Good News Week Articles/Reviews

[unfrufru]

no, we don't want him singing. that's the point of ABC, he hardly ever sang on the original, only on GNWend which was good, like a treat, then it moved to 10 and it was every friggin week.

dear god, do u think they'd make him sing? oh man, their gonna make him sing throw i just know it. which would make me sing my own song 'hurl'.

i don't think either ABC or 10 own the rights to it. cause remember its on foxtel as well. Ted & the rest of GNW tv own the rights i believe.

i think its bullshit cause its not even technically its 10th anniversary for 10. put it on aunty. thats where it belongs, and where it should of stayed. it would have lasted much longer if they had stuck to aunty, money issues or not.

and they better do the original GNW version, not the fucked up cuntrag mutant hybrid version they had on 10.

[Mythor]

Foxtel may just have the rights to show repeats, not any new ones?

[SammySatine]

Is it just me or is there alot of reunions involving Paul happening next year?

The Allstars, the big gig, GNW team....what next?

They will make him sing and well lets' hope he does a nice song not one of those old pop songs or a two songs blended together song. Though i did like Britney's Oops I did it again cause seeing Paul do Britney was funny. Throw is a great song but if he sings it again it will just loose it's magic.

Mikey, Julie, Sandman and Flacco do some stuff in the background...like Mikey's bongo work.... That would be something...

They should do it on the ABC- it would be better for them and the show.

After all it's the tenth anniversary of when they started on the ABC- NOT ten years after they moved to ten.

Important difference.

Anyway, go idea just do it on the ABC not Ten, Please.

SS.

[brunswickfi]

Me - yeah I want him to sing. Just wish they'd chosen better co-stars - can't stand Mikey - and much as I admire Julie - don't think she added to dynamic at all.

Let the monkey boy sing.

[op shop girl]

Why is there so much disatisfaction with channel ten screening the reunion? Would you prefer it to be on channel nine and hosted by Eddie McGuire?

As for GNW going downhill following it's move to ten, I can't really put forth an opnion, seeing as though the only Aunty material I've seen is from the Unseen and Obscene video.

I'm willing to put up with Paul singing, provided it's instigated by Mark and ends up a singing/dancing spectacular with lot's of glitter.

[Kylie]

I agree with op shop girl. Any reunion is better than no reunion at all.
The singing doesnt worry me, especially if there IS glitter!

[unfrufru]

because its hardly fair that 10 broadcast this as a 10th anniversary, when they didn't show GNW until 1999. not only is it false advertising, its crap because aunty was its true home.

channel 10 ruined the show, by extending it to an hour, adding several new writers, having channel 10 personalities as guests as opposed to the more obscure ones aunty put on who then all developed a cult following (remember, no one knew who the fuck wil, rove, corrine, james o'loghlin and pete berner were outside comedy circles before GNW).

the 1999 first season of GNW started off strong but got weaker and weaker, it became very camp, almost a pisstake of itself. it couldn't develop a strong audience because they were being bounced around time slots more times than diana in a paris tunnel (love that line). let alone that the vibe and pace of the show was changed in dragging it out to an hour with commercial breaks in the middle of the best bits.

then having a double barrel of GNWNL each week which was even more camp than the original GNWend, had more neighbours starlets then actual talent on the panels and paul's singing became a bit of a joke.

the mutant hybrid fucktard 2000 version of gnw combined both shows. you lose the vibe of cutting political satire when u cut to someone from neighbours giggling and then throw away to the pop tarts singing. paul sang almost every week and something that was once looked forward to was now cringeworthy with the selection of songs (with the exception of britney spears). it became a parody of itself with even a lot of us original fans (from the 96 series) were turning off. and it was attracting the wrong kind of audience. wheras tapings of the past were filled with uni students and older couples, the new audience coined the term "teenybopper psycho fans" who had never even heard of the show before it moved to 10. the change of audience was noted int he change of dialogue and script. it got dumbed down. everything became a strange but true story in the style of a parlour game. it lost its edge. it lost the funny.

aunty GNW was a thing of beauty in its writing and simplisity. channel 10 was a case of too many cook spoiling the broth, or in the words of Rachel Griffiths on the U&O vid, it was like taking a beautiful baby and shaking the hell out of it.

