How The Late Show changed comedy
Thirty years since The Late Show first went to air, its creators reflect on how the hugely popular ABC show turbocharged their careers — and altered the comedy landscape.
t was unmissable television. Live at 10pm on Saturdays in 1992 and 1993, The Late Show brought a new style of sketch comedy, satire and stand-up into Australian living rooms.
It gained a devoted following for its fresh, cheeky and unique take on politics, sport, music, film, TV and popular culture.
Classic segments are seared into the memories of loyal fans: ageing sports presenters Graham and The Colonel; the Evel Knievel-style Shitscared stunts; conmen Geoff and Terry Bailey; visiting Pissweak World; children’s show character Shirty: The Slightly Aggressive Bear; and Charlie the Wonderdog, with Charles “Bud” Tingwell.
It revoiced old TV shows Bluey as Bargearse and Rush as The Olden Days, conducted street interviews, satirised news headlines, parodied music videos, impersonated politicians and celebrities, and showed cringe-worthy clips from Countdown, The Saturday Show and Pot Luck to pass the time during a recommended toilet break.
It is 30 years since The Late Show first went to air on July 18, 1992. Review spoke to Santo Cilauro and Tony Martin about the making of the short-lived but hugely popular ABC show that turbocharged their careers and that of Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy, Judith Lucy, Mick Molloy, Rob Sitch and Jason Stephens.
“What I love most about The Late Show is that we came up with a format where you could literally do every genre of comedy,” Martin says. “The live shambolic sketches of In Melbourne Tonight, the sleek and well-acted sketches we shot on film, street interviews, Bargearse dubbed over, or play ourselves and review Countdown or Commercial Crimestoppers.” Cilauro says: “We were young enough to be stupid and followed our instincts, sometimes against the better judgment of people who were more mature than us, and that was important.
“I’d love to see younger comedians take more chances and not be scared of failing. We knew that life was too short not to take those risks.”
The Late Show burst on to screens when Paul Keating was prime minister, unemployment was 11.1 per cent, Barcelona hosted the Olympic Games, Batman Returns was box-office gold and Boyz II Men dominated the song charts. It was a time of stone-washed jeans, capri pants, tube tops, flannel shirts, scrunchies, crimped hair, Doc Marten boots and high-top sneakers.
The Late Show was hardly noticed when it began and the initial reviews were not encouraging. It was not until halfway through the first season’s 20 episodes (July-December 1992) that it gained a faithful fan base. By the end of the second season (June-October 1993), it had established itself as one of the greatest Australian TV comedy shows.
The Late Show was something you recorded on your home video cassette recorder and played again and again with friends. If you missed it, and didn’t set your VCR timer to record it, you sought a friend who did. The sketches were retold on the school bus, around the office water cooler and at parties.
When a “best bits” video was released (later remastered for DVD and iTunes), it quickly sold out at ABC Shops. Black T-shirts and black hats with “The Late Show” in its distinctive Courier font became collectors’ items. You wore them with pride because it connected you to the coolest show on TV.
The Late Show’s origins were in the D-Generation, a sketch comedy show on the ABC (1986-87) and Channel 7 (1988-90). Cilauro, Gleisner and Sitch were Melbourne University Revue alumni. Several characters such as Graham and The Colonel were heard on the D-Generation breakfast program on Triple M in Melbourne (1986-92) and seen during a Melbourne Comedy Festival show in 1991. During 1990, the D-Generation veterans developed pilot shows for Channel 9.
“The first two were scripted sketch-style shows and no one was very happy with those,” Martin recalls. “It was (producer) Michael Hirsh who said, ‘Why don’t you just do a show that is more like your radio show?’ And so the third show that we piloted was called The Late Late Show.”
The proposed four nights-a-week show never made it to air. But several of the sketches filmed for Channel 9, such as Shitscared (“I don’t have the brown underpants on for nothing”), ended up on The Late Show, on the ABC. Cilauro reveals they borrowed the JVC home video camera from the Funniest Home Videos prize cabinet to shoot sketches.
“Rob and I asked for a meeting with Kerry Packer at the time because we didn’t realise what was happening,” Cilauro recalls. “We kept on doing these shows but they weren’t going to air. We weren’t being told what was going on.
“He was the only person who gave us a straight answer. He said, ‘We think you guys are talented but what you are producing is not quite what we want the Channel 9 brand to be.’ So, we said, ‘Well, OK, what if we did it a bit more like this?’ and tried to meet halfway. And he was really honest and said, ‘I don’t think we can go ahead.’ At least we knew where we stood.”
The ABC picked up the show but delayed broadcast until 1992 due to the Gulf War.
“We were told that all of this money that was going to be spent in the light entertainment and comedy department had to be diverted to the news department for the war,” Martin recalls.
