midnight)

  6. I quite enjoyed it and I’m an NRL supporter living in Sydney who watched it 12:30am. People want in the AFL states want to rather see an AFL program anyday than anything else on TV and they always rate very well. The Footy Tipping sketch was gold.

  7. It wasn’t too bad at all. It started a little awkward and unfunny, but it seemed to find its feet somewhat mid broadcast. Look forward to seeing how it develops in coming weeks, I think it’s on the right track.

  8. I am a footy fan, support the Hawks. It was refreshing to watch the bounce without being sickened by the smut that is on the footy show.

    I had a laugh at the sketches especially the hawks guy.

    happy to be able to watch a footy show with the kids, who love Dave Lawson. By the way he is the Toyota Guy who hassles the old footy players with Steve Curry. and he also entertained the kids on Nickledeon and channel V.

    Thanks channel 7

  10. i didn’t watch it, because i cant stand helliar. but all the true afl fans said it was terrible and somehow i will believe them. this won’t last long and of course it is going to rate highly. people watched it just to see what it was like. they won’t be getting the same numbers next week and the footy show came on when this show finished and the footy show would have beat it if it was on at the same time.

    i give it a month before it’s chopped

  12. I enjoyed it.
    It beat The Footy Show in ratings as well for the night! 546,000 to 437,000.
    Definately the ‘lets have a look factor’ was there, but i most will give it another go next week.

  13. The Bounce wasn’t too bad but it just kind of meandered along. As it dragged on and on all I could think was how much of it should have been cut. Especially the painful Are You Smarter Than A Footballer?

    It didn’t really offer anything new but it also wasn’t particularly offensive either.

  14. “To really take it up to Nine, Seven’s needs to think about broadcasting live to air.”

    i disagree, i think semi-live is the way to go wspecially in a 1hr format. sure if you go live is shows you have bigger balls, but to the viewer, IMO, it is not worth the lack of ability to edit. shows like TBYG, ellen they flow so much better, feel like a well structured hour of entertainment and are just easier to watch when someone has taken time to make it that way. opposed to shows like the 7pm project, or the footy show where we have to put up with dodgy camerawork, blank parts of conversation, and technical difficulties.

  16. If you wondering who Dave Lawson is, he was on Thank God You Here a few times, and also did a series of AFL-themed Toyota commercials with Stephen Curry.

    And a correction: it’s Catherine Ellis, not Samantha.

  17. I completely disagree with alastair. its supposed to be about footy hence having ex footy players making expert comments! I felt there was too much emphasis on the comedy side but as JB pointed out, games havent started as yet. As the work footy tipping administrator I am sure I’ll be copping Colin Banks jibes soon and will have the Govt Terrorist hotline put on my speed dial. I think the Bounce has a future but needs more footy teeth to be considered a footy show.

  18. It was actually quite good. There really wasn’t so much footy talk, but the games haven’t started yet and only Thursday nights game had team list available. Don’t think it wants to be a hard hitting new breaker program. After 15+ years of the stale Footy Show with annoying panellists and unfunny jokes, it was refreshing to see a different format. Are you smarter than a footballer could have been a bit more original. Leigh Matthews and Richo are great people to have on the show. And Chris Knights to begin with certainly doesn’t hurt. Pity it went way over time though.

  20. Peter Hellier was difficult to understand when he was shouting, as he was when the music was playing in the background- please take not the audio engineers. The comics were obviously pretty nervous and stumbled over their lines a few times. The quiz segment was pretty useless. The teams segment was OK with Leigh Matthews typically clear and concise and will be helped by having the actual teams next week. The woman in the audience having belly laughs at everything was embarrassing. Some of the sketches were reasonably funny. This is show 1 and The Footy Show has been on for 17 years. As a first effort I’d give it 3 stars also.

  21. i had low expectations. but with the way these shows go; starting off a disaster before they improve, i didn’t think it was too bad. and i think it will get better with time as people get to know the cast better, god knows what people would say if we saw the footy show for the first time last night.
    i too don’t care much for footy and won’t be a regular viewer but there was enough for me to enjoy the hour and maybe be an irregular viewer.

  22. The Bounce wasn’t too bad and will hopefully get better as the season progresses. Any chance 7HD or 7TWO will show it at 7:30pm in Sydney and Brisbane? Current timeslot of 12:30am is ridiculous.

  23. Same old story for Ch7. “Why don’t you have a serious footy show and make use of the footage?” They don’t draw ratings in prime time. “Let’s do a variety footy show!” Well that sucked, Again!

    “They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house. I’m not made of stone!” – Peter Helliar the Clown

  24. The bounce is a refreshing football show. The charactors introduced by Helliar are likeable with honesty. The ‘Are u smarter than a footballer’ segment needs to b more pacier and sharpened. But this show for a first, has plenty of upside . The 7.30 slot is a bonus, if it captures a big audience, it could have the opposing football show a little concerned.
    The Bounce shot straight in the air Wednesday night . Game On!

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