Skithouse

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.

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.

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).

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.

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!!