Angry Boys

Wednesday August 29 at 8.30pm on THE COMEDY CHANNEL

Filmed over three continents (various locations within Australia, Los Angeles and Tokyo) over seven months and edited for an entire year, writer/performer/director Chris Lilley amps up his acutely observed character-based documentary-comedy comedy style mastered in his two acclaimed ser style mastered in his two acclaimed series ies We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High to We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High to create his new 12 part series Angry Boys.

Chris Lilley is making his mark in the USA – with industry bible “The Hollywod Reporter” featuring him on the front page of their website. Here is the article that follows the headline.

Chris Lilley returns to HBO with Angry Boys, a mocumentary in the same vein as their previous collaboration, the critically acclaimed Summer Heights High.

After playing three central characters on the eight-episode send-up of high school life that aired on the premium cable network in 2008, Lilley steps into the shoes of six extremely different characters for the 12-episode Angry Boys. While Mr. G, Jamie and Jonah aren’t featured; a few of the characters will be familiar to diehard Lilley fans who haven’t already seen the Australian series.

Here are five things to know about HBO’s Angry Boys, which premieres Sunday, Jan. 1(USA) with back-to-back episodes starting at 10 p.m.

1. Lilley plays six characters, two of whom fans of the writer-actor have seen before in his Australian/Sundance Channel mocumentary series, We Can Be Heroes: Finding the Australian of the Year: twins Daniel and Nathan Sims. “I wanted to bring back those guys and have them anchor the series and jump their characters off into other worlds,” Lilley tells The Hollywood Reporter. The brothers live in the fictional town of Dunt, South Australia, which serves as the setting for Angry Boys. Other characters include Gran, the boys’ politically incorrect grandmother who works as a guard at an all boys prison; S.mouse, an African-American rapper from L.A.; Jen Okazaki, a soft-spoken Japanese mother of three whose son, Tim, is an aspiring skateboarer; and Blake Oakfield, a former surf champion.

2. The Sims family is the backbone of the series that incorporates Daniel and Nathan’s heroes — including S.mouse and Blake Oakfield — characters who were inspired by Lilley’s conversations with teens across Australia. “I met with teens in country towns and they had hero worship-like posters of pop culture figures, skaters, surfers and sports people — as well as naked girls — and that gave me the idea to jump into the premise for the show,” he says.

3. It’s just as politically incorrect as Summer Heights High was, but that’s not Lilley’s top priority. “There were things with Summer Heights High that I got into trouble with and I think I got a bit scared off,” he notes. “But when I look at [the show], it’s that desire to shock and challenge people — I don’t like the idea that my main motivation is to be politically incorrect. It’s part of what I find funny but mostly I like compelling and real characters. That’s what I care more about than shocking people.” Keep that in mind when you meet Lilley’s African-American rapper S.mouse.

4. Speaking of S.mouse, Lilley brought the character beyond the screen, releasing an album and performing as the rapper in London and is open to doing the same stateside. “It was this interesting thing where the character stepped into the real world — it wasn’t like a comedy show and I’d never done any spinoff things like that before. It was really unusual to be a white Australian guy in London playing a black American guy,” he says. “I’d love to do that [stateside]. We’re going to let the show air a bit but I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a good reaction and the fans will be keen on it. I don’t really do much live stuff ever, but it’s really fun and I’d definitely like to do that.”

5. Summer Heights High won’t be revisited. While characters from We Can Be Heroes were incorporated to Summer Heights High and now Angry Boys, Lilley is pleased with how the series ended and has no plans to revisit Mr. G, Jamie and Jonah despite pressure to bring back the popular characters. “It would water down the motivation of the series,” he says. “I like to think of the series as just this one-off thing that’s a story that starts and finishes and I feel strong about doing that rather than thinking about cashing in.” Instead, Lilley says he’s more excited to step out of his comfort zone by trying something new. “I like the challenge of putting myself in really scary situations — like playing a character like S.mouse, who is so far removed from me.”

