Talking of “Kath and Kim” and class, a particular thing I find unfunny about Micallef is his pervasive sense of upper middle-class complacency and entitlement. And believe me, this is an extremely “generational” thing ‒ two years younger than Micallef, I have much in common with him superficially, but *nothing* in common that really matters.

I SAY

I think that you’all spot on about Anderson/Grant vs. Hughes.

But Micallef - he’s great. Versatile too.

His characterizations are hilarious. He pokes fun at social classes. So what
- he’s a comedian! The punch-drunk boxer. The arts reporter
forced to inteview football players after the game. The documentary host
guy (very “People Like Us”). The terrible actor (”Stat!”)

But he’s not an ocker(sp?) like Hughes. Hughes is very easy to identify with.
He plays himself as a character, sure, but it’s probably not far off the real
thing. He’s opens himself up to the audience, revealing himself. Micallef
out-of-character is obviously intelligent, well-educated and a little guarded.
This makes him a bit scarier than Hughes, and thus he could be seen as being
upper-middle classically complacent (UMCC).

If he’s UMCC so what? If everyone joined Greenpeace the boat would sink.
To be funnier, what exactly would he have to get worked up about?
Its funnier without a mandatory social-engineering agenda. Isn’t it?

No, its not *generational* at all - it’s the class thing. I’m of Micallef’s generation and I have the same reaction to the man.

As for K&K, yes of course they’re sneering at the working class - but the sneers are funny. As Woody Allen once said “No comedy without a victim”.

… and that’s pretty much all I can contribute right now, but it had to be said.

Hughes works because he does that familiar, slightly daggy Aussie everyman schtick very well while Anderson and Grant look like you’re in the way of their imminent departure for an A List drinks party.

Cultural pisstaking can be incredibly dangerous - Little Britain gives licence to laugh at co-dependent relationships between selfish, egotistical faux cripples and their self-referentially sanctimonious carers, not to mention fat teenage mothers and professional poofs and part of the laughter is about being on the edge in territory that’s familiar but usually protected from pisstakes.

The Office worked because it portrayed the true - yet familar - horror of workplace social interaction.

The Games worked for similar reasons.

It’s not easy to do the familiar well - the tendency to over-egg the caricature is ever-threatening and at times made Kath and Kim uneven - but it’s great when it does work.

When I first saw K & K on tele they were being introduced at the Logies I think, and I thought ‘what a yawn, another bash at the suburbs’. But I love the show, because I really enjoy the characters. I read somewhere Glenn Robbins (or perhaps someone else on the Panel) say that they deliberately steer the panel clear of the tense on-upmanship of peer group humour and try to create a relaxed atmosphere in which personalities can express themselves. That’s why the show works.

My understanding is that Kath’s mannerisms are based on Jane Turner’s mother - I think also her insistent peacemaker role.

One thing I didn’t mention before is that - once people are engaged, people love comic ritual. Many of the jokes in Get Smart were funnier because one had heard them before. Strange but true. Likewise much of the content of K & K.

According to Glenn Robbins, he based his doddering old-fool character, Uncle Arthur, on his own Dad. He loved his Dad! It’s obvious that these guys know their characters and have an affection toward them.

A friend of mine found ‘The Castle’ offensive. What can you do?

Micalef is a genius, hopefully with Kerry dead, we’ll see him back on 9, with his own show.

I have actually thought about the performers in the glass house and I too made a distinction between grant/anderson and hughes. There IS a difference and your explanation is a good one. I have thought that Hughes seems more secure and has a bit more empathy for people.

Yet , I also have thoughts along Yobbo’s lines. Perhaps the writers of Kath & Kim quickly formed a liking for their characters, a genuine fondness but I do feel it was probably a contemptuous snobbery that was the heart of the creation of Kath & Kim (also Dame Edna and Les Patterson). Perhaps the all these seducedtheir creators and became people rather than conduits for some kind of negative message. Perhaps it was the audience who took the characters to their hearts before the creators did.

What about Pru & Trude? I read somewhere that the writers themselves admitted they were vehicles for their own bitchiness in the sense that they existed purely to be despised [ these are my words describing what I read as I remember it]. If this is a true we have a snobbery in the genesis of Kath and Kim that was eventually over turned at least on the surface. Not so poor Pru and Trude - inverse snobbery is still AOK.

The K & K writers hold their characters in comtempt. That always makes me uncomfortable. See “Keeping Up Appearances”, etc.

“Can’t see why it’s generational. Shaun M is a fair bit younger than me - though older than Hughsie”.

I can. Shaun Micallef was born in July 1962, which makes him an interesting boomer/Xer borderline case-study http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Micallef
Looking at an overview of his career, though, there’s little doubt that he’s snuck into the gilded ranks of the 1961 (and earlier) born http://paulwatson.blogspot.com/2006/02/ten-ways-in-which-ive-got-nothing-in.html, as opposed to the pits of the 1963 (and later) born. While still in his twenties, he had a secure (I’m assuming) day job as a lawyer *and* all-important TV exposure for his comedy. Xer Dave Hughes had it much harder in comparison ‒ and whether coz of this or not, he’s much funnier than Micallef (i.e. I agree with meika)

Talking of “Kath and Kim” and class, a particular thing I find unfunny about Micallef is his pervasive sense of upper middle-class complacency and entitlement. And believe me, this is an extremely “generational” thing ‒ two years younger than Micallef, I have much in common with him superficially, but *nothing* in common that really matters.

Re shopping malls. Nicholas, I also have to disagree that a high-street “strip” is analogous to an enclosed mall. The essential difference lies not with the roof but with heterogeneity of shop ownership, and (in a closely-related point) the presence or not of interstitial public space. Enclosed malls have singular (absentee landlord) ownership, and zero public (i.e. not under landlord control) space. Personally, I never go into them, even if this means going well out of my way.

okay, he’s a goose, I don’t find geese funny? Hughsie is a goose too, him I find funny.

Shaun, I reckon he aims at the blue rinse set meself, I wasn’t really thinking of his real age but the audience cohort.

Wonder what other people think?

that should finish!

This could be (horrors) a generational thing. I _am_ Hughsie, I see the Hughsie in me, but I can relate to Micallef about as much as I can to Martin Bryant or, better for this cohort analogy, David Flint (though, of course, he is a joke without being funny).

If it is generational then your splitting has just been re-clumped. There is no escape from cultural context, merely how narrow or broad a comedian’s audience might be. A comedian may escape but still not be funny.