| The Chaser election specials | |
|---|---|
 The Chaser Decides Logo | |
| Also known as | The Election Chaser (2001) The Chaser Decides (2004, 2007) Yes We Canberra! (2010) The Hamster Decides (2013) The Chaser’s Election Desk (2016) |
| Genre | Political satire |
| Created by | The Chaser |
| Presented by | Charles Firth(2001, 2004) Andrew Hansen(2004-) Dominic Knight(2001) Chas Licciardello Julian Morrow Craig Reucassel Chris Taylor |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 20 |
| Production | |
| Running time | Approx. 27 minutes per episode |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC TV |
| Release | 23 October 2001 (2001-10-23) |
| Related | |
| CNNNN The Chaser's War on Everything The Hamster Wheel | |
The Chaser election specials are a number of Australianpolitical satire based comedy programs produced byThe Chaser. The shows, which have run under various titles, provide commentary onAustralian federal election and has been produced since 2001 forABC TV. The first show,The Election Chaser in 2001 was the first ever television production of the Chaser team. In 2004 and 2007 they producedThe Chaser Decides which won theLogie Award for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program" for the 2004 series. In 2010, the Chaser team produced a 5-episode series about the2010 election, calledYes We Canberra!.[1] A new series was produced for the2013 election, calledThe Hamster Decides.The Chaser's Election Desk aired in the six weeks prior to the2016 federal election.[2]
The show was the first television production ofThe Chaser team, which had been running their satirical newspaperThe Chaser since 1999. An ABC personality,Andrew Denton, offered the Chaser, as a collective, a contract with the ABC and they went on to produceThe Election Chaser, which first aired on 23 October 2001. It was based around the2001 federal election and was presented in the form of an election tally room, similar to the regular ABC election coverage. The presenters (panelists) wereCharles Firth,Julian Morrow,Chris Taylor,Craig Reucassel,Chas Licciardello andDominic Knight. The show was nominated for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program" in the2002 Logies but lost toThe Micallef Program, which also ran on the ABC.[3][4]
| Episode no. | Date broadcast | Mal award |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23 October 2001 | Philip Ruddock |
| 2 | 30 October 2001 | Jackie Kelly |
| 3 | 6 November 2001 | Natasha Stott Despoja Mark Latham |
| 4 | 13 November 2001 | John Howard |
SinceThe Election Chaser, the Chaser team had gone on to produceCNNNN, a spoof of various 24-hour news networks, which ran in 2002 and 2003.CNNNN won the2004 Logie for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program". With the2004 federal election looming, The Chaser team decided to produce another series based uponThe Election Chaser. The show was titledThe Chaser Decides and ran at the timeslot of9:00 pm Thursday from 24 September 2004 to 14 October 2004.[5]
The show was presented again in aNational Tally Room, but only had four presenters in Morrow, Reucassel, Taylor andAndrew Hansen. Licciardello and Firth did reporting roles while Knight stayed on as a writer. The show was hugely popular and won the2005 Logie award for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program".[6]
| Episode no. | Date broadcast | Mal award |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 24 September 2004 | Malcolm Turnbull |
| 2 | 30 September 2004 | Tony Abbott |
| 3 | 7 October 2004 | Family First Party |
| 4 | 14 October 2004 | Peter Costello |
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Following the second series ofThe Chaser's War on Everything, the Chaser crew produced two episodes ofThe Chaser Decides based on the2007 federal election.[6] The two episodes replaced theWar on Everything in its timeslot for 21 November and 28 November 2007.[7] The format took the same as the 2004 series.
| Episode No. | Date broadcast | Mal Award | Ratings[nb 1] | Nightly rank | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 21 November 2007 | Lisa Milat Tony Abbott | 1,421,000 | 1st | [8] |
| 2 | 28 November 2007 | Jackie Kelly | 1,378,000 | 1st | [9] |
For the2010 federal election, The Chaser appeared in five episodes of the retitledYes We Canberra!. Four episodes aired before the election date on Wednesday's at 9.45 pm and one episode after the election in that timeslot. This was the group's first television production in almost a year after the third and final season ofWar on Everything in 2009.[10] The show premiered on 28 July 2010, with the election to be held on 21 August. The shows context was supposedly part of news programLateline with the Chaser team being there to warm up the crowd forTony Jones orLeigh Sales. To this effect the show was held on a set with the same design as Lateline (whereas thereal Lateline set does not feature an audience) with Jones and Sales making guest appearances. This was changed for the final episode when the show preceded At the Movies, so that set design was used with guest appearances by hostsDavid Stratton andMargaret Pomeranz.
