The Comedy Company

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The Comedy Company logo.

The Comedy Company was an Australian comedy television series first aired from 16 February 1988 - 11 November 1990 on Network Ten, Sunday night and was created and directed by Ian McFadyen, and co directed and produced by Jo Lane. The show largely consisted of sketch comedy in short segments, much in the tradition of earlier Sketch comedy shows, The Mavis Bramston Show, The Naked Vicar Show, Australia You're Standing In It, and The D-Generation with some of the cast even carrying over. All filming took place in Melbourne, Victoria. The show had a significant effect on Australian culture, particularly on Australian youth. The Australian adoption of the word "Bogan" was first used in its existing context by the famous The Comedy Company character, Kylie Mole.

1 Background
2 Critical acclaim
3 Notable characters
4 Writers
5 DVD
6 See also
7 External link

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Background

Col'n Carpenter

Kylie Mole.

Con the Fruiterer.

In 1988 the Media Arts company was asked by Network Ten Australia to produce a one hour-a-week comedy program. Within a few months, The Comedy Company became the most successful comedy program of the decade being the highest rated weekly television program, particularly of note it ran against the Nine Network popular current events show 60 Minutes which shared its timeslot. Much of its success was due to it being the only thing on television on Sunday night that appealed to children. The Comedy Company remained the consistently highest rating weekly television program for two years.

Many of the stars of The Comedy Company came from a 1985 Seven Network show called The Eleventh Hour, which starred Maryanne Fahey, Ian McFadyen, Mark Mitchell, Glenn Robbins, Peter Moon and Steve Vizard. Fahey, McFadyen, Mitchell and Robbins went to The Comedy Company and Moon and Vizard went to a Seven Network series called Fast Forward.

The Comedy Company premiered many famous characters such as Kylie Mole, Con The Fruiterer, Colin Carpenter and Uncle Arthur. Some of these characters still remain minor Australian icons. Particularly Con The Fruiterer played by Mark Mitchell. Con The Friuterer even met (The then P.M) Bob Hawke, on the show. Con the Fruiterer appears even to this day on a variety of shows. Kym Gyngell also created a spin off series called Col'n Carpenter (1990-1991) based on his character of the same name. Notably, Glenn Robbins often did public appearances as Uncle Arthur and today on the show The Panel often references his days on The Comedy Company playing the character and has been known to slip in and out of character.

Some memroble In 2002, 60 minutes of footage of The Comedy Company was edited into a special called The Comedy Company: So Excellent, with the subtitle referencing a famed line by the Kylie Mole character.

Quite a large amount of merchandise was produced for a sketch comedy series, such as a flood of spin-off books and audio cassettes and records with extracts from the series, and lunch boxes featuring Kylie Mole and T-Shirts with Con the Fruiterer displaying his famous catch phrase "Couple a Days..".

Kylie Mole had a top 10 hit with So Exellent in 1988.

Kylie Mole also met Julian Lennon on the show.

The Comedy Company is now in re-runs.

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Critical acclaim

The series won itself quite a large number of awards, however of most note is the two consecutive Logie Awards (1989 - 1990) it received for Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Program.
Mary-Anne Fahey also won a Logie Award for Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Personality for her appearance on The Comedy Company in 1989.

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Notable characters

Mark Mitchell as Con Dikaletis the Fruiterer/Stuart Parkington-Loafe/Marika Dikaletis
Mary-Anne Fahey as Kylie Mole, Josephine, Sharon
Ian McFadyen as David Rabbitborough
Glenn Robbins as Uncle Arthur/Gary Dare, Darren
Kym Gyngell as Col'n Carpenter
Russell Gilbert as Russ the Postie

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