Skithouse (2003–2004) User Reviews

It's OK.

[Yak-6 · 20 September 2003]

I refuse to believe this is the worst sketch show on Australian TV - for starters, there's the truly appalling Comedy Inc.

This is a fair show, a bit hit and miss but there's some good stuff in there. Australian Fast Bowler is fantastic. (I believe whoever wrote that other comment is missing the point - what the parody is in this case is of sports hero worship, not individual fast bowlers. And superheroes are called generic things like "Superman" and "Batman" hence "Australian Fast Bowler".) Tripod are better singers than they are actors, but they're always funny.

Brilliant

[mp_rule · 9/10 · 14 May 2006]

I only wish it had been longer. I am a massive skitHOUSE fan and particularly adore Tripod. The DVD features a bunch of tripod songs, skits and other notables characters such as the "I'll snap ya!" guy, Nothing suss and much more. It has about two hours of content (without the extra character collections) including bloopers. I would have liked it better (as I said above) if they had included more content, aka if they had done a complete season rather than the best of. But still it is very good. Roving enterprises had a hit with this one (in my opinion) and I am really sad there will be no more seasons and therefore no more DVDs. A must have for any self-respecting skitHOUSE fan.

Sec.

On/Off

[Derrado18 · 3 March 2004]

At first, I didn't like this show. I had seen far better skit shows before (Full Frontal, Comedy Inc, Sketch Show). The show struck me as unfunny and stupid. But after it returned after a non-ratings period, it had vastly improved and was very funny. However, I saw less of Corinne Grant and Peter Helliar (appearing in only 1 or 2 skits per episode). But the show was now excellent and I watched it frequently. The addition of Cal Wilson hasn't stunted it, so long as they keep Fiona Harris, Michael Chamberlain, Roz Hammond et all it'll be just fine. I much prefer it over Comedy Inc, which goes for far too long (and with only a few really funny skits), and The Big Bite (which has disappeared from Queensland television - thank god).

Just show more of Corinne!

10/10 hilarity!!

[damian_callinan_rocks · 22 April 2003]

The show "Skithouse" is the funniest show ever to hit Channel Ten, after Rove Live. Its hilarious mix of sketches and just plain old stupidity leaves me on the floor in laughter! As well as a wide variety of acts, there are the regular sketches such as the Australian Fast Bowler (played by Tom Gleeson), The geeky, squeaky-voiced high school kid (Scott Brennan) and the delightful antics of the somewhat masculine-looking Fleur the ballet dancer (played hilariously by Damian Callinan) that make this show so unique. All in all, Skithouse rates at the top of my list in the comedy department!!

Two Thumb's up for the second season!

[ScurryInertia · 22 September 2003]

The first season of skithouse delivered a few laugh's here and there but most of the sketches were more often than not, poorly writing and badly directed. But if seems that the skithouse team has lifted up the laugh's for the second season and the writers have put a little more thought into there sketches to give the audience something worth while to watch on a Wednesday night. Great comedy for everyone, lets hope they could put together a third season as well! 9/10

If you're into this sort of thing, it's hilarious

[IByte ! · 11 April 2005]

I watched a couple of episodes of this sketch series while I was residing in New Zealand for a couple of months, and I must say, I found it to be quite hilarious. The episodes consist of a series of unrelated sketches (although there often are recurring character across episodes) played by a small group of actors. The humour mostly has an absurd and/or "groaner" kind of style, frequently leading up to a punchline that will make you want to slap your forehead ("D'oh!", to put it the Homer Simpson way). I will readily admit that this may be a "love it or hate it" kind of thing. Both this structure and style of humour are somewhat reminiscent of what can be seen on several British comedy series of this type, like 'Little Britain', 'Smack the Pony', 'Dead Ringers', 'French and Saunders' and others in this rather politically incorrect league. Even though some characters bear names like the Australian Fast Bowler, the jokes are not largely Australia-specific; in order to get them, you basically need to speak English and you're there (if not, grab a subtitle).

Is this what has happened to Australian Sketch Comedy?

[Darwinian · 16 August 2004]

Australians have always had their own brand of comedy, dating back to the days of Graham Kennedy, Bert Newton and Kingswood Country just to name a few. Then flash forward a decade or two to 1987 and we were graced with what can ultimately be described as the beginning of modern sketch comedy in Australia. I'm talking about the DGeneration of course. It was the original team on this show that was responsible for pretty much every other well known Australian sketch comedy show (Fast Forward, Late Show, Comedy Company, hell even The Panel). These shows captured Australian culture and satirised it perfectly.

Unfortunately times change. The shows eventually got cancelled (or in The Panel's case, were created) and we were left with nothing. Totally Full Frontal tried to capture the success it's predecessor had on channel seven, but it didn't work and with that there was no sketch comedy on Australian TV anymore.

So what do today's writers do? They take an original concept from an English television show (short, literal sketches) and turn it around to aim it at an Australian audience. This is the birth of Skithouse.

