Category: Mad as Hell

A cursed Tiki causes havoc for Shaun and his family while on a holiday in Hawaii.

Before looking at pornography, Shaun had a show to do – now with 1/4% less interest.

Shaun’s only been a TV journalist for 2 weeks, but he’s yet to become a world-weary, unshockable TV veteran like Liz Hayes, so he didn’t expect the media to turn on itself or another news man that Shaun loves – Julian Assange.

Julian is on his way to Sweden, where unlike the Eurovision trophy, he’s actually wanted. For the last 12 months, he’s been living with Geoffry Roberton and Kathy Lett – Verity Ng thinks that’s a harsh penalty, with the prospect of too many puns, and he should get time off his sentence. But Thorold Munch from the Dept of Foreign Affair he’s getting full consular service – if only he could define what that means.

When the media eats one of its own, it’s only a matter before it disagrees with itself. Francis reported on the media and politics. Rupert Murdoch says he never asked for any back scratching, but it seems there is plenty of finger pointing at each others fingerprints on Murdoch’s back. Francis then interviewed a senior policy advisor (Veronica) for Stephen Conroy, but most of the questions weren’t for her (to answer), they were for others, or maybe Francis himself. Piers Morgan refuses to answers anything.

Rebecca Pollador (Roz) interviewed Anders Krill (Tosh) who photographs the politicians for the House of Representatives website. He tries experiemental shots with models and zebras, but in the end they end up as the traditional rectangular sized head and shoulders shots. An exhibition of his work, in alphabetical order, is on til August.

If Four Corners is the home of investigative journalism, Mad is Hell is the beach house. They recently investigated Captain Emad, a people-smuggler who hid as a refugee – you would think his name would give him away? Emad collects Shopping Trolleys, but also runs a people-smuggling operation from inside Australia – making him the Mad As Hell Small Businessman of the Week.

Shaun will gladly acknowledge when others do a great job, and Sky News covered the seizure and destruction of weapons in a raid, and Shaun was pleased with the metaphor of a violent end to violent weapons. But he loved the detail Sky put into the story, actually demonstrating how guns work. But in the reporters’ demonstration, Mad As Hell footage shows a cameraman was injured – luckily they showed just how dangerous these weapons are. Shaun’s nose smells a Walkley.

John Howard may have tried to “stop the boats” during the Jubilee celebrations, but Shaun misses him – he was steadfast, and without his glasses he looks good – so Shaun removed his too.

In this week’s Back Benched!, Kevin Rudd feels he’s got the rough end of the pineapple. The latest WorkSafe ad shows that safety during the shooting of a WorkSafe ad doesn’t apply to work experience students.

What do people think about other things? They were asked, and the views were varied, to say the least. (“I don’t think the death penalty goes far enough.”)

If a poll was held tomorrow, we would all be surprised, as one hasn’t been called.

Cloris Webbler has predicted the results of every election since 1955 incorrectly, by voting for the other party. She want’s to vote for the worst candidate at the next election, but it’s too close to call at the moment.

What if Greece don’t pay back the 130 billion euro to Germany? Hans-Peter Gruber tells Shaun they might have to declare bankruptcy, and try to administrate their way out of it. Would that mean Germany would occupy Greece, and eventually loot the country of its treasures?

Germany led to Nietzsche, led to the country of supermen, led to Superman, led to Qantas, which led to Pilots. Being a pilot isn’t easy, you can easily mistake Venus for a plane. Desiree Fulton (Emily) follows the story about pilot refresher courses, where the different between planet and plane is explained. Capt. Volks kept second-guessing the voice overs, but you can be certain landing on high-tension power lines is to be avoided, no matter how safe it looks.

The Queen has been it for 60 years, and Gay March talked to Shaun about the Jubilee celebrations. The Reign of Her Majesty was celebrated by rain on Her Majesty, but it didn’t stop the festivities, which were capped off by terrorists exploding Tower Bridge.

The Royal family has released some old home movies, but most of them are Charles being tormented by his mother, who to this day still refuses to abdicate.

As a final point, Shaun noted that the share market has lost so much that if it had been Gina Rhinehart’s personal wealth, she’d be down to her last 6 million. Peter Slipper would write it off with cabcharges.

Shaun gets more than he bargained for when a car he was buying turns out to be an ocean liner. Meanwhile, Roz and Francis are up to their old necks too when a horse they were impersonating has to be put down.

Actually, first Shaun recognised the traditional owners of this timeslot: Mother and Son (1984-1994). This weeks episode was filmed before a live studio audience could leave the chamber. The audience acknowledged they were real.

Shaun felt there was less violence during the Eygipian presidential election than Eurovision. To cover the election, they sent Francis to Chiro not Cairo. Mrs Conroy tells us it’s not easy running a country – so many leaders are in turmoil or have been jailed. Robert Mugabe is an exception, he didn’t even let being voted out of office get in the way of his sense of duty to his country.

The Queen has been running her country twice as long as Robert, and Shaun thinks that her subjects are just as scared. Even Paul McCartney remembers the last time visiting she “touched me with a sword.” He pushed for the ABC to show the Jubilee live, mainly because he doesn’t like Warren Beatty. There were then Vox Pops on the subject of when we should become a republic – “When hell freezes over?”

If you rule a country with too much fear, the UN will come in a monitor you go even further. Kofi Annan doesn’t seem like Syria’s cup of tea. In a report by Charliana Striptank, can Al-Assad’s wife appeal to her husband? Yes, but can she appeal to him to stop the violence?

