“With a milk bottle in my hand…”

What I really like about ABC’s The Chaser’s War on Everything is, simply, they’re just weirdly great.

Thanks (again) to idents.tv, who unwittingly introduced me to the program through its recorded clips, I was exposed to this comedy show that isn’t exactly a sketch show nor a practical joke show. To make things easier to understand, the show’s a bit satirical, a bit crazy, and is something I honestly think wouldn’t be possible in the Philippines: in our language, makapal ang kanilang mukha. And once you see the clips, you’ll know why.

The five stars of the show - from left, Andrew Hansen, Chris Taylor, Chas Licciardello, Craig Reucassel and Julian Morrow - have pretty much, as the show’s title suggests, waged a war on everything, from Australian current affairs shows to hamburgers to late night quiz shows. And, although its only got two weeks left on its twenty-seven episode run, it’s never too late to catch it.

And I don’t understand why it’s funny, even. What they’ve been known to do - even in their previous shows The Chaser Decides and CNNNN - are their ambushes, and they just end up going in and around Australia doing crazy things. Once they try to humiliate people buying certain CDs (thanks to pretty muffled audio from the show’s official vodcast) with a megaphone and a huge announcement; another time Taylor took opportunity of a guesting on Sunrise  - technically live television, as it is a breakfast show - by attempting to ask for a divorce from his wife, complete with expletives. It’s just drop-dead weird, gorgeous, and funny.

I can’t do my praises enough - or maybe because, again, comedy doesn’t spark me up anymore, except of course for Little Britain and a handful of other imported comedies. Then again, they also tried to see whether people would quit smoking through cheerleaders and even sell prohibited items on a rugby game, which eventually got Licciardello arrested for “[offensive] conduct” (and the program extra special publicity). When that happened they quickly transformed a one-sided sketch into a multi-faceted one, to my amazement.

Too bad the Australia Network (what used to be ABC Asia Pacific, although only the name was changed) wouldn’t seem to show it, not because it may offend, but because most couldn’t possibly relate because its (almost) strictly Australian matters, like their dissection of Australian current affairs shows (“what are Australian values?”) and their poking of fun at British comedy.

Too bad, also, I can’t get enough of them. Amazingly, these guys aren’t stand-up comedians or anything - in an interview with Sunrise (again), Chris Taylor said they are simply writers forced to accomplish something, especially with the politicians and celebrities they end up playing with.

Then again, they’re successful.

It’s only recently when I finally got to watch full episodes of this program (again, the official vodcast), and right now I’m brutally frustrated I can’t seem to download episode 25 completely even if I technically can. So much for my viewing being cut in the middle of the What have we learned from current affairs? segment.

Oh well, then. I’d go settle for downloading clips and watch the credits once again.

The official vodcast can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/vodcast. For more clips, you can visit http://www.idents.tv.