[Alisso]

Paul singing on oldGNW was a special occasion thing, for interstate shows and the NYE specials. On GNWE and NL it was the Saturday night popculture quiz thing and he sang, and that was okay too, cause it fitted the mood of the show. Besides, originally, GNWE was a short series.

Once they went to channel ten, it got a tad gratuitous. Not that I ever complained about Paul singing (except when he sang Britney, and that wasn't so much complaining as laughing so damn hard I fell off my seat), but again I say, less is more...it was more exciting when he only sang now and then. Same applies to almost everything, if you swamp the market with a product, you just devalue it.

Now, Paul singing is one of the ways he makes a living again (and it's Paul singing nice songs that is the less common and special thing). If you want to see him sing, go see Gud. GNW should be him in a three piece suit and one of those slightly wrong ties, flogging some of the finest comedy material known to man courtesy of Ian and his cohorts, and being the nasty but occasionally pathetically nice *coughtoJoannaGriggscough* host of a comedy news quiz show.

I'd rather see Mikey play surfy music on his stomach, or appear over Paul's shoulder singing Throw and rubbing his nipples *lmao*, or Julie's talking breasts, or Sandy and Flacco in The Gap...they'd better get the Gadflys on or I'll be cranky.

Originally Posted by unfrufru

the new audience coined the term "teenybopper psycho fans" who had never even heard of the show before it moved to 10

I remember them screaming at Paul to sing during the tapings, and he always used to respond with his Little Baby Jesus song...see, that I wouldn't object to *G*

Of course, if they did do a reunion, it'd have to count as a special occasion, so he probably would have to belt out a song...just, something tasteful, please?

[Spawn of Satan]

I still love to hear paul sing, lets face it, he can't target any of us when he's in the middle of a song, but if he sings 'throw' I'll steal a car and run him down, fuck I hate that song.

[hails]

Originally Posted by unfrufru

aunty GNW was a thing of beauty in its writing and simplisity. channel 10 was a case of too many cook spoiling the broth, or in the words of Rachel Griffiths on the U&O vid, it was like taking a beautiful baby and shaking the hell out of it.

ahh. princess, have i told you recently how much i love you?

i'm just entirely cynical about the point of this. reunion shows tend to be hammed up versions of the real thing, with a bunch of craptastic celebrities thrown in for the sake of ratings. LOOK AT THE FINALE. tag team gnw, wtf? and teams lacking some good old favourites as well (MARGARET!!)

if you want to hear paul sing, go see a gud show. same voice, different songs, same level of amusement (and what that level is is entirely relative). also, there'll be no commercial breaks, and hopefully noone will shriek

if you want gnw, go beg someone for bootlegs* or buy unseen and obscene. it's gotta be on ebay somewhere.



* = don't beg for bootlegs on mosh, we'll get in trouble. be creative and use msn.

[Spawn of Satan]

Nice disclaimer hails


------------------------------

[hails]

written, spoken and authorised by hails, for the i-don't-use-msn-coz-it-sucks-hardcore party

[Spoofy]

Originally Posted by hails

if you want gnw, go beg someone for bootlegs* or buy unseen and obscene. it's gotta be on ebay somewhere.



* = don't beg for bootlegs on mosh, we'll get in trouble. be creative and use msn.

yes there is about 3 on sale along with all the DAAS video's as well atm.....



And I'm pretty much with Unfru, Alisso and Hails on this. As much as I want a reunion, it comes at a cost of having to put up with channel 10's crappy celebs and rules.

Take it to ABC, and return it to its heyday of comedians and jokes and I'll be happy. Not fussed if Paul sings or not.....I am currently listening to the "monologue" CD at the moment and its 76 wonderful jokes, with 2 songs thrown in....what more could you ask for but good jokes and poking fun at people singing is singing *shrugs*

[unfrufru]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/tv--ra...e#contentSwap1

One step beyond
February 17, 2008


Is there any subject Paul McDermott won't touch on his new series of Good News Week? Melinda Houston tries to find out.