Source – Hollywood Reporter

9:30pm – Sunday, December 25 on ABC2

The chameleon of character invention, writer/performer Chris Lilley brings to life six vastly different characters, but they all have one thing in common – they will entertain and intrigue, as their private worlds are revealed.

Still living on the family farm in Dunt, identical twins Daniel and Nathan Sims, who appeared in We Can Be Heroes, are back. Joining the boys in the series are four new characters; former surfing world champion Blake Oakfield, a family man and founding member of a surfie gang – the Mucca Mad Boys; S.mouse a U.S. rapper famous for having produced the biggest selling hip-hop single of all time; Japanese mother Jen Okazaki, a shrewd businesswoman, she also manages her son’s skateboarding career; and Juvenile Justice Centre for Boys officer Ruth Sims, aka Gran. Gran takes pride in looking after the ‘worst boys in the state’ and can be as tough on the boys as she is kind to them.

The series kicks off in Dunt, South Australia, home to identical twins Daniel and his 90 percent deaf brother Nathan. They dam surf, they skate, they do ‘mainees’ in the street in their mother’s hotted up Nissan Pulsar. In their bedroom are the ‘Wall of Legends’, pictures of the people they consider their heroes – surfer Blake Oakfield, Japanese skater Tim Okazaki, U.S. rapper S.mouse, bikini model Emily Chase, their late dad and their prison officer grandmother, ‘Gran’. Gran lives and works at Garingal Juvenile Justice Centre for boys together with her co-worker Penny. In her spare time, Gran cares for her 23 guinea pigs and makes superhero pyjamas for the young inmates.

Angry Boys creator Chris Lilley has vented his frustration at ABC for not submitting the series for the publically-voted section of the Logies.

Lilley took to Facebook to let fans know that Angry Boys would not be up for consideration in the most popular categories.

”Some bad news for Australian fans,” Lilley posted on the show’s Facebook page.

”The ABC have forgotten to submit Angry Boys and Chris Lilley to the Logies for voting consideration for the most popular categories.

”Due to this oversight you will NOT be able to vote in the Silver and Gold categories for the 2011 Logie Awards … Contact the ABC or The Logies if you would like to take this issue further.”

ABC issued a statement that said the omission was “a result of an administrative oversight by ABC TV”.

They said they would be submitting Lilley and the show for the peer-voted “most outstanding” categories in January.

Source: SMH

The curtain may be closing on Australia’s much-loved music trivia show, Spicks and Specks, but the more than million-strong fans can now keep the beat alive with the Spicks and Specks Quiz application for iPhone.

Based on the hugely popular ABC TV program, the Spicks and Specks Quiz app includes favourite games from the show such as ‘Know Your Product’, ‘Would I Lie To You’ and the ever-disconcerting ‘Musician or Serial Killer’, with a few new ones thrown in.

Spicks and Specks host extraordinaire, comedian Adam Hills, says the app will give fans the chance to keep a little piece of the show with them wherever they go.

“We know all our fans have watched Spicks and Specks in their living room each week shouting answers at the TV screen,” Hills said.  “Now they can play on the bus each day and shout answers at their phones.”

The app features a career challenge mode that sees players embark on a music career and accumulate points to rise through the ranks from regular punter to rock god status, as well as a quick play mode for those all-important practice sessions.   Players can also share their scores and challenge friends via Facebook.

ABC Digital Product Development Manager, Melissa Firth, said the app was developed with a commitment to maintaining the style and format that has made the TV show an enduring success.

“Spicks and Specks has such a strong and passionate fan-base and we’re really excited to be able to extend the show that Australians love into a format they can engage with directly,” she said.

The Spicks and Specks Quiz app is available on the App Store for $1.99.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/s-ks-and-specks-quiz/id447552469?mt=8

Fans of the Angry Boys TV show can now carry their favourite of Chris Lilley’s controversial cult characters in their pockets, with the app of the same name released for iPhone. 

