acting in a great many of the shows sketches,
and even producing the show itself. His time at
Australia and by 1989 had his own TV Sitcom
based on his brand of Wog-humour that ran
for 5 seasons.
comedy fans, particularly his dodgy Indian rug
constantly claimed he was closing down or
some great misfortune had befallen him and
as a result it was a great time to take him up
Wog-Humourist, that allowed others of nonwhite Australian heritage to take inspiration
and enter the comedy world.
with the very camp airline stewards characters
he portrayed alongside Michael Veitch ensured
Whilst we can’t say for certain that Paul
future Australian comedians.
from ‘Acropolis Now’, the similarities between
the two shows are uncanny, as both were
sitcoms involving members of the multicultural
produce a late night variety TV show.
and ‘Acropolis Now’ was set in a café.
So in 1990, with only weeks to put a show
Dave Letterman show, (which was unseen in
Australia at the time) and went to air. Although
revealed he had ripped off the Letterman show,
(only after Channel 9 started screening the
Letterman show to Australian audiences), he
still produced a hugely popular and enjoyable
Live late night variety show that ran for 4 years
and consistently outrated anything put against it.
ground, as surely TV exec’s would have
considered the popularity and similarity of
‘Acropolis Now’ when green-lighting the new
both took to poking fun at themselves and the
brings us back to that great underpinning
formula of successful Australian Comedy, that
is the ability to laugh at ourselves.
started out in similar fashion in the early 2000’s
with his self titled Tonight-Live style TV show,
Up until the 1980’s it was rare to see any comedy
poking fun at the migrant community, that was
show, ‘Wogs Out of Work’, which was actually
named after the fact that as a aspiring actor
and comedian of Greek heritage he and his
contemporaries of similar backgrounds found it
so wildly popular that he took it on tour across
Unfortunately these days to see great comedy
of the sketch, character and even multicultural
nature you need to get out more to the stage
shows as reality TV has continued to remain
wildly popular. Today’s TV executives seem to
on yet another singing competition (seriously,
how many pop-stars do we need?), renovation
competition or cook-off than have good belly
an excellent opportunity right now for some
talented and suitably inspired comedians to
bring back some great Australian laughs to
our screens.