Filmography: The Micallef

P(r)ogram(m)(e)

"I don't need to practice law, I speak it fluently!"

 What am I on about? Well, on one of my "lets sit down and research Shaun Micallef-ey goodness" sprees, I came across this site. Wondering what (apart from his barrister type experience) a legal The Micallef Pogram/program/programme (each spelling for each series) was aired a while ago on ABC television. A spiffy sketch type show I believe that it is the best of all of Shaun's efforts so far (and that's saying something!) where brilliant humor and rather surreal comedy rule supreme.

It is a half hour full of laughs, from Shaun's lovely interviews (all scripted, all with Shaun saying just the wrong thing at the wrong time until guests are ready to kill him or themselves), regular sections (the 'french' clay animation "Myron" which consists of short 30 seconds of some part the lumpy blue character's anatomy falling of) to completely random sketches (Bud Smallhorn's flag factory, the 'Liquid Paper' air plane...).

Be warned not to watch this if you need to go to the toilet as you might have an accident laughing. Also, make sure you are sitting on the floor as during one episode involving 'Politeness Distances' I fell off my chair and almost re-broke my tailbone. Also, you tend to quote it in the most inappropriate of places i.e. Me, in the middle of a Mathematics test yelling out "I OVERSEE THE LOOMS AND THE HAND SEWING OF THE FLAGS...THAT'S WHAT I DO" because the test mentioned flags. Unfortunately the ABC are meanies and have only released the first three episodes of series two on tape. Grr. I want MORE!

You want some quotes? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE QUOTES...Oh, you can. Ok then :) I got some of these from here as I couldn't be stuffed typing them all out.

Well, Neil Edwards used to play football, and in the Australian television industry this seems to substitute for talent, experience and on-air presentation skills. Neil is out and about in the suburbs of Melbourne, bursting into people's homes and making fun of them. Unfortunately, Neil doesn't work for any television station and has been taken into custody. They really are hulking idiots. -Shaun Micallef

District attorney: Constable Ferguson, if that really is your name, is it true or not true that certain things were done on certain dates that were mentioned in the previous take?
Prosecution: Objection!
District attorney: Move to strike, my liege.
Judge: Sustained.
District attorney: Don't worry, I have an ace up my hole. Ladies and gentlemen of the jewellery, might I remind you that we no longer live in the age of the steam engine and the straw hat, and if it is a crime for my client to kill a man in cold blood, then my client is guilty. But if it is not a crime, then he isn't. The end. (whispers to client) It's looking good.
Judge: I sentence you to death.
-Shaun Micallef, Roz Hammond & Francis Greenslade

Dulse et decorum epst, pru patrey a moray eel...PRU PATRE E MORAY EEL!
-Shaun Micallef

Disbeleive all the ears you wish! You sir are a cool, a fad and a stimpleton!

That monkey's heart will keep you alive forever!" -Shaun Micallef

"Worried about dry skin? Concerned about lines and wrinkles? Then visit a burns unit and get some perspective." -Shaun Micallef

"I never thought it possible to delude yourself to that extent."
-Shaun Micallef

"Like a stuttering owl with laryngitis, I couldn't give two hoots."
-Shaun Micallef

Here is an interesting artical I found about some censorship issues. Tis taken from this site without permission because they wouldn't reply to my emails asking for it >:(

When comedian Shaun Micallef takes aim, sacred cows should duck for cover. John Huxley reports.

A laconic Australian Nazi war criminal, unmasked by a television reporter gleefully waving a skeleton, proves he hasn't lost his sense of humour by allowing himself to be tipped off a 15-storey building in a kayak.

A demure Salvation Army major called Cockburn, who prefers the pronunciation Coburn, is so provoked by her interviewer ("like Cock-cock the Clown, I suppose?) that she eventually tells him to "F--- off (consonants included).

Crippled Stephen Hawking mechanically intones "Stairway to Paradise", before slowly disappearing upstairs on an inclinator. Ku Klux Klansmen display game-show prizes. And a woodchopper determinedly hacks off his own legs.

Yes, the very best in bad-taste television is back, as the award-winning Micallef Program - now re-named The Micallef Pogram (geddit?) - returned for a third series on the ABC last night.