Inspired by the storylines of the show, the Angry Boys app features a series of games dedicated to individual characters including ‘Sneaky Nuts’, ‘Blake’s Ball Shot’ and the headline feature ‘Mainies’ – based on character Daniel Sims’ practice of driving up and down the main street of fictional country town Dunt in his mum’s hotted-up Pulsar – ‘The Pulsie’.

Since appearing in the first episode earlier this year, the term ‘Mainies’ has become an Australian cultural phenomenon with over 100 Facebook fan pages created in honour of the activity, with names such as “Doing mainies in your Pulsar” which boasts over 20,000 fans.

Designed to be played in the car, the ‘Mainies’ feature uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to detect when the vehicle is accelerating, breaking and changing gears to bring to life the experience of doing ‘Mainies’ with Daniel.  The app then creates sound effects like those of ‘The Pulsie’ and includes sound-bites from Daniel such as “Ooh champion! Yes! Well done” or “Geez you’re a shit driver.”

Developers say the feature will work for ‘Basic Mainies’, ‘Music Mainies’ and ‘BMX Mainies’, but unfortunately is not yet optimised for ‘Walking Mainies’.

Overview of other app features:

· ‘Sneaky Nuts’ – Do a Nath and sneak some nuts into your favourite happy snaps with the Sneaky Nuts feature.  Take a photo or choose one from your library, and you’ll get a pair of nuts to place on the photo.  Sneak some nuts in over the top, through the fly or anywhere else and share with mates on Facebook, Twitter and email.

· ‘Blakes Ball Shot’ – Inspired by Angry Boys character Blake Oakfield, an aging former world champion surfer and part-time gang member who lost his testicles to a bullet wound, the game allows you to play as Blake who is about to be shot in the balls and test your reflexes by tapping the screen as soon as the gun fires to dodge the bullet.  Your score is based on how many milliseconds it took you to react, and also how big the remaining distance was between the bullet and Blake’s balls.

· Wallpapers – Having an Angry Boys wallpaper is pretty much like having a wall of legends on your phone. Choose from Nathan in the orange beanbag, Gran and Kerri-Anne, S.mouse slappin his elbow, Jen Okazaki’s glamour shots and many more.

· Youtube Clips  - For when you’re bored in between doing Mainies and chatting to your Gran on Skype and that, you can watch all your favourite bits from Angry Boys. The app updates with the all the latest YouTube clips each time it loads.

Planned updates to the app include features for popular characters S.mouse, Jen Okazaki and Ruth ‘Gran’ Sims.

Chris Lilley made history at HMV in London, greeting hundreds of passionate fans in the biggest DVD signing the store has ever hosted.  

Lilley spoke to fans in a marathon four hour signing session at HMV on Oxford Street, the biggest music store in Europe. Over a thousand people came from across the country, some queuing for over 6 hours to see him.

Lilley showed his appreciation by staying long after the store had closed in order to see everyone.

The following night Lilley performed to a sold-out crowd under the guise of the controversial hip-hop sensation S.mouse, the American rapper character from his ABC TV show Angry Boys. Tickets sold out within half an hour of release, and fans showed their enthusiasm by dressing as their favourite character.

The packed crowd slapped their elbows along to all his classic hits, such as “Animal Zoo”, “Obama” and the hit-single “Slap My Elbow”.

Celebrity guests in attendance included Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan and League Of Gentleman star Reece Shearsmith.

Angry Boys has been a ratings and online smash success for BBC3 in the UK. 

Producer Laura Waters said, “This is beyond thrilling. Chris and I are overwhelmed, the British people are total legends!”

Angry Boys will debut on HBO in the United States later this year. The network has also become the home of Lilley’s previous series, We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High.

