Author: Stuart

A dying man decides to embark on a 2000km road trip with his son to visit something or other one last time. But as a surprise, the son buys a pair of plane tickets, so they end up flying instead.

The back has been broken of this election, but it’s not paralysed. In fact Labor and Bill have increased in popularity, and Shaun think it’s due to the support of Mad As Hell and his promotion of Bill’s zingers. But what about the Libs and Turnbull? Shaun thinks he’s a smooth operator, but has identified Malcolm’s tell: his propensity to raise up on his toes, and has helpfully highlighted it in order to help Malcolm overcome it. Malcolm is relatable though, because he was once a child, like most of us, but also is willing to talk about sport. Bill tried that, but didn’t know his Maroons from his Storm.

Can Malcolm learn anything from Donald Trump? Only if it’s how to wrestle in the WWE. If he’s looking for bozo’s to inspire him, there’s plenty of local ones – ie. high-ranking MPs – who don’t know their own parties policies. Not to mention all the minor party candidates, who Turnbull likens to throwing your vote away. Like James Mathisen, former Australian Idol presenter and Wake Up host, who is up against Tony Abbott in Warringah – you can vote for James by sending an SMS to 1888 99 66.

Shaun thinks we should look out for NSW MP Robert Borsak, a member of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, who claims to have shot, killed and eaten an Elephant – a meal that both the meal and the diner never forgets.

The Australian Christian Lobby is linking gay marriage to the rise of Nazi Germany, and the recent parades of gay people marching through the streets of Sydney on their way to Poland would certainly suggest this to be true.

Sticking to the far-right, the Australian Liberty Alliance is unaware of their dwindling relevance because the leader doesn’t pay attention to the media, or much else. Their call for bans on face coverings puts them as strange bed fellows to the Victorian Police Minister, who voiced his support for the ban after recent clashes between anti-Halal supporters, proving disagreements about how food is prepared can turn ugly (as a photo of Gordon Ramsay shows). Jasper Zelwegger from the Party for Freedom defends his right to his own freedom to deny other people their freedoms. Joachim Spinefex is strongly against Jasper’s group, and will use violence to defend his position. Freedom of Speech is about who is able to call the other unAustralian the loudest, but Shaun wonders why can’t we just live together? (Nailed it!)

Pauline Hansen is on tour, launching her campaign with the slogan: “You don’t have to be white to be Australian” (but it still matters who and where you worship and where you come from.)

Soon on ABC: Once in a while, ruled by hate, in a world that hates rules, anonymity has a name. A show where real social issues are combined with science fiction and questionable acting – Too Cleverman By Half, Thursday 9:32pm.

The ACCC has fined Woolworths for selling laundry detergent in ultra-concentrate form but not passing the savings on. It seems the former buyers at Woolworths are to blame, but Dragon O’Hennessy (Francis) is just as happy with being labelled dealer or juggler. He has the good stuff, and as it’s easier to transport in concentrate, and they’ve made more from the scheme than the fine from the ACCC, which is a like a “drop of powerball detergent tablet in the ocean.” He also gave Shaun a sample, but using it might cause you to find yourself in hot water.

There’s a Twitter war between the Libs and Nick Xenophon’s team over stolen electoral posters, but Jelly Cannister (Emily) has found the culprit – herself. She’s such as fan of Christopher Pyne that stealing 500 posters seems fairly rational, although the nurse says she can’t fit them all on the wall.

In News from Countries Other Than Australia (brought to you by the Mad As Hell Voting Gyroscope), anti-slavery documents have been sold at auction, presumably with some rich white people bidding over them. The Pope has praised some actors for their work on a Vatican education initiative, but was less positive about some of their box office flops. Afterwards, George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin met the Pope, both looking fetching in their suit and knee-length dress respectively, as was Cardinal George Pell when he was recently spotted in his tweed sports jacket downing a pot of Peroni over lunch.
A recent Unesco report on climate changes influence on world heritage sites and tourism has had a section on the Great Barrier Reef removed from it, which is like leaving Shaun out of a Facebook page of Australian TV hotties. Government advisor Bison Jugular (Roz) says that if the government hadn’t asked for it to be removed from the report, tourists may have stopped visiting the reef because it was dying, which it is, but they shouldn’t know that.

Derica Boing investigated the seat of Fairfax, the soon-to-be-former seat of Clive Palmer, and after that experience, found that the locals have a strong, strong distrust of politicians.

The woman famous for having a mattress named after her, the Queen, is celebrating her 90th birthday. Lois Price (Emily) was high in the sky, talking Shaun through the photo shoot in Vanity Fair: one with her and her pure and cross bred dogs and another with her in-bred grandchildren. Don’t forget to mention this program when visiting Li’s Popup Massage Tent for a look of confusion.

