| The Late Show | |
|---|---|
 The Late Show intertitle | |
| Also known as | Late Show |
| Genre | Comedy/Satire |
| Written by | |
| Directed by |
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| Presented by | |
| Starring | |
| Voices of |
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| Narrated by | Tony Martin (Various segments) |
| Theme music composer | Craig Harnath |
| Composers |
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| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 40 |
| Production | |
| Producers |
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| Production locations | ABC Ripponlea Studios (Elsternwick, |
| Cinematography |
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| Editors |
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| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | 18 July 1992 (1992-7-18) – 30 October 1993 (1993-10-30) |
| Related | |
The Late Show is a popular Australiancomedy sketch and satire show, which ran for two seasons on theABC. It aired weekly on Saturday nights from 18 July 1992 to 30 October 1993.
The Late Show has its roots in the 1980s comedy group,The D-Generation. Consisting mostly ofMelbourne University students,The D-Generation managed to gain a cult following with their radio and TV appearances.[1]
After the breakup of the originalThe D-Generation, some of the members went on to perform on the commercial TV programmeFast Forward. The remaining members filmed several pilots for what was to be calledThe Late Late Show (no relation to theAmerican show) at Channel Nine. These were rejected, and so the group accepted the ABC's offer of a one-hour timeslot on Saturday night. The cast members were:
The Late Show featured a number of popular, recurring segments.
The show opened with astand-up routine, usually by Martin and/or Molloy, but was sometimes opened by another of the hosts instead. The stand-up was often topical, usually focusing on the week's news, or it was about a topic of the host's choosing; for example, in one show Santo talked about his family's highly ethnically styled home — which was eccentric even by their community's standards — with the sequence in question complete with video clips of the house's odd exterior and interior.
The Late Show News Headlines, presented by Gleisner, would blend the week's real news headlines with fake information and footage. For example, when covering the replacement of JapanesePrime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, footage from an Asian bodybuilding competition was shown. The News Headlines would also feature interviews with newsmakers, most often played by Sitch incostume andprosthetics, and sometimes inblackface or brownface. Some of the better-known impersonations includedH. Ross Perot,Jeff Kennett,John Hewson,Paul Keating,Imran Khan,Yasser Arafat,Gareth Evans andDesmond Tutu (Sitch also appeared in other segments asElton John among others).
This would accompany the News Headlines,Molloy joiningGleisner at the News Desk as Gleisner would get Molloy to comment on a topical issue. This slowly escalated from discussing the issue with an ever calm Gleisner, to an irritated Molloy showing signs of annoyance with the issue, eventually Molloy would rant over the issue while becoming increasingly enraged. The skit would always end with Gleisner calling inMen in White Coats to douse Molloy and the News Desk withfire extinguishers.
InStreet Talk, Martin and Molloy would take to the streets of Melbourne and interview passers-by on issues of the day. Thesevox-pop interviews often proved more of an opportunity for the pair to ridicule their interviewees, especially their dress sense.
This segment saw Cilauro and Sitch as two siblings obsessed with the Australian cricketer David Boon. The segment featured catchphrases such as 'I've had a gut full', 'This country's stuffed', and 'I can't burrleevet' (believe it). Their worship of all things Boon included praying to a small golden statue of Boon, playing Scrabble (only the word 'Boon' was used by both brothers), posters of Boon adorning the walls of their home, and playing a Boon video-game in which the player could select the size of Boon's moustache and gut. David Boon himself appeared in one episode in which he read the brothers a bedtime story.
Martin went through hours to apply prosthetic make-up to beinterviewed in-character asPaul Keating,Prince Charles,Arnold Schwarzenegger andMichael Jackson.
The Toilet Break, as the name suggests, was designed to allow viewers time to use thetoilet during the commercial-free show (the ABC, being apublic broadcaster, has no adverts during shows and minimal amounts of commercials between them, usually only for theABC Shop).
The 2-minute-long segment was played in the middle of every show, featuring old music clips, with acountdown displayed on the top left-hand corner of the screen. During the first season, the toilet break consisted mostly of clips from The Natural 7 fromThe Saturday Show. The second season exclusively used clips fromPot Luck, which were judged byBernard King.
