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Harry Connick Jr. is currently a judge on the Australian talent show Hey Hey It's Saturday, but he wasn't happy the other night. A group called "The Jackson Jive," several white guys in black makeup, appeared on the show and Connick gave them a "0" for the performance. The host tried to get him to change the score and then apologized to him for what happened. Connick said if he knew they were on he wouldn't have been on the show.

This isn't the first time they had been on the show, they actually appeared on the show in the '80s too. So is Connick right or was it just goofy funny and everyone's too PC now?

Exciting news for both fans of Summer Heights High and men dressing as multiple characters in general! HBO is helping to launch a new Chris Lilley project called Angry Boys, set to begin production this month.

I've seen some of Lilley's other work and, while it's intriguing, none of it has been quite as amazing as the sheer ridiculousness that was Summer Heights High. It became a phenomenon on the Internet and found a good deal of success when it finally came to the States via HBO.

This ad is from Australia, and features a creepy-looking, limping drifter guy prowling the roads late at night. Then a guy in a Suburu pulls to the side of the road to give the guy a lift and then...well, see for yourself. I think the ad is well-done up to a certain point, but not sure if it will sell cars.

[via Adfreak]

Most "don't drink and drive" ads show the driver getting into his car sloshed (or "buzzed") and then ending up in some horrible accident that either kills himself or a passenger. This commercial from Australia shows the driver realizing that he's too buzzed, but it doesn't matter. I want to see a sequel to this ad. In under a minute this ad makes me want to know more about this couple and the people at that party. (Warning: ad is depressing.)

[via Adfreak]

Well, this is odd. Jerry Seinfeld has filmed a commercial for Australia's Great Building Society. It shows him setting up a mic, amp, and stool/pitcher of water on the street and doing standup (the ads were actually filmed in a small New York town and not actually Australia.) He's going to do a series of media spots like this for the next couple of years. I guess he really loves Australia and/or building societies.

I think he should go on tour this way in America, just set up standup routines like this on various streets around the country without notice. Wouldn't that be great?

[via TV Tattle]

Since Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York, the city has been notorious for its mommy-state health initiatives. Part of that has been a series of harsh ads featuring folks like "tracheotomy guy" Rolando Martinez and ads featuring a smoker who has to get his gangrenous foot amputated.

The latest set of ads, which air three times an hour in New York, depict a sick woman getting a bronchoscopy. During this, we hear the whistling noise of air whipping around the tumor in the lung, and the doctor explains that at that point, it's "too late to operate."

The first few times I saw the ad, though, something struck me as odd: it was the doctor's voice. It sounded very dubbed and announcer-y, as if some Shakespearean actor was reading from a script. Upon further review, it looked like it was indeed a dubbing job, and not a very good one at that.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their latest musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• Disney's coming out with a non-Pixar animated movie. It involves Miley Cyrus and an adorable puppy! But is it any good? Find out when Cinematical reviews Bolt.
• Apparently Australia makes movies. You know, other than the upcoming Australia. They're not movies I've ever seen, but the Cinematical Seven takes a look at the greatest movies to come from the former penal colony.
• Look, if you're my fourteen-year-old niece, you're going to put on your Hot Topic arm warmers and see Twilight the moment it comes out. It will quickly become the Best. Movie. Ever., regardless of whether or not it's actually good. For those of you who are old like me, you may want to check out Peter Martin's review of Twilight to see if this vampire love story (that's what it is, right?) is worth shelling out ten bucks for.
• Dude. Twilight is huge. Cinematical is taking care of all of your Kristen Stewart interview needs. She's the human lady, right?.
• So the ending of 1986's Little Shop of Horrors? Not the original one. Cinematcial has the much darker ending here.

TiVo launched an advertising campaign in Australia recently to promote the release of the first TiVo set top boxes in that country. And at first glance, the ad looks pretty cool and creative. At least until that little light bulb goes off in your head. You know, the one that says "haven't I seen this ad before?"

As Gizmodo Australia points out, you probably have. Because it's practically identical to an ad that Apple used about a little while back to promote the iPod Nano.


I don't know about you, but I can't imagine this being a coincidence. The two commercials are just too similar.

[via Zatz Not Funny]

It's been a long bumpy road, but TiVo will finally be available in Australia by the end of the month. TiVo and the Seven Network officially announce the coming availability of the set top box this week. As expected, Australian customers will be able to pick up a TiVo for $699 at Harvey Norman and Domayne stores. If the price seems a bit high, keep this in mind: There will be no monthly subscription fees for basic service.