You won’t see that kind of satire on The Chaser.

Haunted by the death of her refrigerator expansion valve, a young woman moves to Tuscany to begin a new life, only to discover that you can’t escape your past (the broken expansion valve follows her there).

Where were you when Bill Shorten debated Malcolm Turnbull? Probably watching Masterchef. Bill’s having trouble saying Malcolm’s favourite word: growth. Which is a problem with a little over a month till the election, according to Barbara’s election countdown jumbo-tron. It’s a long campaign, but the Americans do it longer, not that we can learn anything from them.

The polls have both leaders at 50/50, so they must be doing something right. Both are doing the opposite of each other – if one wears a yellow hi-vis vest, the other will wear orange. But they’ll need to differentiate themselves more, maybe not as much as the new leader of the Philippines, who wants to personally shoot people who are into drugs. Pauline Hansen has been trying her best, but that mostly involves waving at passing cars.

In fact, both sides have been helping each other. Scott Morrison examined Labor spending black hole, but created a black hole of his own within it. Ian Orbspider, professor of pedantics (Francis), believes that the black hole can only be seen by special tools, possibly such as Christopher Pyne. Tony Burke of Labor was proud to announce that Liberal party policies will be announced by the Liberal party, but it was Mathias Cormann’s accidental praise of Bill Shorten that finally got a zinger out of Bill: that Turnbull’s scare campaign was terminated.

Darius Horsham doesn’t think much of the links between Mathias and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and believes his accent is perfectly reasonable. But be aware: a Medicare rebate freeze is coming!

Barnaby Joyce proved he thinks more of animals leaving the country than arriving (ala Johnny Depp), linking it with people smuggling, but it was David Feeney who ran out of feet to shoot. Acting flustered during an interview, he forgot one policy because he’d been focusing on his previous forgetful gaff – proving there’s only so much information you can fail to take in. He then left behind confidential campaign material in the hands of the media.

Sgt Max Payne (Francis) takes a dim view of a former NSW Labor boss misusing electoral role details, especially in a low light. Threatening messages can be made with bullets or through sabotage, like using the incorrect wallpaper throughout an apartment building – it is wrong on so many levels.

Don’t forget that this election, the way you number (sequentially) the boxes (not randomly) on your white (not green) senate (not house of representatives) ballot paper has changed.

To help people determine which senate nutcases they are voting for, there will be party logos on the ballot papers. Marty Goldsmooth (Nicholas) helped guide Shaun through some of the logos, although he wasn’t very good at picking them.

We all have to live within our means, and Gareth McTrubador (Francis) helped explain trickle-down-economics by describing how more of his colleagues are required to clear up the mess created by the rich when they pour too much champagne on a tower of glasses.

What happens when some of the children in this ‘unattended creche’ act like turds? ASIC is the nanny in this analogy, but what is stopping the banks from passing on the new ASIC levy to customers? Vana Carpathian (Emily) and Leizel (Roz) from the ANZ were as helpful as always in answering Shaun’s questions, although there might be a service charge.

Later, Shaun will talk to a parent about the new “silent on the sidelines” initiative, although it may descend into violence.

Coming up after the show, an Old English Comedian’s tour of Mexican Laundromats. On ABC2, Father Brown threatens to cancel his Telstra contract due to its support of gay marriage.

Fairfax is undergoing more cuts and Cardimom Pye (Francis) doesn’t think quality will be compromised, because it is easily exchanged with quantity. Chris Lorax (Tosh) from News Corp explained they keep their head above water by reducing the text content to almost nil, matching their readers desire to read with their staff’s ability to write.

The Media Sasquatch cast its eye on Andrew Bolt’s segment on Sky, who works 70 hours a day, 7 days a week – bending the laws of time. And his $200 per editorial fee is taxed at 50%, which goes towards the very welfare he earns a living complaining about – Shaun smells a Logie!

What does Free Range mean for eggs? Fart McKaskill investigates how the new regulations discriminate against agoraphobia chickens, but could be a godsend to those who have an entire apartment building to themselves. Smaller farms can’t compete in this new free range market, but perhaps the free range asylum seeker market is more lucrative.

Finally, Malcolm might have been reduced to some awful puns during this campaign, but at least they are not as bad as Bill’s zingers.

During a sudden moon storm, a space baker is abandoned by his fellow astronauts. Talking to himself so we understand what he’s thinking, the space baker must ration a single sachet of yeast to survive.

Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity is slipping, and he could face a leadership challenge from someone more popular, like Julia Gillard (if only she was running). Bill Shorten is at minus 6 in his popularity, but if he builds on it, he could get to zero. Maybe he could bring back his zingers?

Turnbull has a strong logo to promote his coalition team, with a strong border, which suggests a lot about their attitude to people smugglers. If his team was stronger, they may have stopped the leaking of the NBN documents – certainly the AFP are still looking for the source, and they stopped by to see Tony Jones about it. Labor is very cross over their offices being raided, and have used parliamentary privilege to silence an un-named NBN employee who took photos during the raid, who Mad As Hell has called “Tangello Zapata” (Stephen). He did delete the photos as requested, but not before emailing them to his colleagues, friends and family.

Next on ABC: Joe Hockey’s Washington, Embarrassing Bodies (like the ACCC, the Australian Press Council, Climate Change Authority) and Kitchen Cabinet Extension focuses on international psychopaths.

Clive Palmer isn’t going to run for the senate, but is confident his party will still keep the bastards honest, although Jacqui Lambie is aiming to make the bastards honest. Jacqui is focusing on security, and thinks that terror suspects need to be arrested before they even commit a crime. Dolly Norman (Roz) thinks if they can do it in Minority Report, why not here?

Later in the week: a teetotaler, an intellectual, asexual academic who isn’t interested in sport and hasn’t sung to Khe Sanh – UnAustralian Story, Tuesday 8pm.

Milk. Coles are introducing a milk which will give consumers the choice to pay more to support the farmers, even though they are the ones driving down gate prices. Gamma Peedi (Emily) thinks having a brand supporting farmers is about choice, and the use of emotions such as guilt, pity, remorse and shame, even hate, to drive consumers is an avenue Coles is keen on. Their new brand, Fuck You Farmers, will be in stores soon.

The ballet paper for this election is going to look different to the last time you drew a penis and testicles on it. To help with the change, the AEC have an example paper, but the Cloud Party and Humid Party have strong opposition to the Fog/Sun Coalition, which Clancy Lanyard (Roz) thinks has a strong chance in the polls. However she couldn’t get her graphics to work, so couldn’t prove it – Kerry O’Brian would be annoyed.

Scott Morrison thinks that every time Bill Shorten’s lips move, he’s spending money, but does that count when voters lock lips with him? Michaelia Cash still holds the lip moving record.

Which party are the biggest arsehole to immigrants? The Not-That-Keen-On-Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, doesn’t think much of the Greens policy, believing immigrants are illiterate and innumerate and will take our jobs. It doesn’t say much for those they take the jobs of, not to mention that our politicians seem to be innumerate – David Feeney can’t even count the number of investment properties he has.

The campaign trail is relentless, with photo opportunity after photo opportunity and drink at a bar after drink. Did Sir Peter Cosgrove call an election or last drinks? Send your entries to this rhetorical question c/o the ABC.

The NSW electoral commission won’t give the Liberals money due to non-disclosure of election funds, so they are down by $4.4million in funds. To help out, Mad As Hell have created an ad for Ian Goodenough, member for Moore, who really is only just good enough.

Coming Soon to ABC: beauty only gets you so far in a boys club, because cleaning up a world that just got a whole lot dirtier is hard, but who ever said union smashing was ever meant to be soft? Or that a scum was ever easy to remove… Enid Swink. (not to be confused with Janet King)

News from Countries Other Than Australia: the University of East Anglia has banned the throwing of mortar boards, suggesting they should be mimed and photoshopped in – why not just mock up the entire degree and save the HECS debt! (NAILED IT!) A Boston Hospital has performed a penis transplant, but Dr Brian Appointment (Francis) insists the donor is always from a stiff, touch wood. And the mayor of a local town in New York State has been arrested for stealing 111 road signs – apparently the limit is 110.

Coming Soon to the ABC: a new take on Kitchen Cabinet, with ABC journalists visiting the homes of politicians to help out with domestic chores. It’s followed by a sense of emptiness.

Bill Duthie has the wisdom of the elders, and irrespective of the $16 million which had been promised to Cadbury last election has been diverted elsewhere, he is going to act as ambassador at the Rio Paralympics for them, throwing them to the crowd or at the athletes if he’s facing the wrong way. He has a long history in the chocolate industry, originally suggesting plastic should be put in Mars bars. He also invited Francis to stand in a bath of …. chocolate.

Turnbull is taking a leaf out of Howard’s book by saying that his government will decides who comes here, but perhaps he should have taken a leaf out of a leaf blowers mouth before he did a full rendition of We Are Australian.

