The Wedge (Australian TV series)

The Wedge Created by Ian McFadyen Steve Dundon Directed by Nick Bufalo Starring Dailan Evans Rebel Wilson Jason Gann Adam Zwar Kate Jenkinson Country of origin Australia No. of episodes 26 Production Running time Approx. 22 mins Original release Network Network Ten Release 2006-11-21

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The Wedge is an Australian sketch show created by Ian McFadyen and produced by Network Ten. The show premiered on Network Ten on 2006-05-30. The show stars Dailan Evans, from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation sketch show Eagle & Evans; Adam Zwar, best known for the HBA 'fwee for fwee' commercial; Rebel Wilson, 'Toula' on the comedy show Pizza; and Jason Gann, two time winner of best actor at Tropfest.

The first season finale was broadcast on 21 November 2006.

A second series was commissioned by Network Ten, and production began in September. The second season will be broadcast on Network Ten in 2007.

History and premise

The program was first advertised by Network Ten in December 2005, with promos depicting Wedgedale, a stereotypical Australian urban sprawl suburb. It is a sketch based format similar to Fast Forward or The Comedy Company. The difference is that nearly all the sketches take place in the same town, so the transition from sketch to sketch often involves a reference to the previous one. Most transitions involve a timelapse shot that takes the audience from one location to another, but sometimes the reference is more direct and seamless. This is used so often, that a sketch based on it was made. In one episode, character Sandra Sultry said "Next up, I'll turn my head to the TV behind me; it's a clever transitional device which will put you through to the next item..."

Cast and crew

Cast

Cast	Job	Occupation
Dailan Evans	Various Characters	Actor/Comedian/Writer
Rebel Wilson	Various Characters	Actor/Comedienne/Writer
Jason Gann	Various Characters	Actor/Writer
Julie Eckersley	Various Characters	Actor/Writer
Anthony Ahern	Various Characters	Actor
Katrina Mathers	Various Characters	Actor
Kate Jenkinson	Various Characters	Actor
Adam Zwar	Various Characters	Actor/Writer
Marney McQueen	Various Characters	Actor
Aidan Fennessy	Various Characters	Actor
Cori Hooper	Various Characters	Actor
Julia Zemiro	Various Characters	Actor/Comedienne
Frieda McKenna	Various Characters	Actor
Ross Daniels	Various Characters	Actor/ Comedian
Hunter Kaine	Introductory Song/Music Clip	Singer/Songwriter

Crew

Crew	Job
Steve Dundon	Executive Producer
Michael Horrocks	Series Producer
Steve Vizard	Creative Consultant
Ross Daniels	Supervising Producer
Nick Bufalo	Director
Graeme Rowland	Director
Ian McFadyen	Co-Executive Producer/Writer/Creator
Andy McIntyre	Co-Executive Producer
Brendan Luno	Writer
Tal Brott	Writer
Paul Calleja	Writer
Catherine Deveney	Writer
Des Dowling	Writer
Craig Eagle	Writer
Russell Gilbert	Writer
Andrew Maj	Writer

