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For other shows by the same name, see The Late Show.

The Late Show was a popular Australian comedy show, which ran for two seasons on ABC TV from 18 July 1992 to 30 October 1993.

Contents 1 Cast 2 Segments 2.1 Introduction: Stand up 2.2 The Late Show News Headlines 2.3 Street Talk 2.4 The Toilet Break 2.5 Musical finale 2.6 Shitscared 2.7 Pissweak World 2.8 Graham and the Colonel 2.9 The Olden Days 2.10 Bargearse 2.11 Shirty: The Slightly Aggressive Bear 2.12 Charlie the Wonderdog 2.13 Geoff & Terry 2.14 Other segments 3 Video/DVD releases 4 After "The Late Show" 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

• Tom Gleisner
• Jane Kennedy
• Judith Lucy (Second season only)
• Tony Martin
• Mick Molloy
• Santo Cilauro
• Rob Sitch
• Jason Stephens

The Late Show has its roots in the 1980s comedy group, The D-Generation. Consisting mostly of Melbourne University students, The D-Generation managed to gain a cult following with their radio and TV appearances.

After the breakup of the original The D-Generation, some of the members went on to perform on the commercial TV programme Fast Forward. The remaining members filmed several pilots for what was to be called The Late Late Show at Channel Nine. These were rejected, and so the group accepted the ABC's offer of a one-hour timeslot on Saturday night.

The Late Show featured a number of popular, recurring segments.

The show opened with a stand-up routine by Tony Martin and Mick Molloy. The stand-up was topical, usually focusing on the week's news. In 1995, the duo later went on to host their own radio show, Martin/Molloy on the Austereo Radio Network.

The Late Show News Headlines, presented by Gleisner, would blend the week's real news headlines with fake information and footage. For example, when covering the replacement of a retiring Japanese Prime Minister, footage from an Asian bodybuilding competition was shown. The News Headlines would also feature interviews with newsmakers, most often played by Rob. Some of the better-known impersonations included Jeff Kennett, John Hewson, Paul Keating, Imran Khan, Yassar Arafat and Desmond Tutu.

In Street Talk, Tony and Mick would take to the streets of Melbourne and interview passers-by on issues of the day. These vox-pop interviews often proved more of an opportunity for the pair to ridicule their interviewees, especially their dress sense.

The Toilet Break, as the name suggests, was designed to allow viewers to use the toilet, during the commercial-free show. The 2-minute long segment was played in the middle of every show, featuring old music clips, with a countdown displayed top left-hand corner of the screen. During the first season, the toilet break consisted of clips from The Natural 7 from The Saturday Show. The second season played clips from 1987's Pot Luck.

All episodes in the second series ended with a musical performance. Tony Martin would announce that Mick Molloy had organized for a major celebrity to perform, only for Molloy to sheepishly admit he had booked a minor celebrity of a similar name and usually no musical ability. The humour in Molloy's recurring "errors" in booking the performers would have perhaps run dry, if not for the hilarity of having famous Australian politicians and non-musical celebrities performing.

The performances included:

• Pete Smith performing Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)"
• Norman Yemm singing R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion"
• Mike Whitney as Whitney Houston performing "I Will Always Love You"
• Former Australian Test cricketer Maxie Walker performing Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"
• Former Australian swimmer Hayley Lewis with "Hip To Be Square" by Huey Lewis
• French-Australian chef Gabriel Gaté performing "Accidentally Kelly Street" by Frente!
• Ron Barassi as Shirley Bassey singing the theme from the James Bond film "Thunderball" (actually a Tom Jones song)
• Game show host "Baby" John Burgess performing "One Word" by Baby Animals
• TV fisherman and football commentator Rex Hunt in a spangly costume covering T. Rex's "Get It On"
• Actor Syd Heylen covering the Van Halen tune "Jump"
• Actor Donnie Sutherland as Dame Joan Sutherland
• TV weatherman Brian Bury singing Ian Dury's "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick"
• Television vet Dr. Harry Cooper as Alice Cooper performing "Department of Youth".
• Grassby, Grills, Nudge & Plumb as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The "group" was composed of the late Al Grassby (former Australian Immigration Minister); the late Lucky Grills (from '70s cop show Bluey); Christopher Truswell (who played the character of "Nudge" in the Australian sitcom Hey Dad); and the late veteran Australian actress Gwen Plumb.
• Australian cricketer David Boon performing "Once In A Lifetime" as Talking Heads frontman David Byrne.
• Former Premier of Victoria Joan Kirner covering Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'N Roll", accompanied on guitar by her former health minister David White who actually did play the guitar for the segment.
• Australian variety show host, singer and entertainer Jimmy Hannan standing in for Jimmy Barnes (former Cold Chisel frontman) singing "Working Class Man".

