Wow, talk about a blast from the past. Does anyone remember this 1993 video clip of John Farnham’s Seemed Like A Good Idea (At The Time), featuring the Late Show cast & nonno Cilauro? (Thanks for the link, Zoë!)
Jun 26 2013
Triple Your Judith
1) Judith Lucy is currently midway through her stand-up tour with other funny woman Denise Scott for The Spiral show.
Brisbane and Canberra have already been completed, so you may have time to grab the other show dates:
The Concert Hall, Chatswood, Sydney – THU 27 & SAT 29 JUNE
http://bit.ly/11Abs5K
Enmore Theatre, Sydney – FRI 28 & SUN 30 JUNE
http://bit.ly/11Abs5K
Perth Concert Hall – SAT 6 JULY
http://bit.ly/11Abs5K
Hobart, Wrest Point Casino – SAT 13 JULY
http://bit.ly/12nP8g9
2) Judith is pairing up with ABC Radio National personality Jason Di Rosso to fill in for Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton on At The Movies for three weeks from July 16.
They will be doing reviews and interviews in their own special way, with Jason having a pop culture background for his radio show The List and Judith being a major film buff.
At The Movies is on Tuesdays 9:30pm on ABC1
3) Coming off the success of her series Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey on ABC1 in 2011, ABC have picked up a new show from Judith’s noggin – Judith Lucy Is All Woman.
A six-part series will show if there’s any difference of lifestyle change for women from 50 years ago until the present day.
It will be produced by Bearded Lady Productions, funded by Film Victoria – coming soon.
Jun 05 2013
Happy 21st Birthday Late Show – 20 Years Season 2!
Okay, we might be stretching it a bit, but who’s complaining?!
Even though July 17 last year we celebrated 20 years since the first episode of The Late Show was broadcasted, Saturday June 5 1993 was the first day that the first episode of Season 2 went to air. By then, the show had developed a cult following.
And what a way to start the season with the now infamous “We’re Still Number Four!”, a direct parody of commercial TV idents which promote the channel’s talent. Just like Channel 9’s “Still The One“.
The Late Show got a few extra coins in their budget, allowing The D-Generation to change the set a little, going from the emerald green to a tinge of orange, red and horizontal venetian blinds. Once the money dried up, a whip-around with the hat added up to employ an extra staff member – Judith Lucy – for season ’93.
The News Desk returned with an extra bit of spit and polish, and the team get off to a flying start – a ‘brief 2 minute” synopsis of Paradise Beach. (Note: Paradise Beach was a soap on Channel 9 that aired only a few days before the return of The Late Show, and was universally panned by critics and the general public. Though somehow it lasted until 1994.)
“Hey, Warner Brothers Movie World!” becomes a staple quote every time you visit the Gold Coast theme park.
we’re also introduced to everyone’s favourite superdog – Charlie The Wonderdog featuring The Pissweak Kids and Charles (Bud) Tingwell. Read the interview with the Anderson Brothers about their experience as a Pissweak Kid.
Meanwhile, to ‘impress’ Judith’s first day on the show, Tony, Mick and Jason try and convince her about their time away in .. New York.
After a few padded sketches, the story of cult leader Cliff Thompson was shown. This was topical as only a few months beforehand the infamous Waco seige with David Korseh was still fresh in the headlines.
Toilet Break returned, but instead of the marvellous song and dance routines of The Natural Seven, Tony dives into the archives to show the best-of-the-best of talent show – Pot Luck. First off the rank, David Thai – with the amusing critique of the late Bernard King with host Ernie Sigley playing the straight man host.
and naturally, our ol’ spurring partners, Graham and The Colonel return, to follow the script, only to throw it all out the window.
Last and least, Season 1 ended with a montage under the closing credits. Season 2 upped the entertainment value with Tony requesting Mick to have a well known band or musical performer to close the show with a well-known song of theirs. Mick, always heard the names wrong, which resulted in someone else totally inappropriate to perform (full list here). First off the rank was meant to be US band Van Halen performing Jump and Panama. Mick heard it as Syd Heylen – aka Cookie from A Country Practice.
Hilarity ensues… turns out later on Syd had no idea what he was meant to do either.
Happy anniversaries!
May 29 2013
Border Protection Squad: Trailer
From the scrivener’s ink of Ed Kavalee comes the sizzle that has been making traction and cut-through for years.
First, we copped a dosage of delicious filler from Scumbus… now here’s Kavalee’s second film:
The trailer has just been released, with appearances by Peter Helliar, Ryan Shelton, Dave Hughes, Ash Williams, Andy Lee, Ryan Fitzgerald, Lachy Hulme, Josh Lawson and some guy named Tony Martin.
Ed Kavalee and Tony Martin.
(Not to be confused with KD Lang and Andrew Denton.)
View the 2 minute 53 second trailer here. No word yet on release time, but if you follow Ed on Twitter, I’m sure he’ll update us all in due time, and we’ll update the details on here. To find out more on the cast, hit up IMDB.
May 05 2013
The new forum is here!