Characters

• Lucy Webster skits
  • Lucy Webster (Rebel Wilson) - Lucy is a schoolgirl who stalks a boy she likes (named 'Dylan'), and often talks about how she thinks he likes her, but it is implied he is disgusted by her. She also stares in to the screen at him watching her. (Although a possible plot inconsistency is the fact that she appears on the computer screen, which would in all probability be his, as she would not need to bring her own image up on the screen; and therefore his attempts to shake her off would seem to be in conflict with the fact he still actively engages in internet communication with her.) She briefly stopped stalking Dylan in order to stalk her school counsellor, Andrew, but has since returned to Dylan.
  • Dylan - Dylan is the boy that is trying to avoid Lucy at all costs from stalking him. During the middle of the first season, Dylan informed the school counsellor about Lucy's stalking habits and got rid of her since she started stalking Andrew, but Lucy returned to him later in the season.
  • Damien - Damien is Dylan's friend, who presumably is gay, he was told off by Lucy in the early stages of the first season and was sent to military school by his father. Damien was mentioned later in the season, going to the school dance.
  • Miss Rogers - Miss Roger was very briefly, Lucy's counsellor at school but she was killed by Lucy who failed the brakes on her car.
  • Andrew Hollers - Andrew is Lucy's school counsellor, whom she stalked throughout the middle of the first season. Andrew is later confirmed mental when, Lucy stalks him too much.
  • Mrs. Hollers - Little information is known about Andrew's wife except that she was sent to prison.
  • Gailan - Gailan was only shown in person for one episode in which he was supposedly Lucy's boyfriend from South Africa. Gailan teaches Lucy voodoo works so that she could rid of Melissa (who at that time was Dylan's girlfriend}.
  • Mellisa, Courtney and Maddison - Victims of Lucy's stalking antics.
• Henry Bumstead skits
  • Henry Bumstead(Adam Zwar) - Henry is a young man on the dole with delusions of grandeur. Instead of applying for jobs and working his way up, Henry wants to fast-track his way to the top, so he attempts to join the Sydney Swans Football Club, become the voice of Big Brother and take over the mantle of Australia's richest man.
  • Daryl Somers - See Daryl Somers
• Jack and Jill Farmer skits
  • Jack Farmer(Dailan Evans) - Jack is a farmer who owns a farm which is suffering from drought. He also have a son, who sometimes appears in the background. Jack and Jill's animals have died, they have lost $50 000 in crops, they have no phones, and possibly no electricity. Jack is constantly followed by flies, even on occasions when he leaves the farm and heads into the city. He frequently throws away chances of becoming rich by ignoring the "heavy metal" in his creek (actually gold) and throwing away wine that is "like 100 years old.". Despite his misfortune, Jack's mantra is "Could be worse". Jack is normally interrupted by the "f***ing flies".
  • Jill Farmer (Marney McQueen) - Jill is Jack's wife and most worthy companion. She sometimes has to leave the farm and is sometimes a little inconsiderate of Jack, for example, using him as a horse and carriage.
  • Ennis (Anthony Ahern) - Whenever Jill has to leave the farm, she is replaced by a (preseumably homosexual) cowboy called Ennis (Anthony Ahern), a parody of Heath Ledger's character from Brokeback Mountain, leading to many homosexual double entendres, such as "Ennis is a big fan of my back paddock" and "Are we just going to leave our rods out?" (referring to fishing rods).
• Mark Wary skits
  • Mark Wary (Jason Gann) - Mark a professional athlete who frequently gets into brawls, public sexual acts and other incidents both on and off the field. His sketches always depict him and his manager (Dailan Evans) holding a press conference in which Mark apologising to the public for his latest scandal. Wary has difficulty reading the apologies that his manager has written for him, resulting in him saying a similar-sounding but inappropriate word, such as "Indecent" instead of "Incident", and his manager is constantly having to correct him.
  • Mark's Manager, Jerry (Dailan Evans) - Jerry is Mark's manager from the company, Spotfires LMTD. He constantly has to deal with Mark's scandals and suffer, himself in the season finale, after being shot by Mark on a fox huntng outing.
• Lola the Lollipop Lady (Aidan Fennessey), who has violent outbursts toward anybody who disobeys the road rules, such as a woman whose car slightly touched the crossing's boundary line, and a young man whose car stereo was too loud.
• Pokie Women skits
  • Sherine and Leanne(Kate Jenkinson, Rebel Wilson) - Sherine and LeAnne are two women who are usually seen playing on the poker machines. Sherine often rubs Leanne's stomach for good luck, and their gambling is often interrupted by Sherine's "bloody kids", who she has been left in the downstairs car park, calling her on her mobile phone and reporting a disaster which Sherine ignores.
  • "The bloody kids" - The bloody kids are Sherine's six unfortunate children. They are trapped in her car in the car park while SHerine plays pokies. Their names are Tyson, Britney, Trent, Braydon, Jaydon and Corri-Nakita. They often complain about the amount of food that they are given if their brothers and sisters are suffocating. Often, Sherine's reward for the being good is a 'cup of ice from the bistro'.
