I Made A TV Show Around Australia With My Friends So You Don't Have To

Over the course of a year I travelled around Australia with four friends making a sketch comedy show that no-one really watched. Here are some great things that happened that you won't have seen & why that's kind of alright.

My friends & I made a seven part community TV series called 'Australia, Get It Up Ya!'

We shot everything in the opening credits except for the stock footage of a dog in glasses, which was obviously the toughest thing to find. The credits feature me running from one side of Australia to the other, specifically from Manly in QLD to Fremantle in WA which apparently took 822 hours. We also got a shot of the famous sign that all tourists see when they enter Australia.

But how did we get here I hear you not say? Well-

Backstory: we all met in 2009, each taking a shot at hosting Channel 31's breakfast show Get Cereal TV, which tens of people watched

Times were simpler then- everything was 4:3, SD, thinner & had more hair. In order of gif appearance that's Evan in his PJs, Alasdair, Matt, Andy & me cutting off my hair to glue it to a crocodile we made out of an egg carton called Lionel de Burgh.

After this we started renting a warehouse together & filming YouTube sketches. We made another C31 show comprised of those sketches & more called The Warehouse which, due to no popular demand, isn't online. We also formed a legit company Stupid Old Studios, launched a YouTube channel Stupid Old Channel and we were on iView for a bit which was pretty cool.

Backstory (cont.): We found out we got funding from the Community Broadcasting Foundation & did a Pozible!

Get It Up Ya started when we went through the process of submitting a grant for CBF funding (yes, that's their actual badass acronym) & promptly forgot about it. After reading through a big CBF spreadsheet we discovered we suddenly had a bunch of money!

We were encouraged to do a Pozible campaign to help with costs & you can see the names above of all the great people who wrongly believed in us. We also chucked a bunch of our own money in for good measure. All up the show cost us about half a Kia Carnival.

BOOM! PRESENT DAYish: We started filming Jan 1st 2015 in Tasmania

PRO TIP: do not organise flights on discount airlines on New Years Day. Yuck. But we were off! We filmed a bunch of things in Tassie travelling from Doo Town to the famous Tasmanian Map Centre. We had a screaming good time.

From there we travelled to EVERY BLOODY capital city

On weekends and around working jobs for money to live, we managed to get our big Brunswick butts to every capital city to film. Also pictured are the wonderful Emma & Carly who produced this stupid old thing for free.

There were lots of airports...

...tons on Airbnbs...

...and shitloads of driving

We drove up the whole darn east coast! There was so much driving that we have a 42 hour and 59 minute long Spotify playlist that was the soundtrack to our roadtrip.

We once lost our hire car keys five and a half hours from Adelaide on a salt flat as the sun was going down

...we found them after a solid ten minutes of stressful searching. And we were only three hours out of Snowtown! ANYTHING COULD HAVE HAPPENED.

That was all for our sketch about land speed records

We dug a grave in Andy's backyard

Turns out, not an easy thing to do! Also the neighbours keep calling the police.

We used that grave to preach about the real dangers of buying mid-strength beer

There was also one time that Andy decided to live without fear & jump off a very high rock

It wasn't for a sketch but we all got to see his butt, so everyone won.

We got caught in a slight sandstorm while filming at The Pinnacles in WA

After a two hour drive we almost didn't get into The Pinnacles National Park because there was a charge at the gate. Twenty minutes into filming we were told we needed a permit but the ranger said it was too late in the day & just let us keep shooting. Then the wind picked up & we had to record between getting sand pelted into our eyeballs

Top tips: carry change, be nice to park rangers & don't piss off Aang the airbender.

This was all for our final sketch of the show

And remember that Pozible campaign? We found a narrator

The wonderful Claire Hooper was a Pozible supporter whose reward was appearing in the show, then we rewarded her by asking her to be the narrator & making her do a whole ton of work. She is an hilarious saint.

On October 26th we premiered the show to a warehouse full of our friends, family & Pozible supporters

After 10 months, 2 production babies & at least a few breakdowns the first episode was done. We had a big old launch party & that night the thing aired on C31.

Unfortunately the work wasn't all done - each week we kept filming & editing to get that week's episode to air. Most of the episodes were delivered a few hours before broadcast. Soz C31.

On the 7th of December the show finished airing

After a whole year we had finally finished the show. Everything was done. We don't really know how many people watched but it's safe to say it was probably less than Celebrity Splash, may it rest in low-rating peace.

But even if we found out -1 person was going to watch, we still would have made the show

Would it have been nice if a shit-ton of people watched? Of course. But the experience of making the show, even though it was tough at times, was still worth it. We learned a lot, had a few more amazing people see our stuff & we were stickied to the top of r/starcraft by a mod, which angered a few people.

MORAL: We were trying to get it up ourselves all along

We had a bunch of fun making the show & we're proud of what it is even if you never see it.

But if you do have a spare 2 hours, 57 minutes & 52 seconds...

...it would still be pretty great if you did see it. Andy's bruised butt thanks you in advance.

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