D-Generation, The

1 9 8 6 – 1 9 8 7 (Australia)

This Australian comedy series was created and written by a group of Melbourne University students who had gained local notoriety for their stage work. The team comprised Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Marg Downey, Michael Veitch, Magda Szubanski, John Harrison, and Tom Gleisner.

Popular segments included Dag City, The New Christ Is Right, The Kerrigan Brothers, The Tense Family, Tommy Cravat Jr, The Dubbo Olympics, Fart-Whistles, Soako Pants, Yellow Thing with Hinges and Degenocide, their re-voicing of the classic Aussie cop show Homicide.

The same team also produced a hugely successful radio breakfast show program which ran for six years (May 1986 to April 1992) on Melbourne radio station, Triple M.

Cast members of both the television and radio show subsequently moved on to the equally popular ABC TV series The Late Show which ran for two years (1992 to 1993) with stand-up comedian Judith Lucy joining the cast for the second series.

Four D-Generation cast members (Veitch, Downey, Szubanski and Turner) went on to a similarly-styled and very popular sketch comedy series, Fast Forward (1989 to 1992) on Channel 7. All later made guest appearances on this show’s sequel, Full Frontal (1993 to 1997), which marked the TV debut of actor Eric Bana.

Fast Forward led to the Channel 7 comedy shows, Big Girl’s Blouse (1994), starring Magda Szubanski, Jane Turner and Gina Riley, and Something Stupid (1998), with the same trio plus Marg Downey. Both series featured the Aussie suburban characters who were later the stars of the hit series Kath & Kim (2002 to 2007).

Magda Szubanski
Santo Cilauro
Michael Veitch
Marg Downey
Rob Sitch
John Harrison
Tom Gleisner

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