Yay, we have finally shifted ten years’ worth of posts to a shiny new-look forum! It needs a facelift and a few tweaks here and there, but the content has been retained, including all your old posts, private messages and login details. Find it at www.champagnecomedy.com/newforum www.champagnecomedy.com/forum (we’ll eventually change it back to /forum).
Apr 10 2013
The Champagne Comedy forum
Regular visitors to the Champagne Comedy forum are probably noticing the database errors that show up when you try to access it. This is because our host recently upgraded the database software on our shared server (PHP), and our forum (which has not been upgraded in a while) is incompatible with it.
During the “donation drive” a few months ago, we raised enough money to pay for the year’s hosting although not quite enough to pay for an upgrade to our current forum software, hence the delay. The fact our forum is down now means we urgently need to upgrade it no matter what – we are considering trying out free forum options in the short term and seeing how they go. Our host has kindly offered to migrate us to a server that has not yet upgraded the version of PHP, so the forum would keep running, but it is not a long-term fix. We know that it will need to be done eventually. In the meantime thanks for your patience and understanding – we are not coding experts so it’s a bit tricky – and huge apologies about the inconvenience.
Kim
Mar 24 2013
I Love Green Guide Letters MICF
Justin Hamilton, Santo & Steele – Letters To Green Guide
If you’re a Melbournite, you’d be aware of the Green Guide lift-out in The Age newspaper, which is usually full of amusing letters written in to critique the state of the Australian television landscape – positive and negative.
Comedian Steele Saunders has taken one step further for his love of these letters – turning it into a highly popular podcast. With various comedians who come visit and share anecdotes. Tony Martin and Santo Cilauro have been previous guests.
Check out the most recent episode with Santo as a guest, telling the origin story of Jane Kennedy joining the D-Generation, as well as a bit of fiasco with Tony’s beloved Warren Perso sketch, and even the classic Wheel Of Fortune sketch from back in the D-Generation days.
I Love Green Guide Letters is heading to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival stage from March 30 to April 20, 2013. Check out I Love Green Guide Letters for more details, tickets and previous podcasts now.
Mar 16 2013
“Not Coming Soon to a Cinema near you”
Actually, this post is purely an excuse to post some classic sketches.
But you’re not complaining are you?
With some films presently coming out at cinemas, there’s been a few flashbacks to some great work that was done on The Late Show.
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone = Santo The Magnificent.
A Good Day To Die Hard = Shitscared Poolside.
So much for prime numbers.
Arnold Schwarzenegger will be in town soon… just don’t mention Last Action Hero.
Someone release an Ozploitation film so we can post the Warren Perso sketch!
Mar 10 2013
Pictures Of You Double
Here’s one for the Pictures Of You fans out there.
The recently new Working Dog show that was broadcasted on Channel 7 in 2012 is heading to the stage at the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Hosted by Brian Nankervis, who also hosted the TV show, will bring various and popular comedians to the stage, to talk about the pictures that represent a time in their life. From child birth, to teen years, and until most recent, each show will be unique to the comedian at subject.
Pictures of You Live:
Tuesday 2 April
Fiona O’Loughlin and special guest
Wednesday 3rd April
Andy Lee & Genevieve Morris
Sunday 6th April
Merrick Watts & Felicity Ward
Sunday 7th April
Dave O’Neil & Celia Pacquola
Tuesday 9th April
Jimeoin & Julia Zemiro
Wednesday 10th April
Shane Bourne & Anthony ‘ Lehmo ‘ Lehmann
Thursday 11th April
Lawrence Mooney & Glenn Robbins
Friday 12th April
Colin Lane and special guest
Saturday 13th April
Josie Long plus Hamish Blake
Sunday 14th April
Paul Foot & Jane Turner
Working Dog are even encouraging audience participation where you may appear on stage with a photo from your past. Details are on the MICF Pictures Of You site.
—
And here’s Part 2:
If you love the show so much and missed it when it was on TV, you can now purchase all 10 episodes of Pictures Of You on iTunes.
So if your favourite comedian, entertainer or personality was featured in an episode, you can see it all again… plus others.
Purchase the show on iTunes here.
Feb 28 2013
More Jane For Your Sunday
As of Sunday 3rd March, your weekends are about to get more interesting… in reading.
News Limited, owner of Herald Sun / Sunday and Daily Telegraph / Courier Mail etc, have signed on Jane Kennedy to the new Sunday Style magazine lift-out in the weekend paper.
Source: dailytelegraph.com.au
In lead-up to her weekly column, the mother of five to husband and Working Dogger-in-crime Rob Sitch spoke to News Limited on her thoughts if The Late Show would survive in this modern era of the internet and social media – with the very verbal thought-ridden Twitter which can make or break anything.
“I’m convinced if we released (The Late Show) now, with Twitter around, it would be pulled off the air,” Kennedy joked.
“It’s harder to be a trailblazer nowadays.”
You can read more of the story here, or you can read her first column each Sunday in the Sunday Style liftout in your local News Limited Sunday newspaper.
You now have permission to run down the street and say “I’ve got the PAPER!”