Thriller in which a man wakes to discover that his left kidney has been removed & replaced with a nuclear bomb set to go off at 1800 hours, exactly when he’s supposed to be at his son’s school concert.

At the house of an average family, a doorknocker arrives collecting for the ABC – the triennial funding has fallen through, and the tin is being rattled. Why pay for something that’s free? For all the panel shows where people talk about various things? Or a bit of drama with men who have beards and maybe a lesbian? If it’s satire you want – look for Mad As Hell, it’s like a comedy version of The Weekly.

The battle lines have been drawn for the reckoning (ie. the election), and with 45 days still to go, there has been a debate at an western suburbs RSL. Everybody of course watched the debate, no more so than Larry & Evagnie Sideburns, although they couldn’t hear it over the pokies. Bill Shorten was declared the winner, and it was due to his experience with his 20 second (or 22nd) town hall meetings. He’s also a man of people, not worrying about complicated word-talkage, making him very relatable.

Spore Cut (Roz), an extraordinarily average voter, likes that Bill drinks beer, because she does, so naturally she likes him, and he’s only dull when you actually listen to the way he’s talking. He’s not over-promising either, fighting for ‘reasonable’ conditions and ultimately for the election – will he defeat it, or will he defeat the government and not the election? Send your entries to… never mind.

“Who are you?” is how people are greeting Malcolm Turnbull, while Peta Credlin prefers “Mr Harbourside-mansion”. It’s been a tough week for him, with many issues requiring his attention, including having to refute Labor’s claim that increasing education funding improves productivity, by saying the impact won’t be felt till 2095.

Matias Korman got very “riled up” at Bill’s assertions, although his “animated” response was snore inducing. Darius Horsham (Stephen) helped clarify the issues, asserting that jobs and growth should be the focus of the election – although unpaid internships count as jobs, and most of the interest in growing the economy through cheap labour has come from 7 Eleven.

Davey Plumb (Tosh), disgraced financial adviser, thinks that its fine companies like Wilson Security can claim 1% tax by shifting their profits to an offshore tax haven, since they shift asylum seekers to offshore detention. He also clarified tax evasion vs avoidance: you can evade a question during an interview, but to avoid it you just don’t turn up.

Coming soon to the ABC: one woman, 16 deputy commissioners, $150 million dollars to fund a royal commission into the building industry. Enid Swink.

Offshore processing is receiving a lot of bi-partisan “meh”, and Cluck Flapwurst (Roz) from the Labor party says her party are just pretending to be in-humane to the asylum seekers to stop people from arriving, but they will be less in-humane than the government is. M3rglin (Stephen… ish), spokesperson for the Immigration Minister, is committed to pretending that asylum seekers pose a threat to national security – it’s a much stronger message to the voters. Sebastian Munge (Francis), an accountant, is suggesting we negatively gear the recently freed asylum seekers on Manus Island – it’s not refugee evasion, it is refugee avoidance.

This opened up the MadAsDebate topic of negative gearing of property, and Fabiona Bastion (Emily), a Liberal voter, has negatively geared a rental property so that essentially her 8 year old daughter is a landlord. If abolishing negative gearing will reduce her rent, she’s voting Labor. Caspar Jonquil has his own opinions, but a lightening strike and a few pianos put him out of his misery.

News from Countries other than Australia is brought to you by the Colour Me Canberra colouring book. The newly crowned oldest woman in the world has said the secret to her success is the previous record holder dying. The CSIRO is closing its ice lab in Antarctica, and good thing too – the crystal meth trade is more efficient when you cut out the middle penguin. The Unaoil scandal has so far not claimed any Australian scalps, as according to Commissioner Max Payne (Francis) from the Australian Federal Police, they have employed their non-pursuit policy – mainly because it’s too hard. And Japan is planning to launch an invisible train, which Shaun thinks might be a good idea for Turnbull’s smart cities plan – although he can’t see it happening.

The true story of cooking them just right: The Making of an Anzac (biscuit), Sunday 3:30pm

Shaun thinks the Apex gang who have terrorised the streets of Melbourne get only painted in a negative light – but what about the positive aspects of the Apex (Clubs of Australia): helping the homeless, holding community BBQ’s…

Dolly Levi (Emily), matchmaker, thinks that the Greens and Labor are destined for each other, and that they each protest too much, despite feeble attempts by the Greens to flirt with their rivals, the Liberals.

Maggie Bathysphere is waiting at the Rio stadium ahead of the Olympics, where new sports like bareback skeet shooting, involuntary diving, capsicum spray dodging, witch hat hurling, the burning of infected uniforms and the 100m dysentery are all being trialed.

