In 2002, I was approached to join a new sketch comedy show, this time for the Nine Network. I performed in a pilot episode for a production company called Screenhogs, but the chance to make the show was, in the end, given to Crackerjack Productions (now Fremantle Media Australia), and they asked myself and Emily Taheny to join their team. Two series of Comedy Inc were made for an 8.30pm timeslot, then, in 2005, came Comedy Inc: The Late Shift, a darker, edgier show for a 10.30pm slot.
Most of the cast did not know one another when we began shooting the first series in 2003, but we formed a tight, professional ensemble very quickly. Such is the nature of producing an hour of comedy a week, the work is hard and fast... and fun. The rough and tumble of sketch comedy saw us changing costume at the back of someone's parked car, getting make-up done on a fold-out chair in the middle of some lovely person's back yard.
For all its intensity, Comedy Inc was a finely tuned machine. Everyone had their part to play in developing material, pre- and post-production, direction and performance. The show used an average of forty writers, some full-time, many contributors. Prior to Comedy Inc, Crackerjack Productions had not produced a show of this magnitude for a commercial network.
As with Totally Full Frontal, Comedy Inc featured a range of generic characters and sketches as well as a number of parodies of film and TV shows and their personalities. I had garnered some sort of reputation for celebrity impersonations after my TFF days. This time it was Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise, Eddie McGuire (notable personality on the Nine Network, Comedy Inc's home station). We had a go at Bert Newton, Jerry Springer, Australian Idol, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Kochie from Seven's Sunrise program became a huge favourite. Even Kochie's wikipedia entry mentions my parody of him...
We courted minor controversy by featuring Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe (Gabriel Andrews) as a candidate for a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy sketch. The Fab Five couldn't touch the image-conscious Aussie metrosexual.
Parody characters only last as long on our show as their celebrity makes them mockable in the real world. We shot quite a few Queer Eye For The Straight Guy sketches for series 2 of Comedy Inc and the first series of The Late Shift, but as Queer Eye slipped off the public's radar, so has our sketch, and I have had to shelve my Carson Kressley impersonation.
By the end of series 2 of Comedy Inc we were scared the show would sink without a trace. Little did we know that the network planned an expansion of the series, giving it a later timeslot and, therefore, more freedom to attack its comedic targets, as Comedy Inc: The Late Shift. Three more series were yet to be made. |