It's eight years since Paul McDermott last fronted Good News Week. It's fair to say the world's a different place. "We'd been dizzyingly optimistic after Y2K had failed to materialise and destroy Western civilisation as we knew it," he says.
"I spoke to people who were burying food in the Blue Mountains. Not friends. Acquaintances. All that hyperbole and fear. Then to have that fear materialise in such an extraordinary, unexpected direction. I think it's left an indelible stain on the way we view the world."
But, being Paul McDermott, September 11 and all that flowed from it has made day-to-day life more funny, not less so. "Out of great tragedy comes great comedy. And we are talking about a show that profits from other people's misery."
The return of the news satire program that became wildly popular on the ABC in the 1990s before moving to Ten has been greeted enthusiastically in all quarters, despite (or because of) Ten's cheeky assertion that it's only bringing the show back to fill the gap left by the US writers' strike.
There's certainly the feeling that in an increasingly bizarre world, where the news is often primarily concerned, to use McDermott's phrase, "with people's underpants", and public discourse is hemmed about with thou-shalt-nots, we need conversation that will go anywhere, say anything, and isn't afraid to brutally tackle sensitive issues (and bring them down, hard).
Which is where McDermott comes in. He cannot, he says, think of any no-go areas. "Which is one of my problems. But talking about issues is what enables us to understand them. Even if it's a panel of comedians discussing it, at least someone's doing it."
Some issues, of course, would be harder to be funny about than others. Someone blowing up Flinders Street Station during peak hour, just for instance. "But I've always said it's about death over time," McDermott says.
"There are variables. I'm sure Karl Kruszelnicki could sit down and work out the precise mathematical equation. You start with death over time. The number of people killed. The manner in which they're killed. What other aspects of architecture-train-damage are done. The number of people injured who go on to lead professional lives as handicapped people. Take all that in to account. And give it a few years."
How about Bindi Irwin developing a crack habit. Funny? Or not funny? "Just yesterday I was talking about Bindi Irwin, fallen star. What is she, nine? You're coming up to the onset of puberty. As we've seen, and from personal experience, the horrors of adolescence can be a rough ride. She could be our Danny Bonaduce (from The Partridge Family). Made news for the first time in years because he beat up a transvestite. I hope with all my good Christian heart that no evil befalls Bindi but life's a long hard journey and being in the public eye from such a young age is very difficult."

Or Kevin Rudd being assassinated. How about that. Funny? Or not funny? "So early in the fairytale term! I don't know if it'd be humorous in a laugh-out-loud way. Although, I tell you what . . . No, I can't even say it . . ." Oh, go on Paul. Sure you can. "Well, if he hit his head on the sunroof and died, that would be funny. If they took him out in the same way the Pakistan Government took out Benazir Bhutto, that would be funny."
And there is, of course, plenty in the actual news to laugh about. Whaling, just for instance. "Whaling's hilarious," McDermott says. "About two years ago the Japanese minister for whaling was at some sort of symposium and at one stage he stood up and - I believe these were his exact words - said: 'Why can't we go and catch whales? Whales, they're just really juicy cows that live in the ocean.'
"So I've actually written a song called Whales, they're just really juicy cows that live in the ocean. It's a cry for understanding. If we can have farms, why can't we have whale farms? With a couple of cowboys riding dolphins. And a really big fence."
While he feels deeply sorry for Britney Spears, she won't be spared. "I think it would be wrong and dismissive of us if we let her out of our clutches," he says. "I think there are a few angles left. K-Fed, Father of the Year, for instance. Let's examine that for a second."
Then there are those issues that present an inexhaustible supply of material for a certain kind of comedian. "Iraq," McDermott says without hesitation. "For years I've been wanting to get stuck in to that." He's sort of joking. But sort of not. Indeed, like all McDermott's best material - it's what makes him such a sterling satirist, and so eminently suited to his current role - Iraq (and whaling, and Britney) are things that really touch him, that truly enrage or sadden him.
"I honestly believe you can make a joke about anything if you have something to say. It really depends on the motivation. It's what's propelling you to make a comment. The moral objective, I suppose." David Hicks, AWB, torture, the rank hypocrisy of the way the West is attempting to bring "freedom" and "democracy" to the "axis of evil": these are things about which McDermott is passionate.
So of course he's going to make inappropriate jokes about them. "I think we'll get more and more horror stories coming out of that conflict," he says. "I think Iraq still has a lot of laughs left in it."
Good News Week, Monday 8.30pm, Channel Ten.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegrap...006014,00.html

