As Frontline turns 30, the satire of TV current affairs is still relevant brisbanetimes.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from brisbanetimes.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The team are egged on in their race to the bottom by a revolving door of amoral executive producers with sleazy nicknames like “Thommo” and “Prowsey”, all in the name of winning the night’s ratings and trumping competitors like Ray Martin’s A Current Affair, the Stan Grant-led Real Life and Jana Wendt-era 60 minutes.
Season one’s City of Fear opens with then-Media Watch host Stuart Littlemore giving Frontline an on-air serve for spinning a series of unrelated crimes into a pearl-clutching beat-up about Asian gangs. So far, so familiar. In season three’s My Generation, the team targets the young and unemployed along a well-worn theme: “Kids these days don’t want to work.” It’s a catchcry that echoes through the decades.
Playing out in a kind of fly-on-the-wall mockumentary style, interspersed with snippets and segments from the show, its fast production turn-around meant it could rip-from and parody real-life current affairs, their scandals and attract celebrities like Pat Cash, Pauline Hanson, Merv Hughes and Ian “Molly Meldrum”. Moore even made appearances, within the show, on then-iconic programmes like
Burke’s Backyard and
The AFL Footy Show. Aside from the brilliant writing, from the founding quartet of Sitch, Jane Kennedy, Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner, which manages to consistently offer a combination of brilliant one-liners, fabulous conceits, some hilarious physical comedy and pitch-perfect timing,