Shitscared starred Rob Sitch as a stuntman combiningEvel Knievel andEd Wood (in that he was similarly unable to grasp his own sheer incompetence and lack of aptitude in his chosen field) compounded by the 'spanner in the works', Mick Molloy as his half-witted assistant and Tom Gleisner as the interviewer. Sitch played the arrogant expert, who loved to pontificate about "the stunt game". He would fashion detailed plans for each stunt, with an emphasis on "safety". He would boast about his own significance, mumbling and glossing over any questions relating to poorly funded, rundown buildings and stunt apparatus variously referred to as 'Stunt HQ'. Mick would always manage to ruin Rob's planning, inevitably resulting in physical injury for Rob, which would get him a slap on the back of his head from Rob (although Mick was always wearing a crash helmet). The first twoShitscared sketches were shot at Channel Nine for the unaired pilots ofThe Late, Late Show.
Several-minute advertisements for mediocre theme parks with the 'Pissweak' brand name.These included :
Each would feature a guided tour with examples of the many low-quality attractions. Featuring The Pissweak Kids and Tom Gleisner as the Park Guide, with narration by Tony Martin.
Park highlight narration examples (from Pissweak Town):
Similar toRoy and HG,Graham and the Colonel were two satirical sports commentators, played respectively by Sitch and Cilauro dressed in green ABC sports jackets. Whilst the characters often forgot lines and used many corny and humourless jokes, the segment was much loved. This segment aired just before the end of each episode.
The intro music for the segment was "Light and Tuneful" byKeith Mansfield, the same music used by theBBC to introduce its Wimbledon coverage.
The Olden Days was a segment where the cast overdubbedRush, a black-and-white historical drama series produced by theABC in the 1970s. It was aired during the first series of the show.
Martin did the voice of the star of the show, Governor Frontbottom (as well as Judge Muttonchops). Molloy supplied the voice for theJohn Waters' character Sergeant Olden. Other characters were used intermittently.
The Olden Days was released by the ABC as a VHS video containing all the segments in order, although it has been out of publication for a number of years. On 15 August 2007, it was released on DVD inThe Late Show Presents Bargearse and The Olden Days collection.
ActorsBrendon Lunney and John Waters appeared as surprise guests onThe Late Show after the last episode ofThe Olden Days.
ReplacingThe Olden Days in the second series of the show,Bargearse was an overdubbed version ofBluey, a 70s police drama set inMelbourne, Australia. The segment was originally to be an overdubbing of an Australian soap opera,The Young Doctors, titled "Medical Hospital", but the rights to the footage were pulled at the last minute. The ABC seriesTruckies was considered for overdubbing in a segment intended to be titled "Truck Wits", before the writers settled onBluey. This change left the writers with very little time, and as a result the planned 20 short episodes was cut down to 10, which aired in the second half of series two.[3]
Bargearse was named after its protagonist, Detective Sergeant Bargearse, an overweight, moustache-sporting "rough-and-tumble" cop. The sketches exploited Bluey's weight with plentiful fat jokes, as well as many fart noises.
Bargearse was voiced by Martin, while his sidekicks, Ann Bourke and Detective Glen Twenty ("Glen 20" is a household disinfectant spray in Australia), were voiced by Lucy and Sitch respectively. Other minor characters were revoiced by Cilauro, Molloy and Kennedy.
Lucky Grills, who played Bluey, appeared onThe Late Show two times: as a guest in the mock press conference for the Biodome participants, and in the musical appearance as noted above.
On 15 August 2007 aBargearse andThe Olden Days double-feature DVD was released. The ten episodes are also available on the last two discs of the complete series ofBluey on DVD.
The music used for theBargearse theme music is the 1970Jazz track "Brass in Action" by Keith Mansfield.[4]
Shirty: The Slightly Aggressive Bear was a parody of children's TV shows. The twist was that the main character, Shirty, would react harshly to even the smallest insult. Many episodes ended with a destroyed set, a firearm being shot, or injury to the other characters. In the last episode of the first series, a sketch revealed that Shirty was played by the "Hando" character fromRomper Stomper as played byRussell Crowe (though in a "best-of" episode two weeks prior, it had suggested that Shirty was routinely played by Molloy). It was stated onThe Best Bits of The Late Show DVD commentary by Jane (who played the segment's other recurring character, Miss Tammy) that Rob Sitch was in the suit. The Shirty costume was actually that of Percy Panda, a character played by Jack Manuel in the ABC children's showAdventure Island.
Charlie the Wonderdog was a series of (7) short episodes which first aired duringThe Late Show's second series. The segment was created after last-minute changes led toBargearse's planned twenty episodes being cut down to ten.[3] StarringCharles 'Bud' Tingwell and the "Pissweak Kids" (a group of children who also starred in the Pissweak World sketches),Charlie was a parody of fictional animal shows, such asLassie andSkippy the Bush Kangaroo in which the animal regularly ends up saving the day. Charlie was a Golden Retriever owned in real-life by Gleisner.
