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| genre = [[Comedy]]
| genre = [[Comedy]]
| notable_work = [[The Chaser (newspaper)|The Chaser]] (1999 - 2005) <br> ''[[CNNNN]]'' (2002 - 2003) <br> ''[[The Chaser#Cirque du Chaser|Cirque du Chaser]]'' (2005) <br> ''[[The Chaser's War on Everything]]'' (2006 - present)
| notable_work = [[The Chaser (newspaper)|The Chaser]] (1999 - 2005) <br> ''[[CNNNN]]'' (2002 - 2003) <br> ''[[The Chaser#Cirque du Chaser|Cirque du Chaser]]'' (2005) <br> ''[[The Chaser's War on Everything]]'' (2006 - present)
| current_members = [[Andrew Hansen]] <br> [[Dominic Knight]] <br> [[Chas Licciardello]] <br> [[Julian Morrow]] <br> [[Craig Reucassel]] <br> [[Chris Taylor (comedian)|Chris Taylor]]
| current_members = [[Andrew Hansen]] <br> [[Dominic Knight]] <br> [[Chas Licciardello]] <br> [[Charles Firth]]
| past_members = [[Charles Firth]]
}}
}}


Revision as of 11:29, 18 October 2007

This article is about the Australian comedy team. For other uses, see The Chaser (disambiguation).
The Chaser
The full Chaser team from left to right, Julian Morrow, Dominic Knight, Charles Firth, Craig Reucassel, Chas Licciardello, Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen appearing on the War on Everything studio together (14 July 2006).
Nationality Australian
Years active1999 - present
GenresComedy
Notable works and rolesThe Chaser (1999 - 2005)
CNNNN (2002 - 2003)
Cirque du Chaser (2005)
The Chaser's War on Everything (2006 - present)
MembersAndrew Hansen
Dominic Knight
Chas Licciardello
Charles Firth

The Chaser is a satirical Australian group, most famous for their television programmes on the ABC. The Chaser originated as a satirical newspaper which was known to push the limits as to what it published and for enacting its mission statement, "striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence".[1]

The Chaser Team

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. Licciardello, Knight and Firth had also earlier attended Sydney Grammar School, where they ran the satirical school magazine The Tiger.[2]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, Matt Taylor, David Stewart and Arion McNicoll. 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 Chaser projects

The Chaser newspaper

Main article: The Chaser (newspaper)

The newspaper, first published in 1999, was The Chaser team's first enterprise. Among other things, they published Australian Prime Minister John Howard's private, unlisted home phone number on their front page, which caused wide controversy. 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.[3] The Chaser only had a limited fan base, with the average sales numbers per issue well under 30,000. 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 has also published an annual each year since 2000 featuring many articles and columns from the newspaper and website. In August 2006, a compilation volume of the six previous editions, 50 Golden Years Of The Chaser, was released. The 2006 Annual was released in November 2006.

The Chaser on television and radio

The Election Chaser was the team's first television programme, covering the 2001 Australian federal election. The Chaser team have gone on to create other television shows for ABC TV, including the Logie Award winning CNNNN in 2002-3 and The Chaser Decides in 2004. CNNNN was a satire of not only the popular news network CNN, but also incorporated Australian and world current affairs into the programme. The Election Chaser inspired a similar programme covering the 2004 election, The Chaser Decides. 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.

In 2004-5 Taylor and Reucassel hosted the Triple J radio drive programme, Today Today. In 2005 the rest of the team produced Chaser News Alert (CNA), aired on ABC2. Episodes of this series were only a few minutes long. July 2006 and January 2007 saw Taylor and Reucassel return to Triple J to host Bloody Sunday, filling the This Sporting Life time slot while Roy & HG were on leave from the station. Chas Licciardello and Knight also did a brief fill in show on Triple M called Chas and Dom from 'The Chaser'.

Cirque du Chaser

In March 2005 as part of the Sydney Big Laugh Comedy Festival,[4] 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 in June 2005.

Due to the success of these shows, The Chaser team took Cirque du Chaser on a national tour (produced by Laughing Stock Productions), visiting Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra during September and October 2005.

The Chaser's War on Everything

Main article: 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 was 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 contained mostly new material as well as some ideas taken from the stage show.

This variety-show approach was scrapped and was replaced with the same new content but in a different format, now titled The Chaser's War on Everything. It began airing 17 February 2006 at 9:45pm.

The series was directed by Mark FitzGerald (studio director), Bradley Howard and Craig Melville (location directors). Aside from the Chaser team appearing on screen, other writers were Lawrence Leung, Shane Cubis and Kara Kidman.

A DVD featuring the first 13 episodes of The War on Everything was released on the 17 August 2006. A second DVD was released in November 2006, concluding the first season.

