Newstopia

Newstopia (stylised as NEWStopiä) was an Australian half-hour satirical comedy programme hosted by Shaun Micallef. The first series premiered at 10:00 pm on SBS TV on 10 October 2007 and concluded on 3 December 2007. A second season began on 27 February 2008[2] and concluded on 30 April 2008. A third season of the show screened from 1 October to 3 December 2008.[3] The show was developed by Micallef, Gary McCaffrie, Michael Ward and Jason Stephens, with McCaffrie and Ward working as writers on the programme. A fourth series in 2009 was planned, but cancelled due to production clashes with Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation.[4]

Newstopia
Newstopia intertitle
Created byShaun Micallef
StarringShaun Micallef
Kat Stewart
Ben Anderson
Nicholas Bell
Peter Houghton
Julie Eckersley
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes30
Production
Running time30 minutes per episode
including commercials
Production companyCrackerjack Productions
Release
Original networkSBS One
Picture format576i (SDTV)
720p (HDTV)
Audio formatStereo
Original release10 October 2007 (2007-10-10)[1] –
3 December 2008 (2008-12-03)
Chronology
Related showsMicallef Tonight (2003)
The Micallef Program (1998)
Welcher & Welcher (2003)

The show's contributors include Matt Cameron, Doug MacLeod, Dave O'Neil, Tony Moclair and Richard Marsland.

Format

The show was presented in the style of a news bulletin, with Shaun Micallef acting as anchor. It began with a statement by Micallef about history and/or news and its relation to the show. The rest of the program featured segments often detailing factual events, but told from a humorous or satirical angle. Like much of Micallef's earlier work, the humour depicted was mostly surreal, with some social satire.

The program included several fictional advertisements placed throughout the real commercial breaks, dressed up to appear as authentic commercials for SBS programs, for example, Inspektor Herring, a parody of Inspector Rex. Because the commercials were fictional creations of Newstopia, for the first two seasons, SBS broadcast them with the SBS watermark at the bottom right corner, whereas genuine commercials did not show the watermark. Starting in the third season, the show removed the SBS watermark during the fictional advertisements.

The show also featured subliminal parodies of Pope Benedict XVI in which his image was replaced with one of Nosferatu, long enough to be noticed, but not long enough for the viewer to have a clear idea of what they had just seen.

Cast

Regular cast

Special guests

Internet streaming

Following the conclusion of each episode's initial broadcast, the Newstopia website featured a web stream of the current week's episode. This was only available for 7 days, and only to Australian residents, after which it was taken down and replaced by the latest broadcast. International visitors were blocked by an IP blocker. A guestbook was also available for commenting on the newest episode.

See also

References
  1. David Knox (14 September 2007). "Airdate: Newstopia" (Web). TV Tonight: Australia's Leading TV Blog. tvtonight.com.au. Retrieved 29 January 2009..
  2. David Knox (17 December 2007). "TV Tonight: Newstopia back in 2008" (Web). TV Tonight: Australia's Leading TV Blog. tvtonight.com.au. Retrieved 29 January 2009..
  3. "Newstopia takes on Rudd v Turnbull" (Web). The West. West Australia Newspaper Holdings Ltd. Australian Associated Press. 24 September 2008. Retrieved 29 January 2009..
  4. Knox, David (12 March 2009). "Bad news for NEWStopia". tvtonight.com.au. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
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