Disunited States

With two and a half weeks to polling day in Australia I have officially had enough of this general election. It’s hard to feel inspired when the best outcome to hope for is that Labor can somehow compress enough of their gaping wounds and haul their political corpse over the winning line without having haemorrhaged every last drop of credibility. This combined with the media’s pretence that they wouldn’t treat Julia Gillard any differently to other candidates for the top job whilst explaining that they just have to talk about her hair, clothes, accent, femininity and her unmarried, childless status has used up all my rage and now I just want it to end.

Still, when people look back at this election the big question they will ask is surely this: what idiot decided to suspend the ABC’s run of The United States of Tara for six weeks in favour of a Chaser Election Special and a referendum-related adaptation of Wil Anderson’s Gruen Transfer? I appreciate that Gillard’s decision to call an early election might have changed a few people’s priorities but did the ABC really need to go all Channel 7 and just turn it off mid-run? Well, apparently, yes. Ratings for the Chaser’s Yes-We-Canberra and Gruen Nation have been through the roof, which just goes to show that people get what they deserve and that I’ll never get a job at the ABC.

I suppose I’d mind less if either show were as inspired or intelligent as say The Colbert Report, whose US election highlights included host Stephen Colbert’s on-off-on again presidential campaign, recognition of the Colbert Bump as a genuine influence on public opinion and a beautifully childish three-way punch-up with Conan O’Brien and Jon Stewart over who ‘made’ Republican nominee Mike Huckabee. The Comedy Channel’s coverage of the Obama-McCain election as Indecision '08 (subtitled by The Daily Show as Clusterf@#k to the Whitehouse and by Colbert as Don’t F@#k This Up America) actually made the most historic election in US history even more enjoyable.

Lest we also forget Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin tour de farce. It’s fair to say our Tina played as big a part in reinforcing the public’s view of the Alaskan Governor as a gun-toting simpleton as Spitting Image did in ensuring David Steel and David Owen would never be elected in the United Kingdom. If you’ve seen enough of Fey’s impressions check out this slice of genius by an eight-month’s pregnant Amy Poehler on SNL’s Weekend Update, with Palin clearly clueless about what she is condoning whilst trying to look cool on TV.

Elsewhere this year’s Alternative Election Night on Channel 4 in the UK sounded great in theory. I’ve no idea if it was (feel free to let me know) but just the idea of Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell and Lauren Laverne on a show together excites me more than watching the past-their-best Chaser boys asking Julie Bishop to stare out a gnome.

So because I miss it already, and in the absence of anything better (Micallef, please stop messing around with Talkin' About Your Generation and use that brain for something important...) and because the ABC dropped their end of the bargain it looks like I'm going to have to take up my friend's offer from earlier this year of a downloaded copy of the United States of Tara. Sorry ABC; you can't say I didn't try. Your turn now...

Midnight Feast

At the start of the year I made a deal with myself not to buy any DVDs in 2010. Our place is full of stuff and we really don’t need any more. As a result we’ve been using the DVR a lot more, mostly to record episodes of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. When I wrote about Late Night earlier this year Jimmy still hadn’t really hit his stride, but in the past few months both he and his crew seem to have shifted up a gear and are producing some really great telly moments.

Sure some of it is a big advert for some of the worst dross that Hollywood has to offer, but it’s worth sitting through every interview with a Sex and the City actor to see the stuff in between. So because I love a list and because Jimmy Fallon doesn’t get any coverage at all here in Australia here are some of my highlights from the past six months for your viewing pleasure (all links feed through to videos on the NBC site).

