Foxtel’s Channel V sent me to the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2000.
I was lucky to spend 2 days in Melbourne in March 2000 putting together a one hour special for Channel V on Foxtel, where I did my twice weekly show Rewind.
Featuring interviews with more than 20 of the comedians performing that year, it’s a unique snapshot of Melbourne comedy at the turn of the century.
It was a music channel after all, so I picked some of my favourite humorous clips from around that time.
Eric Bana describes to Maynard the first joke he ever told.
But who is on the show Maynard?
In order of their appearance: Peter Hellier, Shane Bourne, The Comedy Zone standups, Miss Itchy, Chris Franklin, Garry Who, Ross Noble, Kim Hope, Eric Bana, Loose Moose, Boothby Graffoe, Adam Bloom, Tom Rhodes, Johnny Vegas, James O’Loghlin, Peter Berner, Wil Anderson, Kitty Flanagan, Greg Fleet, Tripod, The Four Noels, North and Mickey D.
Kim Hope looks less than impressed with Maynard’s Nanook snow shoes.
With wild and whacky music from the likes of Weird Al Yankovic, Foo Fighters, The Cruel Sea, Bloodhound Gang, Chris Franklin, Kenny Chesney, Beastie Boys, Scared Weird Little Guys, Fatboy Slim and Madness.
Miss Itchy & Maynard in Chapel Street, Melbourne. Shortly before they stole my jacket and goosed the unsuspecting public.
This show takes a shallow and imprecise dive into the fashion of comedy, the boundaries of comedy and the who, what and where of comedy. So shut up and laugh at people who do this for a living.
The 2000 Melbourne Comedy Special, presented lovingly from the boot of Maynard’s 1978 Holden Gemini
Thanks to Desleigh Pender for production and Mary Datoc for programming.
Desperate times call for a highly entertaining and consummate Bunga Bunga.
Tim Ferguson & Maynard are the right duo up in the right place to get down at the right time. Join them as they cower in place in the lofty heights of Tim’s Fortress of Arrogance. But don’t worry, Maynard’s Bug Out Bag has been ready for years, full of questionable cultural content.
Even gossip king Lance Leopard phones in to the show from his ivory tower of scandal, to solve a burning social issue. You know, the Kylie/Madonna one.
Hold the line Australia. Hold the line.
Tim Ferguson
Bunga Bunga 58 contains advice, laughs, wisdom and a little bit of comfort food as Tim & Maynard pirouette on the cutting edge with things that are SO early March, that no one is talking about any more: micro plastics in teabags, waxed baking paper usage and that Greta.
If you can’t lick anybody else, you might as well lick yourself.
Maynard
Learn about yet another emerging threat to Australia from Northcote. Be alert and maybe a bit alarmed about the scourge of overly earnest poetry about to swamp a nation that has already suffered enough.
Kitler 2 oversees the production.
You aren’t the only one tired of being part of a major historical event. So let’s discuss Julie Andrews in the bathroom, Tim & Maynard’s career having eerie similarities to the Australian economy right now and poop on a plate.
Bunga Bunga live video stream, for the first shonky time.
Tim Ferguson & Maynard bring you their first ever Bunga Bunga, live video on Monday, from an undisclosed but well stocked location. Tim reassures the nation, Maynard shows his moves and they both answer your live Crankmail.
Hear a time capsule from the Melbourne Comedy Festival 1992. Sunday Afternoon Fever live across Australia on Triple J, 5th April 1992.
Maynard and guests, Wendy Harmer, Bachelors From Prague, Doug Anthony All Stars, Stomp, Mark Little, Found Objects, Chris Lynam, Lily Savage, Corky and The Juice Pigs, Lance & The Hollywood Kids, bring you a music and mayhem filled 3 hours from just one Sunday afternoon that was very 1992.
Found Objects, perform on Sunday Afternoon Fever, 5.4.1992
ABC Studio 320 in Broadcast House, Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, was the venue for an afternoon of goofin’ off featuring the house band for the show Bachelors From Prague. It was their last public appearance before leaving for Italy.
