By Debi Enker
He makes it look easy. Sam Pang might be delivering delightfully deadpan quips on Ten’s comic quiz show, Have You Been Paying Attention? Or ribbing his co-hosts and a bouncy parade of AFL greats on Seven’s sports panel show, The Front Bar. Or donning a tux – for the first time in his life – to host the Logies. Until his triumph last year, that was a gig widely regarded as a poisoned chalice given its damaging impact on some previous MCs. But to whatever he does, Pang brings an affable, relaxed quality, as if he’s cruising, not taking any of it too seriously.
But none of it is actually easy. It takes work: spot-on timing and astute judgment of tone; the ability to be cheeky and droll without getting nasty. A mastery of the pause-for-effect after delivering a gag. Quick wit and the capacity to land a killer ad-lib.
Dressed up for the Logies, Sam Pang brings spot-on timing and an astute judgment of tone.Credit: Simon Schluter
Part of the trick is making it appear easy, even if the generally publicity-averse performer makes it sound as if it’s no big deal. In Pang’s genuinely humble and reflexively self-deprecating estimation, he’s just lucky to be able to have fun with his friends and to build a career in an industry that he loves.
The Logies role, which he’s set to take on again, means that he has to talk about himself and his work more than he’d like. For this high-profile assignment, he’s in the spotlight on his own, initially for the crucial monologue which ideally warms the room, gets the assembled audience onside and establishes an upbeat mood for the proceedings.
Pang says that for someone accustomed to being a team player, the solo challenge was part of the appeal. “Anytime people see me on TV, I’m part of a team, which is wonderful. On both of the shows I’m on, when things go wrong, there are others to back me up. With HYBPA? I’ve got Tommy Gleisner and Ed (Kavalee) and three others; on Front Bar, I’ve got Mick (Molloy) and Andy (Maher). With the Logies, I’m not sitting on a panel: it’s about, ‘Can you do something on your own?’ It’s the same as stand-up, it’s that muscle, it’s exciting. I wanted to see if I could do it.”
Despite the flak that Australian television’s “night of nights” can cop – that it’s hokey, ridiculously long, a fan-magazine promotion – Pang sees its value: “You get to celebrate achievement in this industry that we’re lucky to be a part of. That doesn’t mean that we can’t have fun with it. We’re coming together, we’re celebrating and there are going to be jokes.”
Andy Maher, Mick Molloy and Sam Pang present the AFL comedy panel show, The Front Bar.Credit: Channel Seven
Pang’s hosting debut came in a year marked by changes. The ceremony returned to Sydney after 37 years and to Seven for the first time since 1995. It hadn’t had an MC since 2012, relying instead on a roster of presenters. And it was the first time in its 63-year history that it was hosted by a non-white male. In customary style, Pang, who has Chinese heritage, had some fun with that, noting in the monologue that he’s “half and half, half Channel Seven and half Channel Ten”, then pausing to add: “Let’s be honest, it’s just great to have an Asian on Channel Seven who isn’t trying to smuggle live birds through border security.”
However, the Logies role means he’s less able to dodge the publicity duties he’s deftly avoided elsewhere. For his seven years on breakfast radio at Nova on Chrissie, Sam and Browny, he says: “Chrissie Swan and Jonathan Brown were happy to do the publicity, and if I don’t have to do it, I don’t. People would say, ‘You’re very private’, but I’m going, ‘I think you get enough of me’.” With TV work, he says, “I’m lucky because at Front Bar, Mick and Andy do that stuff and with HYBPA?, Tom and Ed are happy to do things. What else am I going to add?”
Here, though, there’s no one else sharing the spotlight and Pang is good-naturedly grumbling about having to attend a photo shoot for this story: “Can’t you just grab something off the net? Photo shoots are worse than interviews. I think if you enjoy a photo shoot, you’re insane. It’s mortifying. I tell every photographer, ‘I’ve only got three looks and that’s it.’ You see those photoshoots where the music’s on and they’re really into it? Yeah, that’s not me. I don’t want music. It’s not a party.”
Sam Pang (bottom right) on Have You Been Paying Attention? with (clockwise from top left) Ed Kavalee, Melanie Bracewell, Anne Edmonds and Aaron Chen.Credit: Ten
Pang’s ascension to the Logies role followed an inadvertent audition in 2022 when he came on stage twice to accept awards. Those brief appearances proved highlights, leading many in the room and at home to wish that he was up there for longer. With Seven taking over the event, they looked to one of their own – or, at least, half theirs – to put their own stamp on it.
Opting for an MC, especially a comedian with some pals backstage providing support and gags, enabled a more flexible production. It allowed, for example, for Pang’s spoof “In Memoriam” segment, in which he remembered shows that had launched and expired quickly the previous year, to include a crack about a joke in the monologue that didn’t quite land. His backstage crew included John Origlasso, his regular writing partner who worked with him at Triple R on the Breakfasters, Dean Thomas, a writer from Pang’s Nova days, and Lawrence Mooney, who’s also one of The Comedians, the touring stand-up show Pang does with Molloy and Marty Sheargold.
The 50-year-old marvels that his career has enabled him to work with performers he’s long admired, including Molloy and the Working Dog team that produces HYBPA? And, in some ways, the organic growth, starting small and flourishing into a prized and permanent fixture, is mirrored by the shows with which he’s inextricably associated.
In his late 20s, he volunteered at community radio station 3CR, answering phones at the reception desk. “I was working in a pub and I remember the three hours at 3CR were the quickest hours of the week. I loved it.” He met people and began contributing to their programs. In 2013, he had his first stab at stand-up and recorded the pilot for HYBPA?, also featuring Gleisner and Kavalee. “It was six or eight half-hours that no one watched,” Pang recalls. “Same with Front Bar: we shot it in a pub and it ran on the AFL website for 12 minutes.
“They were small shows. To me, they’re a good example because people were either going to like them or they weren’t, and the word of mouth has an effect. How many shows start with a flood of publicity that doesn’t guarantee anything?”
Originally, Pang didn’t have a goal, just an idea of an area that he was interested in exploring. And he says that there still are no plans: “The Working Dog guys plan, the Front Bar producers plan. I’m just labour, it’s great: I don’t have to plan, I’m not management.”
As he again dons his tailor-made tux for the Logies and can be seen each week contributing his distinctive style of comedy to a pair of TV staples, his approach seems to be working out pretty well.
The 64th Annual TV Week Logie Awards are on Sunday, August 18, on Seven and 7Plus, 7pm
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