The Late Show finale in 1993 had a 'real' guest on to sing at the finale: Don Lane, who was notably appearing on a competing network during the show's Saturday night timeslot. A famous non-guest was Jana Wendt whom the producers had hoped would either sing a song by Nivarna (Javana) or Bananarama (Janarama).^{[citation needed]} Wendt never appeared.

Shitscared starred Rob Sitch as an Evel Knievel styled Stuntman, Mick Molloy as his half-witted assistant and Tom Gleisner as the interviewer. Rob played the arrogant expert, who loved to pontificate about "the stunt game". He would fashion detailed plans for each stunt, with an emphasis on "safety". Mick would always manage to ruin Rob's planning, inevitably resulting in physical pain for Rob.

Several-minute advertisements for mediocre theme parks with the 'Pissweak' brandname, e.g. Pissweak World, Ye Olde Pissweeke Worlde, Pissweak Movieworld, Pissweak Town. Each would feature a guided tour with examples of the many low-quality attractions. Featuring the Pissweak Kids and narration by Tony Martin.

Examples (from Pissweak Town): "Ride a bucking Bronco" - clip showing a child sitting on a Labrador. "See a bush printing press" - clip of a man holding a child's head on top of a photocopier printing out a copy. "Ride a stage coach" - clip shows dejected children inside a trailer being driven down a road.

Similar to Roy and HG, Graham and the Colonel were two satirical sports commentators, played respectively by Sitch and Cilauro dressed in green ABC sports jackets. Whilst the characters often forgot lines and used many corny and humourless jokes, the segment was much loved. This segment aired just before the end of each episode.

The intro music for the segment was "Light and Tuneful" by Keith Mansfield, the same music used by the BBC to introduce its Wimbledon coverage.

The Olden Days was a segment where the cast overdubbed a black-and-white historical drama series produced by the ABC in the 1970s, named Rush. It was aired during the first series of the show.

Tony Martin did the voice of the star of the show, Governor Frontbottom (as well as Judge Muttonchops). Mick Molloy supplied the voice for the "Playschool star", Sergeant Olden. Other characters were used intermittently.

The Olden Days was released by the ABC as a separate VHS video which played all the segments in order, although it has been out of circulation for a number of years. Unfortunately, they were unable to secure the rights to the "Benny Hill Chase Scene" music, so it was replaced for the video release.

Replacing The Olden Days in the second series of the show, Bargearse was an overdubbed version of Bluey, a 70s police drama set in Melbourne, Australia.

Bargearse was named after its protagonist – Det Sgt Bargearse – an overweight, moustache-sporting 'rough-and-tumble' cop. Bargearse exploited Bluey's weight with plentiful fat jokes, as well as many fart noises.

Bargearse was voiced by Tony Martin and his sidekicks, Ann Bourke and Det Glen Twenty, were voiced by Judith Lucy and Rob Sitch respectively. Other minor characters were revoiced by Santo Cilauro, Mick Molloy and Jane Kennedy.

Lucky Grills, who played Bluey appeared on The Late Show three times: as a guest in the mock press conference for the Biodome participants, as the character Bluey protesting the last episode of Bargearse and in the musical appearance as noted above.

On August 15, 2007 a Bargearse and The Olden Days double feature DVD was released.

Shirty: The Slightly Aggressive Bear was a parody of children's TV shows. The twist was that the main character, Shirty, would react harshly to even the smallest insult. Many episodes ended with a destroyed set, a firearm being shot, or injury to the other characters. In one of the later episodes, it was revealed on-screen that Shirty was played by the "Hando" character from Romper Stomper as portrayed by Russell Crowe. In every other episode Shirty was played by Rob Sitch.

