Good News Week: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

''Good News Week'' is an [[Australian Television Shows|Australian]] [[Panel Show]] focused on analysing and mocking current events and those weird little stories. It's hosted by Paul McDermott, and had Mikey Robins and [[Butt Monkey|Julie McCrossin]] as regular team captains. It ran from 1996 to 2000 every Friday, in addition to a spin-off, ''Good News Weekend'' on Saturdays, including sketches from the [[Deadpan Snarker|Sandman]], [[Cloudcuckoolander|Flacco]] and [[Cluster F-Bomb|Keith the Moravian Swear Bear]].

 

Full episodes can be watched [http://ten.com.au/good-news-week.htm here]. [[So Cool Its Awesome|You're welcome.]]

{{tropelist}}

** Don't forget "The Munch Factor".

* [[Aside Glance]] - Paul often throws these after he's said something odd.

* [[Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other]] - Paul & Mikey. All the proof you need takes place during [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAwHykd8fsM this clip], as well as a completely gratuitous Maggie Tabberer impression.

* [[Bigger Is Better in Bed]] - Subverted.

'''Michael Kosta:'''' I've always had that problem, Tom. }}

* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]] - Claire and Mikey come off as this. Despite their various idiosyncrasies, they both know a fair bit about current affairs.

* [[Butt Monkey]] - Paul usually gets the [[Incredibly Lame Pun|short]] end of the stick.

** Some of the regular guests tend to cop it a fair bit, especially [[Lady Drunk|Fiona O'Loughlin]], Josh Thomas (for being a member of Generation Y), and [[Cannot Tell a Joke|Akmal Saleh]].

** At one point Josh, representing Generation Y, was put in the bin. Mikey gave him a hug.

* [[The Cast Showoff]] - Paul McDermott can sing. This frequently comes up.

** And even though Paul's singing ''[[Crowning Music of Awesome|kicks ass]]'', every panelist seems to hate it.

** Every episode has a member of each team singing a popular song as a clue for a game. Sometimes you have John Farnham, sometimes you have Colin Lane (though he does give it a good go).

* [[Catch Phrase]]: Paul has several, though the most common is usually 'They do have it, ladies and gentlemen!'

* [[Channel Hop]] - Originally ran on [[The ABC]] from 1996 to 1998, then moved to [[Network Ten]] in 1999.

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]] - Claire has a bizarre sense of logic. She once drew a connection between the fact that a person farts 15 times a day and the fact that the average person laughs 14 times a day.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39OUZxDOu5U&feature=related He does it] [[Crowning Music of Awesome|a lot.]]

** Not to mention his infamous cover of [[Britney Spears]]' "Oops I Did It Again" ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e7uLil65us here]).

* [[Couch Gag]] - Photographs from the recent news with humourous headlines are shown during the opening sequence.

* [[Dead Baby Comedy]] - Runs on it. Especially in the case of Mikey, and ''especially'' when Akmal Saleh is on.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]] - Paul. There is always one guest who'll turn out to be one of these, with the most unexpected being Dr Chris Brown of ''Bondi Vet'' fame.

** Don't forget ex-Prime Minster Kevin Rudd.

* [[Dirty Old Man]] - Despite not being that old, Mikey Robins is definitely this.

** Subverted when he threw [[Lady Gaga]] into the bin for not wearing pants and for having the most famous cameltoe in music.

** Subverted again when Mikey was the only one to totally miss what the phrase 'bench fat' means, thinking it meant when a fat chef lets his belly rest on the bench. {{spoiler|It means when a chef gets an erection from standing too close to the bench.}}

* [[The Ditz]] - Claire frequently subverts this with a clever remark, between bouts of actual ditziness.

* [[Do Wrong Right]] - In an episode that aired the week after ex-Prime Minister John Howard had a shoe thrown at him on live television, Mikey talked about the event, saying that after the event had occurred, he had never been so ashamed of being an Australian... because it was the worst bloody shot he'd ever seen!

* [[Even Evil Has Standards|Even Paul Has Standards]]: In one game of Hot Spot:

'''Mikey''': [[Girl-On-Girl Is Hot|My wife.]]<br />

'''Paul''': Get off the yellow dot! }}

* [[Foreshadowing]] - The 2010 finale involved Mikey paying out Paul's musical performance of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" because all it had was a guy playing the piano when the film clip had a marching band. Cue a marching band appearing on stage for the second performance.

* [[From Special to Series]] - Sort of. Ten originally planned a one-off reunion special in 2008, only to have it turn into a full series as a result of the Writer's Union of America strike.

* [[Ho Yay]] - Mikey and Paul on a regular basis.

'''Mikey, holding Paul close while watching Tom Gleeson chase Josh Thomas through the audience:''' [[Hypocritical Humour|That's what you call]] [[Unresolved Sexual Tension]].<br />

(this was a quadruple [[Ho Yay]] moment, and all the more driven by the fact that Josh Thomas had recently outed himself) }}

** Everytime Sammy J and Randy the puppet are on. This was lampshaded by Paul during a session of ''Couch Potato'' with them, which ended up with Randy sucking on Sammy's nipple.