• Art Cooney (Adam Zwar), a hippie substitute teacher at Wedgedale High. Art always manages to steer the lesson away from the actual topic and onto his bitterness about about his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, Dwayne. He is also obsessed with being politically correct, but this only makes life miserable for the people involved, as Art makes a big deal out of their sexuality, domestic life, religion or ethnicity in front of the entire class.
• 'Fat' Mandi Maple Brown (Rebel Wilson), an overweight English girl whose parents have sent her to Australia to appear on a reality TV show called "Fat Crackers", similar to The Biggest Loser. Instead of losing weight, she smuggles junk food into the camp to feed herself and the other contestants, in a parody of The Great Escape.
• Karla Bangs (Rebel Wilson), the principal and dance instructor at Karla Bangs' School of Dance Xcellence. She is incredibly harsh on her students and assistant, but fawns over an overweight, uncoordinated girl called Kiki, and gives her the lead role in the dance recitals despite her obvious lack of talent. Because of this, and their physical resemblance (both characters are played by Rebel Wilson), it is rumoured that Kiki may be Karla's illegitimate daughter. Karla is also followed by her assistant Miss Nerida (Kate Jenkinson)
• Security Guard "Big" Mike Small (Adam Zwar) who patrols Wedgedale Shopping Plaza with his 734 keys. He's often too busy eating donuts or chatting-up Kerry, the girl at the information desk, to apprehend thieves or people brawling in the supermarket. He is often careless with the keys, allowing a small child to steal them while he's lecturing them on shoplifting.
• Marileise (Rebel Wilson), is Wedgedale’s own extremely dodgy dog-show trainer from South Africa, who loves to colour her classes with suspect apartheid references.
• Running Robbie Fowler (Dailan Evans)- A man with a beard who says he is "running for a reason", although he has long forgotten that reason. He has currently been running for 1598 days and the fatigue causes him to hallucinate that there is another man called Kevin running alongside him, and he also catches glimpses of the grim reaper from time to time.
• An offensive shopping spruiker (Katrina Mathers) in a shopping centre, who insults passers-by by comparing their outfits with what's on sale inside the store.
• Clare Douglas (Julie Eckersley) who, when selling houses, finds that something in the house (such as a double bed or double garage) reminds her of the time her husband left her for another woman, and begins acting her painful memories in front of her clients.
• The Snipper (Dailan Evans), a mysterious man with a pair of scissors who appears at random and cuts things, such as the string on a child's kite or the ribbon at the grand opening of a building. Nothing else is known about him and he has no dialogue.
• Shane and Roach (Anthony Ahern and Jason Gann), two criminals who "stake out" unconventional locations, such as a blood drive.
• Danica and Harebijhan, (Dailan Evans, Kate Jenkinson) are workers in the Wedgetel call center that are constantly asked for advice on topics they do not properly understand, such as pet care and video games. Harebijhan often misunderstands the slang and words his Australian customers use, making unintentionally funny mistakes while trying to figure out what they mean. This is inspired by the large number of Australian call centres located in India.
• The Chainsaw Guy (Dailan Evans)(whose name is revealed to be Jason Jenkinson) who attempts to murder people in the style of Friday the 13th character Jason Voorhees, but something always goes wrong with his murder weapon at the last minute. He also has an a girlfriend (Kate Jenkinson) who wears facial bandages.
• Sandra Sultry (Katrina Mathers), a television reporter who who strips off while reporting and is often caught frankly discussing her sexual exploits without realising that she's on camera. She is a parody of Network Ten news reporter Sandra Sully.
• Karen (Julie Eckersley), a 16 year old girl with a lisp who works at Wedgies. Karen takes her job incredibly seriously and is keen to pass on her accumulated 'wisdom' about selling potato by-products to Deirdre (Frieda McKenna), the trainee under her care.
• Zak, a ten year old boy who makes home movies about his mother (Julie Eckersley) and father (Dailan Evans). Each video involves Zak's father attempting a project, such as going on a camping trip or cooking a barbeque dinner, but they always end disastrously. Zak is oblivious to this and constantly praises his father's skill and ingenuity.
• Keith and Tina (Jason Gann and Rebel Wilson) own a business called 'Keith and Tina's Home Direct'. They sell a variety of products, however they are all of poor quality, such as a vacuum cleaner that they claim will suck evil spirits from people during exorcisms.
• Plastic Surgeons' Wives (Julie Eckersley and Julia Zemiro), who have undergone so much plastic surgery that they've lost the use of their facial muscles, meaning they cannot speak properly, and are either subtitled or completely incomprehensible. Several times it has been implied they are hundreds, possibly thousands of years old.
• The Ungrateful Beggars (Ross Daniels and Adam Zwar), one of the beggars start of with a new theory of his while the other one receives a good or money. The other beggar the complains about the goods or quantity of money the other beggar received.
• Tarquin and Lucretia (Jason Gann, Julie Eckersley), a gothic couple whose conversations, such as arguing over what shade of black to paint their walls, parody the goth sub-culture.
• The Mayor, Kev Du Pont (Aidan Fennessy) who has so far only been mentioned on the Wedgedale website, a news report about him recycling water (holding a glass of urine) and been seen in one of the sketches with the Snipper.
• "Cooking With..."

