Have you always wanted to enjoy the sharp satire of Australia’s favourite and most trusted newspaper but struggled with literacy? Well, for one thing, it’s a bit weird that you’re reading this. But for another, a solution is at hand! The Betoota Advocate Presents is now streaming in Australia on Paramount+.
We kid, of course. Literacy has never been a barrier to enjoying The Betoota Advocate—there are traffic signs with more grammatical complexity. Established as a humour website in 2014 by failed muckrakers Archer Hamilton and Charles Singleton, the Advocate’s repetitive structure and use of broad comic stereotypes soon wore a comfortable rut in the cultural firmament.
With a clear understanding of their own avocado-like shelf life, the Toot quickly expanded into publishing, podcasting, merchandising, and even brewing, their Betoota Bitter being notable for its high price point and light, nigh-absent flavour.
This broad-spectrum lowbrow blitz has enabled the same jokes to be deployed across multiple media, demonstrating an economy of comedy that has been praised by the content sponsors the Advocate sometimes forgets to credit.
Those self-same clients are no doubt elated with the existence of the four-part The Betoota Advocate Presents, the latest in a string of shareholder-friendly, cost-conscious production decisions from Warner Brothers. Billed as unscripted but smelling like a sketch show, the mercifully limited series promises to give us “the modern history of Australia that nobody really talks about…for a reason” and tackle the “four pillars of Australian history: corruption, money, religion and tribalism.”
With its finger firmly on the pulse, The Betoota Advocate Presents will feature such hot-button topics as the Cronulla Riots (2005), the Fine Cotton racing scandal (1984), the Super League war (1994-1996) and Hillsong Church (to be fair, a perennial), which are sure to resonate with their target youth demographic. Hamilton and Singleton themselves will appear in character as Advocate editors Clancy Overell and Errol Parker, iconic creations on the cusp of taking their rightful place in the Australian comedy pantheon alongside Con the Fruiterer and the gay flight attendants from Fast Forward.
So if you find yourself in the mood for something undemanding, consider taking a trip to Betoota, where the low-hanging fruit is the sweetest.
