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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Australian comedy A-Z: C is for Cooke and Clarke | Australian comedy A-Z: C is for Cooke and Clarke |
| (2 months later) | |
| C is for Cooke | C is for Cooke |
| “We need something that will cheer up anyone who has “the uglies”. “Something to reassure all certifiably gorgeous girls and women that they are not Space Porkers from Hell.” | “We need something that will cheer up anyone who has “the uglies”. “Something to reassure all certifiably gorgeous girls and women that they are not Space Porkers from Hell.” |
| So begins possibly the world’s greatest self-help book, Real Gorgeous by Kaz Cooke, given to me by my friend Shannon in 1996, not long after it was first published. Very young, very awkward and notoriously uncomfortable in my own skin, Shannon presented the book as a wordless gesture of reassurance that I was not, as I desperately feared, an actual Space Porker. | So begins possibly the world’s greatest self-help book, Real Gorgeous by Kaz Cooke, given to me by my friend Shannon in 1996, not long after it was first published. Very young, very awkward and notoriously uncomfortable in my own skin, Shannon presented the book as a wordless gesture of reassurance that I was not, as I desperately feared, an actual Space Porker. |
| Cooke’s manual of body and beauty had me convinced within a chapter, tears streaming down my face with laughter, that the problem was not with me. With a background in journalism, beginning at Melbourne newspaper the Age, Cooke had done stints on the glossies and was a well-known cartoonist when her distaste for the beauty and fashion industries inspired her search for a book to dispel mythologies about the female body perpetuated by them. | Cooke’s manual of body and beauty had me convinced within a chapter, tears streaming down my face with laughter, that the problem was not with me. With a background in journalism, beginning at Melbourne newspaper the Age, Cooke had done stints on the glossies and was a well-known cartoonist when her distaste for the beauty and fashion industries inspired her search for a book to dispel mythologies about the female body perpetuated by them. |
| But as she explains in Real Gorgeous, “I couldn’t find such a book, so I had to write one.” Also illustrated by Cooke, the surreal and colourful humour that had given life to her cartoon heroine Hermoine the Modern Girl struck a powerful chord with young female readers. They finally got a chance to laugh along as she ridiculed fat-shamers, opportunistic plastic surgeons and the kind of beauty industry spokespeople who say things like “facelift bandages may become a fashion trend” without irony. Her suggestion that Jacques Clarins “go and have a lie down now” still brings tears to my eyes. | But as she explains in Real Gorgeous, “I couldn’t find such a book, so I had to write one.” Also illustrated by Cooke, the surreal and colourful humour that had given life to her cartoon heroine Hermoine the Modern Girl struck a powerful chord with young female readers. They finally got a chance to laugh along as she ridiculed fat-shamers, opportunistic plastic surgeons and the kind of beauty industry spokespeople who say things like “facelift bandages may become a fashion trend” without irony. Her suggestion that Jacques Clarins “go and have a lie down now” still brings tears to my eyes. |
| As well as making cartoons, writing and broadcasting, Cooke’s time as a frock commentator for a glossy weekly is not forgotten easily. She followed Real Gorgeous with similar comedy-meets-self-help publications, famously exposing the reality of pregnancy in the unsubtle and profoundly useful Up the Duff. A 2002 effort, Living with Crazy Buttocks, won a Bookseller/Diagram prize for oddest title of the year. | As well as making cartoons, writing and broadcasting, Cooke’s time as a frock commentator for a glossy weekly is not forgotten easily. She followed Real Gorgeous with similar comedy-meets-self-help publications, famously exposing the reality of pregnancy in the unsubtle and profoundly useful Up the Duff. A 2002 effort, Living with Crazy Buttocks, won a Bookseller/Diagram prize for oddest title of the year. |
| C is for Clarke | C is for Clarke |
| Originally from New Zealand, it was satirist John Clarke’s good fortune to create in his slow-witted character Fred Dagg, father of seven sons all called Trev, the kind of mockable New Zealander that Australian audiences could really warm to. Relocating himself – and Dagg – to Australia in the late 1970s, Clarke found Dagg an audience on youth radio Triple J and an eventual home at ABC television when his talent for mixing sharp political satire with deadpan comedy was realised on massively influential 1980s political sketch show, The Gillies Report. | Originally from New Zealand, it was satirist John Clarke’s good fortune to create in his slow-witted character Fred Dagg, father of seven sons all called Trev, the kind of mockable New Zealander that Australian audiences could really warm to. Relocating himself – and Dagg – to Australia in the late 1970s, Clarke found Dagg an audience on youth radio Triple J and an eventual home at ABC television when his talent for mixing sharp political satire with deadpan comedy was realised on massively influential 1980s political sketch show, The Gillies Report. |
| By 1989, Clarke perfected a two-man act with the similarly deadpan Bryan Dawe which became a weekly feature of Channel Nine’s TV news tabloid, A Current Affair. From week to week, Clarke appeared in exactly the same po-faced persona, declared himself to be a political leader or figurehead, and would deliver to “interviewer” Dawe an increasingly surreal and ridiculous set of answers on topical questions of the day. How anti-authoritarian Clarke ended up at Nine – Kerry Packer’s then fiefdom – is perhaps explained by a story of Packer summoning Australia’s best comedy writers to a recruitment meeting, where he offered both generous development opportunities and thundering criticism of the Gillies Report. Legend has it that Clarke wordlessly tore the ABC pages from his resumé and ate them in front of the mogul. | By 1989, Clarke perfected a two-man act with the similarly deadpan Bryan Dawe which became a weekly feature of Channel Nine’s TV news tabloid, A Current Affair. From week to week, Clarke appeared in exactly the same po-faced persona, declared himself to be a political leader or figurehead, and would deliver to “interviewer” Dawe an increasingly surreal and ridiculous set of answers on topical questions of the day. How anti-authoritarian Clarke ended up at Nine – Kerry Packer’s then fiefdom – is perhaps explained by a story of Packer summoning Australia’s best comedy writers to a recruitment meeting, where he offered both generous development opportunities and thundering criticism of the Gillies Report. Legend has it that Clarke wordlessly tore the ABC pages from his resumé and ate them in front of the mogul. |
| Clarke’s relationship with Nine continued until 1997, and their routine relocated to the ABC’s 7:30 Report. As of 2013 the weekly interview sketch is now Clarke & Dawe and a three-minute ABC show of itself. | Clarke’s relationship with Nine continued until 1997, and their routine relocated to the ABC’s 7:30 Report. As of 2013 the weekly interview sketch is now Clarke & Dawe and a three-minute ABC show of itself. |
| Clarke brought this unique comic persona with him as one of the writer-performers of the razor-sharp Olympics mockumentary series, The Games. Created for the ABC with Dawe and Kath and Kim’s Gina Riley to satirise the organisation of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Clarke later accused the BBC series Twenty Twelve, a comedy based on London’s preparation for the Games, of copying his idea – though the BBC strongly denied it. | Clarke brought this unique comic persona with him as one of the writer-performers of the razor-sharp Olympics mockumentary series, The Games. Created for the ABC with Dawe and Kath and Kim’s Gina Riley to satirise the organisation of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Clarke later accused the BBC series Twenty Twelve, a comedy based on London’s preparation for the Games, of copying his idea – though the BBC strongly denied it. |
| Maintaining an extensive career as an actor and writer, Clarke’s contributions to Australian culture beyond comedy are many – but of all the skills he has demonstrated to audiences in his adopted home, perhaps none surpass the example he provides in the 1991 cult movie Death in Brunswick of just how to be the kind of mate who’d really, truly help you to bury a body. |