Eric

This Australian TV series is one of the best to come out of our fair country for quite some time. After a string of dud sketch comedy shows like Totally Full Frontal, Big Train, Mad TV and O'Loughlin on Saturday, this is a refreshing change. The comic genius behind it is Full Frontal alumnus Eric Bana, whose irreverent, rapier wit is contrasted beautifully with a fantastic television show. His is supported by an experienced cast of fine Australian comedians, notably sketch comedy veteran Michael Veitch, as well as The Castle's "Dale Kerrigan": Stephen Curry.

There is no plot as the show is comprised totally of sketches, although they are cleverly linked together by preceding skits. Some of the jokes are absolutely hilarious, though they are made from nothing at all. One of the best jokes simply comprised of an ethnic man who continuously suggests to his son that he see 'Chelsea Brown' and 'Englebert Humperdink,' and that he tries some of his mother's apple strudel. It may seem devoid of laughs in this review, but the accent and timing made it a piece of comedy gold. Therein lies the ingenuity of Eric Bana.

Initially, this show was one hour long and spanned a mere six weeks. But channel 7, showing a bit of initiative for the first time in Australian history, cut it down to 12 half-hour episodes. Good things come in little doses.

This was a welcome change from the deluge of American sitcoms we are constantly bombarded with. It seems every week we get a new one. Shows such as "Veronica's Closet", "Friends", "Suddenly Susan", "Caroline in the City" and "Full House" are so bad that I have to turn the television off. Its a shame that Eric had to finish so soon.

The Apple Studel Man, I agree is very unfunny in writing but the most hilarious thing on the screen. So little can do so much. Eric and Stephen just hit such a note in these sketches....vintage sketch comedy. However the comment on Channel Seven doing us a favor by cutting the one hour episodes into half hours is so wrong. The network butchered the show. Each hour episode although being sketch comedy was painstakingly interwoven and interconnected and by cutting the shows in half meant that gags that were building up to a pay off in the last half hour were not seen for another week rendering them unfunny and out of context. Then the next week a sketch would come on with a tag line so left of field because who could remember what they had seen a week before? They basically ruined a lot of the hard work. I'd worked on a lot of sketch comedy in the past but because of these reasons this one was extremely hard work to make, so many cross references and reappearing characters. Also by cutting the shows in half they also ran the shows in an earlier time slot meaning that a lot of material, or certain words could no longer be used. This too created confusion in that the sketches no longer ran together in their seamless way that was originally meant. All in all Seven stuffed the show and I think Eric would agree, thought he would never make television again which he didn't except for the drama series Something in the Air. Thank god he did Chopper eh? A true Comic.

I live in America and bought the 0 region DVD - I absolutely loved this series and am heartbroken there weren't more episodes. If you like EB as a dramatic actor you have no idea the well spring of talent this guy has as a comedian - this is a must see.

The various characters he plays, Grandpa, Groovy Pants Gus, and poor Cory's dad are hysterical.....non stop laughs.

The other characters: the real estate agent, his commentaries in the car, and the paranoid man who tells everyone to stay away from his family are laugh riot. Now I just have to wait for Full Frontal!

for those of you who have seen this show, "....don't let the bed bugs bite."