Starring Charles 'Bud' Tingwell and the Pissweak Kids (who also starred in the Pissweak World sketches), Charlie the Wonderdog was a parody of fictitious animal shows, such as Lassie and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo where the animal always ends up saving the day. Charlie was a dog owned by Gleisner. The sketch featured purposely bad/overdone acting from the kids and usually involved a lame villain or crime (the first episode featured a 'poacher' stealing native fauna (sticks and twigs) from the bush) that had to be prevented. The actors in the skits constantly build up that their dog is a 'wonder dog' who was super intelligent and capable of foiling the bad guys plans, the dog however never had any intention of doing such things and usually had to be dragged around the scene by a rope tied around his neck and there were obvious audio clip barks (usually played when the dog's mouth was closed or when the dog was distracted by something) when Charlie had to alert the others of danger. The problems and situations that Charlie faced as the series went on got more and more over the top. Charlie also featured in a lot of other outrageous situations and was even the drummer for rocker Meatloaf in a small skit.

Charlie was eventually assassinated in one of the sketches, only to come back in the Charlie the Wonderdog Christmas Episode.

Geoff & Terry (Sitch and Cilauro respectively) were two conman entrepreneurs, who would appear regularly with a "new exciting product" or scheme. Sitch and Cilauro primarily used the segment to make Jane Kennedy, who played the interviewer, laugh and forget her lines. Jane Kennedy also admitted in the Best of the Late Show DVD commentary that she was in fact drunk during one of the live sketches.

After a particularly bad performance Sitch and Cilauro vowed never to do Geoff and Terry again and the pair were reborn as the Oz brothers.

• The Oz Brothers, stereotypical Australians also played by Sitch and Cilauro, who were obsessed with cricketer David Boon and often prayed to him while facing his home town, Launceston.
• Music video parodies, usually with a high-degree of visual accuracy.
• Celebrity interviews, where Martin went through hours in makeup to play Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Jackson (and still looked nothing like them).
• Commercial Crimestoppers, where amateurish commercials from regional Australia were mocked.
• Countdown Classics, a segment where Countdown music videos were ridiculed by Tom and Jane, who were dressed in 70s-era clothing, sitting on beanbags.
• Muckraking, a kind of celebrity gossip segment hosted by Molloy and Stephens, which often degenerated into irrelevant ranting.
• Mick's Serve, usually accompanying the news headlines Tom would get Mick to comment on a topical issue. This resulted in Mick ranting over the issue whilst becoming increasingly enraged. The event would end with Tom calling in men in white coats to douse Mick and the News desk with fire extinguishers.

• Three volumes of The Best Bits Of The Late Show have been released on VHS, along with similar compilations of Bargearse and The Olden Days.

• In 2001, the ABC released a DVD entitled The Best Bits Of The Late Show: Champagne Edition, a double disc set that collects all three "Best Bits" volumes plus an additional hour of footage and a number of easter eggs. The DVD also features a commentary track featuring the entire cast and several special guests.

• The Olden Days and Bargearse were released together on a double-feature DVD on August 15, 2007. The DVD also contains several excerpts and sketches from The Late Show in the form of special features. Additionally, there are another 17 excerpts hidden in the DVD menus.

Citing the enormous effort involved in producing each week's show, and the want to explore other formats, the cast decided that the second season of The Late Show would be the last. Most of the performers have remained prominent in the Australian comedy scene.

Jane Kennedy, Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro and Rob Sitch formed Working Dog Productions, and made the successful TV programmes Frontline (1994-1997), Funky Squad (1995), A River Somewhere (1997-1998), The Panel (1998-2004), All Aussie Adventures (2001-), and Thank God You're Here (2006-), and the successful movies The Castle (1997) and The Dish (2000).

Tony Martin and Mick Molloy had a top-rating radio show Martin/Molloy (1995-1998), before moving into film with Tackle Happy (2000), Crackerjack (2002), Bad Eggs (2003) and BoyTown (2006). Tony Martin hosted a radio show on the national Triple M network called Get This (2006-2007). Molloy hosted Tough Love from 2004 to 2006 and was then dropped from the radio station. Judith Lucy appeared in both Crackerjack and Bad Eggs, and continues to tour with a series of successful one-woman shows. Jason Stephens is now the Director of Development for Fremantlemedia Australia, one of Australia's leading independent television production companies. He was the creator behind The Choir of Hard Knocks Article - 'Choir offers sanctuary from ‘Hard Knocks’ ' He also produced and Co-Executive produced The King (2007 film) , the telemovie based on the life of Graham Kennedy lifestory. Jason also developed the comedy Newstopia starring Shaun Micallef, set for air in October 2007. Article - 'Micallef back to satirise news'

• List of Australian television series

• Champagne Comedy: The Late Show fan page
• The Complete Unofficial Reference Site of The Late Show: Episode & Sketch Guide
• The Late Show at the Internet Movie Database
• The Late Show at the National Film and Sound Archive