★★★★★ 0/5

Great to have The Chaser boys back

Doorstop heckling, clips of speeches, and the Gillard GPS. But the prize goes to Julie Bishop for making fun of her own "Death Stare."

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Oh how we’ve missed them…

The Chaser boys were back last night on ABC1 and in top form. They say absence makes the heart grown fonder and it was very true here. While it wasn’t necessarily their funniest material it had plenty of good laughs. And we have really needed somebody to cut this campaign down to size.

Their doorstop heckling and use of clips from campaign speeches was wicked fun.

Did Julia Gillard really tell the NSW Nurses’ Association “And of course I look forward to moving forward with you, moving forward together”?

Their sketches on police action for anybody driving in reverse or doing the backstroke was a hoot. The ‘Gillard GPS’ with its rigid instructions to “Move. Forward. Move. Forward” was priceless.

Lateline‘s Tony Jones was a good sport for his opening introduction, as was 7:30 Report‘s Kerry O’Brien.

But the prize has to go to Liberal’s Deputy Leader Julie Bishop who fronted up to make a mockery of her own “Death Stare.”

Bishop faced off in a staring competition with Chas Licciardello, followed by another with a statue of a garden gnome. Brilliant stuff. And much funnier than Abbott’s Hey Hey appearance without any of the hype.

Yes We Canberra! is repeated tonight at 9:15pm on ABC2 and returns to ABC1 next week.

18 Responses

  1. @Tasmanian Devil – the show wasn’t filmed live. It was filmed on the night before. And it wasn’t done from the LateLine set – that was just a quick mock up of it.

  2. I’ve seent the repeat on ABC2 last night, I didn’t think it was funny. The only bit that gave me the chuckle was the stare-off with Julie Bishop, other than that, it’s just blah. I was far more entertained by Gruen Nation (also on repeat last night) though considering that I have an unexplainable dislike to Will Anderson but the one that takes the cake for me really was Review with Myles Barlow, 4 stars.

  3. @Tasmanian devil. Pretty sure Chaser recorded tuesday night and nipped and tucked to get to duration by Wednesday. Lateline is recorded in Studio 24 – a News/Current Affairs studio housing 7.30 report. stateline, 7 days. Studio 24 is the size of a matchbox compared to Studio 22 where Chaser (and Gruen, Q&A etc) are recorded. A clever device to recreate the look of Lateline from one studio into another. I didn’t see Lateline’s Wednesday edition, but to assist the gag they may have had Tony wear the same outfit that he wore for the pre-record the previous night.

  6. I know this may seem like an ignorant question, but was the show filmed live and the same audience retained for Lateline afterwards? I’m guessing Lateline isn’t filmed in front of an audience any other night.

    Anyway, it was better than I thought it would be, and definitely a lot better than the last season of Chaser’s War On Everything. I was a little doubtful at first about whether they should have scrapped The Chaser Decides for a new election format, but now I’m glad they did. I agree with dave in that the Justin Bieber sketch was well made.

  7. @Peter Why didn’t you..? Instead you could have commented some more on TVTonight about how much you hated it, because we sure haven’t seen that before!

    I thought it was excellent (for Aussie comedy anyway). The gags weren’t That good but it was the little things like the tweets that I loved. Can’t wait for next week.

  8. Sorry David, don’t agree with you…

    I found the show to be stale, boring and rather unfunny. It felt like the same old gags from War on Everything, just with a new set. Even the politicians that they “ambushed” know how to deal with them and can give it just as much back. I like the Chaser team, but I think they are past their prime…

  10. Did I see the same show? The Tony Jones opener was an OK idea stretched way beyond reason and supported by three very lame gags. The rest of the show was similar. That Abbott doorstop was go-nowhere dreadful and should have been cut. Most of the studio stuff was extremely long, stagey and dry. The Chaser ‘boys’ seem to have part of the TV audience somehow mesmerised. Poor writing, poor execution. I learned nothing of value and didn’t laugh. Double fail.

  11. I loved it too, though, being used to watching 22 mins (half hour comedies on DVD without ads), I found 30 mins quite long. But I laughed out loud, clapped, and found Julie Bishop superb. Why can’t she be as natural as that all the time? Obviously an ultrasmart smart woman with a sense of humour.

  12. Bishop was a good “straight” guest..I bet alot of the candidates will now want to appear on the show in the coming weeks…
    A very fuuny show!!

  13. Vintage Chaser! I especially liked the ad for the Angry Kevin burger – reminded me of their classic Fungry ads.

    @Peter: Why bother commenting or even reading the article if you’re not interested. Move along now.

  15. A great start for their return season of shows. I laughed out loud many times, not a frequent occurrence for me, and i try and watch a lot of comedy. Great construct in warming up the Lateline ‘Audience’ – and plenty of funny stuff. Yes, i was surprised at Ms Bishop’s sense of humour and self parody – all vote attracting she thinks. The Justin Bieber thing was really well made. Finally some worthy local comedy this year.

  16. Well sadly enough this show might be the only way to make politics interesting to the people of Australia who’d rather watch 2 randoms cook than watch 2 potential leaders of our country debate the issues of the moment. No wonder we end up with total idiots in charge when the voters don’t give a hoot.

    I really think it’s a massive gap in the market, making politics understandable for the average joe on the street. Political editors like Laurie Oakes and Mark Riley are too interested in showing how well connected they are rather than actually enlightening people about what each party stands for or what the consequences of a particular political move might be.

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