Housos crazy timeslot

PEOPLE are going to think some things are wrong about Housos, but as far as I'm concerned the worst thing is the timeslot.

THERE will be things that people are going to think are wrong about Housos, but as far as I'm concerned the worst thing is the 10pm timeslot. Crazy.

Still, I suppose the way things are, Paul Fenech - the brains behind it, the same dude who gave us Pizza, Fat Pizza and Swift and Shift Couriers - is probably glad it's on air at all, happy SBS didn't just take it out and beat it to death with a tyre iron.

I was trying to think how many SBS shows have had duelling stories done on them on the same night on A Current Affair and Today Tonight. It's been mentioned in concerned tones in NSW Parliament. I know SBS was very, very impressed with the response to Go Back to Where You Came From, the refugee documentary they ran in June, but Housos hasn't actually been on air yet. Nobody had even seen it only a minute or so online, at best when it was causing all that buzz earlier in the year.

If you listen carefully to the theme song at the start on Monday night, you'll hear a nice little reworking of a bit of the Neighbours song. And like Neighbours - and yet obviously so clearly not like Neighbours - a lot of the action takes place on a street called Ramsay.

So far, and I've watched the first two episodes, I think it's only mentioned once, and that's when Franky Paul Fenech has to call an ambulance. In vain as it turns out none will come into the area any more. He eventually resorts to setting a wheelie bin alight to get a fire truck on the scene, and drives off to the local under-funded hospital in that.

I don't know what you've heard about this show, but there will be some mild hysteria after it goes to air. And it is a tiny bit rough. But only superficially. Frankly I think you probably heard more swearing in Deadwood.

It's just that the sentences were prettier.

What Housos does have is narrator Ian Turpie sitting at the pokies in a grey tracksuit, Amanda Keller as Christina Rees, the mayor of Sunnyvale campaigning on a platform of discontinuing the "single mother's pension", which she believes is more important than climate change and Barry Crocker as NSW Premier Gary O'Bazzle.

It's very funny, a wild mad ride, vintage Pauly Fenech. So now you know, you're not allowed to complain.

Housos, SBS ONE,
Monday, 10pm