Chez les dingues

This is one of the funniest shows to hit australian television in ages. The songs by Tripod are great and really funny.The cast is really talented and pull the sketches off perfictly. The show is rating well so it looks like it will be arround for a long time.

Yes, I'm going to throw it in the deep end with that opening statement. I could almost go further and say it's the worst show of all time but that wouldn't do because I've watched an episode of "Passions".

I watched the first episode with extremely high expectations after being in weeks of hysterics with the Ten network's UK import The Sketch Show and after the advertising campaign, how could I resist? I soon learned my lesson for being so susceptible to hype though as, through half an hour, nothing managed to make me smile. I found myself being far more entertained by ads for dishwashing detergent and breakfast cereals, and generally I detest all ads.

For one thing, there are three members of the cast I have heard of, the rest are complete nobodies and there's no prizes for guessing why. But Peter Helliar and Corinne Grant are funny enough people as we see on "Rove:Live" and "The Glasshouse" but they cannot act, and yet they try to. As for Ros Hammond, well she's got very steeply downhill since appearing in the brilliant and eccentrically hilarious three series of Shaun Micallef programmes.

But the cast aren't entirely to blame. The writing is juvenile, the jokes are either old or non-existent and always predictable from the start of each sketch, but the worst part of it is that the show takes itself far too seriously. It's always playing for laughs and trying to milk humour from every joke rather than, at least occasionally, laughing WITH the audience AT itself, which is one of the endearing qualities of both Shaun Micallef and the team from The Sketch Show.

It's a sad day in Australian television when I find myself pleased that "Comedy Inc." exists just because it raises the dignity of Australian sketch comedy up a slight notch. All I can say is, if Ted Emery and Gary McCaffrie were dead they'd be rolling around in their graves. I can't bring myself to give this a single star.

I watched a couple of episodes of this sketch series while I was residing in New Zealand for a couple of months, and I must say, I found it to be quite hilarious. The episodes consist of a series of unrelated sketches (although there often are recurring character across episodes) played by a small group of actors. The humour mostly has an absurd and/or "groaner" kind of style, frequently leading up to a punchline that will make you want to slap your forehead ("D'oh!", to put it the Homer Simpson way). I will readily admit that this may be a "love it or hate it" kind of thing. Both this structure and style of humour are somewhat reminiscent of what can be seen on several British comedy series of this type, like 'Little Britain', 'Smack the Pony', 'Dead Ringers', 'French and Saunders' and others in this rather politically incorrect league. Even though some characters bear names like the Australian Fast Bowler, the jokes are not largely Australia-specific; in order to get them, you basically need to speak English and you're there (if not, grab a subtitle).

At first, I didn't like this show. I had seen far better skit shows before (Full Frontal, Comedy Inc, Sketch Show). The show struck me as unfunny and stupid. But after it returned after a non-ratings period, it had vastly improved and was very funny. However, I saw less of Corinne Grant and Peter Helliar (appearing in only 1 or 2 skits per episode). But the show was now excellent and I watched it frequently. The addition of Cal Wilson hasn't stunted it, so long as they keep Fiona Harris, Michael Chamberlain, Roz Hammond et all it'll be just fine. I much prefer it over Comedy Inc, which goes for far too long (and with only a few really funny skits), and The Big Bite (which has disappeared from Queensland television - thank god).

Just show more of Corinne!

The first season of skithouse delivered a few laugh's here and there but most of the sketches were more often than not, poorly writing and badly directed. But if seems that the skithouse team has lifted up the laugh's for the second season and the writers have put a little more thought into there sketches to give the audience something worth while to watch on a Wednesday night. Great comedy for everyone, lets hope they could put together a third season as well! 9/10