Thank The Lord For Your Presence # 18

Last night's episode of Thank God You're Here (TGYH) began on an odd and (for me) slightly unsettling note. Despite enjoyed the longest introduction sequence we've seen in a good while, there was a rather sour moment there that made it all feel somehow dirty.

And not in a good way.

It all began with Irish-born Aussie comedian Jimeoin stealing a woman's handbag from the front row of the audience. To his credit, he didn't want to rummage through it, but host Shane Bourne wasn't so shy. Shane also joked around with Triple M radio co-host Robyn Butler and comedian Peter Rowsthorn before addressing UK comic Stephen K Amos, who for some reason thought it would be a clever move to insult his audience by stating outright how Australians generally take longer to 'get' jokes than English audiences due to us having 'mucked about' with the language and taking longer to understand what he's saying. Hmm. Not the smartest move ever made, Einstein. Perhaps think about who you're having a go at before appearing on stage in an improv scene where the reaction of the (Australian) audience is your only lifeline. You stupid Pommy git. At least we only have one accent in Australia. You've got twenty different accents (of varying degrees of brutilising your precious language) for every three square foot section of land in the United Kingdom.

But as much as I might angrily defend my nation and our generally excellent approach to the English language as compared to those in England who say "Ock, I bin down-a poob for a py-iant a' larh-gar!" when they're trying to tell you they've been having a beer with their mates at the local, Jimeoin really put the nail in Stephen's coffin the best when he followed Mr Amos' diatribe with the phrase, "I've always found Australian audiences to the most intelligent audiences." Even Stephen had to dip his hat to credit that fantastic approach.

After a brief chat with judge Tom Gleisner, we were on our way.

Kath & Kim regular Pete was up first, and before he even entered his scene, he was cracking on to Shane nightclub-style. Clearly he was pumped and ready for anything. Dressed in a suit and tie, it was anyone's guess what he was in for, and it turned out that he was Senator Graham Gibbs, whose election promise, "complete employment on a world scale in a fortnight" may have been a little over-ambitious. The election slogan he provided to the two guys interviewing him on TV was admittedly "too long - that's why it didn't catch on". His view on same sex marriages was that's okay, provided "they have their own state, and all wear hoods" because "I don't think it should be hidden, but it should be hidden a bit". He believes in capital punishment, but only in schools. When asked why, he answered, "Well, kids bother me as a whole - keep the numbers down, you know? You're not allowed to him 'em anymore, so why not kill 'em, I say". His plan for a national identity scheme doesn't involve a card or a badge, but rather an all-over facial tattoo given via a branding iron and administered by a cow. The two pieces of advice Australian Prime Minister John Howard gave him were, "Never ever cut your eyebrows" and "Don't play cricket if they ask you, 'cos they'll try to get you to bowl, and you'll make a huge tool out of yourself". His ideas for combatting childhood obesity "go a little hand-in-hand with the capital punishment thing", and his final words to the voters were: "Entrust in me your love, your hearts, your minds ... and probably about three-quarters of your wage".

Robyn was next, and she played a 38-year-old woman still living with her parents. It was a scene that reminded me of one Julia Zemiro did on her first appearance (even down to the joke specifically about her age), and also even reeked a bit of Arj Barker's scene from just last week. But anyhoo ... when she entered the scene and her parents turned the light on for her, giving the usual, "Thank God you're here" greeting, Robyn replied with, "Thank God you're here; I thought I forgot my key". When her parents asked if she knew what they wanted to talk to her about, she asked, "Has the dog been sent away to the farm again?" The question about her age was next. Tell me this; in a show like TGYH, where surely 'blocking' someone's answers should be considered a no-no, why correct the guest when she says she's 34 and you planned to tell her she's 38? Surely by saying 34 she's already provided the gag? What's the point in correcting her? It doesn't really make any sense. Is the assumption that she's lying about four years of her age? That's just not funny. It's the only problem I have with the show anymore (because the requests for the guests to dance to finish the scene have been happily absent all season this time, I've noticed - maybe the producers are reading this blog?!). But I digress. Robyn was asked how she helps out around the house, and after a good think about it, she asked, "Did I buy fish once?" She then confessed to having "Dialed an Angel" to see what the going rate for a cleaner is these days, and discovered that it's $35 an hour, "so if you're happy to pay that kind of money, I'm happy to clean". I thought that was very clever. In five years' time, she sees herself maybe having the top bedroom, and admitting to having someone special in her life ... "There's a girl". Her shocked father asked her about Robert. "Robert died." Her mother then asked about Oscar, and I thought Robyn could have complained that he was too grouchy (drum fill), but instead said he had glasses. Oscar was then revealed to be the Crown Prince of Sweden, and to her credit, Robyn got angry, saying that she wanted a Crown Prince with perfect vision - was it so much to ask for a Crown Prince with 20/20 vision?!?! It was a good exchange. Her parents then asked her to move out, and she complained, "Who's gonna pack up all my stuff?" Then they brought her daughter Olivia into the room, and Robyn affected surprise that she'd grown up so much in the past twelve years. It was a good play on the 'irresponsible parent' angle. She then repeated her request for the top bedroom as the closing line of the scene.

