Thank The Lord For Your Presence # 3

Okay, as much as I may like Fifi Box on The Shebang and think she did an ace job in the first episode of Thank God You're Here (TGYH), I think she's been on the show enough now. Her last two weeks haven't been as strong or impressive as her first week, which now has me wondering if it was "beginner's luck" or an inspired fluke, rather than it revealing that she's a more talented comedienne than she is generally portrayed as being (courtesy of her on-air personality). I trust that three appearances is the show's total for any of the guest stars, and that we won't be seeing her again.

Frank Woodley was good again (but was still just being himself), and I was surprised to see Glenn Robbins wasn't as witty and hilarious as I'd (perhaps unfairly) expected him to be. He was very good; but not as thigh-slappingly brilliant as I'd been going on about the other day.

Akmal Saleh was very funny, too, but all the stand-up routines I've seen of his have been 'quality', so it was no surprise there. I was happy enough with him winning the night; although I didn't feel there was anything stand-out about any of the performances.

Hey, don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of the show and will continue to love it (I'm not going cold on the idea or anything), but I guess I'd hoped for one of them to be more spectacular than they were. Glenn seemed not be moving too slowly in his scene, and that didn't allow for him to make great use of the answering machine gags (in particular) before the actress in the scene with him had to move it along to the next set-up.

I have to say it again, though - and even more angrily than before. Those cuts to Tom Gleisner for his pre-prepared "special comments" as a completely irrelevant, unnecessary and redundant 'judge' (the words 'irrelevant' and 'unnecessary' were redundant from this sentence, but that's just how mad it makes me) just UTTERLY DESTROYS THE SHOW. It brings down the mood after the scene is finished, and makes the viewing audience cring with his absolutely crap delivery of lame 'Dad jokes' that have been written beforehand, made to look as if he has some kind of humorous-psychological edge over the contestants. What's the flippin' point? Why even have a winner? But if someone must 'win', Shane Bourne could do that without having to make pathetic moment-stalling gags (and it'd give his role more substance while we're at it, too).

If we didn't have to sit through Tom's judging comments, we could have an extra 60 seconds or so of each scene - time which is precious enough already and would only add to our enjoyment of the show.

I've never had much of a problem with Gleisner before now (hell, Spankk and I even interviewed him for a school assignment in Year 10), but his contribution to this show is really pissing me off. He does nothing but spoil the mood. Get rid of him.

(Problem is, who's going to tell one of the four executive producers to get lost? Maybe the people involved with another of Network Ten's shows, Neighbours, who purportedly check this blog periodically, could drop a note in Gleisner's pigeonhole at the office??)

Speaking of Neighbours, I'm sure we all noticed that no other stars from the soap appeared as ensemble cast members on TGYH this week. I wonder what was so special about last week that they had two on for that episode only?

It has also come to my attention recently that one of the regular ensemble cast members, Ed Kavalee (known on IMDb.com as Ed Hyland-Kavalee) is the guy who does the funny voices on Triple M's new 9am - 10am weekday morning show, Get This. The host of Get This is Tony Martin, who was one of those I was hoping would appear on TGYH. All this to say that the link between Tony Martin and TGYH already exists with Ed, so I'm relieved to hear that, as I assume it's just a matter of time before we see Tony up there, having a go at bluffing his way through a scene or two (at least I hope so).

As for who next Wednesday's guest star contestants will be, there has still been no appearance by Robyn Butler, despite her being in the promos before the first episode aired. Do I dare keep expecting her to appear in each episode until I'm finally right? (Yes; I dare.)

Just as long as the show's special guests don't include this woman. And no, I will NOT back off and leave her alone, Anonymous! Judith Lucy is worse than Gleisner with the crap jokes and the single, overly-done 'angle' of her humour (men are crap! *annoying-intake-of-breath noise*). Hopefully the producers managed to get Arj Barker while he was in town recently doing a tour (he's still here in fact, but they've obviously filmed these things a while ago, so I hope he was here in time to get involved). I think Arj is hilarious and would do a great job!

We're still waiting on Santo Cilauro to appear on the show, too. Any day now.* And if they're going to put him on, they might as well put Rob Sitch up there too. As long as he doesn't stray too much into private jokes and whatever makes him giggle, like he used to on The Late Show. The other cast members always had to bring him back to point, but it was still funny to watch. I don't know how they'd manage it, though, with both Cilauro and Sitch two of the writers and producers - but if they plan to do it with Cilauro (and remembering that they did it in this episode with Creative Consultant Glenn Robbins), then they can do it with Sitch as well.



* My tip's a Wednesday.


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Today is ANZAC Day. It's thanks to the brave 'diggers' of yesteryear and their selfless sacrifice, that we can enjoy the liberties and freedom we do today. I have complete respect for the ANZACs and their families. I tip my imaginary hat to them this morning, and hope we can all stop and remember them at some point during these 24 hours.

Thank the Lord for their presence.


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