The Ronnie Johns Half Hour
The Ronnie Johns Half Hour was an Australian sketch comedy show produced by Jigsaw Entertainment and the Ten Network, which premiered in October 2005. The cast of the show came from a series of stage shows called The 3rd Degree.
Background and production
The cast of the show came from a series of stage shows called The 3rd Degree, the first shows of which were co-produced by John Pinder, and also Laughing Stock Productions, which featured selections from Australian university revues, and consists of Heath Franklin, Jordan Raskopoulos, Dan Ilic, Felicity Ward, James Pender, Caroline Fitzgerald, and Becci Gage. Gage only appeared as a supporting cast member in the first series but has a more significant role in the second. Chris McDonald, creator and producer of The 3rd Degree stage shows, acts as the show's head writer and co-producer. Nikos Andronicos and Justin Heazlewood are credited as non-performing writers.From 2006 The 3rd Degree worked on solo projects, notably Heath Franklin as Chopper and Jordan Raskopoulos in The Axis of Awesome. The first and second series are available on DVD and are distributed through Sony.
The Ronnie Johns Half Hour was created after representatives from Channel 10 saw a performance of The 3rd Degree's stage show, and were impressed by the cast and characters. They offered the group the chance to film a pilot. Originally, the cast was going to call the show The 3rd Degree, after the name of their performance group. Channel 10, however, liked the idea of Ronnie Johns being the host, so they asked if the show could be renamed after him. In response, The 3rd Degree came up with a title that they felt was ridiculously long, The Ronnie Johns Good Times Campfire Jamboree Half Hour Show . The network shortened it to The Ronnie Johns Half Hour. Despite this, the writers, cast and prop designers try to sneak in The 3rd Degree's logo as much as possible in sketches. For example, football jerseys will have The 3rd Degree as their sponsor.
Release
The first season of The Ronnie Johns Half Hour ran for 13 episodes. The first six aired from October 2005 and the remaining seven aired from February 2006. The first series began airing in New Zealand on the C4 Network from 25 July. The second series began airing on 17 August 2006 at 9pm on channel 10, and is 13 episodes in length.Recurring characters
As well as many stand-alone sketches, The Ronnie Johns Half Hour features a number of characters who have appeared in multiple episodes.Ronnie Johns
The title character of the show, Ronnie Johns is the "comedy cowboy"; he rides upon the "Good Taste Pony". Ronnie appears in the opening and closing scenes of the show, as well as occasionally interjecting between sketches, commenting on them and warning the audience about potential bad taste. He has a slight obsession with prairie dogs.Paulie
Paulie, a young man of unknown Mediterranean heritage, dressed in a green-and-pink striped polo shirt, confronts various people to complain about what might be termed pedantic issues. For example, in his first appearance, he explains to a cashier at a store that gnocchi is actually made of potatoes, and should not be placed in the pasta aisle. Other complaints he made included wanting to change the nickname of the Australian soccer team because a "socceroo" is not a real animal, and that George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is "incorrect" because its events did not occur in 1984. In a more recent episode, Paulie confronts the owner of an Adult Sex shop telling him that the "edible undies" should have a nutritional value printed on the box, just in case a vegan is starving to death and needs to know that there is no beef in them. At the end of each sketch Paulie recommends that the problem be solved by putting a sticker on the offending object, and assures the target of his complaint that "I've got my eye on youse". Perhaps to prove a point, the scenarios are often shown later on in the episode.On the Season 1 finale, it was revealed that Paulie's campaign against gnocchi began when his parents both ordered it at a restaurant, thinking it was pasta, and died from potato allergies.
Poppy
Poppy is depicted as a small, innocent girl, who asks a stranger if they would like to look at her picture book. The book contains pictures of often controversial issues such as the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse or the Ku Klux Klan, but Poppy's narration describes them more naively, suggesting they are, for example, performing acrobatics routines or playing dress-ups.Her parents are drug addicts while her father is a Vietnam veteran and has an older brother who is homosexual, an older teenage sister who is pregnant, an uncle with a mail-order bride and has a gambling addiction which sends him homeless and a grandfather who is a WW II veteran. Like Paulie, events from past episodes and sketches sometimes occur again at a later date.
Gary and Gary
Gary and Gary are two stereotypical English backpackers with an obsession for the TV soap opera Neighbours, particularly for the character of Toadfish Rebecchi. Whilst backpacking through Australia they grow quite bored of the sights and often complain about everything. However, almost all of the sketches quickly lead to them relieving their boredom by indulging in their favourite pastime of kicking each other in the "janglies" - each takes turn to kick the other between the legs. This is the main example of faux English slang which the characters habitually use. Towards the end of the series an American backpacker, Chuck, joined the duo. The Garys shifted from only complaining about Australia to also making fun of Chuck and his country of origin.The 3rd Degree did not have permission to shoot some of the Gary and Gary sketches, so they went to the location and filmed the sketches in front of the public.
Chopper Read
One of the few depictions of a real person, the infamous criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read appears as a special guest in various incongruous situations, such as reading a story for children a la Play School or calling numbers for bingo. Much of the humour in Chopper's segments derives from his penchants for swearing and violence, as well as his lack of education, as demonstrated in the bingo sketch where he points out "I can't even fuckin' count, and I'm gonna host bingo! It's just like bloody dingo but it's safer with your kids, isn't it?". Chopper also makes many threatening statements directed at Neville Bartos, a character based on a real person who the real Chopper allegedly shot before going to prison, but with whom Chopper is now good friends. Franklin's portrayal of Read is as much based on the real Chopper as it is on Eric Bana's take on the man as portrayed in the 2000 Andrew Dominik film of the same name.In the second season, rather than Chopper having a new job every week, the sketches are set in his apartment. In one episode Chopper introduces a Puppet version of himself, "Mini-Chopper", and teaches children about "Stranger Danger". In a later sketch he sings nursery rhymes. In another episode aired in an earlier timeslot, he mentioned that due to TV censorship laws he was restricted to saying the word fuck 15 times per episode, and after exceeding the 15-word limit, the word was bleeped from thereon.
The sketch where Chopper presents the weather became something of a phenomenon on the internet, with people all over Australia forwarding the clip on to other people. Heath Franklin even had the sketch sent to him, which he found amusing.
The real Chopper, in a TV interview, praised Franklin's comedic impression of him.
Social Suicide Bomber
The Social Suicide Bomber is an awkward-looking man in a burgundy blazer and salmon-pink shirt who is summoned by people who are stuck in unpleasant social situations - such as an unattractive man flirting with a woman who does not want that kind of attention - by pressing a large red button. He drives away the unwanted person with banal comments or bizarre actions, like demonstrating his pterodactyl impersonation. Unfortunately, with that person gone, the Social Suicide Bomber then often turns his sights to the person who called him, creating a situation that was more awkward than the one to begin with.The Nihilists
Simon, Gretchen and Sigmund are a trio of apathetic Germans who dress in black and speak in monotonous voices. They appear in places that are usually the source of happy, bubbly personalities, like children's TV shows, aerobics shows, or as replacements for a department store Santa, and frequently make comments on the meaninglessness and futility of life, love and other endeavours.Gretchen is shown to be harbouring much aggression, and frequently has small outbursts of anger, and it is also shown her birthday is on the same day as Simon's. The Nihilists are based on characters that appeared in a Macquarie University comedy revue.
The Nihilist sketch "Sigfeld" is a parody of Seinfeld where the trio act similar to Seinfeld while remaining in nihilistic character.