Culture

Please Enjoy Tonightly’s Hilarious, Perfect Tribute To Goon

"Dance like no one is watching. Wake up in a gutter. Get an STI check."

by Max Koslowski  20 December 2017

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“What fuels you? What fuels your passion for life? What fuels me? Goon.”

That’s how Tonightly With Tom Ballard starts off its great segment on the classic Aussie drink. As actor and writer Bridie Connell says these lines, a montage of inspirational footage is rolling as that really profound, sad piano music plays in the background.

And when a scene of an awkward-looking date kicks off, Connell’s dramatic voice narrates:

“Fall in love on a first date. Dance like no one is watching. Wake up in a gutter. Get an STI check.

“Make some memories… and then forget them.”

The video actually comes with a message: we aren’t buying as much goon as we used to. According to BWS, goon sales have been going down by about five percent each year.

To make yourself feel better about that disturbing fact, check out the full video here:

Connell has started off her stint at Tonightly superbly — she appeared in the recent Tonightly sketch called ‘Literally Everything: The Tonightly Christmas Single‘, which took on the charity Christmas single genre and was an absolute riot.

No wonder she’s so good — Connell is a theatresports diehard. She was a NSW and National Theatresports Champion, and reached the finals of the World Theatresports Championship (of course there is a World Theatresports Championship).

Tom Ballard spoke to Junkee last week, ahead of the release of the Christmas single. He told us he was aiming for the show to land somewhere in between The Daily Show and Colbert. 

“I’m not saying that Tonightly is better than those shows, but also we don’t have ads, so…”

He said that the messy ridiculousness of his nightly half-hour show was intense – but that was what made it exciting.

“I like how loose it is,” he said. “You kind of have to lean in to the chaos.”

The show is also trying to make its name in political comedy — in one segment, Ballard rolls down the Parliament House hill with Sarah Hanson-Young tries to scare Eric Abetz.

In another (called Gardening with Greta), the show tackled the many allegations of sexual misconduct that have been levelled against Don Burke.

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Tonightly airs weeknights at 9pm on ABC Comedy.