• Might as well start with the best. It’s pointless describing Let Us Play With Your Look so take your pick from either Zack Galifianakis or Sarah Silverman, sit back and enjoy. Will Ferrell and Alec Baldwin had highly popular turns too, but I think your first time is always the funniest, and these were mine...
• The Roots, the world’s greatest house-band bar none, play tribute to Michael J Fox with a rocking Back to the Future homage
• Betty White: the last Golden Girl standing talks about hosting Saturday Night Live for the first time in her 80s and offers a new take on Jay Z’s 99 Problems
• Brit indie-dancers Hot Chip play the title track off their 2010 album One Life Stand with the Roots and some steel drums and unexpectedly rock the house.
• Uber-grump John Cleese actually enjoying himself as Jimmy’s co-host on Wheel of Carpet Samples (fitting, since it’s a well crafted rip-off of Monty Python’s Silly Noises Quiz sketch)
• 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan is a mentalist… no really. He is.
• Jimmy and Gwyneth Paltrow reminisce about their pre-fame career as 80’s rap innovators Shazzazz
• Jimmy versus Stephen Colbert. Talk show wrestlemania-geddon…
• LATE: parody of Lost about a lift full of passengers which crashes on a mysterious floor. Extra mad props for doing it as a big budget multi-parter that pays homage to the original and occasionally manages to out-weird it thanks to Questlove’s secret handshake, Higgins’ Shaggy impressions and Carlton the Goldfish Man
• The gorgeous Aubrey Plaza from Parks and Recreation discusses following her teacher home in a box. A star is born.
• ‘Thank You…’ Jimmy’s Friday night ritual of writing thank you notes to things, people, places and phenomena that make his life better. Proof that ‘repeat to fade’ can make even the silliest of jokes very funny…
• Ludacris performs ‘How Low’ with the Roots - with a bizarre Disco Duck cameo by Questlove and some early 90s time-warp midget backing dancers
• Jimmy sings the 12 Days of Christmas with the Muppets. Utterly lovable and I’m still jealous
• Of all the many audience participation games, Think About It, is my favourite. Participants are asked to think about stuff whilst their thoughts are transmitted to our screens via top secret technology electronic nipples mounted on their heads. Invariably they are shown to be thinking about something inappropriate, and every time it makes me giggle.
• Jimmy’s inability not to mention deadly spiders that live in swimming pools whenever he interviews anyone Australian
• An awestruck Jimmy interviews Barry and Robin Gibb from the Bee Gees for the first time since his SNL skit the Barry Gibb Talk Show (featuring Justin Timberlake as a painfully shy Robin) culminating in a three-way sing-a-long of Nights on Broadway. Class.
• Man in audience gets over excited about images from the Hubble Space telescope. And makes a rap video about it. Intergalactic multi-dimensional exploding space nebulae? Hubble Gotchu!
• Every so often Jimmy clears out his office and finds old VHS video instructions for office workers from the 80s. Made by a company called Video Vision they offer expert tips on a range of topics including sexual harassment, Christmas and, in this case, fire safety
• A reformed Public Image Limited perform Bags during which a strident John Lydon dispenses with sneaking expletives in through the back door (a la Pretty Va-cant) and instead stares into the camera and drops the c-bomb repeatedly to fade in a remarkable feat of mainstream swearing. And no one seems to notice…
• And finally, Jake Gyllenhall rocks the yellow boiler suit as he and Jimmy compare the finale of American Idol to a hedgehog doing karate. In dance.

If you’ve got any favourites to recommend then feel free to add below or email mintcustard@gmail.com. The Fallon love-in starts here.

Jimmy Jimmy, Oh!

Demonstrating that January remains slow news month for most Australian journalists there has been a disproportionately large amount of coverage here of the Conan O’Brien – NBC - Jay Leno brouhaha currently making waves in the US. For those not in the loop (anyone who isn't American or doesn't have cable) here is a short story to bring you up to speed:

Old, unfunny man hosts iconic late night TV show. Old man leaves to host new, unfunny TV show in earlier slot. Freaky looking, slightly funnier man takes over iconic late night show. He is very happy. TV network spends US $50 million building a new set for iconic late night show. Ratings for both shows fall through their respective arses. TV network panics and tries to move old man’s new show back to iconic late night TV show’s spot. Freaky looking, slightly funnier man gets upset, refuses to move iconic late night TV show on principle. TV station and freaky looking, slightly funnier man go at it like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. People start to watch iconic late night TV show again. TV station pays freaky looking, slightly funnier man and his crew a silly amount of money to terminate their contract. Old, unfunny man gets his old job back. The world shrugs / gets upset because they prefer freaky looking, slightly funnier man.

Outside of his mock three-way stoush with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert I’ve never really embraced Conan and his Robin Williams-style of mania. However I did have some interest in the fate of the Tonight Show because of possible implications on one of my new televisual treats, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which risked being bumped or even cancelled if Conan’s show had been moved back. With Conan stepping aside we get to see more of Jimmy doing that thing what he do…

And what he do, exactly? Well, ostensibly the same thing that most American late-night-fawning-star-interview-house-band-audience-participation-pop-culture type shows seem to do. Such programs (Letterman, Conan, Leno, Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Kimmel etc) are so formulaic that Garry Shandling’s sublime Larry Sanders Show was pretty much ready-made before they even started writing the gags.