Jimeoin came on third, and I must say I expected more from him. It seemed that he, too, took too long to come up with answers to the questions put to him, and was also just having too good a time rather than trying to play along. He made me laugh a lot (of course), but as far as him eventually winning the night, … well, … let’s just say I was a bit sceptical about that decision – to say the least! Dressed as an olde English explorer (“Dr Livingston, I presume?”-style), he was required to enter through the back of the set, crawling on his hands and knees, holding an old-fashioned candle lantern. Emerging inside some kind of Egyptian crypt by popping his head out of a hole, he was greeted by asking what had delayed him. He answered, “I just finished digging the tunnel!” When asked what had led him to this exact spot to find the tomb after almost thirty years of searching, he replied, “The key … and the address on the key tag … is what led me here”. Being an expert on reading Egyptian hieroglyphics, he was asked to translate some of the markings on the wall. Aparently, the first one gave the postcode, the second one said it was “bin night Tuesday”, and the third was “just a bit of grafitti”. Then he was asked what the huge symbol next to them was, and he answered, “You might have to get back to me about that”, and when the audience laughed, he turned to them and insisted, “That’s what it means!” According to Professor Jimeoin, the mummy in the case died of suffocation from bandages, and because he disturbed the mummy’s slumber, he suffered the curse that meant he was “… doomed to, er, not thinking of what to say next”. “But there’s a cure for this curse,” prompted one of the cast members, to which Jimeoin replied hastily, “I hope there is!” When asked what the cure was, he answered, “Probably going back down that hole I came from … and forgetting this place ever existed”. Suddenly, there was an almighty moaning noise, followed by a terrible smell. One of the native Egyptian guides spoke to Jimeoin in a strange, panicked dialect, and Jimeoin was asked to translate the guide’s words. “He’s apologising, he made the noise and the smell.” I thought this was a brilliant line, and wish the rest of the scene had been more like that inspired moment (and the “bin night Tuesday” bit, which highly amused me). Upon opening the mummy’s coffin, a great light shone out at Jimeoin, and he was asked what he could see inside. He finished the scene by (slowly) saying, “I see the lines I couldn’t think of earlier – but it’s too late, those moments are gone! I’ll be kicking myself later tonight, thinking why didn’t I say that?!”

Stephen was the last to showcase his wares, and as I watched, I quietly wished him all the best after starting off the night by accusing the people watching him of being dense. He entered the scene to discover he was one half of an animating team, presenting their idea for a children’s movie to film executives. He explained that his nickname in the business was ‘Krazy Amos’ (I’ve added the K because if that really was his nickname, I’m sure that’s how he’d spell it because of his middle initial), and then told the three men that “I like to draw and fiddle’, before clarifying a moment later, “I draw, she …” and indicating his ‘partner’ Nicola Parry before trailing off. All four ensemble cast members reacted as if this was a normal thing to say at such a meeting, which was slightly amusing in itself. Their animation idea was then revealed; Snake and Friends, and he introduced it thus: “Snake … we’ve all got one, lads …” Then some of Snake’s ‘friends’ were shown to be a scorpion (which Stephen didn’t recognise, calling it “a crab / lobster thing”), a spider and a horde of bees or wasps. One of the execs asked how these deadly creatures could possibly appeal to children, and Stephen replied, “You say deadly, I see cuddly”. His explanation of the story included the observations that the ocean is where the crab / lobster / scorpion lives, the desert is where the snake lives, and your kitchen is where the spider lives. “Would you like to see a sneak peak?” Parry asked the executives, to which Stephen added, “She’s said that before!” Then a video played of Snake meeting a friendly pink bunny, and promptly killing and devouring it. An exec asked why his nine-year-old daughter would want to see that, and Stephen replied that his daughter likes to eat … this film encourages kids to eat. And because the snake only had one meal, it would mean childhood obesity would be slashed. Stephen was hoping to obtain either Brad Pitt or Bert Newton’s vocal talents to voice the part of Snake, and the film was going to cost $250 million because, as Stephen indicated, “We both live in flats”. (Even though ‘flats’ isn’t really a term used in Australia.) He did quite well for a first-timer / international visitor / grotty Pom / guest who insulted his audience before getting underway (yes, I thought that was unforgivable).

The first pre-recorded bit placed the guests as the Financial News reporter on the evening news, giving Sandra Sully a report on all things ‘financial’. Stephen was asked about the recent volatility in the market (“… I can’t pronounce or spell it”), Robyn was asked what was behind the spike in oil prices (“Oil”), and Jimeoin seemed surprised that there was some interesting data out of Tokyo today (“Really?”). Peter said that the new listing on the stock exchange that was doing so well was a company that runs topless bus tours in Adelaide (“They seem to like them over there”), Robyn’s financial tip of the day was recommending that everyone stashes their “cold hard cash” under the bed, and Jimeoin answered Sandra’s question, “Wall Street got the jitters today, but what triggered it?” with the confused guess, “Um … too much coffee?”