Bachelors From Prague with Maynard dancing. Triple J, Sunday Afternoon Fever, Melbourne Comedy Festival 1992
This 3 hour show includes all the interviews and performances, as well as the flavour of the 1992 music groove.
Stomp perform on Sunday Afternoon Fever Melbourne Comedy Festival, April 1992
This was the first year Stomp toured Australia and before Wendy Harmer began her very successful commercial radio career in Sydney in 1993.
Richard Fidler helps out. Tim Ferguson relaxes live with Maynard, Triple J, Melbourne Comedy Festival 1992
DAAS had just been on The Big Gig and upset ABC viewers even more than usual. Chris Lynham was wonderfully surreal and gave some of the best non sequitur answers ever.
Maynard plays trombone with Bachelors From Prague. Triple J, Melbourne Comedy Festival 1992
All of these performers are still around, all every bit as entertaining as in this show. Seek them out, it’s worth the journey.
Maynard works the crowd. Sunday Afternoon Fever show. Triple J Melbourne Comedy Festival 1992
Thanks to all our guests. Special thanks to the very professional Triple J Producers Chris Norris, Anne Marie, Phil McKelar and all at ABC Melbourne 1992.
Bunga Bunga 57 brings poor advice and even worse lifestyle choices into your hearing once again.
We hear from Tim on his new cat, Star Trek’s best movies, burlesque as a tax dodge, inappropriate dress for time travel and why cows and mining don’t mix.
Tim and Maynard also dive deep into the burning social issue of feline appropriation.
We also put our political predictions where our Trump is, by calling the results of the US election. Tim does anyway. Maynard is busy thinking about his Pseudo Echo support gig in March.
Bunga Bunga 56 returns for 2020 to save you from an expensive haircut.
Tim Ferguson is sporting the latest look in Summer festival fashion, his sustainable “conflict haircut”. No one died for the look he has this month, described by Green Left Weekly as “no justice, no pants”.
We introduce you to the newest member of the Bunga Bunga family:
Meet Kitler 2. As Tim says in the show; “He’s just like the second Titanic you never thought you’d see”. Here we see him judging Charlotte.
Only the big issues in Bunga Bunga 56. We answer your Crankmail, find it more difficult than usual to launder money thru Westpac, and ask Tim if he owes Scott Morrison an apology.
Australia’s Coldest 100 returns on 25th January with some of the weirdest music Australia has ever spawned.
The Coldest 100 was the creation of Andrew Sholl on Twitter in 2016 and has been the embarrassing family member at the barbecue of Triple J’s Hottest 100 ever since. Anyone can have a guess at the hottest song of the year. But who has ever nominated Margarita Pracatan or Daryl Somers performing his version of Thankyou for Being a Friend ?
@Ozkitsch Andrew Sholl has allowed me to play you a few spoilers from the big day on Saturday (about 25).
Miss World contestants 1989 cover Kylie Minogue
Hey Hey, It’s a Ballarat charity telethon 1988
Les Hamsters just missed out making The Coldest 100 this year. Sacre bleu!
The Sydney Hellfire Club, clearly one of the most interesting nightclubs on the Sydney scene, has called it a night after 27 years (or 26 years and 10 months, if you want to be pedantic).
Master Tom and Ultra sat down after the final party on 27th December and told the reason why they are ending their successful run. Also just a few stories from a version of Sydney nightlife that won’t be back in a hurry.
What really made Hellfire work for so long was that we genuinely held a particular defined philosophy, that we stuck to rigorously. Even when it was economically irrational to do so.
Master Tom
Sydney Hellfire Club first night at The Shift. Maynard & friends
Listen to the full interview above. Here is a wicked partial transcript:
Maynard: When you do something for a long time, when you do something for 26 years and 10 months, you’re not just good at it, you’re fucking brilliant at it! I’m talking to the two people that have run the Hellfire Club in Sydney for 26 years and 10 months. We’ve got Ultra and Master Tom, how are you feeling? It’s 48 hours after you put the Club to bed for the last time.
Master Tom: We’re feeling every one of those 26 years and 10 months. Can I just say, I was young and skinny when it started. Now I’m twice the man I used to be.
