The Matty Johns Show
Seven last night unveiled its new NRL entertainment show, heralding the television return of Matthew Johns.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Programming
Didn’t really understand The Matty Johns Show so I’ll hold off doing a formal review.
But it seemed pretty rough with some surprising moments for a 7:30 family show (Willie Mason’s “an absolute load of sh*t” interview being one). Comedy sketches needed better writing, but nice to see Tony Bonner back on the telly. Jason Steven’s interview with Ke$ha was positively awkward. Does Shane Webcke have a suit that fits? Thank goodness for Paul Kent.
A more considered review today in the Daily Telegraph said:
The Matty Johns Show was bright and entertaining, but lacked a lot of serious footy – as you’d expect in a 7.30pm timeslot.
The biggest criticism would be that the producers tried to jam too much in to one hour of television.
From the opening we had gardening guru Don Kirk at Terry Campese’s house, Andrew Ryan shooting a piece from his home town Dubbo, a quick appearance from Eels stars Nathan Hindmarsh and Eric Grothe plus a couple of rapid-fire game previews squeezed in between.
By far the best segment was Controversy Corner with the appearance of big Willie Mason to try to explain his exit from the Roosters.
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- Tagged with NRL Grand Final, The Matty Johns Show
44 Responses
if they get rif of the unfunny skits and i tell you what, they were terrible. the show might kick on. the same goes with the bounce, the skits on that show werent much better apparently
I would rather watch paint dry.
Maybe next week I’ll understand the show… one more chance. It felt disjointed and both new and old at the same time. Too many of the skits were flat. I predict that if “Hey Hey” is successful on Wednesday nights people will not watch Johns as well on Thursday nights. Maybe there should be two 30min Johns shows on different nights… a comedy show and a League Controversy Corner show.
It ran 1 hour too long !!!
You’re dead right David, I didn’t understand it either. I’m embarrassed to say that I tuned in for about half an hour because, let’s face it, it can be fun to watch a train crash. In my opinion the train well and truly crashed but there was nothing funny about it. Maybe it got better after I switched off.
And poor ‘Jerry’, fancy going from Ranger helicopter pilot in Skippy to this lanced carbuncle of a show. That said, it will probably have huge appeal to the type of bogan who thinks the ‘chk-chk boom’ girl is funny and talented.
Australian television is just woeful.
Always been a Matty Johns fan. The show was good, but as with all first shows it needs work and i’m sure it it’ll improve as the season goes on.
Everyone seemed very nervous, but the cast need time to gel and more improv would be better, it was very scrpted and safe.
Saying that it’s great having another show on TV showcasing the best game in the world!
i’m sorry but the skits were horrendous & the awkwardness of everyone involved. it needs to get better by 100% – i dont think i will be tuning in anymore. controversy corner – great but Matthew & Shane didnt let the segment get to the heart of the matter – Paul Kent didnt really get the answers due to those 2. am i wrong or is this a footy show – it was a footy variety show – no football talk, games reviews, team reviewes, etc what the??
Those wanting Matty to fail miserably would have been disappointed. He’s a capable presenter, and good at entertaining the audience. The Paul Kent interview was stinging, the challenge will be to come up with interesting (and willing) participants to go under the grill.
Where the show does let itself down is the comedy sketches. Footy Show’s Reg and the Pilot may have had the odd cringe, but they were original characters. Doing take-offs of Don and Alby I found hard to even raise a smile. The interview with Ke$ha (is that her name?) was pointless.
I think if they can hang on for a few weeks and iron out the bugs, they could be onto a winner.
Unfunny, unfunny, unfunny
I missed the first half. Loved the skits. Rough around the edges. but its a new show. ANd if you this was rough. You have seen the nrl footy show in its early days….
All the sketches were pretty weak in my opinion and went for far too long. Editing was needed. The ‘man child’ skit wasn’t funny. Don Kirk was not funny. Neither was the explorer skit. And Jason Stevens really isn’t good for television and the interview was absolutely woeful. Sure Kesha is weird and didn’t offer much, but he was crap to put it bluntly.
I raised eyebrows when Willie Mason said “sh*t” cos i assumed it was talked as a family friendly show. And was awkward moments when he talked about his brother, didn’t seem like the right place to discuss that stuff. Especially not so flippantly.