10:15pm – Tuesday, August 2 on ABC2

Tuesday,2 August 2011 Daniel takes Nathan on a final tour of Dunt before he goes to deaf school, and prepares for Nathan’s farewell party. Gran settles into life on the farm. S.mouse nervously awaits reaction to the release of his new single, ‘Squashed Nigga’. Blake turns his life around when he is found innocent in the trial over Packo’s shooting. The Okazaki family find themselves back in America as a furious Jen plots revenge on Tim.

ABC is happy with the performance of Chris Lilley’s new comedy series Angry Boys despite its ratings not being quite as hot as expected.

The comedy concluded on Wednesday night with an audience of 612,000 viewers, well down from the 1.37m audience that tuned in for the May 11 premiere.

‘We are extremely proud of the series, which has truly resonated with a new audience for the network,” Brendan Dahill, controller of ABC1, said yesterday. ”Angry Boys has been one of the programming highlights for ABC1, as it has successfully attracted much younger viewers, with 55 per cent of its audience being 39 years and under.”

ABC says that 2.4 million viewers have watched the series on the network’s online catch-up website.

Source: The Age

Several American rappers have criticised Chris Lilley for his character S.mouse on Angry Boys.

Entertainment website The Vine asked several hip hop artists in the US music industry to give their thoughts on the character.

Here are some of the reactions:

Zilla Rocca, MC – 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers (Philadelphia)

The S.mouse stuff is crossing lines of comfort, decency, and racial boundaries rather flippantly. Strike one is having a white person say the ‘n’ word multiple times. It’s not like blackface hasn’t been done in the recent past—Ice Cube did a whole show called Black. White. where a black family was made white and a white family was made black to see how the world treats them. Fred Armisen, a white guy, portrays Barack Obama on SNL, the same way Darrell Hammond, another white guy, portrayed Jesse Jackson. Either way, blackface has been used to stir up either hard-fought political and racial truths we tend to believe don’t exist anymore in America, or it’s done in a lavishly ridiculous and playful manner while tiptoeing carefully around outright exploitation.  

Kool A.D., MC – Das Racist (New York City)

This is dumb. I had to turn it off a couple minutes in. His accent is bad, which makes the blackface worse. The only time I’ve seen blackface used in a way that actually made me “think more critically about race” is [the Spike Lee film]Bamboozled. Ice Cube Presents: Black. White. was pretty dumb but I watched every episode. Hoodoo Possession by Guillermo Gomez-Pena had its heart in the right place but was too ‘avant-garde’ which is French for “white people seem to eat it up.” I only saw a few minutes of Tropic Thunder [in which the white Robert Downey Jr. plays a black man] but it was annoying in that “let’s see if we can innocuously pull off something traditionally understood to be racist as an ‘edgy statement’ of how we’re over it” way. This show seems like it’s similarly whack but I have even less patience for that type of thing now. I would go into great detail and use a bunch of college words but I don’t have the time to do that anymore unless someone wants to pay me. Maybe Australians would call this ‘cheeky’, or something. As for how it would go in America: who knows what the kids want, am I right?

Open Mike Eagle, MC (Los Angeles)

Hell yeah it’s offensive. Blackface is not the kind of thing that just becomes acceptable one day. I don’t give a damn how ‘meta’ this cat thinks he is, it doesn’t give him a pass to exploit the history of race relations for a cheap laugh. The worst part was that the blackface was unnecessary. It didn’t add a damned thing to the presentation of the comedy. He could have done the same thing as a white rapper and stepped around the minefield. Instead, I couldn’t relax enough to find any of it funny. All I could think about is how big of an idiot this guy had to be to think that this was something to be done. Rap-wise it wasn’t offensive. It was uninspired and not at all creative, but it wasn’t offensive in its portrayal of the art or the industry.

Source: The Vine

Sheen to be roasted

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Lilley has his critics

Chris Lilley has come under fire from rappers in the US for his new comedy series Angry Boys. Lilley’s S.mouse character, a black rapper, has been criticised for being offensive and behind the times by those involved in the music industry over there.

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