MY COMEDY WRITING STYLE
FILM & TV
I love writing Australian characters , but the comedy writing process which has been developed by Americans for one hundred years is the format in which I write.
As much as I think the world and Australia misses out on seeing Aussies being Aussies in film, it's the American style of writing which is funniest and I have adopted. They set up a joke properly. Well in TV sitcoms they do.
American's could never make a Don's Party, so we have to, but we are incapable of making a TV series like Frasier, and some of Frasier is 10/10 comedy.
One of things which amused and puzzled me during the shooting of IT'S BRISBANE TONIGHT WOW was people said "it's so Australian" and I'm thinking 'No it's very American". As long as I'm thinking it's American and every one else thinks it's Australian , it's not an issue.
Here's a fact both sides of my family going back two or three generations are Jews and I relate to Jews. So I guess I relate to Jewish humour/comedy.
SKETCH COMEDY
My sketch comedy is based on the British style. Alas Smith & Jones , The Two Ronnies, Not the Nine O'clock News, Not Only But Also, Benny Hill and Monty Python. The Poms do it better than the yanks and they do (did) a maximum of six shows per year. (I don't know or even care as to why) but Saturday Night Live (to me) just isn't funny.However dean Martin did some funny "guest star' based sketches and The Sonny and Cher show was funny.
The influence Australian sketch comedy has on me is that the Paul Hogan show was a stand out because he only did 4 shows a year. The other shows with a cast of a dozen 30 plus writers and 30 plus episodes a year is about how "Not" to do as sketch show.
