1 9 9 8 (Australia)
6 x 50 minute episodes
The former Big Girls Blouse team of Magda Szubanski, Gina Riley and Jane Turner were joined by Marg Downey for this new character-based sketch comedy series for Channel 7.
The series featured spoofs of Two Fat Ladies (Szubanski and Downey were uncanny as Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson) and The Wiggles (as The Jiggles – imagine The Wiggles with pogoing breasts!), movie pastiches (such as “Annie Get Your AK-47” and “The Full Brass Monkey”) and song parodies skewering everyone from Celine Dion to Madonna.
Then there was the brazen coarseness of the Goondiwindi shearing shed dance, “Positive Parenting” and the soap opera “The Poonce Institute”, set in a makeup research company where all the characters were members of the Spelling family, including Bad Spelling as Newt Montage and Tori Spelling as a jar of moisturiser (or a gust of wind).
But the most successful sketch was undoubtedly the segment featuring Jane Turner and Gina Riley as Kath and Kim, with Magda Szubanski as their friend Sharon.
The characters had originally appeared on Big Girls Blouse (1994 – 1995) and would eventually have a hugely popular series of their own (2003 – 2005).
Glenn Robbins and Mark Neal appeared in a number of male roles – though the ladies also played a lot of men.