I might be the only non-Australian (or one in a million!) who has seen enough Australian TV footage to actually have gotten the reference while never having “been there”, so to speak. It’s still totally god damned hilarious, even if you don’t have the full frame of reference.
SBS, by the way, is something akin to our PBS, so you can transpose as much as needed in order to produce laughter.
You have to watch both.
(The actresses who play Kath & Kim ..read more
I could write academically as to why Kath & Kim is perhaps one of the wittiest, most subversively brilliant comedies to spread across the British Commonwealth, but I’ll just let the jokes speak for themselves. This is from Series 3.
Kel’s 50th birthday slash Epponnee-Raelene-Darlene-Charlene Craig’s baptism involves line dancing and karaōke (to “Fox on The Run” by the Sweet, among others), and Sharon “Unlucky In Love” Strzelecki finally sticks it to Kim and forces her to endure a harsh ..read more
There are a lot of bands who “got big” right after the original late 70’s / early 80’s post-punk phenomenon, and many of them were labelled as sell outs or were seen as too mainstream. Simple Minds is a great example — how many people (especially in the United States) have bothered to see how brilliant and varied their pre-1983 back catalog is? I’ve had to educate more than a few “music collectors” about what they’re missing.
Another band ..read more
The amount of jokes they throw into each episode is shocking, shockingly good that is. I can watch an episode ten times or more and then during the eleventh, or thirty-seventh, or 892017th viewing, discover yet another play on word or subtle joke.
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“It’s like a cabbage patch… doll!”
The most obscure pop standard of the 80’s must be John Paul Young’s “Soldier of Fortune”. I say pop standard because it exhibits every element of “popness” that should have ostensibly brought about an adult contemporary hit for Mr. Young. It contains a very memorable and addictive obbligato with a par-four synthesizer on typical glock mode, it features saccharine but accomplished vocals from a too-young-to-be-cool man of obscure national origin (à la Chris De Burgh), it contains fashionably ..read more
One of my softest of soft spots, as soft as a baby’s skull, is for overwrought, extended television jingles that serve to connect a TV station with some kind of greater cultural meaning. Australia has the best ones, because it has that Commonwealth aesthetic, but tends to involve really folksy, silly montages of people hugging, drinking beer, running around in speedos, etc. This one for “Channel 0″ in 1980 is a real classic; the first time I saw it, I ..read more