Time makes some people more cuddly, like Jeff Kennett, who doesn’t think much of prayer rooms at the football. Shaun will defend your right to leave a sporting match to pray, despite the rooms best feature being that they have none.

Schapelle Corby could be out of her Bali hell-hole and back in her Gold Coast one very soon, and Golem Monfries, a free Schapelle advocate says she is stoked. Even if it meant the release of people smugglers, Golem felt smuggling 4kg of drugs was a lot less than 4-5 75kg of people. Shaun recommends you use Google if you want more information.

In Wisdom of the Elders, Francis spoke to William (Bill) Duthie about the anniversary of the Walk for Reconciliation. He felt it was a historic moment, and when he was younger, had no real understanding of Aborginality, but got a bit confused about which famous Aboriginals were which – was it Lionel Rose? The walk was about building bridges using an existing bridge, a great time saver, and involved 300,000 people or 600,000 legs walking as one massed leg. After forgetting what he was talking about, Bill asked Francis to help him mail Captain Cook’s skull back to England via post.

In an upcoming interview with a prostitute, Francis is informed the cost for the hand only, but he wants to know about the whole arm.

In this week’s Miss Fysher’s Murder Mysteries, there was no evidence whatsoever on who was the perpetrator, despite him being caught with the gun over the victim, and continuing to fire it into the body.

Shaun segwayed into Leaning about life through Pop Culture, and in X-Men comics, two men are getting married. Shaun doesn’t like mixed-marriages: a mutant and a non-mutant?!  Which DC character is going to come out? Superman, or the Flash?

Probably not coming up is Shaun debate with representatives of AWU and Mining lobby – Gina Rinehart is a single mother, she needs that $2million an hour.

Inspired by the Neighbours from Hell type story run by Today Tonight or ACA, Sharon Lola Brigita (Roz) covered the story of how Osama Bin Laden remained undiscovered for so long in Pakistan – it was the neighbours, who hadn’t dobbed on him because of his good community engagement – running events, bringing in the bins.

Shaun had a real interview with Rachel Perkins, the director of Mabo. There were comparisons with The Castle, talk of the dance scene, Andrew Bolt’s influence and the involvement of the Mabo family.

There wasn’t time to cover that while $6000 gets you dinner with Tony Abbott, $4.5 gets you dinner without. But Shaun did reflect on Vogue’s decision to not use young or undernourished children – where should they find work now? It’s enough to make you, or them, sick.

What were your favourite moments? Reviews, thoughts?

After much anticipation, it was the first episode of Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell! This week’s episode was also available in mono.

Shaun began explaining how he wasn’t going to be as mad as the opening titles suggest, more of a conduit for what makes us mad. He doesn’t take sides – even his desk has no sides; if he could have it teetering on a fence as a metaphor, he would.

But what fucking got him mad this week is Craig Thomson. As reported, Mr Thompson put Julia Gillard against the wall – literally. And the question was posed – can prostitutes be classified as a “health service”? Julia Gillard couldn’t be drawn on it, but Mark Knight tried.

Shaun asked if opinons can be formed on the basis of what we see. Police shooting bullets into a car is certainly not a very good look, and neither is Au Sung Sui Ki missing the first day of the Burmese parliament – but she’s used to working from home.

Is Peter Slipper a vampire? Ventura Grosby thinks we need to wait for the evidence – if we see him turning into a bat, then he probably is.

Julia Gillard talks to us like we’re retarded, reports Atlanta Monkley. And maybe we are, but the leadership speculation hasn’t ended, and Kevin Rudd keeps bringing up the name of Kevin Rudd. Atlanta interviews two staffers in the Julia and Kevin camps, who disagree on who is saying what. Is that what they’re saying?

After some out of context vox pops, Carrington Mews, private detective, reported on the movements of Christopher Pyne the night he met with the man who alleges Peter Slipper sexually harassed him. Carrington wouldn’t speculate on what happened, but did speculate on what others would speculate.

Perception – Julia Gillard is put around children to make he look more friendly, just like Wayne Swann walking to the treasury makes him look like he knows about the economy.

Paramore Quilt spoke to Cecily Crumb about how politicians are positioned at press conferences. Tony Abbott was put in front of Anzac biscuits to counteract Julia Gillard being at lone pine. Cecily most loved her ‘Tony Takes The Cake’ idea when he was seen cutting a cake.

As Shaun summises, never trust anything on television.

During the break, we were ‘sold’ on the idea of the Carbon Tax package and a new political satire called Back Benched!

Shaun received a few thankyous – ACA and Today Tonight were very similar, and Andrew Bolt sent some unfashionable shoes. Kerry O’Brien’s ghost appeared to also wish good luck.

Shaun tried to interview one of 6 parliamentary members of the Queensland ALP, but after introducing all of the ministries he was shadow minister of, there was no time for the interview.

Clive Palmer wants to build a replica Titanic  – Shaun thinks he would make a great treasurer, he certainly know how to look after money.

How much does a Grecian urn?  Not much at the moment, but if they want to pull out of the Euro, they better get themselves a non minority government. Is it a conspiracy that Greece’s problems began after the release of Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos?

Bethany Dogmueler is housing a refugee and gets $300 a week. He’s from Sudan, which is great as her first child was born a stationwagon.  She plans to adopt him and marry him later in order to keep getting government bonuses.

Before running out of time, Shaun got a massage and paid with a blank cabcharge, and reflected on the float of Facebook – worth more than the value of shares wiped from the Australian stock market in total. Yin and Yang.