| The Chaser Decides | |
|---|---|
The Chaser Decides Logo |
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| Also known as | The Election Chaser Yes We Canberra! |
| Genre | Political satire |
| Created by | The Chaser |
| Presented by | Charles Firth (2001, 2004) Andrew Hansen (2004-2010) Dominic Knight (2001) Chas Licciardello Julian Morrow Craig Reucassel Chris Taylor |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 15 |
| Production | |
| Running time | Approx. 27 minutes per episode |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC TV |
| Picture format | 576i (SDTV) |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| First shown in | 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010 |
| Original run | 23 October 2001 – 25 August 2010 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | CNNNN The Chaser's War on Everything |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Chaser Decides (formerly known as The Election Chaser) is a Logie Award-winning Australian political satire based comedy program produced by The Chaser. The show provides commentary on Australian federal elections and has been broadcast in 2001, 2004 and 2007 on ABC TV. In 2010, the Chaser team produced a 5-episode series about the 2010 election, called Yes We Canberra!.[1]
Contents |
The show was the first television production of The Chaser team, which had been running their satirical newspaper The Chaser since 1999. An ABC personality, Andrew Denton, offered the Chaser, as a collective, a contract with the ABC and they went on to produce The Election Chaser, which first aired on 23 October 2001. It was based around the 2001 federal election and was presented in the form of an election tally room, similar to the regular ABC election coverage. The presenters (panelists) were Charles Firth, Julian Morrow, Chris Taylor, Craig Reucassel, Chas Licciardello and Dominic Knight. The show was nominated for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program" in the 2002 Logies but lost to The Micallef Program, which also ran on the ABC.[2][3]
| Episode No. | Original Air Date | Mal Award |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23 October 2001 | Philip Ruddock |
| 2 | 30 October 2001 | Jackie Kelly |
| 3 | 6 November 2001 | Natasha Stott Despoja Mark Latham |
| 4 | 13 November 2001 | John Howard |
Since The Election Chaser, the Chaser team had gone on to produce CNNNN, a spoof of various 24 hour news networks, which ran in 2002 and 2003. CNNNN won the 2004 Logie for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program". With the 2004 federal election looming, The Chaser team decided to produce another series based upon The Election Chaser. The show was titled The Chaser Decides and ran at the timeslot of 9:00 pm Thursday from 24 September 2004 to 14 October 2004.[4]
The show was presented again in a National Tally Room, but only had four presenters in Morrow, Reucassel, Taylor and Andrew Hansen. Licciardello and Firth did reporting roles while Knight stayed on as a writer. The show was hugely popular and won the 2005 Logie award for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program".[5]
| Episode No. | Original Air Date | Mal Award |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 24 September 2004 | Malcolm Turnbull |
| 2 | 30 September 2004 | Tony Abbott |
| 3 | 7 October 2004 | Family First Party |
| 4 | 14 October 2004 | Peter Costello |
Following the second series of The Chaser's War on Everything, the Chaser crew produced two episodes of The Chaser Decides based on the 2007 federal election.[5] The two episodes replaced the War on Everything in its timeslot for 21 November and 28 November 2007.[6] The format took the same as the 2004 series.
| Episode No. | Original Air Date | Mal Award |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 21 November 2007 | Lisa Milat Tony Abbott |
| 2 | 28 November 2007 | Jackie Kelly |
For the 2010 federal election, The Chaser appeared in five episodes of the retitled Yes We Canberra!. Four episodes aired before the election date on Wednesday's at 9.45pm and one episode after the election in that timeslot. This was the group's first television production in almost a year after the third and final season of War on Everything in 2009.[7] The show premiered on the 28th July 2010, with the election to be held on 21 August. The shows context was supposedly part of news program Lateline with the Chaser team being there to warm up the crowd for Tony Jones or Leigh Sales. To this effect the show was held on a set with the same design as Lateline (whereas the real Lateline set does not feature an audience) with Jones and Sales making guest appearances. This was changed for the final episode when the show preceded At the Movies, so that set design was used with guest appearances made by hosts David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz.
| Episode No. | Original Air Date | Special Guest | Mal Award | Ratings[nb 1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 28 July 2010 | Julie Bishop | David Barker[8] | 1,493,000 (3rd)[9] |
| 2 | 4 August 2010 | Tanya Plibersek | Steve Fielding | 1,297,000 (9th)[10] |
| 3 | 11 August 2010 | Maxine McKew | Kevin Rudd | 1,335,000 (5th)[11] |
| 4 | 18 August 2010 | Not awarded | 1,250,000 (9th)[12] | |
| 5 | 25 August 2010 | Karl Bitar | 1,189,000 (9th)[13] |
A DVD containing all five episodes plus extras and commentary was released by Roadshow Entertainment on 16 September 2010. Extras include deleted and extended scenes plus behind the scenes footage.[14]
On the 3rd of December, 2010, a DVD titled The Chaser Election Collection was released. It contained every election special The Chaser had screened to date, as well as special features including the never-before-seen The Election Chaser pilot.
Every episode of the show ends with a member of The Chaser presenting The Mal Award, named after Mal Meninga's extremely short political career in 2001. Every week, the team present the award to a politician "for the greatest act of political suicide during an election campaign". In the 28 November 2007 episode, Meninga satirised himself when brought in to present the award but "gave up" mid-speech.
A joke featured in all but the 2010 series, the show would often feature short clips of people (usually drunk) acting ignorant towards the election (eg. "I reckon Mickey Mouse is the best", "Who's John Howard"?"), followed by an on-screen graphic that reads This Person Votes. For episodes that aired after the election, it was replaced by This Person Voted .
For the 2004 and 2007 series, a newsbar - similar to the one that would appear in CNNNN - would scroll across the bottom of the screen, with humorous news items. For the 2010 series, it was replaced with fake Twitter updates from celebrities and politicians.
| Book: The Chaser | |
| Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. | |
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Logie Awards | ||
| Preceded by CNNNN and Kath and Kim (tied) |
Most Outstanding Comedy Program 2005 |
Succeeded by We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year |
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