Significantly, there have been no reports of outraged viewers jamming the switchboard of the national broadcaster, whose own Richard Morecroft appeared, gravely reading the news in a new, dizzying, dance-club setting.

So, just how far can bad-taste telly - not the commercial-channel tosh but deliberately, creatively, imaginatively bad-taste telly - go?

The eponymous Shaun Micallef - who was last seen as a disappointed suitor in SeaChange - found out only two weeks ago when he was told to cut a sketch in which war hero Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop was depicted as a transexual ... followed, pointedly, by a shot showing a switchboard jammed with callers.

News of the censorship leaked, ensuring that the joke - which was to have been included in next week's pogram - was not entirely lost. But Micallef was surprised.

Of course, it was in bad taste, he explains, but that, in a sense, is the point of the joke. "It's about excess and it's about audience overreaction ... not specifically about the fact or not of Weary Dunlop being a transexual. It's about the audacity in suggesting such a thing."

In the view of the ABC, Dunlop clearly belonged to a special group of Australian icons, whose memory is sacred, whose lives are considered unsuitable cases for comedic treatment, however far-fetched, whose inclusion in sketches is still considered likely to cause too much offence to too many people.

That is a status nowadays denied even to Jesus Christ, played for laughs in movies such as Life of Brian, or living celebrities such as Hawking, or lesser Australian icons such as Ned Kelly. He was depicted by Micallef as a whining wimp, unhappy in a mask that was too heavy, too uncomfortable, and dried out his skin.

Like all of Micallef's high-risk, hit-or-miss, material it may or may not be funny. But perhaps the problem with the Dunlop "joke" was that it was simply too juvenile, too personal.

Certainly, in recent years, writers, artists, comedians have boldly gone into previous no-go areas, proving that disadvantaged groups, like politicians, like religions, like royalty, are no longer sacrosanct.

Well, to us Shaun is sacrosanct so if you hear of any anti-Micallef-Program jokes, call 1800-Nightshade_pheonix and I'll scratch their eyes out *Tries to look menacing but is too short*

And another artical, this time from The Age - Sydney Morning Herald, obtianied from this site. It's offensive but so what, Micallef says of Weary skit

By CATHERINE CHISHOLMSource: SMHPublished: Wednesday February 7, 5:28

Comedian Shaun Micallef today admitted a TV skit referring to war hero SirEdward "Weary" Dunlop as a transsexual was in poor taste, but that was noreason to censor it.The ABC has ordered the sketch be removed from an episode of Micallef's newprogram to be screened later this month.

Micallef wants to know why the ABC has banned the skit, in which heintroduces a mock documentary about Sir Edward and "his life as atranssexual". The next shot shows a switchboard jammed with callers.He said while some could find it offensive, most of the audience would seeits funny side.

"It's about excess and it's about audience overreaction, so it's notactually about specifically the fact or not that Weary Dunlop is atranssexual, it's about the audacity in suggesting such a thing," MrMicallef told AAP today."I think some people will find it offensive, I think 99 per cent of theaudience would see the joke for what it is."Micallef admitted media coverage of the alleged contents of the skit hadeffectively ruined its impact."I suppose if it's in the press, and it's out there, the joke's alreadygone," he said.

He said that being in poor taste was no reason to remove a skit."Just because a thing is in poor taste, in my view is not a reason for it tobe removed from a show, because your poor taste is not my poor taste."Micallef said any criticism was coming from people who had not seen theskit. The comedian's production company was meeting with the ABC today to discussits reasons for axing the sketch."I was asked yesterday to remove it from the show and I asked for it inwriting so I could then ask for that to be sent to the production company,"Micallef said.

"I just want to know why, I want to know how it's breached the guidelinesthat's all." Micallef, a former lawyer, said he would hear what the ABC had to say on thematter and if the material had breached the guidelines then it would be removed.
AAPCopyright © 2000 The Age Company Ltd.Kindly appreciate that Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. had no editorial inputwhatsoever in the above...

I didn't have any input in it either so no one can sue me for putting it on here...Can they?

Fly to the top!