I could see how a lot of viewers would be utterly appalled by this crude, rude comedy. Full of F words, bongs, debauchery, drugs, dole bludgers, street riots, trashing police cars, burning government buildings...this is normal life in the fictional Sunnyvale. But underneath it all, there is some merit to it. Absolutely everyone is sent up, from Frankie's Maltese background, to pokies loving elderly people, Lebanese mothers in burqas, dwarf bikies, heroin addicts, eastern suburbs TV reporters, inept police, Centrelink staff and Aussie dole bludgers. All these characters are not only sent up, they're often bashed and humiliated. It's not a pretty show, but you can't look away, and there are some genuinely funny scenes. And the show does take risks. Kids, for example, aren't depicted as sweet, rascally moppets. They get tasered, they're left home alone, they're shunted around as part of scams to get the adults more social welfare benefits, or left outside the pub while their parents get drunk. In one episode, a gang of kids sets fire to a neighbour's house. It's not pretty, but many of the plots are not outside the realms of real life possibility. Housos does go totally over the top, often, but it does have some value and it can be really funny.
