The Glass House

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Corinne, Wil, and Dave: they threw stones, flailed wildly and disappointed their parents.

Seriously, I would do this show for free. —Wil Anderson

After Good News Week was shipped over to Channel Ten and cancelled in 2000, GNW TV Productions decided to start a new show with a similar format, but rather than play games about the news like Good News Week did, instead the regulars and guests would just talk about the news.

It's Better Than It Sounds.

The Glass House, which ran on the ABC from 2001 to 2006, was hosted by Wil Anderson, Corinne Grant and Dave Hughes, and every week they invited two guests to join them behind a odd-looking desk to talk about the events of the past week. The guests themselves varied quite wildly, ranging from comedians, musicians and sports stars to scientists and even the occasional politician, and the discussions themselves would often be as diverse, mostly based on headline grabbing oddities of the past week. Once an Episode, Wil would get Dave to pretend to be a person recently in the news (such as a gay penguin) and everyone would "interview" him. The discussions could turn very controversial, very funny or even informative, depending on the guests and the topics.

As the ABC produced a gajillion episodes of it over five years, and most of it dated quite badly, the only DVD release available is a collection of the four best-of specials. Which really sucks. But fear not! The ABC has released the first five seasons (spanning 2001-2002) on the iTunes Store.

Not to be confused with the 2001 thriller starring Leelee Sobieski, Diane Lane and Stellan Skarsgard.

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Tropes used in The Glass House include:

• All Men Are Perverts: When Cosmopolitan editor Mia Freedman talked about how simple male sexual chemistry is, the women in the audience cheered, and Wil said "I would genuinely get offended at that, but it's true."
• Audience Participation: Dave would get vox pops from the audience waiting in the ABC foyer seeking their answers for Tonight's Question, which would somehow relate to the persona that he would later adopt for the interview.
  • Wil would also mix with The Great Unwashed, where he would go into the audience and ask people for some topics they'd like the panel to discuss.
• Biting the Hand Humor: The show always made fun of the ABC for its low budget, its programming, its complaints department and - particularly towads the end of the series - its policies.
• Butt Monkey: Dave at the best of times, but he usually gets a reprieve whenever Molly Meldrum makes an appearance.
  • Wil and Corinne both cop it a fair bit, especially in the first few seasons.
• Call Back: The panel would often reference past discussions of note, often to embarrass someone over something inappropriate or strange that they said or did.

Molly: You know, you're a lot funnier since you've taken off all this fingernail stuff. Why have you gotten rid of that? Wil: You sucked it off last time you were on the show!

• Channel Hop: After it was announced that the ABC had not renewed the show for 2007, it was rumoured that Channel 10 would pick it up. It never happened.
• Clip Show: The final episode from 2002 and the six "Double Glazed" specials.
• Content Warnings: Parodied during the early years of the show, where Corinne would voice an ABC content advisory screen and list the standard warnings that would apply to the particular episode ("Adult themes, material that may offend, sexual references...") before throwing in an amusing "warning" about the episode itself ("... and a cheap attempt to make a Best-Of show look new.")
• Disorganized Outline Speech: Most (if not all) of Dave's opening monologues.
• Early Installment Weirdness: The first season seems rather disorganised compared to the rest of the series with a lot of filler segments (Quantum, Eurotrash, That Bastard Santa Claus, Cherish The Children, Dear Glass House, et al.) lasting only one or two episodes and then never seen again.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Trophy segment, the (very irregular) Create A New Segment For The Glass House Competition, and in the first season only, Other Stuff.
• Friday Night Death Slot: Its time slot for most of its lifespan was "sometime late on Friday". This arguably worked to its advantage, as its humour was...not edgy, but certainly not mainstream either. Its Friday-night slot was so ingrained that even when it moved to Wednesdays, it was still repeated late on Friday.

Wil: "It's on late at night, no one's watching."

• Fun with Acronyms: Acronyms often made an appearance, either in the opening vision (The Scientific Hunting And Marine Expedition, on Japanese whalers), the monologues (The Federal United Collective Kicking Out Foreign Fighters, on a possible Australian equivalent of the FBI), or within the discussions themselves.

Wil: The Canberra University Netball Team had a rather unfortunate acronym. Spell it at home, kids.

• Gag Words: Corinne first used the word 'wadge' towards the end of the series.

Corinne (to Lauren Burns): What about that time you were kicked in the wadge? Wil: ... you were kicked in the popular Channel 10 comedy program?