The second pre-recorded bit was a well-executed investigative piece from a current affairs program, exposing our intrepid guests as the nastiest boss in Australia. Although I only have one quote written down in my notes from Robyn, and none at all from Peter, their turns in the role of Nastiest Boss in Australia were still very good – their reactions to finding the children working in their warehouse were great, for starters – but I didn’t jot down anything they said. Stephen corrected the reporter’s statement that he ran a $200 million business that she’d find it was a $600 million business. When asked why he’d cancelled the staff Christmas party, he explained simply, “I’m Jewish”. The reporter asked why he fired a woman for asking for sick leave when she’d had a heart attack, and he said, “Well, you know – these things happen. I went up behind her and went ‘Boo!’ …” he said that he gets his staff to work for 364 days a year, so they should feel free to take their one day of annual leave “to recuperate”. He also pointed to an eight-year-old girl working in his factory and claimed she was twenty. When asked where Robyn thought her staff members could go on their single day of annual leave, she replied, “Devonport is nice anytime of year”. Jimeoin, meanwhile, couldn’t drive away from his pursuing reporter because he couldn’t get his fancy Jaguar to start (“Do you know how to turn the wipers off?”). One of the girls in his warehouse asked if she could go home this weekend, and he replied, “Didn’t you go home last weekend?” He then pointed to another girl and proudly stated, “She’s coming up for long service leave soon”. But the quote of the whole segment was Jimeoin’s final line, when asked what he thought of himself as a boss: “I wouldn’t like to work for me, to be honest. But, uh, I’m not working for someone like me. I am me, and that’s a much better situation to be in.”

The group scene saw Peter dressed up in a koala suit, Jimeoin dressed up as “Uncle Sam”, and Robyn & Stephen dressed in “Save the Wilderness” T-shirts. They were protestors being dragged over hot coals for their poor demonstration and protesting. But before entering the scene, Shane joked around with Jimeoin because his hat pushed his ears forward like the strap on his helmet had done in his solo scene, earlier. As it got a laugh from the audience when he used the hat to push his ears forward, he said, “I’ll save it – I might need it!”, a clear reference to how few-and-far-between his jokes were in his solo scene. Once through the door, we discovered that Peter had spent the entire protest up a tree, “I just thought I’d shimmy up a tree and, you know, hang out for the day”, Robyn had chained herself to a fire hydrant rather than a tree, and Jimeoin wasn’t even meant to be dressed up as Uncle Sam in the first place (America having nothing to do with the loss of the koalas’ natural habitat). But as Jimeoin explained, “People just don’t like Americans. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get them on-side, … and then I was going to mention the koalas.” The thing about this is that I can see enough truth in it for it to actually work as a real way of getting people’s attention at a protest or rally! (Something to keep in mind.) Peter’s job was apparently meant to be collecting names for the petition, but he only got one girl’s name and phone number. Robyn’s best line of the night (IMHO) was to jump in at that point and say, “Yeah, that’s mine. He’s just so cute in the suit, how could I resist him?” I found great humour in the placard Stephen had apparently prepared: “SUSTAINABLE NOT SUSTAINABOXABLE”, and his explanation that “… you can sustain something, … but not in a box” was equally hilarious. He news that Peter had set fire to the forest was clearly a blow for the side, although Peter’s initial reaction was a Homer-esque “Woo-hoo!” When asked how it happened, he replied that all you have to do is rub some sticks together, add leaves, … and then get a light and light stuff. Jimeoin’s chant was also great value: “2, 4, 6, 8 … We don’t like Americans!” He said that he was sick of rhyming; he was going for prose. It was all very amusing and contained lots of great laughs.

Other fantastic bits on the night included Stephen sniggering like a dirty little schoolboy when Shane asked the assembled foursome how they feel when they come off (meaning finish the scene, although Stephen had to ‘grotty it up’). The funny part in this was actually Peter in the background miming how he smokes a cigarette and falls asleep. And then when Shane decided to sing the next bit from the autocue, Jimeoin piped in with, “Oh, yea! Oh, yea!” After Shane made another reference to Jimeoin’s ears, Peter feigned anger at Shane for making fun of someone for their “sticky-out ears”. It was highly amusing seeing him get stroppy with the host for making light of such a touchy subject! “That’s not funny. Don’t touch me! It’s just offensive.” (He also gave Tom the finger – while dressed in his Koala suit – for not crowning Peter the winner of the night. Because he was wearing the suit, you couldn’t see much of anything, but the mock-grumpy sentiment was clear … and highly amusing. Peter then followed this gesture up by growling at him the way an angry koala would: “Gahhhhhh!”)

With only two episodes remaining in the series, let’s just hope they maintain this fine standard (and perhaps steer clear of guests who are going to bring the mood down by bagging the crowd before they begin).


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