| Episode No. | Date broadcast | Special guest | Mal award | Ratings[nb 1] | Nightly rank | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 28 July 2010 | Julie Bishop | David Barker | 1,493,000 | 3rd | [11][12] |
| 2 | 4 August 2010 | Tanya Plibersek | Steve Fielding | 1,297,000 | 9th | [13] |
| 3 | 11 August 2010 | Maxine McKew | Kevin Rudd | 1,335,000 | 5th | [14] |
| 4 | 18 August 2010 | Not awarded | 1,250,000 | 9th | [15] | |
| 5 | 25 August 2010 | Karl Bitar | 1,189,000 | 9th | [16] |
A DVD containing all five episodes plus extras and commentary was released by Roadshow Entertainment on 16 September 2010. Extras include deleted and extended scenes plus behind the scenes footage.[17]
In March 2012, the Chaser announced the2013 election series, tentatively calledThe Election Hamster.[18] It was announced that it will be calledThe Hamster Decides and the first of five episodes was to air on 21 August 2013.[19] When Kevin Rudd announced the change of election date from 14 to 7 September, the first episode was brought forward one week to 14 August. The show was run at a timeslot of 9:15pm on Wednesday. The set used was the same set asThe Hamster Wheel.
| Episode no. | Date broadcast | Special guest | Mal award | Ratings[nb 1] | Timeshifted | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14 August 2013 | Bob Katter | 962,000 | 10th | ||
| 2 | 21 August 2013 | Doug Cameron | 842,000 | 11th | ||
| 3 | 28 August 2013 | Sarah Hanson-Young | 896,000 | 10th | ||
| 4 | 4 September 2013 | Anthony Albanese | 1,001,000 | 6th | ||
| 5 | 11 September 2013 | Jaymes Diaz | Kevin Rudd | 902,000 | 10th |
The 2016 series,The Chaser’s Election Desk, began on 8 June 2016.[2] New cast members that joined the series includedZoe Norton Lodge, Ben Jenkins,Kirsten Drysdale, Alex Lee, Scott Abbot, Mark Sutton and Hannah Reilly.
| Episode no. | Date broadcast | Special guest | Mal award | Ratings[nb 1] | Timeshifted | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 June 2016 | 783,000 | 8th | [20] | ||
| 2 | 13 June 2016 | Bill Shorten(vox pop) | 776,000 | 9th | [21] | |
| 3 | 20 June 2016 | Chris Jermyn | 687,000 | 15th | [22] | |
| 4 | 6 July 2016 | 655,000 | 14th |
In November 2018, it was announced that the ABC declined to fund an election special for the2019 election.[23] Instead, Taylor and Reucassel hosted a podcast,Democracy Sausage, available for free on the ABC's website.[24] In the later weeks of the campaign episodes were also available onABC iView[25] andABC Comedy.
There was again no TV series for the2022 election. Instead,Charles Firth andDominic Knight did a free daily election podcast calledThe Chaser Report: Election Edition.[26][27] Other membersCraig Reucassel,Andrew Hansen,Chris Taylor andChas Licciardello appear occasionally, as well as the "Chaser Interns", with occasional pranks uploaded to The Chaser'ssocial media channels.
On 3 December 2010, a DVD titledThe Chaser Election Collection was released. It contained every election special The Chaser had screened to date, as well as special features including the never-before-seenThe Election Chaser pilot.
Every episode of the show ends with a member of The Chaser presenting The Mal Award, named afterMal Meninga's extremely shortpolitical career in 2001. Every week, the team present the award to a politician "for the greatest act of political suicide during an election campaign". In the 28 November 2007 episode, Meninga satirised himself when brought in to present the award but "gave up" mid-speech.
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A joke featured in all but the 2010 series, the show would often feature short clips of people (usually drunk) acting ignorant towards the election (e.g. "I reckon Mickey Mouse is the best", "Who'sJohn Howard?"), followed by an on-screen graphic that reads "This Person Votes." For episodes that aired after the election, it was replaced by "This Person Voted."
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For the 2004 and 2007 series, a newsbar - similar to the one that would appear inCNNNN - would scroll across the bottom of the screen, with humorous news items. For the 2010, 2013 and 2016 series, it was replaced with fakeTwitter updates from celebrities and politicians.
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by CNNNN andKath & Kim (tied) | Logie Awards Most Outstanding Comedy Program 2005 | Succeeded by |