Sammy J’s New Election Show Is A Terrifying Mix Of #Auspol And ‘Playschool’
The first show is about Malcolm Turnbull making a faustian pact with the Prince of Darkness.
We’re five weeks into the election campaign and there are still three weeks to go. If this were a marathon, we’d be snug in that sweet spot right after your first inclination to throw up and right before your nipples start to bleed. This may not be all that different from how you currently feel.
Now, between the grillings from Leigh Sales, the unsatisfying leaders’ debates, and the inexorable memes that will outlive us all, we’ve been given something slightly more palatable. Comedian Sammy J (best known through the duo Sammy J and Randy) has just kicked off Playground Politics: a new series of shorts on ABC iView that will be running daily Monday-Friday from now until the July 2 election. Written and performed each day before being released at 5pm, the show will explain and skewer breaking Auspol on a set which looks unsettlingly like that of Playschool.
“Tony Jones and Leigh Sales do fabulous work, but I feel the ABC’s coverage has suffered from a lack of songs and craft activities,” Sammy said. “I cant wait to show my audience how to create their very own smear campaign, read them the Three Little Negatively Geared Pigs, and construct an immigration detention centre using nothing but an egg carton and a bucket of tears. There’s never been a more exciting time to be a small fabric doll that strongly resembles Malcolm Turnbull.”
The first episode, which was released yesterday, definitely delivers on this premise. Here, Sammy introduces us to a small doll called “average voter” who is “just like us” (“He’s got two little arms, two little legs, and a high chance of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes!”). We’re then taught how to make a faustian pact with the Prince of Darkness — you know, like one you might make when “compromising your core beliefs in order to placate the hard right of a party that refuses to accept your progressive inclinations”.
This is going to be an interesting few weeks for Australian politicians.
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Watch the first episode of Playground Politics here.