Australia You're Standing In It

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Australia You're Standing In It was an Australian sketch comedy series produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, first screened in 1983 with a second series made in 1984.

Contents

[edit] Cast

The cast included:

[edit] Format

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Australia You're Standing In It featured many recurring sketches and characters that parodied well known personalities, pop stars, music videos, television programs and advertisements of the day, or simply sent-up well-known social situations. These included:

  • Two pretentious society matrons (Ingleton and Kenneally) and a third (Krape) who could never quite make the grade much to the delight of the other two who mocked her. Catchphrase: "Helloo Daaaahlings!"
  • The Dodgy Brothers (Blackburn and Brooks), two badly dressed and dim businessmen who appeared in the low-budget and badly-produced television advertisements selling their dodgy products. Partly a parody of the then ubiquitous advertisements for the Saba furniture warehouse, and other cut-rate advertisements of its ilk.
  • "Brainspace", a new-age segment presented by Tim and Debbie (Kenneally and Blackburn), two trendy university students whose convoluted and pretentious talk was a smokescreen for their ignorance. Their main catchphrase was "Amaaazing!"
  • Mock advertisements for fictional product "Chunky Custard". Most of these were parodies of familiar contemporary advertisements for real products, mimicking current commercials for such products as Big M or Four'N Twenty Pies. Halfway through the second series Chunky Custard was phased out and replaced by "Hot Yak Fat", which came in a can resembling a beer can. Viewers were exhorted to "crack a Fat today".
  • Many parodies of then-popular songs and music videos, including Mary Kenneally as Bonnie Tyler in "Total Eclipse of the Brain".
  • Bruce Rump (Brooks), a parody of Bruce Ruxton. Rump always ended his skits with "And that's why we should keep the bloody flag the same, now clear out!"
  • Rod Quantock in traditional stand-up routines in which he would address the audience directly. In one episode he attempted to put Victorian viewers to sleep by hypnotizing them with an Australian Football League football.
  • "Fair Cops", a parody of Cop Shop.
  • The Catalogue Collectors, a pair of scarf-clad Melburnians who lived in a caravan next to Port Phillip Bay and collected catalogues. Catchphrase: "Home is where the front door is."
  • "How to cook a Mars Bar", a parody cooking segment where every recipe involved a Mars Bar. Featured such culinary delights as Mars Bar Loaf, Mars Bar Stew and Deep-fried Mars Bars.

[edit] Spinoffs

  • For a short time Tim and Debbie presented Reel To Real on the ABC, in which the pair presented old B-movies and proceeded to interrupt, deconstruct, and generally mock them.
  • A long-playing record of most of the Tim and Debbie sketches was released under the title Brainspace, Vol. II.
  • The Dodgy Brothers (again portrayed by Blackburn and Brooks) and Bruce Rump (Brooks) were resurrected in the later Fast Forward.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links