THE controversial Chaser comedy team will soon return to TV in a series of five election specials to air on the ABC.
After nearly a year off our screens the Chaser boys will serve up a new show called YES WE CANBERRA!
The comedy group created international headlines in Sydney in 2007 when they breached the APEC conference cordon in a fake Canadian motorcade carrying a team member dressed as Osama bin Laden.
But last year they were sin binned by ABC management for two weeks mid way through the third series of The Chaser’s War on Everything after a skit poking fun at terminally ill children was slammed.
The new show is a case of back to the future for the group who began their television career with 2001’s Logie nominated The Election Chaser, under the watchful eye of industry legend Andrew Denton.
Since then they have covered two more elections – the 2004 and 2007 polls.
But this time the comedians will be trialling a new format.
The premise will be the only job they can get is as warm up guys for the ABC’s flagship current affair’s program, Lateline, so they’ll be doing their coverage from there.
"Most people don't know that Lateline is filmed in front of a live studio audience," said executive producer and star Julian Morrow
"That's the problem - they're terribly quiet. So the ABC hired us to rev them up a bit. Hopefully, we can help Tony (Jones) and Leigh (Sales) receive the wild applause, hollers and whoops they deserve."
While the public has seen little of the comedians since last year’s comedians they haven’t been idle.
And they certainly haven’t lost their taste for pithy humour.
They’ve spent the last 12 months developing their iPhone and iPad applications pumping out stories like “Refugee policy: Gillard regrets East Timorese independence" and "Dannii Minogue gives birth to babii boii”.
So politicians, even the wounded Kevin Rudd, shouldn’t be expecting any sympathy.
“Our biggest target until two weeks ago was Kevin Rudd, so we had a little burning ceremony of those scripts,” Julian Morrow told news.com.au.
“We do like to kick a man while he’s down and he’s pretty far down... he’s not out of bounds and we found it quite hard to get to him when he was Prime minister.
“I think Kevin will appreciate any media attention.”
And controversial issues like immigration won’t be off the agenda either.
“It’s really great to combine harsh policies that exploit people with comedy, it’s a natural strength for us,” says Morrow.
“We will be running all of our jokes past Xanana Gusmao before we do them just to make sure we’ve got the right person, on board… is that who we ask or is it Ramos-Horta?” added fellow Chaser member Craig Reucassel.
And while the team will be zeroing in serial the usual suspects - like Senator Bill Heffernan, Barnaby Joyce and Wilson ‘Ironbar’ Tuckey - Morrow and Reucassel admit over the years they have got more than a few decent comebacks from their targets.
“Mark Latham initially was quite fun… particularly when he was slightly drunk,” says Reucassel.
“Peter Costello initially rebuffed us totally but later on he started dancing with us and he would start singing and doing strange things and he would actually make the piece.”
“Tony Abbott started off by never talking to us, he’d just walk away and never say a word, and then he’d start interacting - he’s actually got a bit of a sense of humour as well.”
“Bob Brown is actually got a pretty good sense of humour, he’s happy to play along it’s just that even when Bob’s upbeat, a bit giddy and laughing it’s still a quite dull,” adds Morrow.
But the Chaser’s new show will not be the only funny take on this year’s election.
Wil Anderson’s The Gruen Transfer will become Gruen Nation and analyse political advertising and campaign strategy in the lead up the poll.
It will air directly before YES WE CANBERRA!
YES WE CANBERRA! will air on Wednesday’s at 9.45pm in the month before the election and will feature an election special the week after the poll.
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