WHEN Susan Flannery began playing Stephanie Forrester, her alter ego on The Bold and The Beautiful, it was 1987 and Good News Week host Paul McDermott was barely out of high school.
So it's no surprise the queen of daytime TV received a standing ovation from Good News Week's live audience when she agreed to appear as a guest star on tonight's show.
Confidential hears the audience "went nuts" for Flannery, who is in town not for promotional purposes but to visit her daughter Blaise, who is studying locally.
Obviously more benevolent than Forrester, Flannery squeezed in some promo work for Channel 10 during her trip.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/tv--radio...e#contentSwap1

Everything old is news again

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Jacqui Taffel
February 11, 2008


Brothers in arms ... Ted Robinson and Paul McDermott.


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Timing is everything, as the showbiz adage goes, and so it seems with the return of Good News Week - which debuted on the ABC in 1996, moved to Channel Ten in 1999 and exited screen right in November 2000 with a three-hour last hurrah special.
According to GNW's former and current producer, Ted Robinson, and host, Paul McDermott, the resurrection was suggested about four years ago by Ten programmer David Mott. At the time, Robinson thought, "This is never going to happen because it's just too hard to get all those people together."
The key players - Robinson, McDermott and team captains Mikey Robbins and Julie McCrossin - had all gone their separate ways. Robinson was working on The Glass House and McDermott was the unlikely host of Strictly Dancing.
"Paul and I had worked together on and off for far too long and were taking a well-earned five-year break from each other," Robinson says. "You can spend too much time with Paul."
"I spend too much time with myself," cackles McDermott, who is actually far more mild-mannered than his onscreen "monster" persona would suggest.
He and Robinson ended up working together again last year on the ABC's The Sideshow, itself a rejig of The Big Gig, the stand-up variety show they launched in the late 1980s. But then, as Robinson puts it, "poor old ABC in its dumbness and timidity" decided to ditch The Sideshow in 2008 - and there was David Mott again, asking about Good News Week. "We thought, 'You know what? It's perfect timing."'
Another incentive was the new government. With Kevin Rudd's honeymoon rapidly receding, Robinson feels it's time to bring on the court jesters again. "Someone has to bring down the tone of happiness in this country," McDermott says. "Under Howard, in comedy, you felt like the old man had control of the remote and no one was going to change the channel."
"It was too easy," Robinson agrees. "You only had to say Howard's name and you got a laugh. It had reached that point of self-perpetuating irony that anything we could say really wasn't changing anyone's perspective."
"It's going to be great to get stuck into the Rudd Government," McDermott says. "And also you're looking at a very pretty cabinet ... they're very attractive people. The Howard government was a classically ugly bunch - they weren't gifted physically."
"I think that's very unkind," Robinson says. "Amanda Vanstone was very kind to you."