  These shows depict various movie characters and celebrities doing a cooking show. As in order, the characters so far parodied have been:

  • Gandalf the Grey (Anthony Ahern) - Cooks calamari rings in a parody of the scene in The Lord of the Rings where he is tempted to take the Ring.
  • Bono from U2 (Anthony Ahern) - Parodies his work in charity to save the "starvin' children".
  • Australian Idol - Casey Donovan (Rebel Wilson and Anthony Ahern) Cooks a "light and healthy" snack; chocolate mudcake with cream. She starts off by getting 1 kg of icing sugar and 24 eggs, but is eventually stopped by Mark Holden. Mark has also appeared as the guest judge for Wedgdale Idol.
  • Robert De Niro (Anthony Ahern)- Parodies his role in Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers.
  • Kostya Tszyu (Anthony Ahern) - Cooks a rabbit dish in the style of a boxing match, hinting boxing phrases and attitude throughout his scene.
  • David Beckham (Anthony Ahern)- Claims to be making an easy meal, (Cock in a tarp) but has trouble reading the recipe. He calls his wife Victoria (Marney McQueen)in, but she too struggles with the recipe.
  • Christopher Walken (Anthony Ahern)- Tries to make a meal with a chicken, but going on about hunting down the chicken, watching it die, etc. Christopher also hosted his own dating show and arts and craft show.
  • Harry Potter (Dailan Evans) - Hermione(Marney McQueen) and Harry make out, then they decide to eat some tomatoes but are interrupted by Snape(Anthony Ahern) catches them and they are told to go back to bed, which the two seem to be happy about.
  • Paris Hilton (Katrina Mathers) - Tries to make a "Slutty Tart" by ordering it from room service. She promptly flirts with the guy taking it to her.
  • Russell Crowe (Anthony Ahern) - In his "Gladiator" outfit, he uses a phone to tenderise the meat he was preparing. This is a reference to his phone-throwing incident in 2005.
  • Pamela Anderson (Julie Eckersley) - Attempts to make an American aging fruitcake and deliberately being clumsy to expose herself in a sexual way.
  • The Olsen Twins (Katrina Mathers, Marney McQueen) - Over talks about their DVDs until time has ended as a hoax to get people to buy their DVDs.
• Wedgedale High's Spelling Bee Contestants:
  • Timmy Fudd (Dailan Evans), a nervous boy who is given especially difficult words, such as antitransubstantionalist, which cause him to have a nervous breakdown on stage and faint.
  • Lily Pervo (Kate Jenkinson), a girl who openly flirts with the judge while spelling words like jailbait and climax. Her contestant number is 69.
  • Amanda Schdintzon, (Julie Eckersley) a student who knows every word that the co-ordinator is about to say.
  • William Bunt (Jason Gann), an extremely offensive child.
  • Albert Yoackool (Adam Zwar), a boy who spells without opening his mouth and heckles the audience in the style of a ventriloquist.
  • Gretchin Davies (Marnie McQueen), a girl who depicts/ acts out the words she is given.
• The Veggies:
  • Kevin Carrot (Dailan Evans), the captain of kid's band, 'The Veggies'.
  • Patrick Pumpkin (Anthony Ahern), the songwriter of kid's band, 'The Veggies'.
  • Bok Choy (Frieda McKenna), the over-serious member of kid's band, 'The Veggies'.
  • Suzie Spud (Marney McQueen), the head singer of the kid's band, 'The Veggies'.
  • Rodney Rhubarb (Jason Gann), the manager and artist of the kid's band, 'The Veggies'.