The time allowed the cast to learn how to play themselves rather than characters, and some of the money they made from the radio show was invested in the TV production. They did two more pilots for the ABC before settling on a format for The Late Show.
The cast wrote the scripts and often filmed and edited them. “There was just the seven of us and then eight in the second year, and we had to fill a whole hour,” Cilauro says. “There were never any arguments about getting things on air because there was never enough material.”
Going to air live with an audience was daunting. Martin says: “I don’t think I would be brave enough to do that live to air now.” Cilauro agrees: “There were surreal moments when you floated above yourself and thought ‘This is going out live but there is this intangible quality that makes it very special.”
The cast were having so much fun that they sometimes lost it mid-sketch, which made it even funnier than the scripted jokes. When something bombed, it was saved with the catchphrase: “Champagne Comedy”, a term that became synonymous with the irreverent humour of the show itself.
They never took themselves too seriously and invited the audience to laugh with them. The cast chemistry was magic.
“The team that made the radio show went on to The Late Show, and then Judith Lucy joined us in the second year,” Martin says. “A lot of the fun stuff that people like about The Late Show was that people were stirring each other and taking the piss out of each other, and all of that had developed on our radio show.”
About 30 minutes of each show was filmed in advance, often by Cilauro, such as The Mr Whippy Grand Prix or Charlie the Wonderdog. The musical spoofs, including Frente!’s Accidentally Kelly Street (sung as “Accidentally Was Released”) and The Sharp’s Scratch My Back (sung as “Skivvies Are Back”), were shot during the week.
Sitch’s impersonations of Bruce McAvaney, Bill Clinton, Jeff Kennett, Yasser Arafat, Desmond Tutu and Imran Khan (“Like a tiger”) are legendary. Many sketches and segments remain memorable, such as Gleisner inviting Molloy to rant about the news, Stephens and Molloy’s Muckraking reviewing celebrity stories, Cilauro and Sitch as The Oz Brothers, Sitch as the politically correct dinner party guest, Cilauro as the hopeless magician and Martin as Robert De Niro before he was an actor. Molloy and Stephens, aided by Tony Barber, feeding answers through an earpiece to Kennedy guesting on Sale of the Century from a van outside Channel 9 is brilliant.
All comedy reflects its times. Some of the sketches, jokes and impersonations would be met with howls of protest nowadays. Martin says that a sketch sending up racial stereotypes would often have a racial stereotype in it, such as Cilauro parodying his Italian heritage. “What we thought of as satirical humour maybe you couldn’t do now,” concedes Martin.
Celebrities appeared on The Late Show, including Shirty being revealed as Russell Crowe’s character Hando in Romper Stomper. Second series episodes ended with a music act booking going awry. Syd Heylen sang Van Halen’s Jump, Pete Smith performed Aerosmith’s Dude (Looks Like a Lady), Jimmy Hannan crooned Jimmy Barnes’s Working Class Man and Joan Kirner belted out Joan Jett’s I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Bargearse and The Olden Days became iconic. Lucky Grills, who played Bluey in the original 1970s cop show, loved the attention, made cameos, and took a stand-up show on the road and sold Bargearse T-shirts. The Rush cast took time to warm to The Olden Days but John Waters and Brendon Lunney also appeared as guests dubbing Martin and Molloy.
The Late Show became phenomenally popular in its second year. The team worked long hours and reinvested much of what they earned back into the show. They were eager to branch out and do other projects. Cilauro says they were friends first and “it was getting in the way of our lives”. Martin doubted they could “do a better year three” and thought it was time to end it after 40 episodes.
The Late Show was a turning point for the cast and crew. Cilauro, Gleisner, Kennedy, Sitch and Hirsh formed Working Dog Productions and went on to create programs such as Frontline, The Panel, Thank God You’re Here, The Hollowmen, Have You Been Paying Attention? and Utopia, plus films The Castle and The Dish.
Martin and Molloy created a successful radio partnership. Molloy hosts The Front Bar on the Seven Network and has appeared in television shows and movies. Martin has an award-winning podcast, Sizzletown, and is a regular on Nova 100. Lucy continues to work in radio, television, film and stage, and has authored several books. Stephens has moved mostly behind the camera as a respected television and movie producer.
So, three decades on, is there any chance of reunion? Cilauro and Martin tantalisingly say it is “possible” – but everyone is busy and, more to the point, the standard would have to be very high. Martin says it would have to be “the best ever episode of The Late Show” otherwise it would disappoint fans.
Cilauro agrees. “It doesn’t feel as inviting to go backwards and say let’s do that again,” he says.
“It lived in its own time and lived perfectly in its own time. That was its home. And because of that, I don’t think you can quite live up to any kind of expectations.”
It was, and ever shall be, Champagne Comedy.
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