The Chaser's War on Everything returned for a second season on Wednesday 28 March 2007 at 9pm, moving from their Friday night timeslot. It regularly attracts more than a million viewers per episode.[5]

After the June 20 episode of Season Two, the Chaser team suspended the series for ten weeks, so the usual production run time of twenty-six episodes per year does not conclude before the 2007 Australian Federal Election.[6] The second season returned on 5th September 2007.


Public reactions

See also: The Chaser's War on Everything § Controversies and well known stunts

In July 2006, Licciardello faced charges of "offensive conduct" from the New South Wales Police Force, after turning up at a rugby league football match between the Canterbury Bulldogs and the St George Illawarra Dragons on 14 July 2006 dressed up as a Bulldogs fan and attempting to sell fake knives, knuckledusters and balaclavas for a War on Everything sketch.[7][8]

In April 2007, a 15 year old boy duped YouTube into deleting all clips posted from The Chaser's War On Everything by claiming to be a representative of the ABC.[9] They were then reinstated.

At the 2007 Logie Awards some of the Chaser team were "manhandled" by Crown Casino security staff on the red carpet before being closely supervised for the rest of the evening[10].

During Dick Cheney's visit to Australia in 2007, The Chaser team were included on the official list of terrorists, anarchists and protesters deemed to pose a threat to the US Vice-President.[11]

APEC arrest

Morrow and Licciardello were arrested by NSW Police on 6 September 2007 outside the InterContinental Hotel after driving a fake motorcade through the Sydney central business district and breaching an APEC security zone.[12] The Chaser crew entered a secure area by masquerading as the motorcade of the Canadian delegation to APEC. They were arrested by police after Licciardello emerged in Bin Laden costume near the hotel where U.S. President George W. Bush was staying.[13] They were subsequently detained, taken to Surry Hills Police Station for questioning and charged with entering a restricted area without special justification under the APEC Meeting (Police Powers) Act 2007.[14][15] Licciardello, Morrow and the nine other production members were released on bail to appear in court on 4 October 2007.[16] If found guilty, they are liable to serve a maximum 6 months imprisonment, or a maximum 2 years imprisonment if they also had possession or control of a prohibited item with no special justification.[17] The Chaser team issued a statement on 6 September that they had been given permission by police officers to enter the restricted area.[18] Under section 37(2)(b) of the legislation a person has special justification to be in an area if "the person is required, authorised or permitted to be in the area by the Commissioner or a police officer".

The day after the APEC stunt, police questioned Craig Reucassel, Chris Taylor and Dominic Knight and a film crew from the Chaser after they were involved in a second stunt in central Sydney [19]. The three were released by police after being briefly questioned for carrying around black cardboard boxes dressed up as limousines.

References

  1. ^ "Chaser history: The Chaser Decides". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2004-09-16. Retrieved 2007-04-30. striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Cutting to The Chaser The Age. Retrieved on 12 December, 2006.
  3. ^ "Defiant thrill of the chase". Sydney Morning Herald. 2003-04-12. Retrieved 2007-04-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "Big Laugh Comedy Festival - 2005 archive". Retrieved 2007-04-05.
  5. ^ "Chaser's war wins ratings". News Limited. 2007-04-20. Retrieved 2007-04-20. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ "Musicals in Chaser's sights". News Limited. 2007-06-24. Retrieved 2007-06-26. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ "Bulldogs prank not funny". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2006-07-15. Retrieved 2006-07-27. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ O'Dwyer, Erin and Dasey, Daniel (2006-07-16). "Chaser Canterbury joke gets no laughs". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2006-07-27.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ "Boy dupes YouTube to delete videos". Sydney Morning Herald. 2007-04-14. Retrieved 2007-05-03. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ Chased, checked, chastened, The Australian 9 May 2007
  11. ^ "Chaser team on Cheney danger list". News Limited. 2007-02-25. Retrieved 2007-04-05. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ "Chaser duo held over APEC stunt". The Age. 2007-09-06. Retrieved 2007-09-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Police question Chaser duo over APEC stunt". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2007-09-06. Retrieved 2007-09-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. ^ "11 people arrested in Sydney's CBD, continuing to assist with inquiries", NSW Police Media Release
  15. ^ "11 charged over Chaser APEC stunt", ABC.net.au
  16. ^ The court case is adjourned until December."11 people charged following TV stunt in APEC restricted zone", NSW Police Media Release
  17. ^ APEC Meeting (Police Powers) Act 2007 No 14
  18. ^ Chaser statement on APEC (Police Powers) Act - "Police waved us through". NineMSN.com.au
  19. ^ Second APEC stunt. ABC.net.au

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Chaser&oldid=165385712"