It’s a formula that many around the world have tried to copy, notably Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton in the UK and Rove McManus in Australia. All three had ratings success but with weekly shows and precious little competition. Their US counterparts run parallel and in competition with each other five days a week, 52 weeks a year, meaning star guests and material are spread precariously thin.

This might explain why I have developed a fondness for Jimmy Fallon’s take on the genre, which is to fill the gaps between his opening monologue and the mutual back-slapping interviews with some moments of quality silliness reminiscent of his old days co-hosting Weekend Update with Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live. The result is more late night community radio than polished television chat show which contrasts nicely with some of the very-famous-indeed guests.

Following in the footsteps of shows like Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush and Shooting Stars, LNWJF is proudly daft. Audience participation games are mostly pointless, pleasingly confusing and with desultory prizes. Many skits have no punch line or purpose and are played (unless Jimmy can’t help himself, which he usually can’t) straight faced. Like the early days of Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out pleasure is derived from continual repetition of seemingly unfunny concepts til they eventually batter you into submission (the weekly ‘Shout Outs’ make no sense at all the first time…)

Despite all the Conan hoo-ha Late Night is undoubtedly aided by having NBC as its parent network. As the home of 30 Rock, The Office, Parks and Recreation and Saturday Night Live the show has a deep pool of comedy talent to draw on at will. There are many cameos by SNL alumni, past and present – which is unsurprising given Jimmy’s past and having SNL head honcho Lorne Michaels as Executive Producer.

Stylistically some of Late Night’s best moments mirror the SNL Digital Shorts; clever and funny pre-records which allow Jimmy’s hammy comedy style to shine and give the talented crew a share of the spotlight. Check out their pre-Christmas series the Real Housewives of Late Night featuring Jimmy and co as their own wives (including a scarily feminine AD Miles) or the recent inspired Video Vision Fire Safety skit.

Integral to the show are The Roots, Jimmy’s adopted house band who put the funk up every other house band on TV. The rapport between them and Jimmy - especially leaders Tariq and Questlove - is genuine and their ability to give musical backing to every idea on the show provides the glue that holds it all together.

My love is not unconditional just yet. There are still things wrong with LNWJF, not least some of the fawning interviews, with Jimmy happy to pump up a few egos or promote any old tat as great. An over-reliance on showbiz mates often leaves some guests covering little more than how fun it was to work together. Also, it may be a Late Night tradition, but please scrap the monologue. Jimmy can’t do them and why should he when there are other things he can do so much better? Fallon’s goofy personality is both his blessing and his curse (he was eloquently described by Tracy Ullman this week as the guy you’d invite out with a bunch of girls because he’d make you laugh but wouldn’t try to shag you) but ultimately there is much to like. His producers could do a lot worse than allowing him even more freedom to take Late Night somewhere totally new and not force structure upon him for tradition’s sake.

Having stepped into Conan’s old chair at Late Night the same time as O’Brien replaced Leno, Jimmy Fallon is slowly finding his feet some six years after quitting Saturday Night Live for a film career that never quite happened. I for one am glad he’s going to have more time than Conan did to prove himself the right man for the job.

Ha-Ha Her

I'm a bit of a tragic for falling in love with women on TV. When I was 12 I had a special page in my Garfield diary that listed girls who I fancied off the telly. I'm sure Kylie Minogue would be delighted to hear that she's the only lady listed who'd still make my 2008 list. If I had one. Which I don't. Actually, I still do I suppose - it's just in my head now so people can't prove how sad I am. However, now that I've confessed I'll take this opportunity to share with you my undying love (for now) for Saturday Night Live's finest, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.

Funny is, of course, very sexy. Funny always ranks high on women's lists for what constitutes the perfect man. For men it often sits lower in the list behind some quite technical limitations on size of various parts of the anatomy. Many men still persist with the stupid assumption that women can't be funny. I've never been interested in this idea, often espoused in the eighties and nineties and mostly (from what I could see) based on the fact that there are more famous male comedians than females. This is a bit like saying Coldplay are better than Lambchop cos they've sold more records. Sort of. But anyway thankfully we live in slightly more enlightened times and TV executives, tour promoters and the general public are seemingly now more willing to give female writers and performers a chance to do their thing and be seen.