"She was always lovely," McDermott replies. "Especially when she was whipping my arse."
Such memories - Vanstone wielding a riding crop, Kate Fischer revealing her engagement ring from James Packer - reminded Robinson and McDermott that Good News Week was "among the most fun we've ever had on TV".
Yet this may also make it hard to recapture the magic. "It's a gamble," Robinson concedes.
After producing TV for more than 30 years, he's well aware that nothing guarantees a project's success. "It's such a delicate combination of timing and whatever else is going on in the zeitgeist and the ether, so you never quite know. But you can't be frightened of these things or you'd never leave home."
There will be "a certain amount of reinvention" on the revived Good News Week, he says, but many of the favourite bits will be retained. Mikey Robbins returns as a team captain (getting him on board was no problem, McDermott laughs, "now that he's in his George Clooney mode"), with Claire Hooper, McDermott's co-host from The Sideshow, replacing former captain Julie McCrossin, who will appear as an occasional guest.
"Claire for me was ultimately that obvious choice ... that you don't think about until you've looked at everyone else," Robinson says.
McDermott agrees. "Claire has a wonderful honesty about her and she certainly connects with people."
Robinson and McDermott had no qualms about returning to Channel Ten. "There was always this concept when Good News Week went to commercial TV - 'Oh, no, you won't be able to say the things you said before,"' Robinson says. "But it wasn't the case at all - the fetters were off, anything was possible."
There was far more concern about bias at the ABC, McDermott says. "You'd have to do five jokes about Howard and children overboard, then five jokes about the Labor Party and their response to it," he says. "I think the last few shows we did on Ten were probably the sharpest and best observed of the entire run. Morally and ethically, Ten never interfered."
McDermott was concerned that the return of Good News Week might elicit sneers, particularly from the press, but says the response so far has been largely positive. He has no worries about revisiting his role as host. "I like the moments you have, the explosions of ideas, the frisson between people and connecting with that audience. That was always thrilling because you could never tell what was going to happen."
He already has an eye on potential future guests, including Julia Gillard and Peter Garrett. "We've got to get Pete on at some stage. Talk about some issues. Get him up for a song."
Robinson adds: "Just play him a few of his own lyrics and ask him to interpret them in the light of what's happening now."
"Yeah," McDermott is cackling again, "who wrote these lyrics and what do they mean?"

[SammySatine]

Paul McDermott's in the news

Woman's Day
Friday, February 15, 2008

He has the same cheeky grin and snappy one-liners, but Good News Week host Paul McDermott is a changed man since he last hosted the popular variety show five years ago. With long-time partner Melissa, Paul is now the proud parent of an 11-month-old son and is happily settled as a family man.

You and Mikey were a great comedy act for a long time. Have you stayed in touch in between jobs?
We have stayed in contact over the years. We used to be in each other's pockets 24 hours a day, doing radio in the morning at Triple J and then going to Good News Week at night, and there were so many other commitments associated with the show as well. We were around each other like the Odd Couple. We still catch up from time to time over the years.

What do you think of Mikey's opposing team leader, Perth comedian Claire Hooper?
She's vivacious, bubbly, intelligent and young, which is great for Mikey and myself because we are old men. She's a wonderful breath of fresh air. She has a great on-screen presence, too.

What would be a good news week for you?
Every week is a good news week! There's always something happening somewhere in the world that we can comment on. It's very rare that you'll have seven slow news days in a row. When we were doing the show for three years on the ABC and then two years on Ten, there was never a week where you thought, "Well there's nothing to talk about."

Can you predict which celebrities might warrant a mention?
Certainly the last couple of years has been the domain of Paris Hilton causing the annoyance of society. She seems to be someone who gets under the skin of anyone who holds onto old fashioned values of ladylike behaviour, which is fantastic in a way. There are always oodles of celebrities or wannabe celebrities or C-listers that become improper and we can feed upon them like a hyena on a carcass.

Who are your dream guests?
All my dream guests are dead. John F Kennedy would have been a great guest. Marilyn Monroe and JFK and Fidel Castro, get them all in there at once. Contemporary dream teams would be hard. It would be good to get John Howard on. We put a bid out to get him on all the time when he was in power, maybe now is the time to grab him. I really like getting politicians on because it shows people not just on the panel but people at home what a person's like in a way they won't present in Parliament or won't present in the paper. It shows how their mind works in a way.

Do guests have reason to be scared when they come on?
Everyone should be scared! Look at the times we live in.

How is fatherhood treating you?
It's great, I'm very hands on. This sort of job isn't 9-5, it takes different slices of your life.

How did it come to be that Good News Week is back on air after all this time?
Well it's a result of the American writer's strike. A year after the show ended on Channel 10 there were already talks about it coming back and it has been a very long journey to get back on air. In previous years other things have stopped us doing the show. Some people involved in the show were interested in doing while others weren't due to other projects. We have always been interested in bringing it back and doing it again but it wasn't until this year that all the stars aligned and everything just seemed perfect. In a way it was beneficial to us that the American writer's strike is happening. I think it's probably good for the networks in general.

