Open Slather

Ever since the Mavis Bramston show, Australian comedy has faced a recurrent problem .. while our writers have some funny ideas, they don't have enough to fill 42 minutes of airtime.

So the skits they write may have some genuinely funny lines .. but they .. just .. drag .. on .. too .. longgggggg.

Episode one of Open Slather was a good example.

Typical was the Gina Reinhart 'Definition of mine' skit. The use of the different meanings of the word 'Mine" was amusing - but then it wasn't amusing any more because the writers belaboured the point. 15 seconds? Funny. 30 seconds? Not so funny. More than a minute? Excruciatingly not so.

On the other hand, the running gag about drug testing WAS funny - because each gag only lasted 10 seconds.

I'll give them another couple of episodes, to see if they find their feet - but I can't give this a passing grade, based on the first outing.

Five words - where the f..k is Kelvin Cunnington? Thats six but I'm being as economical with words as these guys are with laughs. What happened to Australian comedy? Why did our media get gang tackled by the political left in the late 80's and hasn't looked forward since? The reeffo epilogue was just a gross indulgence by the creators. Lets get to the point. I'm sick of Micallef telling me how stupid the right is, so I don't watch anymore after his breakthrough "hilarious period" - then there's the Project which quite funny but the comedians always stuff up the gags as they forget their lines. Now this dross. Our media is a gov subsidised joke of an industry. Just leave the political stuff to commentators and make us laugh. Paul Hogan talked about who we were in our own language. Barry Humphries laughed about who we think we are. The current generation of comedy writers have no idea who we are so they tell us who we should be. Living in leafy suburbs, wafting around in expensive cars between meetings then make a social comment comedy series. Out of touch, bereft of creativity, without any clue that there's about 15 million people who live here that they forgot. Like Cath and Kim. Geez, Fox have taken a risk on this bunch.

I wish you could give a lower score than one star.

I made this IMDb account just to vent about this visual vomit. Think about that.... I've seen reality shows (which are terrible), daytime chat shows (garbage)..... And I still think this is the worst product I've seen. At least reality shows and daytime chat shows are open to being cheap and catering to the lowest common denominator. This is worse than all of it.

It's like it's willfully oblivious to how awful it is....

Let's counterpoint it with SNL, a live show that written each week. Better writing, performances, actual satire and wit - when it doesn't work, at least the excuse is the time-frame. Now.... Open Slather isn't live. People sat in writers rooms and thought 'this is funny'. Inexcusable.

Take the recent ad, a 'parody' of 'Bang Bang'. It'd barely be acceptable as a parody performed by a local amateur comedy troop. People got PAID to write, produce and film that. Ugh. Also; how bad is it that this song is deemed to be the highlight and is the main thrust of an advert for the show....?

If this isn't on TV to fulfill some kind of mandatory percentage or quota for locally produced work....then for shame.

If this is supposed to demonstrate the 'cream' of Australian sketch comedy then it just demonstrates how far behind we are. Look up UCB or Groundlings, those amateur up- and-comers can IMPROVISE an hour that's more topical, biting and laugh-out-loud funny than this dreck.

Whilst the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse are well known by name and nature, I'm amazed that their battle plan name, the Open Slather, to end humanity has taken this long to become known. Maybe its wishful thinking that's the worst this show can get.

It was with great excitement when I saw the adverts for this on Foxtel that I ensured that my IQ was set and ready to record. Being a fan of "Fast Forward", "D-Generation" and "Kath & Kim", then more recent "Summer Heights High", "We can be Heroes" and "Please Like me" - seeing some of my old favourites come back in "open slather" well I was very much looking forward to this.

OK so we are now 5 episodes in, I really, really want to like this, I want to support it. But I am at the point of nearly deleting it from the Series Link. There are some mildly smile on your face but not LOL moments, maybe its still finding its feet. But to be honest 5 weeks in after watching todays episode I am about the point of just giving up.

Thankfully in a way its on Cable and so Foxtel are not going to pull it off the air, maybe my sense of humour has changed over the years and stuff I used to find funny is about as entertaining as my 2013 episode of Cholera.

Back in the 80's and 90's this sort of satirical sketch comedy was all the rage.

The group responsible for those by-gone shows were comedy heroes of the day. But this collection of predictable and most unfunny sketches is just not hitting the mark. I was expecting something new and fresh....not the tired (and should be retired) comedy format. I've tried to watch all the episodes but it is not that funny and even those very rare funny pieces....are rarer than fans of Tony Abbott.

It's sad the Australian comedy is capable of producing new and funny concepts (e.g. Chris Lilley) but we push out this tired old comedy!!