Maynard: And you two actually met at the club.
Ultra: We did. We met in maybe August 1993.
Maynard: Looking at the final night you had there, the crowd has evolved. There were a lot of people looking the look. But not really playing the way they used to back in the day. Is that because society’s changed or because my eyes are so bad I didn’t see it.
Master Tom: Oh both. There was a bit of play going on around the frames. There were two A-frames going, one in the back corner, one in the front corner. Things have changed. Nightclubs have changed. Nightclub culture’s changed. The Black Market was a unique and special place. Kind of anything you wanted you did. It was all brand new then and everyone was making it up as they went along and there was nowhere else to do anything like that at the time. But since then, and largely as a result of Hellfire, there’s been a proliferation of other events, other parties, other venues, and other opportunities for people to do this kind of stuff. Not just in a nightclub.
Maynard: What was the final straw then? The thing that happened for you to say, “Let’s end it”.
Ultra: A $20,000 minimum bar spend.
Maynard: That’s a lot of money. In the world of Australian nightclubs, is that considered a high minimum spend at the bar? Explain to people what that is.
Master Tom: A minimum spend is the amount the club owner has to take. If they take any less than that, you have to make up the difference. For example, at Hellfire the average spend over the bar was probably around $12,000, so we would have been having to pay them $8,000 per night to make it up to that $20,000 minimum, on top of paying for everything from the Door Bitches to the performers, the DJs, the lighting guy, and so on and so on.
Maynard: What about for the future? Maybe do an annual thing? Would there be a No Holes Barred one of these days? Any thoughts of that or do you just want to go away on your holiday?
Ultra: I think we need to have a little rest. Then reset and think about where we want to be. I’m sure a million people will dive in on our night and try something in the interim. So I’m quite happy to clear the decks and let them.
Maynard: Hey, but with a minimum spend like that, they better have deep pockets.
Master Tom: We are really exhausted. If someone had told us all those years ago that we’d still be doing this 26 odd years later, there’s no way we would have believed them and we deserve a rest.
Maynard: We thought everything was going to get wilder and it didn’t. We thought it was going to become the 1920s and it’s become the 1850s. That was not a good time.
Ultra: It has been harder to promote because as you pointed out at the very beginning, we went from people who were outsiders because they were rejected by society, and when you’ve been rejected by society, you kind of develop these ethics that you’re not gonna treat people like that. So now we are in a society where everyone feels like an outsider. So we’re actually trying to promote to mainstream people, which meant the rules had to come back in. So it was kind of funny. We’ve gone from a club that was full of renegades that didn’t have rules, to one that was full of mainstream people that needed rules.
Maynard: Is part of that because of identity politics ? Everyone was being seen as a group and now everybody, because of intersectionality, can be a party of one. They can find differences very easily, where before they could find similarity.
Master Tom: I think, at least in the case of the BDSM fetish scene, that it started off as a very inner city phenomenon, and over the years it gradually radiated out further and further in concentric circles until it started taking in the inner West and the outer West, and then Greater Sydney and then regional Australia and so on. Half of the people, at least of the people that have been attending Hellfire over the last few years, aren’t even from anything like what you would even consider to be Sydney.
Maynard: There are a few people that are still getting over the Hellfire show you did in Darwin.
Master Tom: All these things have happened, like Fifty Shades of Grey that took BDSM, fetish or kink or whatever you want to call it out of being a very small and hidden subculture and made it really, really mainstream, and that opened it up to all kinds of people and there’s good and bad that comes with that. The good part is for people who do have kinks, they can feel less bad about it and go, “Oh my God, I’m not alone”. But also at the same time, it robs it of some of its subversive power. It’s a double edged sword.
Maynard: On behalf of everybody who went to Hellfire ever in the last 26 years and 10 months, I would like, thank you for a fucking great time.
Ultra: Yay. Thanks for coming. It was yours. It was everybody that came to this club. It wasn’t just ours. It was certainly something that we did together.
Master Tom: It sure was. Otherwise, it would have been a very, very small thing.