• • The word then became a running joke for the remainder of the episode, and was sprinkled throughout the subsequent, final episodes of the series.
• Grand Finale: The Sekken Awards for Eksalince.
• Ho Yay: Wil and Dave.

Wil: I've never been to a gym, Dave. Dave: Well, how do you keep your... slim shape? Wil: *laughs* Dave, have you been looking at my arse? Dave Wil Anderson does have an arse. Not that I look at it - whatever! Let's move on! But if I did, that would be okay as well! I don't know! (to Wil) D'ya wanna get married?

• • The official website used to contain behind the scenes photos with captions provided by the writers of the show. Nearly every one that featured Wil and Dave together would have a little bit of homoerotic subtext.
  • They also 'kissed' at Adam Richard's insistence during Dave's interview segment as Winona Ryder in 2002. Wil put his hand over Dave's mouth, but Dave seemed to be getting right into the groping...
• Hurricane of Puns: Most prevalent in the introductions to each story and in the Trophy segment. One of the best examples comes from the Trophy segment at the end of one 2005 Best-Of special.

Wil: (on a hospital for fish) There's no limit to what these aquatic angels of mercy can do. They can make a blowfish suck and turn a blue-eye brown. They can spay a catfish. They can lance a lumpfish, transplant a lungfish, even circumcise a jewfish!

• Incredibly Lame Pun: Corinne's Wil-pun Once an Episode.
• Inherited Illiteracy Title: The Enorgrull/Sekken Awards for Eksalince.
• Missing Episode: The cast and crew begged the ABC not to run an episode scheduled to air a few days after 9/11 when they realised that an opening line of "It's been a big week, how about those Wiggles!" would be more than a little inappropriate.
• Nice Hat: Dave wears an often ridiculous hat as part of his interview segment.
• Off the Rails: During one MICF episode, comedian Phil Kay hijacked Wil's monologue on robot teddy bears to set up and play a game of table tennis with Dave. Hilarity ensues.
  • Not to mention how they got from talking about Las Vegas to talking about how Wil's cat sleeps on his groin. Yes, I am serious.
    • Or that 2003 episode with Molly Meldrum and Adam Richard. Yeah, the entire episode.
• Only Barely Renewed: After the first season. The ABC then only commissioned blocks of up to fourteen episodes at a time before finally giving the green light to longer seasons from 2003 onwards.
• Out of Order: While Wil was away in Edinburgh for a while in 2006, Corinne was supposed to host two episodes before two Double Glazed episodes were to air. Instead of the second Corinne-hosted episode, viewers got a Double Glazed as the ABC apparently didn't want a particular guest to be on two of its programs on the same night. When the second Corinne-hosted episode aired the following week, it had been severely edited to remove any reference to the fact it was supposed to air a week earlier.
  • When the season was repeated in late 2009/early 2010, the above episodes remained out of order.
• Political Correctness Gone Mad: Frequently parodied whenever a story on political correctness is discussed.

Wil: (on a re-worded Baa Baa Black Sheep): Bleat, bleat, creature of non-specific colour and species, have you any home-spun fabric? Yes sir or madam, yes sir or madam, enough to share, but not in a communist way. One is for the titled person of non-specific gender, one is for the other titled person of non-specific gender, and one is for the child of non-specific age, height and gender, who co-exists in harmony with the lane, but not in a gay way.

• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Dave's thought processes aren't all that quick: during his interview segment, he will very frequently respond to a question with "Uuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm..."
• Recycled Set: Most of the set was reused for The Sideshow, while some parts can still be seen every now and then on Good News Week - both GNW TV productions.
  • The large banner used for the Enorgrull Awards for Eksalince was also used for the Sekken Awards for Eksalince... only with the "Enorgrull" crudely crossed out and replaced with "Sekken".
• Straight Man: Corinne. Most of the time, anyway.
• That Came Out Wrong: Someone will usually have one of these Once an Episode.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Pretty much Dave's catch phrase.
• The Merch: A book and DVD were released, both containing healthy amounts of Self-Deprecation and Biting the Hand Humor. The former only had a small print run and is now extremely difficult to find.
• Toilet Humor: What starts as intelligent discussion about the news and current events often turns into a stream of dick jokes. Lampshaded in the following exchange from the 'half-arsed' extras segment from the DVD.

Dave: It's a show that relies on its wit. Corinne: Well, cock jokes, Hughesy. Cock jokes. Wil: Well, Hughesy says wit. You say cock jokes. Tom-ay-to, tom-ar-to!