The Bounce was a much better show. So Basically i like the NRL Footy Show better than AFL version, but The Boucne is better than Matty Johns Show.
boring, nothing new, about as funny as Merrick and Rosso’s B Team a few years back.
Looks like Channel 7 paid for the favourable stuff in the Daily Telegraph. There was a front page story and a “Live Blog” on their site last night. Coincidence??
Who wrote this crap? This show doesn’t know what it wants to be. Matt Johns is not funny, all the skits were plagiarised humour. Who needs footy talk on a thursday night anyway? Was there any great insight into the game? No, it was all surface banter. Bring back the entertainment, not this load of…..
Bucketloads of potential once it settles in. Needs more footy talk and less skits. Also needs Johns to loosen up and get his cheekiness back. Overall, 7 out of 10. Good first effort.
Didn’t watch and don’t plan to…
I Agree with that. It has lots of potential and these shows will always need tweaking. More NRL talk and there is no need to have all 3 characters each week and slow down!
Gave it a watch, and was not impressed. It had SFA league content, and the rest was missable too. I’m sticking with the NRL Footy Show from next week.
When Paul Kent is the best thing offered then what a load of rubbish.
Matty could try not living out his personal life through the media and then it may be demonstrate genuine talent rathee than cheap skate boofhead nonsense
I hope this is the first and last time I ever read “thank goodness for Paul Kent”.
Look, the jokes were loose and dated, but that’s sort of why Matt has had the “new Paul Hogan” tag. It’s not Paul Hogan when people were watching him in the ’70s, it’s when you watch The Best Of Paul Hogan now and you think, “Oh, well I suppose it was funny at the time.” Except Matt is doing it right now. I mean, somebody should have pointed out that Don Burke parodies were old 20 years ago and Albie Mangels even longer.
The fact they didn’t get bogged down with talking about upcoming and past games – which every single footy show does – was a bonus, for me. They’re instead focusing on the players and the fans, which I thought was a smart point of difference. Footy enthusiasts are already complaining, but it’s a prime time show and stats and whinging about umpires bore the majority of people and should be safely tucked away after 10pm and early on weekend mornings.
Jason Stevens is always awkward. There was 100% no chance he was going to be anything but. I assume that is why he was hired. He has been the butt of jokes – admittedly ones he didn’t get – on the NRL Footy Show for years. Think of him as the new Norman Gunston, with the added bonus of not needing a script to make interviews cringe-worthy.
Shane Webcke was awkward – his adlibs in the “coming up” promos was especially painful – but I thought Matt held it together pretty well. He looked good, seemed reletively comfortable, did a few self depricating jokes and took digs at Nine and even a wink to his sort-of-estranged brother Andrew. It worked.
It wasn’t perfect, but for a first episode it was pretty solid.
PS: I seriously hate Paul Kent.
I can’t really review it, as it didn’t come on until after midnight for me, was too tired to focus on it and didn’t record it.
I’ll give it a go next week.
The show does sound interesting though.
I watched the first twenty minutes and thought that it was soooooo unfunny,i switched over to my normal Thursday night program ,getaway that is.
Does it make sense financially to be producing two taped variety shows- requiring the salaries of 2 lots of talent, 2 lots of writers, producers, crew, twice as much marketing, twice as much promotion, twice as much publicity… etc…. when each show only runs in half the country?
It definitely has the potential to kill off Nine’s Footy Show. Johns was very nervous and uptight, when he relaxes it will be a lot better.
Few points:
-The set is very cold and empty.
-Needs less comedy bits and more NRL discussion – more co-hosts / a panel to bounce off.
– A professional comedian co-host might help take the pressure off Johns. Ahn Do opened the show. Maybe he could help.
I thought the show wasn’t too bad but the one hour duration kinda hurt it because they tried too much to squeeze in alot of things. The comedy is a hit and miss to be honest but will improve cause Matthew Johns is a funny guy and so future sketches will get better.
The controversy corner was good it gave Big Willy a chance to talk about his exit from the Roosters and I can see this segment maybe getting in Sonny Bill Williams soon. The controversy corner was probably the better part of the show cause it was more serious and more NRL related. It might have been the first episode but I think it will improve over the course if they don’t try to squeeze in alot for one hour.
Also Jason Stevens your a top bloke when I met ya but dude you gotta keep it together man when your interviewing celebrities you looked nervous here mate!!!
Shane Webcke probably gonna out grow that suit next week lol