To start off: Full Frontal is neither innovative, nor ultra-funny, nor super-sophisticated... in fact the show can be seen as a rip off of many formats that have preceded.
But there is one thing that makes it original: it's Australian - to the core!
Yes, you're reading right, I'm Austrian, not Australian, and I picked up this show when I visited this lovely country in the mid-1990'ies. I wasn't that impressed when I first saw it but I smelled a certain irony in the air which charmingly dropped from the grid of rather generic jokes. This irony mirrors the development of the country's national identity in many ways.
Reflecting current issues and making fun of it, add the Australian spirit to the whole thing - it became rather understandable to me how most Australians actually tick. And after some episodes I didn't just like it - I ended up loving it.
Full Frontal particularly shines with reoccurring topics such as Milo Kerrigan, David McGahan's World, The Netty Show, Fabio's Love Tips or stupid commercials (which most likely mock an ad recently on TV) which gave the characters depth and room for a little bit of unpredictability. At the same time it had a solid balance between outback-slapstick-humor and taking a charming poke at politics. Every show is basically the same: you, the viewer, are switching through TV channels for 42min - what you are about to see is obviously odd but somehow related to what people really encounter in their daily program - so the makers suggest that everything on TV is stupid.
This show was the cradle for many great careers of the participating actors, at he head Eric Bana and Shaun Micallef. It was definitely the chemistry between all these incredibly creative and versatile people that made this show so special. Full Frontal is with no doubt a chronicle of Australian humor history, not only because it was so extensive, it also never struggled or aspired to be a historical gemstone but by doing what they wanted that's what it became.
Definitely worth a peek!!!