If sketch comedy shows were Brady sisters, Skithouse would definitely be Jan. Boring, annoying and always trying to out do Marcia (which we will refer to as The Sketch Show). I'll give you an example:

There is a guy in an office, he keeps running into a wall. Someone walks by and notices what he's doing and says, "Hey (insert name here) the door is over there."

Yeah that's top notch writing.

My only question is, why is this still on television? Have we forgotten how funny we can really be? There's only one other sketch show on and that's Comedy Inc. and while it has it's moments, it's not that much better than Skithouse.

A hint of advice to the writers: BE FUNNY! You have some talented people there (Tom Gleeson and Tripod) USE THEM!

Bloody Funny

[Psycho_WarBaby · 14 May 2003]

Welcome back to good Aussie comedy. It's about time too. Established actors give Skithouse an big edge over many past and present comedies, with all new skits not relying on derobertory comments about other people and shows.

Special mention to Simon Hall, Scott Edgar and Steven Gates also known as Tripod for the comedic songs at the end of each show. But the others should not get left out of been praise either.

The worst sketch-show of all time

[Laitue_Gonflable · 22 May 2003]

Yes, I'm going to throw it in the deep end with that opening statement. I could almost go further and say it's the worst show of all time but that wouldn't do because I've watched an episode of "Passions".

I watched the first episode with extremely high expectations after being in weeks of hysterics with the Ten network's UK import The Sketch Show and after the advertising campaign, how could I resist? I soon learned my lesson for being so susceptible to hype though as, through half an hour, nothing managed to make me smile. I found myself being far more entertained by ads for dishwashing detergent and breakfast cereals, and generally I detest all ads.

For one thing, there are three members of the cast I have heard of, the rest are complete nobodies and there's no prizes for guessing why. But Peter Helliar and Corinne Grant are funny enough people as we see on "Rove:Live" and "The Glasshouse" but they cannot act, and yet they try to. As for Ros Hammond, well she's got very steeply downhill since appearing in the brilliant and eccentrically hilarious three series of Shaun Micallef programmes.

But the cast aren't entirely to blame. The writing is juvenile, the jokes are either old or non-existent and always predictable from the start of each sketch, but the worst part of it is that the show takes itself far too seriously. It's always playing for laughs and trying to milk humour from every joke rather than, at least occasionally, laughing WITH the audience AT itself, which is one of the endearing qualities of both Shaun Micallef and the team from The Sketch Show.

It's a sad day in Australian television when I find myself pleased that "Comedy Inc." exists just because it raises the dignity of Australian sketch comedy up a slight notch. All I can say is, if Ted Emery and Gary McCaffrie were dead they'd be rolling around in their graves. I can't bring myself to give this a single star.

Go Tripod!!!

[jediknight01 · 13 May 2004]

The only reason that I watch this show is for Tripod. Now, I may be a little biased being a Tripod fan before I started watching the show. Honestly though, the rest of the cast annoy me immensely and the skits are often more cringeworthy than funny. Its only worth it to wait for the Tripod skits (that phone hold skit was priceless!) and songs at the end which are ALWAYS funny. Songs like "Stuntman", "The Xbox Song" and "I only get into stuff (just after it's finished being cool)" are way too funny to be lumped alongside such drivel as that Australian fast bowler crap. If anyone noticed on the Skithouse 'greatest hits' (the biggest joke of all!) episodes, a great majority of the skits were the ones involving Tripod.

Go Scod, Gatesy and Yon!!!

Great Show

[floatingfish123 · 1 April 2003]

This is one of the funniest shows to hit australian television in ages. The songs by Tripod are great and really funny.The cast is really talented and pull the sketches off perfictly. The show is rating well so it looks like it will be arround for a long time.

Not bad but mainly unfunny

[otacon23dav · 13 July 2004]

This sketch show sometimes has good has alright jokes in it but mainly the jokes are plain and pathetic.

Australians do not know when to end a joke...mainly in this joke, they continue on and on. For example: Scene: hospital. The camera is zoomed in on a guy who is walking towards forward (towards the camera) and says "When I became a nurse, people started questioning my sexuality" camera moves out showing him wearing a nurses outfit and stockings. - that was funny and that was the punch line. End of the joke, move onto the next. But it didn't. he continued talking and talking and went to an old guy saying "you wanna spank me dont u". That was stupid and pathetic and ruined the joke.

It was made for simple minded people with a low sense of humour.

I will give this a 3/10...Best to avoid watching this show

Rubbish

[joedz · 30 April 2003]

I watched this show on its debut and thought it was OK. But all the shows directors and writers had done was put a good pile of the funny skits in the first show.

The second episode was so terrible I switched it off after 15 minutes. Never before had I seen utter rubbish on TV before. I decided, however, to give it another chance and have caught bits here and there since then but every single time I turn Skithouse on, it is still just rubbish.

Why are they afraid to use real names / people to parody? Why can't they say "Look! It's Dennis Lillee" rather than "Look! It's an Australian fast bowler". My view? Skithouse sucks. 1/10