To the credit of the people behind Saturday Night Live, broadcast direct from New York for over 25 years, there has always been a strong female presence amongst the writers and actors; from the first season's Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner through Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sarah Silverman and Janeane Garofalo to the noughties genius of Rachel Dratch, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and of course Fey and Poehler. It may be true that the SNL gals are traditionally outnumbered by the guys, but the notion that they are outshone is one of the past. The problem of course has been that post-SNL far too few women then go onto the same stellar recognition as the post SNL men. This is likely based on a lack of decent scripts with varied and interesting roles to harness their talents actually getting funded (see Alex Remington's take on this here.)

Tina Fey (left) and Amy Poehler from SNL's Weekend Update

The good news is that in the absence of a helping hand from the industry Poehler and particularly Fey have made their own DIY move from small to silver screen. Whilst in the role of head-writer at SNL, Tina Fey wrote the script and starred in Mean Girls - a teenage comedy (with a sisterhood twist) that was surprisingly watchable given its high-school setting. Now she's done it again with Baby Mama, a Fey-scripted Amy-Tina vehicle. The idea of watching a romantic comedy about a successful businesswoman trying to conceive through surrogacy makes my fingers twitch angrily as I type, but I quite enjoyed the experience.

It's all down to Tina and Amy of course and another chance to see what made them special as the first female co-anchors on Weekend Update. Fey's Sexy Librarian (now given greater prominence due to her uncanny Sarah Palin impressions) and Poehler's cheeky faux-dumb blonde are both flimsy covers for the wealth of talent which lit up SNL for years. Fey is now more famous for the excellent 30 Rock (she writes, she stars, she produces, she rocks!) whilst ongoing scene-stealing by Poehler in Baby Mama and SNL-linked Blades of Glory, will hopefully lead to increased prominence and a pathway for the likes of Wiig and Dratch et al. And I love them. Did I mention that? I do. A lot.

Gratuitous List Time

Away from the world of SNL the small-screen continues to prove what everyone knows anyway; that women can be as sick, violent, painfully embarrassing and bloody hilarious as any man. With no pretence to completion (my mum would be horrified that I’m not eulogising Victoria Wood) here are some of my favourite ladies of comedy…

Despite being virtually anonymous since 2000, Caroline Aherne remains peerless as a writer (and actor) of so-true-it's-painful comedy. As Mrs Merton she set a standard that Graham Norton has been ripping off for years whilst The Royle Family deserves repeated viewings and will probably outlast most its contemporaries in people's affections. And speaking of which, at least poor Cheryl (the Royle's dumpy and put-upon next door neighbour) gives and gets the last laugh through the genius of Jessica Hynes (Stevenson as-was) as the dippy and delightful Daisy Steiner in Spaced, co-written with Simon Pegg.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Morwenna Banks - from Absolutely to her work with Reeves and Mortimer and Steve Coogan. As a character actress she’s pretty hard to beat and blends like Maybelline foundation into any crazy world she inhabits. Julia Davis' Nighty Night and Amy Sedaris' Strangers with Candy are deliciously warped and well worth your attention and even if I don't love Catherine Tate as much as everyone else seems to (I preferred her straight-ish acting in Doctor Who) her characters are as spot on as anything in the over-praised Little Britain.

The ladies of the much under-appreciated Big Train (including Tate, Davis and Thick of It star Rebecca Front along with Amelia Bullimore, Doon Mackichan and Gina McKee) deserve special mentions in any comedy encyclopaedia for an array of scene-stealing supports in some of the best comedies of the past 15 years. A similar tip of the hat to Olivia Coleman for bringing out her inner Maggie Philbin on Look Around You and for making Mark and Jez seem even more inhumane on Peep Show (speaking of which I am in completely in love with Isy Suttie's Dobby and hope she'll be back for Series 6. Meanwhile Suttie is touring her own musical comedy act - let's hope she makes it to Australia some day).

Part of me would like to praise Gina Riley and Jane Turner's Kath and Kim but I'm still mad at them for making too many series with diminishing returns. I'll get over it. I will mention Jane Kennedy though for outstanding contribution to Australian comedy, especially as uber-bitch Brooke Vandenberg in Frontline.

Finally, a special mention to Julie Kavner for ongoing excellence as Marjorie "Marge" Simpson (née Bouvier) on the Simpsons. What would the show be without Marge's honest but misguided attempts at moral guidance, relentless love of her family and addiction to gambling in all its forms?