Funky Squad

Created and written by The Late Show’s Jane Kennedy, Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch, Funky Squad was an Australian parody of The Mod Squad. Although the show has amassed a relatively large cult following in the past few years, Funky Squad was a failure when it premiered on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) in 1995. It’s kind of easy to see why. Like a number of comedies set in the 70s, too much of the humor is derived from dated slang and eye-searing fashions. Even still Funky Squad wasn’t a complete failure. For example, its opening credits sequence is easily one of the greatest opening credits sequences I’ve ever seen. I dare you not to like this show after watching this…




Incidentally, Joey Alvarez, Blair Steele, Harvey Zdalka Jr. (whose character was mute because a bullet had hit his tongue), Verity Svenson-Hart and Baldwin Scott were actually played by Santo Cilauro, Tim Ferguson, Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy and Barry Friedlander.



Vintage television ads were shown during the commercial breaks. Scattered amongst the real ads were these parodies. The drunk driving PSA is easily the funniest. For some reason these ads were not included on the no-frills DVD release.

The Preventers

Five months before the first Austin Powers movie appeared in theaters, The Preventers pilot premiered on British television and was quickly forgotten. The Preventers obscurity is unfortunate because in many ways it was smarter, subtler and far more accurate than its big budget cousin. I’m guessing budgetary constraints kept this from going to series because I can’t think of any other reason why anyone would want to keep this off the air.

Hardcore fans of Saturday Night Live might recognize Morwenna Banks from her very brief stint (4 episodes) on the show during its notoriously bad 1995 season. She also appeared in Joel Hodgeson’s TV Wheel pilot and the fake trailer for Hodgeson’s sadly unrealized movie Statical Planets.


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Larry David on Fridays

It’s easy to overrate Fridays considering that it launched the careers of Larry David, Larry Charles (and to a lesser extent) Michael Richards and Rich Hall. But make no mistake about it, Fridays was and will always be a pale, off-brand knock-off of Saturday Night Live. Don’t believe me? Try to get through the sketch below without hitting the pause button. It’s short but far from sweet (or funny).






Still, some good did come out of the show. For example, David’s sketches were always strong even when they tackled mildly surreal subject matter. I like the fact that even though his character isn’t the focus of this sketch, his character is still the focus of this sketch.



Strangely, the Mr. Doody thing became a running gag on the show. Here’s three extremely short sketches of Larry David shamelessly fawning over the Eisenhower-era marionette.




This sketch has a bittersweet quality to it. But that's probably because it aired just a couple months before John Lennon was murdered by horror author Steven King. I like the questions that David asks the Beatles particularly, “What do you think of fat people” and “Do you enjoy foreplay”?




Here’s a concept that could easily be transformed into an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.




Although David appears as Erno Rubik, I have no idea who wrote this sketch (that was clearly inspired by SNL’s game show parody Hollywood Bingo) but I’ve always liked it. However, that probably has something to do with the weird parade of has-beens that opens the sketch and the Rich Little gag. Everything else is kind of drawn out and weak.

Before They Were Assholes: Russell Crowe

Long before he became known as that self-serious shithead who throws phones at people, Russell Crowe actually had a sense of humor. As hard as that is to believe, here’s footage of him on the Australian sketch comedy series The Late Show in 1992.




Shirty the Slightly Aggressive Bear was one of the more popular reoccurring characters on The Late Show. Here’s another sketch that always makes me laugh even though it combines two of the most well-worn comedy conceits of the last 20 years (angry, drunk kid show hosts and gratuitous references to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).

Bargearse

Redubbing an old movie or TV show with new zany dialogue (and farts) is extremely easy to do which is probably why most redubbed movies or TV shows are so painfully unfunny. Bargearse (along with Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lily and, technically, MST3K) is one of the few exceptions. Originally airing as a part of the Australian sketch comedy series The Late Show, Bargearse was cheap and easy but also surprisingly inventive (check out the gag that opens episode 2) and smart. Incredibly, Bargearse was written and performed by some of the same people who gave us such unbearable quirk-edies as The Castle and The Dish.









For some reason the above episodes lack an opening credits sequence. You can watch it below…



Apart from Sonny Bono, Lenin, Toulouse Lautrec and the great Super Mario gag, you’d probably have to be Australian to really get all of the guest star jokes (although Uncle Arthur was a character on another Australian sketch show called The Comedy Company).


Oh, and for those who might be wondering, Bargearse was taken from a 1977 series called Bluey (the titles of which can be scene at 1:27 minute mark). Ironically, Lucky Grills is a far funnier name than Tubbs Farquhar.

Gremlins: The Ride!

For some reason or another (most likely xenophobia), I was surprised to learn that there are theme parks in Germany. One of the biggest of these parks was* Warner Bros. Movie World. It’s very similar to Great Adventure and Universal Studios but like most foreign reflections of American pop culture it’s just a little bit off. Let’s see if you can figure out what’s wrong with this Gremlins ride below….




*A couple years ago the park lost the right to use the Warner Bros name and is now simply known as Movie Park. How this affected the rides I have no clue but I assume they’re all based on Fassbinder films now and I can’t wait to take a trip on The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant Waterslide.

In the comments section for the Gremlins video above, somebody mentioned there was a Beetlejuice ride at the Australian version of Warner Bros Movie World. I couldn’t find footage of it but this fan-made concept video for a Beetlejuice darkride is a fitting replacement.

Australians Love Blackface

What is it with Australians and blackface? More specifically what is it with Australians and blackface and The Jackson 5? At any rate, here’s a clip from the 2004 series The Chaser Decides which was sort of an Australian version of The Daily Show (that started life as an Australian version of The Onion). Incidentally, I have no clue what they're singing about.