What's New June 23, 2022

Older and wiser: The Chaser team reunites for special launch

Reporter

They’re older, they’re wiser … and they’re more empathetic.

More than two decades after they burst onto the Australian comedy scene – and ten years after their last get-together – The Chaser team is reuniting in Sydney today for a special cause.

The original crew of Julian Morrow, Dominic Knight, Craig Reucassel, Charles Firth, Chris Taylor, Chas Licciardello and Andrew Hansen will launch the 100th and final edition of The Chaser Newspaper via a live show at the National Art School’s Cell Block Theatre in Darlinghurst.

When the newspaper first launched in 1999, The Chaser mob described themselves as “a bunch of rag-tag, down-on-their-luck Law School graduates and self-confessed privileged middle-class sh*ts.”

Now, 23 years after it all began, The Chaser newspaper is back for one issue only.

A satirical take on world events, the newspaper spawned the hugely successful ABC comedy series.

The Chaser pranks made headlines, including the infamous breach of the not-so-high-security 2007 APEC Summit.

Firth – the man spearheading the reboot – tells the Sydney Morning Herald revisiting the past is a bit of an eye opener:

“Looking back, there were so many gags where you go, ‘Oh, you wouldn’t tell that today, that’s very edgy’,” he reflects.

Firth says social media has changed the playing field.

“To create outrage about something, back in the early 2000s, you really needed radio shock jocks to get in on the action and run a systematic campaign against you, which they did from time to time.”

Nowadays, he says, anyone can run an outrage campaign against someone online.

Today, the comedians take an ‘older and wiser’ approach to what might be considered funny … and what’s not.

“There are gags there which are ableist and things like that, which … we didn’t think of 20 years ago. But nowadays, you go, ‘Oh, that was wrong’.”

So today, once more, the team will get together for another laugh. And the public’s being invited to come along for the ride.

Recalling some of the Chaser pranks: