The Chaser’s War returns to the ABC.

Wednesday the 28th of March at 9pm.. keep reading for the full press release.

Update: The promotion continues with a countdown and the hilarious purchase of some of the world’s cheapest billboards.

The Chaser’s War On Everything

Now is not the time to cut and run

Everyone knows that most TV guide editors just copy and paste the first line of every press kit so, if you’re reading this in a TV guide now, that’s clearly what’s happened.

There’s really not too much to say about The Chaser, nor any need to bore you with the usual PR guff. We know you’d rather fill your pages with a short Q&A with Jules Lund, or maybe one of those small breakout boxes that tells us what Sonia Kruger is currently watching on the box.

But if you do have some spare column inches left to fill, or a minute of airtime on radio before doing the traffic, then here’s everything you need to know about The Chaser’s War on Everything in 2007:

• It returns to ABC-TV on Wednesday, March 28.
• The new timeslot this year is 9pm Wednesdays, after Spicks and Specks.
• The show will be repeated each Friday night at 11pm, after Lateline.
• The season comprises 26 new episodes.
• In the event of a federal election, The Chaser will present a series of election specials.
• You really should be crossing to the traffic guy by now.

Head of ABC Television Arts, Entertainment and Comedy Courtney Gibson says: “I really must get a shorter title. My title alone takes up half this press release.” She was later overheard organising a sub-committee inquiry into the use of falsely attributed quotes. As in previous years, The Chaser team will consist of writer/performers Charles Firth, Andrew Hansen, Dominic Knight, Chas Licciardello, Julian Morrow, Craig Reucassel and Chris Taylor. An invitation to Naomi Robson to join the team this year was regrettably declined.

The Chaser’s War on Everything is a co-production between ABC TV and Chaser Broadcasting. ABC TV’s Executive Producer is Jo Wathen and The Chaser’s Executive Producer is Julian Morrow. The Series Producer is Andy Nehl, so any bad reviews should specifically name him.
The Associate Producer is Steve Vizard, but only for tax purposes.
For futher information and interviews, please contact:

Peter Ritchie ABC TV Publicity m: 0413 602 337 e: ritchie.peter@abc.net.au
for photos, please go to: www.abc.net.au/tvpublicity

ABOUT THE CHASER

The story of how The Chaser team all met is already the stuff of television legend. (If you don’t know the legend, go to Google and type “chaser” “team” and “underground toilet” into the search box.)

In 1987, an ABC comedy producer attended a university revue and was impressed by what he saw. He nurtured the young writer/performers and soon offered them their very own comedy series on the national broadcaster. That series became the D Generation, which proved to be very influential on The Chaser team who came along years later.

Unlike the D-Gen, the members of The Chaser primarily cut their teeth in print media. Their first venture together was the online web magazine Stoop. Founded in 1989, the website folded after just two weeks since the internet hadn’t yet been invented. They next launched their infamous men’s magazine HGQ, which later turned into FHGQM, which then became a series of letters so unreadable that newsagents refused to stock it.

The team’s breakthrough came in 1998 with the publication of Quarterly Bacon Busters Essay, a monthly periodical which came out weekly in which an pre-eminent Australian intellectual would discuss his love of shooting pigs.

Then came the phone call that would change their lives forever. “Good evening,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “I wonder if you can spare a few minutes to participate in a survey.”

Six years on, and that phone call is still going. But somehow between survey questions The Chaser team has managed to produce a string of hit television shows, including the popular children’s quiz show Australia’s Brainiest Non-Asian Kid and the classic North Korean comedy Kath and Kim Jong-Il.

The team has won numerous AFI and Logie Awards, but then so has Shane Bourne, so it’s not really anything to brag about.

WHAT SEGMENTS ARE RETURNING?
Among the regular segments returning to The Chaser’s War on Everything in 2007 are:
• The classification bit at the start
• The opening credits
• The Ad Road Test
• What Have We Learned from Current Affairs This Week?
• The Crazy Warehouse Guy
• Firth in the USA
• The end credits

ARE THERE ANY NEW SEGMENTS?
Some of the exciting new segments viewers can look forward to this year include:

THE RUDE ROOSTER
Chas Licciardello dresses up as a giant rooster and visits our top Australian corporations to deliver an insulting message.

CAFÉ MENU MAN
Chris Taylor swoops into unsuspecting cafes and corrects the spelling and grammar on their blackboard menus.

MORROW’S MAD MINUTE
Each week the team blindfolds Julian Morrow and dumps him in a remote town, and he has precisely one minute to find out the name of the town (and the state!) where he is.

POLLIE WANTS A CRACKER
In the lead-up to the federal election, the team will ambush our politicians and offer them a giant oversize cracker which has a satirical message written on it.

THE NEWSICAL CHALLENGE
A studio segment where Andrew Hansen has to summarise the week’s top 10 news stories in a 1 minute song and – here’s the catch – he’s not allowed to use any word more than once!

INTERESTING CHASER TRIVIA

To help make your coverage of The Chaser’s War on Everything different from everyone else’s, you may like to include one of these little known tidbits of information that no other media organisation will be privy to:
• The first series of The Chaser’s War on Everything was banned in Sweden because it didn’t have enough nudity in it.
• A recent poll of Australian lawyers found that 1 in 3 of them had represented a member o The Chaser team in court at some point during the last year.
• Andrew Hansen is the only member of The Chaser team not to have slept with
Ralph Fiennes on the actor’s recent Australian visit.
• During the summer hiatus, the team shot a television pilot for a new quiz show called
The Einfeld Factor, where a group of mystery women compete to be the driver of a judge’s car.
• Following the success of Little Britain Live, comedy producer Julian Morrow is currently in negotiations to mount a national tour of Birds of a Feather Live.
• The original title of The Chaser’s War on Everything was in fact The Wedge’s War on Everything. It had to be changed at the last minute after a request from The Wedge’s
laugh track.
• Charles Firth’s pieces from “America” are mostly all shot at Fox Studios in Sydney.
• Chas Licciardello is now the number one ticket holder for the Canterbury Bulldogs.

MEET THE CAST

ANDREW HANSEN
Andrew Hansen is an incredibly versatile writer and performer, and the success of The Chaser’s War On Everything certainly hasn’t left him typecast. Since the first series, Hansen has presented shows as diverse as The Surprise Spruiker Returns (SBS), The Surprise Spruiker Live (Ten), Mornings with the Surprise Spruiker (Nine), and The Surprise Spruiker’s
Funny Bits (Seven). Over Christmas he toured the nation with
The Surprise Spruiker Arena Spectacular, and he is currently working on a Hollywood blockbuster provisionally titled
Mission: Surprise Spruiker.

CHAS LICCIARDELLO
Chas Licciardello burst onto the showbiz scene in June 1961, when he put the bop in the bop she-bop she-bop, only to be bitterly disappointed by how little recognition he received for it. Licciardello followed that up with a highly successful 28 year stint as Humphrey B. Bear’s stunt double, standing in for Bear whenever his infamous two-handed kisses were to be blown. In 1999 Licciardello experienced his biggest break, starring as the studio audience member who yelled out “top dollar” during Episode 3446 of Wheel of Fortune, a role he later reprised less fittingly on Insight with Jenny Brockie. Licciardello now hopes to join the Australian cricket team, if only to see what banner wordplay fans can construct from his name.

JULIAN MORROW
Like many Australian entertainers, Julian Morrow is not funny. His media career began on Hey Hey It’s Saturday, where an appearance on Red Faces led Channel 9 talent scouts to offer him a job as a reporter for A Current Affair. In the 1990s Morrow worked outside of the media, most notably for three years as a doctor at Bundaberg Hospital, until it was discovered he did not have a medicine degree. He later felt the call of politics, and prepared himself for ALP pre-selection by hosting Lateline on the ABC for five years. It was during Morrow’s reign as host that the program underwent major changes, and eventually evolved into the Up Lateline Game Show with Hotdogs. Morrow lives in Sydney with his wife and Lara Bingle.

CRAIG REUCASSEL
Craig Reucassel hates his job. He is one of the few-lawyer-turned-comedians who wants to go back to the law – even if it means conveyancing or defending large companies that have polluted small Pacific islands. If he has to do one more vox-pop or lame joke he will probably kill somebody. And where is this shitty job going to anyway? He doesn’t want to end up hosting a short-lived game show or touring RSL clubs in ten years trying to relive the one year when The Chaser went well. And if one more publicist asks him to write a funny fake bio then…F%%$$$$KKKKK!!!!!.

CHRIS TAYLOR
Chris Taylor is a person of interest. That’s the only information we can release at this point in time.

CHARLES FIRTH
Charles Firth has moved to New York and no longer talks to The Chaser team. Instead, all of his material in the new series will be written and presented by his team of lawyers. Charles’ syndicated column The Final Solution has appeared in all major newspapers in Australia except for those owned by Fairfax or News Ltd. He is currently married to his sixth, seventh and eighth wives, and has just embarked on writing his first bestselling book The God Delusion, which is heavily influenced by Richard Dawkins’ bestselling book The God Delusion.

MATT NEWTON
Matt joins the cast of The Chaser’s War on Everything in 2007, and is looking forward to bringing his unique skills to bear during confrontations with politicians, business leaders and former girlfriends.