The sketch featured purposely bad overacting from the children and usually involved an unimposing villain or disaster (such as a "smuggler" stealing "native fauna"—sticks and twigs—from the bush) that had to be prevented. The actors would constantly praise Charlie as a highly intelligent "wonder dog", in contradiction of the behaviour of Charlie himself, who regularly had to be dragged around by a visible rope to perform stunts. When the dog was required to bark to alert the others of danger, obvious overdubbing was used over footage of Charlie with his mouth closed or looking distracted.
As the series went on, the problems and situations that Charlie faced became more and more over the top. Charlie was eventually assassinated in one of the sketches, only to come back in theCharlie the Wonderdog Christmas Episode.
Geoff and Terry (Sitch and Cilauro, respectively) were twoconman entrepreneurs, who would appear regularly with a "new exciting product" or scheme. Sitch and Cilauro primarily used the segment to make Kennedy, who played the interviewer, laugh and forget her lines. Kennedy also admitted in theBest of the Late Show DVD commentary that she was in fact drunk during one of the live sketches.
After a particularly bad performance Sitch and Cilauro vowed never to do "Geoff and Terry" again and the pair were reborn as "The Oz Brothers".
Parodies of real songs, complete with highly accurate recreations of music video sets, costumes and wigs.
The parodies included:
The Late Show was also able to get many well loved Australian TV personalities on as guests.Charles "Bud" Tingwell played the grandfather inCharlie the Wonder Dog, and popular TV and radio voice-over manPete Smith was also a regular. Many guests had cameos of only a few seconds, brought in for throwaway gags. One memorable joke hadJohn Farnham offering wine, producing a bottle of water and smiling to himself.
All episodes in the second series ended with a musical performance. Martin would announce that Molloy had organised for a major celebrity to perform, only for Molloy to sheepishly admit he had accidentally booked another star with a similar name - most of whom were not famous for their musical ability. The humour in Molloy's recurring "errors" in booking the performers may have run dry if not for the hilarity of having well-known Australian non-musical celebrities and politicians performing.
The performances included:
The Late Show finale in 1993 had a 'real' guest on to sing at the finale:Don Lane, who was notably appearing on a competing network during the show's Saturday night timeslot.
Famous non-guests wereRobert Gottliebsen ("Addicted to Love" byRobert Palmer) andTony Bonner ("This Used to Be My Playground" by Madonna).
Citing the effort involved in producing each week's show, and the desire to explore other formats, the cast decided that the second season ofThe Late Show would be their last. Most of the performers remained in the Australian comedy scene.
Kennedy, Gleisner, Cilauro and Sitch formedWorking Dog Productions, and made the TV programmesFrontline (1994–1997),Funky Squad (1995),A River Somewhere (1997–1998),The Panel (1998–2004),All Aussie Adventures (2001–2004) andThank God You're Here (2006–2009, 2023–), and the moviesThe Castle (1997),The Dish (2000) andAny Questions for Ben? (2012).
Martin and Molloy had a popular radio showMartin/Molloy (1995–1998) with co-star Pete Smith joining them often, before moving into film withTackle Happy (2000),Crackerjack (2002),Bad Eggs (2003) andBoyTown (2006). Martin hosted a radio show on the nationalTriple M network calledGet This (2006–2007), has written two books of humour—Lolly Scramble (2005) andA Nest of Occasionals (2009), has directed episodes of the ABC-TV comedy seriesThe Librarians and in September 2011, began co-hostingThe Joy of Sets on theNine Network. Molloy hostedTough Love from 2004 to 2006.
Lucy appeared in bothCrackerjack andBad Eggs, and continued to tour with a series of one-woman shows and in 2011, appeared in the ABC-TV seriesJudith Lucy's Spiritual Journey.
Stephens became Director of Development for Fremantlemedia Australia, an Australian independent television production company.He was the creator behindThe Choir of Hard Knocks. He also produced and co-executive produced the 2007 filmThe King, the telemovie based on the life ofGraham Kennedy.Stephens also developed the comedyNewstopia (2007) starringShaun Micallef. Molloy and Kennedy hosted theTriple M drive radio showKennedy/Molloy.[5]
The Late Show celebrated its 20th anniversary on 18 July 2012. Martin tweeted:"Thanks to all for Late Show anniv wishes. 20 years ago tonight I was preparing to tell the nation I'd just removed a hatstand from my arse."[6]