* [[Hurricane of Puns]] - Paul McDermott's main shtick.

** Paul chastised Jeff Green for making a dirty joke early in one episode. Five minutes later he said that a gentlemen should never wipe his dick on the curtain. Mikey called him on it.

* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]

* [[In the Style Of]] - Songs as ''Strange But True'' clues will sometimes be this. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNS3LP_X324 Andrew O'Neill did a cover of "Highway to Hell" as a steampunk song.]

** Well, it's either her being an alcoholic or her being Catholic. One or the other, doesn't matter which.

* [[Lame Comeback]]

* [[Nice Hat]] - Mikey often wears a hat with varying levels of ridiculousness as his Strange But True clue, much to Paul's amusement.

* [[No OSHA Compliance]]: How the ''fuck'' does this show get away with all the shit they pull?

** This is often acknowledged by Paul, to the point that when a question is answered straight away, he gets annoyed.

** A quick example: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVkFomlly2Q Paul once tried to make a joke] based upon the chant, "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!" and the audience ''point-blank refused'' to let him just get ''on'' with the joke, joining in the chant whenever he tried to make it. He was quite frustrated.

** Another was the episode when [[Ross Noble]] got hold of the cigarette hat during Strange But True, frequently making smoke come out from under the desk, his nose, his pants; the whole episode dragged on about half-an-hour past broadcast time because of his antics.

*** Ross Noble, again, and his foam cannon during the 2010 premiere. He was having so much fun spraying foam all over the set and most of the other panellists that he made the show run over time, something he repeatedly asked Paul ''not'' to do as his own show was scheduled for 10:00 on-the-dot.

** During an episode where they were in Melbourne during the Comedy Festival, Fiona O'Loughlin had been chasing Josh Thomas (they were on opposing teams) for some stupid comment he had made, so they were running around the stage, accompanied by chasing music. You think that was it right? {{spoiler|Tom Gleeson does the exact same thing later, except chasing Josh through the pathway into the audience, across the rails and up on the balcony.}} Subsequently, {{spoiler|Paul gave them both 100 points for that fantastically hilarious display}}. Makes me wonder if Paul had given up at that point. (The whole saga is viewable [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK3j_ZCh6-0 here].)

* [[Only Sane Man]] - Mikey often comes off as this, surprisingly.

* [[Precision F-Strike]] - In one episode during the Hot Spot round, Paul asked the question 'What's the best thing about being soft and weak?'

'''Jimeoin''' *calling out*: [[Running Gag|It's not sticking into your back!]]<br />

'''Josh''': *walks off, audience laughs, walks back* I'd just like to say that-<br />

* [[Satire, Parody, Pastiche]] - Definite satire. The name of the ''Dirty Sexy Fast Money'' game was changed to ''Kevin Rudd's Fast Money'' in 'honour' of the good PM's [[You Fail Economics Forever|stimulus package]].

* [[Seinfeldian Conversation]] - Common. One episode had the cast discussing technique in shaking hands.

** Mikey and Wil Andersen, both men with incredibly filthy mouths, pointed out how bad the language was... before conceding that Mark was right.

*** Made all the funnier when an audience member asked Paul what it meant, and he very bluntly replied that it was a vagina.

* [[Shoot the Television]]: Sammy Jaye did it in a sketch on ''World''. After installing a digital TV and discovering the programs are just as crap as regular television, he shoots the set (in a callback to an earlier joke about [[Elvis Presley|Elvis]] [[Trope Codifier|Presley]]) to demonstrate the only power the average viewer has over television.

* [[Sophisticated As Hell]]

** There was another example with Corinne Grant, who was acting the part of Julia Gillard, while Peter Berner was playing Tony Abbott.

* [[Spiritual Successor]] - After its first cancellation, a show called ''[[The Glass House]]'' with a suspiciously familiar format showed up on the ABC...

** It's also a successor to ''The Sideshow With Paul McDermott.''

* [[Tastes Like Feet]] - In one episode, Paul commented that [[Truth in Television|Fosters tastes like "watered down horse piss"]], and then found himself wondering how he knew that.

* [[Too Soon]] - Pretty much thrown out the window during the episode immediately after Michael Jackson's death.

* [[Toyota Tripwire]] - Magda Szubanski stirred up a hornet's nest by suggesting that drivers should deliberately do this to cyclists.

* [[Trash the Set]] - The 2010 season premiere featured a brand new light feature on the main stage, which apparently cost a fair amount of money and the producers didn't want it to get messy. It was subsequently trashed by [[Ross Noble]] and the aforementioned foam cannon.

* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]] - Paul and Mikey continually make jabs at each other, all the while bordering on [[With Friends Like These...]].

* [[You Bastard]] - Paul will chastise the audience for laughing at the wronger jokes made. Incidentally, [[Hypocritical Humour|he has written and sang a song called]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-JfIduytVs 'I Fuck Dogs']. Just so you know.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Australian Television Shows]]