Effigy quality is an important thing. Maureen Shostakovich (Roz) is an effigy maker, and believes it is very important the effigy looks like the intended target. She tries to make them as flammable as possible, using the stuffing from toys made in China. Once Maureen made an effigy of Kevin Rudd, and he was so vain he posed for it/ However it was too realistic, and the organisers got confused and set fire to the real Kevin – luckily he’s his own retardant.

Finally, there is an increase in obesity in children, but the silver lining is that it will mean more Biggest Loser contestants. Shaun doesn’t agree that The Biggest Loser is all about humiliating people for our entertainment – if you’ve ever watched it, you’ll know it isn’t entertainment.

Let’s see how we go with bringing back the recaps….

To raise money for charity the San Antonio Spurs basketball team is miniaturised, injected into Iggy Pop’s head & given just 60 minutes to find five living brain cells which it can challenge to a game of ‘hoops’.

The Abbott statue has been overturned, and there’s 52 sleeps (or 54 if they do a couple of debates) until the election. Shaun wasn’t sure that he was Mad As Hell, not Glad As Hell, but perhaps Sad As Hell, especially about those whinging about the election. Moof Pupper, lecturer at Box Hill Tafe, disagreed with the Stephen Conroy’s assertion that Sir John Kerr’s ghost would be turning at his grave over the double-dissolution – crawling perhaps.

Shaun is going to miss some casualties of this election, like Clive Palmer, who’s easy to call an idiot (just add the caption “Idiot” to any photo of him) and Ricky Muir, who is great at describing when a gun doesn’t go off. Sophie Mirabella is likely to lose her seat even more, with her bold strategy of encouraging people to vote for you by not telling them what you’re going to do for them until after they haven’t voted for you. Gorg Van Der McKenzie from The Institute of Whoever is Providing the Funding thinks that the strain on Wangaratta Hospital was eased when people felt less sick when Ms Mirabella didn’t win, so there was no need to fund it.

Shaun’s really going to miss the old Bill, who is doing “no more zingers” – imagine how that makes Shaun feel! As Shaun is an expert on comic timing (he was Fabio), he felt he could judge Jason Clare’s zinger attempts, but they’re shithouse compared to Bill. Bill has however been employing a vocal coach, even though it may mean he turns up sound like a Nepalese musician, or Ian Macfarlane.

On the topic of Malcolm Turnbull, Shaun likes him, and hopes he wins the next election, and will do everything he can to make him look good. ABC viewers are a whiney lot, complaining about the poor use of their 8c a day, and Shaun is unapologetic about his biased respect for Malcolm. (His Malcolm rant should be shared on Facebook, as the ABC loves that shit.)

On Father Brown this week, another priest is going around shooting people, and despite all the evidence, Father Brown recalls nothing of the incident and promptly moves the priest to another parish – mystery solved.

The federal budget has been digested, but Financy Boy can’t be the one to present it due to editorial policy, so Wilhemena Diiferent did – looking at Febu / Fudget / Debudget, and its benefits for CEO’s and Bankers.

The budget has brought Malcolm and Scott Morrison together, and they are using tax to discourage people from doing certain activities – according to Draymella Burt, this includes smoking, eating (consumption tax), earning income (income tax) and leaving (departure tax).

War is still Hell, and the government is spending a lot of budget money on submarines. Rear Admiral Bob Gargle thinks it is money well spent, and that it’s not politically motivated – “There’s no reason to stuff more pork in the barrel than you need… if you catch my drift.” Dr Eldon Tyrell thinks you can’t make the existing Collins class last longer – “it’s a little out of my jurisdiction”. Bobo says the Collins class has a good range – 3 octaves to be precise. You can hear them from quite a distance – and they go all the way to high C (high sea – geddit?) And despite Bobo wanting a limited release of the Kraken, the ABC had left the poor Kraken in his cupboard for a year, and he’d wasted away to his skeleton (impossible for a cephalopod).

Next on ABC: Farmer wants a Chinese Investor, Bob’s Deeply Personal Journey, and Over-Correcting the Perception of Bias – a full night’s viewing!

There’s plans for a nuclear waste dump on the property of an ex-Liberal MP, which is one hell of a parting gift. But speaking of sport, its sport, and the sport of banking is one Australia would win. Zenzy (Hawke Screech) reported on how stupidly bankers allowed people like the Macallisters to over extend themselves to audacious levels, and how unscrupulous brokers like Davey Plumb rorted them all, easily and proudly. And the Australian government is only repeating them same mistakes.

To wrap up, Shaun feels that Lee Lin Chin was robbed of the Gold Logie – she’s the only one gutsy enough to say penises on TV.