The Chaser
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The Chaser is a satirical Australian enterprise, most famous for their television programmes on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The Chaser originated as a satirical newspaper which was known to push the limits as to what they publish and for "striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence". The original core of The Chaser team were the founding editors of the newspaper: Charles Firth, Dominic Knight, Julian Morrow and Craig Reucassel who all came from the University of Sydney. They were later joined by Chas Licciardello, Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen. James Edwards designed The Chaser logo and is the Video Editor of the current television series.
Other founding contributors to the team include Gregor Stronach, Johanna Featherstone, Sholto Macpherson, David Stewart and Arion McNicol. Later contributors include Kara Greiner, Richard Cooke, Shane Cubis and Tim Brunero. Cartoonists Fiona Katauskas and Andrew Weldon drew for the newspaper from its early days.
The newspaper, first published in 1999, was The Chaser team's most famous (or infamous) enterprise. Among other things, they have published Australian Prime Minister John Howard's private, unlisted home phone number on their front page, which caused wide controversy. Apparently the phone number was sent to one of the writers by SMS and they sat on it for a while, until the opportunity to use it came up when John Howard ignored anti-war protests. The Chaser only had a limited fan base, with the average sales numbers per issue well under 30,000. But when their newspaper was shown as a lead story in all major Australian news broadcasts, not only was the headline widely spread, but the concept and the popularity of the newspaper leaped dramatically.
The Chaser team have gone on to create the ABC TV Logie Award winning show, CNNNN; Election specials The Election Chaser and The Chaser Decides; in 2005 CNA, Chaser News Alerts, aired on ABC2, episodes of this series were only 4 minutes long; as well as the Triple J radio drive programme, Today Today, and their newest television show, The Chaser's War on Everything. CNNNN was a satire of not only the popular news network CNN, but it also cleverly incorporated Australian and World current affairs into the programme. The Election Chaser was the team's coverage of the Australian Federal Elections of 2001; in 2004 a similar programme covering the 2004 election entitled The Chaser Decides was aired. The coverage, as with all the Chaser productions, was satirical, but a different view on the way the election was covered by the local media.
Another coup by The Chaser team involved the award ceremony for Australian Television, the Logies. The top award presented - the Gold Logie - is decided by a popular vote. Due to the small level of voting (restricted only to readers of the magazine TV Week), the Chaser team encouraged all their readers to vote for little known SBS news reader Anton Enus for the award. According to reports the ploy was only just unsuccessful.
The Chaser has also published an annual each year since 2001 featuring many articles and columns from the newspaper.
In 2005, production of the paper was wound down due to lack of profitability, as well as to ease the demands on the writers. The Chaser team did however announce that they will be concentrating on other forms of media in the future. The Chaser is still published in electronic form on its web site [link], with some sections open only to paying subscribers.
Cirque du Chaser
In March 2005 as part of the Sydney Big Laugh comedy festival [link], The Chaser team launched an 85-minute stage show named 'Cirque du Chaser' (the name is a parody of Cirque du Soleil) to sellout audiences. It was originally intended to have seven shows, but due to popular demand an eighth show was added at short notice. The show contained similar material to the Chaser's TV shows including political satire and humorous commentary on topical events.Cirque du Chaser also appeared at the Adelaide cabaret festival [link] in June 2005.
Due to the success of these shows, The Chaser team took Cirque du Chaser on a national tour, visiting Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra during September and October 2005.
The Chaser's War on Everything
On 10 August 2005, The Chaser team filmed a pilot episode of a new TV show for the ABC, tentatively named "Hey Hey, It's the Chaser" (in reference to Nine Network show Hey Hey It's Saturday). The new pilot is in much the same vein as The Chaser team's previous TV shows and Cirque du Chaser. Filmed in front of a studio audience, the show contains mostly new material as well as some ideas taken from the stage show.This show, now titled The Chaser's War on Everything, began airing 17 February 2006 at 9.45pm.
Police charges
On July 14 2006, Chas Licciardello was charged with offensive conduct after attempting to sell fake Canterbury Bulldogs merchandise outside an NRL game. The merchandise involved knuckledusters and balaclavas in the Bulldog's colours, and was supposed to satirise recent violent clashes between rugby fans. Several Bulldogs fans took offense and attempted to attack Licciardello, and as a result he was charged for offensive behaviour [link].References
External links
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