Ep 185: Peter Lane, Sue Taylor, TV That Kills

This week: Peter Lane, former Chairman of Channel 31 in Melbourne talks to us about the state of community television in the move to digital; producer Sue Taylor sets our mind at ease about 3 Acts of Murder; and we discuss movies about TV shows from a horrible future where we can only enjoy watching people die.

Also we have the answer to last week’s quiz and a whole bunch of news (and a rant about the whole Chaser thing).

Contact us by sending us email or send us an SMS on 0458 288 837 (0458 CUTTER)

If you were moved by our discussion with Peter Lane and want to help, you can get involved with a campaign at your local community station.

6 Comments

  1. Facebook User says:

    Brett, I think you're right that the “outrage” over The Chaser skit was the punchline, ie: they're going to die anyway. That's certainly the point that drew the most noise from the audience when the skit was recorded.

    I certainly agree that The Chaser is patchy at best; but I will take Voltaire's stance and defend to the death their right to produce shit comedy, even if it is on my dollar. This has become an issue of censorship, which I abhor… and Kevin bloody Rudd pipes in and gives his usual self-righteous judgement WITHOUT HAVING EVEN SEEN THE SKIT – oh, but he had it described to him, so that's good enough.

    Anyhoo… enough now.

  2. Facebook User says:

    PS: Ta for the bag. x

  3. For mine – I go with the Mel Brooks defence; ANYTHING, even the death of millions, can be funny. Just for heaven's sake, MAKE SURE it's funny before you do it…

  4. Before commenting on the show – GUYS! GUYS! I have my Boxcutters T! I have duly uploaded a pic to RedBubble! http://www.redbubble.com/buyers_booth/3240709 When I next have a job, it's the lesbiany shirt for me!

    On Chasers – the thing with edgy comedy, I think, you need to be clear on what your target is. Edgy works best with angry, I find, and I can't imagine who they were angry at. It just seemed a cheesy, cheap gag about 'realistic wishes'. That could have worked in a number of ways, but what they produced was lazy, sloppy and mainly not funny.

    A skit where developing world kids asked for 'realistic wishes' of clean water etc and got a trip to Disneyland instead? I would have laughed bitterly at that. A skit where perfectly healthy kids were given ordinary things, as a comment on (perceived) over-indulgence of the modern child? That might have worked, done right. But the Chaser team failed to really think this one through. So bad comedy resulted.

    Censorship, and censorship via sacking, is not really a viable solution, though. It's not even funny. So you're still failing, ABC.

  5. Just a little clarification. The mortgage monster I was talking about was the Wizard Mortgage Beast. It's no longer used but I found a couple of references: http://web.archive.org/web/20050204091011/http:…
    and http://www.bandt.com.au/news/4b/0c026c4b.asp

  6. Just a little clarification. The mortgage monster I was talking about was the Wizard Mortgage Beast. It's no longer used but I found a couple of references: http://web.archive.org/web/20050204091011/http:…
    and http://www.bandt.com.au/news/4b/0c026c4b.asp

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