But it turns out that many of the features that make TiVo stand out in the US won't be available at launch in Australia. There will be no support for networking features. That means you can't connect to the internet to download music and movies. And you can't hook up your TiVo to a home PC to access your photos, music, and videos on a TV set. In other words, basically what you get is the same TiVo service US customers had 4 or 5 years ago, but with support for high definition video.

Seven may eventually add networking features via a software update, but the company would charge for such additional services.

It's been a long bumpy road, but it looks like Australia's Seven network will begin introducing TiVo on July 1st. For the first 3 months, you'll be able to pick up a TiVo box exclusively from Harvey Norman, but after that it should be available at other major electronics retailers.

A TiVo box will set you back $700 AUD. While that might seem a bit steep by US standards, that's all you'll ever have to pay. TiVo and Seven will not be charging any subscription fees. Instead, Seven will pay TiVo a royalty fee fro every set top box sold.

The Seven TIVo will go head to head with the Foxtel iQ2, a personal video recorder which comes with a $10 to $15 per month subscription fee.

TV fans in the United States are accustomed to hearing Chef Gordon Ramsay's swears bleeped and blurred out on FOX's Hell's Kitchen, but in other parts of the world, you can hear and see the whole thing.

In Australia, for example. One of the chef's other shows, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (where he goes into troubled restaurants and helps them get back on their feet) airs at 8:30, and Senator Cory Bernardi wanted the words banned because "there is no excuse for gratuitous bad language to be broadcast repeatedly." No excuse? Has the Senator ever seen some of the restaurants and restaurant owners that Ramsay has to deal with?

But fear not, Australian fans of swearing. The Senate there has said no to the calls to ban the words, even if Ramsay did use two words 80 times in the span of 40 minutes in one episode of the show. That must have been one dirty kitchen.

After months of planning, the TiVo and the Seven Media Group are preparing to launch TiVo service in Australia. And in a completely unexpected turn of events, the companies have decided to eliminate the monthly subscription fee for TiVo service.

The service has been held up for a while due to program guide licensing issues in Australia. A personal video recorder isn't much good if you can't access TV listings for all the major networks. Now it looks like most of those wrinkles have been worked out, but TiVo faces competition from Foxtel, another PVR maker in Australia. In order to stay competitive, TiVo will be offering service free of charge.

In order to make up some of the lost subscription revenue, a TiVo box will cost Australian customers $500 AUD, which is about $482 US. That's cheaper than a US box with product lifetime service, but significantly more expensive than a standard TiVo HD unit with monthly service.

[via Zatz Not Funny]

There's more reality being served up by NBC: a food-based competition show in which couples vie to open a restaurant. British chef Marco Pierre White will be the judge. NBC has greenlit The Chopping Block for next season, calling it a sort of Top Chef meets Hell's Kitchen. Actually, it sounds like a twin for BBC America's Last Restaurant Standing. That one has nine couples competing for one restaurant with Chef Raymond Blanc as the judge. The NBC incarnation will have eight couples, and unlike Chef Blanc who has earned two Michelin stars for his restaurants, Chef White has three.

Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin, who died last year when a stingray's barb struck him the chest, is having a wildlife reserve in Outback Australia named after him.

Some of the animals on the reserve include quolls, a nocturnal, carnivorous marsupial; and speartooth sharks, river sharks that resemble the oceanic bull sharks (the Wenlock and Ducie rivers border the reserve). There's also a "gallery of dry vine forests," but vines don't chomp into the heads of rats and possums like quolls do, so they're not nearly as cool. Then again, maybe vines in Australia are man-eaters like Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors. That alone could convince me to fly to Australia and check it out.

Irwin's family will manage the 333,585 acre reserve. His wife Terri and daughter Bindi have continued his conservation efforts in the wake of his tragic death. Bindi can currently be seen on Bindi: The Jungle Girl on Discovery Kids.

Perhaps you've heard about John Stamos' misadventures during a pair of interviews in Australia (Brigitte mentioned them in her vlog today). Just to summarize: during both interviews -- one for a TV interview program and another that was broadcast on a newspaper's website -- Stamos looked tired and disheveled, slurred his speech a bit, and went off on silly tangents during the TV interview, like talking about how different celebrities died. He also responded to the accusations leveled against him after the tired and "zoned-out" interview he gave to The Daily Telegraph. Both videos are after the jump.

Stamos' publicity team chalked up his behavior to jet lag, and the ER star has already apologized. There is some inside dope that, based on these appearances, Aussie TV execs canceled other appearances he was scheduled to make, but that's not confirmed. And there is also speculation that Stamos was a bit more than tired, but who knows? That flight to Australia really is an ass-kicker.