Is GNW be the same as we remember it?
I think everyone has very subjective memories of Good News Week. Certainly my perspective on it will be different on it to yours and different for people who watch it at home. And I think people do get nostalgic and maybe look back on shows I guess with those tinted glasses and think they were all marvellous. Hopefully this won't slur the memory!

What's life been like since GNW was last on air?
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster. I can't even remember when we did the last show. I needed a bit of a rest we'd been doing it solidly for five years. I wanted to pursue some other things which was making short films and so I did that for a while. I got another touring group together which was GUD and toured around Australia and overseas for a while. I did Strictly Dancing and then Sideshow came back and I was reunited with a lot of the team that worked on GNW. That was great, it's the place where I feel most comfortable.

Any changes planned to GNW?
Not really, we have gone through a lot of the segments looking at how they work and so on and we certainly are interested in updating the show to keep with the best of times. Essentially it worked in the way it worked that's how we'd like to continue doing it.

Will you be showing clips from YouTube and things like that?
We're looking into ways of showing various new media and new technology. The thing is to find things that people are aware about and isn't just sort of mindless titillation. We're certainly looking into Tom Cruise at the moment!

Will you sing?
I like getting the old vocal chords out and having a yabba, so maybe?

Will there be a segment for that?
There's not a segment at the moment for me singing or doing my tap dancing or any of the other wonderful talents that I have acquired over the years. At the moment we're trying to keep it away from all of those more performance aspects. Also Mikey gets very upset when I sing!

Why's that?
I think it's the pitch, it's like you know how it affects certain animals? It affects Mikey as well.

Because you'll be on Network Ten does that mean those on Big Brother and other reality shows are off limits?
We were on Ten before and they were great, they let us do anything. On the ABC we always had to be so politically balanced. It really was a very difficult situation to be in. So I suspect with Big Brother, interesting things will happen so who knows what we'll do.

Do you think Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is any better or worse for comedic value than former PM John Howard?
I don't think either of them are better or worse than the other. They're remarkably similar, same height, glasses, a little negative. I think Howard's had a bit of a fairytale run and Rudd's had a bit of a dream run too. I think it's about time someone started taking the gloves off and being honest to the Australian people about the Rudd agenda and what's happening in the Rudd government.

How do you plan to uncover it?
Oh I have some ideas!

He's already been caught picking his nose and going to a New York gentleman's club. What else could there be?
Oh I think there can be a lot. And of course there's [wife] Therese with her employment record. I suppose you have a whole cabinet there to choose from as well. The Howard cabinet were remarkably unattractive people and I think one of the things that the Rudd government does have going for them are they're quite attractive. So we will be hoping to get some of the Cabinet on over the course of Good News Week. We used to get a number of politicians on — Tim Fisher was one, and Amanda Vanstone was a regular. We're hoping to fly her back from her post in Italy. I think now that Howard's gone Kevin will do something about bringing her back. So maybe she'll be back on the program!

How would you describe your relationship with Mikey Robins now?
I think it's just the comfort of having worked that close with someone who you sort of respect and admire. He has one of the fastest mouths in the business and one of the most fierce intellects when you get to know him.

He's half the size he once was following his gastric banding surgery. Has that changed him?
I think the person that's in Mikey is essentially the same person who's always been there and its true of most people who undergo phenomenal transformations. He's still staring out of the same two eyes and seeing the world in the same way and it's just a wonderful thing for himself and his wife and his friends that he's undergone this thing because everyone was concerned as anyone is if you're that large.

So you two can't go out and party like you used to?
We always go out for big benders! Can I say that in Woman's Day? I shouldn't say that! Yeah, we love going out for big ones, this is the problem!

He's said that his size now makes him a "one pot screamer" though?
He is a one pot screamer! It's quite hilarious, we were at a barbeque at his place and he was throwing some meat on the barbie and there was a tiny little chop! I think it was quail actually, he likes quail now and very tiny lamb chops!

By Josephine Agostino

Good News Week screens Mondays at 8.30pm on Network Ten.