Five Forgotten Moments From ‘The Chaser’s War On Everything’
Because you might only remember the lawsuits.
This week we’re celebrating the very best of Australian TV. You can check out our list of The 60 Greatest Australian TV Shows Of All Time right here.
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Gather around children and let me tell you about life before Netflix and content on demand. About how on Wednesdays the TV liftout would be printed in the newspaper and your schedule would centre around what day your favourite show was on. How you’d need to choose whether this week’s Supernatural would be worth taping over the episode of The O.C. where Summer and Seth finally get back together.
The year was 2006, my phone could store a maximum of 50 text messages, my idea of a good night out was staying in and curating what kool muzix showed up on MSN, and The Chaser’s War on Everything was new to our screens.
Heavy on pranks and light on qualms, there is no way that the same show could possibly exist now: smartphones, Facebook and YouTube have made everything much more immediate, and a social commentary show like War on Everything, which takes time, effort and organisation to execute, would in the present day, show up a day late and a dollar short. But it was very good when it lasted.
It ran for three seasons and each episode viewed with the distance of years, acts as a kind of time capsule. The show holds up, strangely, despite being so tethered to time and place. The Chaser’s War on Everything provided a political in for a lot of people who might not otherwise have engaged with the issues that the show shone a light on.
Over three seasons there were some very memorable and controversial moments. There were ones that led to lawsuits, such as when Chas Licciardello sold fake weapons to Bulldogs fans outside a football match, and when Julian Morrow and Licciardello accidentally crashed much further into the APEC Leaders Summit than originally intended. Then there was the ‘Make a Realistic Wish Foundation’ sketch which brought a lot of negative media attention. Oh, and there was that one time they chased after John Howard with a chainsaw.
The big moments still get a lot of mileage, but it’s the smaller, more forgotten pranks which best demonstrate the social commentary and the weirdness of early 2000s Australia. Here are the top five oft sidelined moments, for better or worse, of The Chaser’s War on Everything doing what it does best: highlighting issues of the time, causing controversy, pushing through boundaries, and answering questions we didn’t know we needed answered:
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1. Shopping while wearing a stocking over your face.
Fashion is a personal statement, and in this sketch, Chris Taylor wilfully misinterprets the “stock” in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” as he “tries” to turn the trope of only-burglars-wear-stockings-over-their-faces on its head. What ensues is, predictably, a whole lot of freaked out store clerks and not a lot of capitalism in motion.
What’s the underlying message: The customer isn’t always right. Also, assumptions die a hard death, and we all make judgements based on appearance.
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2. Smuggling various meats into Big Day Out.
In an attempt to stamp out drugs at festivals there was an amped up police presence at Big Day Out. In response, Licciardello decides to try and attend the event with a butcher’s store worth of meat hidden about his person. With mince under his hat, a steak in the small of his back and a string of sausages tucked down his front, he barely makes it two metres before a friendly dog becomes very interested.
The underlying message: That having a gang of police waiting to pounce on people at the entrance may not be the most effective drug safety measure. Also: sniffer dogs like meat. Who knew!
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3. Using a Trojan horse to smuggle people into places.
Despite being one of the most famous classic stories of infiltration and battle, a combination of politeness and perhaps modern day complacency meant that the Chaser team were able to drop off and leave a Trojan horse at Royal Randwick Racecourse, Channel Nine, the History Faculty at Sydney University, Sydney Opera House and the Army Headquarters Land Command. The Turkish Consulate however wasn’t having a bar of it.
The underlying message: History is bound to repeat. Particularly if you show up with a camera crew.
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4. Cracked pepper on your underpants.
In one of the greatest explorations of a minor gripe, Chris Taylor bemoans how meals at restaurants are regularly interrupted by wait staff asking if you would like cracked pepper, and wonders what wold happen if this was offered in other places. He then embarks on an odyssey across town, offering to add cracked pepper to people’s beers and clothing.
The underlying message: Um, people will say yes to you adding cracked pepper just to make you go away? Pretty sure this one was less zeitgeisty and just 100 precent silly.
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5. “I am thesaurus.”
Andrew Hansen’s musical numbers were one of the highlights of the show. In this ode to synonyms the team combines verbosity with The Beatles and to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Roget’s Thesaurus.
The underlying message: Fine, this one isn’t tethered to a bigger social issue, but it will certainly increase your ordering power for eggs on toast.
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Elizabeth Flux is a freelance writer and editor with a focus on film and pop culture. She previously edited Voiceworks magazine, and her work has been published in The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, Metro,Film Ink and more. She tweets terrible puns @ElizabethFlux.