Saturday - Critic's View
The Age
Thursday February 28, 2008
Australia's Funniest Home Video Show
Channel Nine, 6.30pmThere's a new host, a new set and some new segments. But as Australia's Funniest Home Video Show moves into its 19th season with Shelley Craft fronting the alleged hilarity, it's also business as usual. That is, essentially, having a laugh at other people's misfortunes. Apparently it's particularly funny when the subjects are small children, family pets and posturing men who meet their comeuppance. This nastiness has been a feature of the home-video clip show since it began in 1990 with original host Graham Kennedy. More recently, it's been presented by Toni Pearen, who announced late in January that she would be stepping down to pursue new challenges. Can't blame her but what could possibly be more challenging than feigning interest in this dross? Now Craft, formerly of Seven's Great Outdoors and soon to be the co-host of Nine's new home show, Domestic Blitz, smiles encouragingly as she introduces various segments loosely linked by their themes. No episode of AFHVS would be complete without innocent children falling over and crashing into things. Animal acts are a firm favourite. Furniture collapses, people hurtle into trees. Ha, ha, ha. It's cheap and nasty television: cheap to produce because viewers supply the raw material; nasty because it's largely about humiliation and misadventure, and also because most of the smart-alecky voice-over commentary that binds the disparate bits together runs the full intellectual gamut from dumb to dumber. Yet the show has been a weekend winner for Nine: last Saturday, for example, it attracted 856,000 viewers nationally, with its biggest audience in Melbourne (273,000). But I've never understood the appeal. It's mean-spirited and gets a kick out of other people's misfortune. However, the show's longevity suggests that someone out there likes it. Maybe they're the people who also find practical jokes funny.The Vicar of DibleyChannel Seven, 8.40pmThis former ABC favourite appears to have found a happy new home at Seven. Attracting about a million viewers a week, it's helping the network to win the ratings on Saturday nights and is also demonstrating that well-written comedy, enlivened by a certain wacky charm, has a timeless quality. Created by the talented and prolific Richard Curtis, the currently screening first season was made in 1994 and has aged well. The community of eccentrics in the village of Dibley, led by their jolly, sensible new vicar (Dawn French), get into and out of all manner of bother. Tonight there's the issue of the re-election of David (Gary Waldhorn) as the member for the area's safe Conservative seat and the disgruntled local constituents who are threatening to look elsewhere for a candidate. Watching Curtis manoeuvre his idiosyncratic collection of characters, from sweetly dim Alice (Emma Chambers) to the not-much-brighter Hugo (James Fleet), has its pleasures, and this cosy comedy is sitting very comfortably in this weekend slot.DogstarChannel Nine, 9amIn case you missed the summer showing, Channel Nine is offering another opportunity to see this locally produced sci-fi animation series. As we zoom into episode three of the 26-part space adventure, the Clark family - Glenn (voiced by Brandon Burns), Simone (Kate McLennan), Lincoln (Emma Leonard), Gran (Beverley Dunn) and genetically modified cat Boombah - continue their intergalactic quest to find their missing dog, Hobart. The canine, who chose the wrong moment to relieve himself and thereby changed the course of history, is imprisoned on the ship of the title, which is being piloted by a couple of befuddled robots. In pursuit of the Clark clan is nasty zillionaire Bob Santino (Henry Maas), who has his own dastardly plans for the universe. In "Fetch", the Clarks acquire an unlikely new shipmate. The animation is pretty basic but the dialogue is peppy and among the familiar voices are those of Marg Downey, Michael Veitch, Matt Tilley and narrator Shaun Micallef.
© 2008 The Age