DVD releases

DVD Title	DVD Cover	Release Date	No. Of Episodes	Running Length	Rating
We're Moving	File:We're Moving.jpg	October 9 2006	6	134 mins	M
Lucky		October 9 2006	7	156 mins	M
Thanks For Coming	File:Thanks For Coming.jpg	November 20 2006	6	134 mins	M
That's Valid	File:That's Valid.jpg	December 16 2006	7	156 mins	M

Episode guide

Further information: List of 'The Wedge' episodes

Reaction

The Wedge has had mixed success with audiences and critics. The ratings were initially strong, with the first episode receiving 1.5 million viewers and later episodes averaging over one million viewers,. The shows recent popularity waned nearer the end of the season, with episodes reaching a much smaller audience (681,000 viewers for the episode that aired on 2006-11-21). Although most critics panned the show, some critics from Famous magazine quoted that the show had "Some of the most outrageous, loopy, and colourful residents God ever put on this world" ,while Sean Fewster from the Adelaide Advertiser remarked that "This could well be the first truly great ensemble of the 21st Century" and "The Wedge is a near perfect blending of The Comedy Company's family-friendly, occasionally bizarre jokes and Fast Forward's nasty, satirical edge.... Ladies and genglemen, welcome back to Australian sketch comedy". Sean Lynch remarked that "We may very well look back on this...as the beginning of one of Austrlia's greatest comedy shows of the new Millenium", Neil Mitchell from 3AW remarked that the show was "one of the freshest things on TV" and The Age newspaper said "Such a rich vein of comedy, you can't help wonder why someone hasn't mined it sooner". Memorable TV remarked "At last we have a comedy sketch show worthy of the mantle of Fast Forward and Full Frontal. Very funny." shortly after the release of the DVDs.

Despite the show's initially high ratings, it has been panned by some TV critics. Some critics took issue with its perceived over-use of canned laughter and what they considered to be badly written, dated, cheap humour that attacked easy targets and propagated offensive stereotypes. This may have led to Who Magazine rating The Wedge as the fourth worst TV show of 2006. Shortly after the series debuted, Catherine Deveny, one of the writers, wrote an article for The Age in which she revealed that the producers had insisted on re-writing and blanding out the scripts in the hope of appealing to a wider audience, but maintained that the writers and performers were themselves talented comics.

Trivia

• Mark Wary (Jason Gann) is a parody of Shane Warne and Wayne Carey, although neither are faced with the seemingly massive reading problems Wary has.
• Wedgedale Idle is a parody of the Network Ten singing contest Australian Idol.
• Karingal Park Secondary College won a competition called "Art Cooney Comes to Your School" that was first advertised on the The Wedge website. As a part of the prize, the school received a visit from Adam Zwar, portraying the character Art Cooney. Another competition to get on set of 'The Wedge' was set, though no winners have been announced.
• The Wedge characters, Mark Wary (Jason Gann) and his manager (Dailan Evans) made an appearance on the 50 Years of Comic Relief show broadcast on Seven Network. In addition to this, Russell Gilbert, Kate Jenkinson and Rebel Wilson also made an appearance on the show.
• Dailan Evans and Kate Jenkinson made an appearance on Australia's improvisation show, Thank God You're Here.
• Fictional children's band The Veggies are based on a real children's band, The Wiggles.

External links

• The Wedge
• The Wedge on Network Ten
• The Wedge at IMDb
• The Wedge on Australian Television