Hamish Blake

I think Hamish Blake might be part of The Chasers.

I could be wrong.

Let's see....

No. I am wrong.

He's not part of The Chasers.

He is a comedian though.

He's part of the comedy duo Hamish and Andy.

I feel weird writing this post because I don't know anything about Hamish and Andy. I'm not sure if I've even watched ANY of their stuff before. Maybe I have. I have vague memories of someone in comments suggesting that I watch something of theirs.

Anyway, I guess writing this post will give me the chance to become familiar with their work.

Let's begin.....

Baby Hamish was born on 11 December 1981. He's young. Not only is he younger than me, but he's younger than my younger sister. You know, I think that's how I measure age. If someone is younger than my younger sister, I see them as being very young. That's going to be pretty funny when my sister is eighty-nine.

Birthday website time!

Hamish is a Sagittarius. In numerology, he's a 6. The 6 is the family-oriented one.

Since I'm partly Sagittarius, maybe I'll read about that today.

This website gives some keywords.

Optimistic...not really me.
Restless....sometimes me.
enthusiastic....sometimes me.
adventurous....once in a while, that's me. Pretty rare though.
honest....that's VERY me.
irresponsible....I don't think that's me. But maybe sometimes?
outspoken....that's VERY me.
independent....that's me in some areas and very much not me in other areas.

Back to Hamish Blake.

He was born in Melbourne.

He grew up in a suburb called Glen Waverly. I'm looking at Google Maps. It's twenty-two minutes from a place called Ferntree Gully. Wasn't there a movie about the Ferntree something? Was that movie Australian?

Here it is: Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.

Well, the trivia page does say it's based on Australian rainforests.

Anyway, Glen Waverly is a few kilometers south-east of Melbourne's CBD.

Blake is a middle child.

I'm a middle child too!

He has an older brother and a younger sister.

As a child, Blake loved British comedy. He was a fan of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and Blackadder.

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online  a novel by Dina Roberts 

Blake was a big fan of an Australian comedian named Mick Molloy. Molloy has my attention because he was born in Canberra. A while back I did a celebrity geography post...dividing Australian celebrities by their state of birth. I had trouble finding people born in Canberra. Now I have someone! I'm too lazy to edit that old post though. Instead I'll just add the guy to my list.

Blake went to St. Leonard's College. Lord Wiki says he graduated with the rank of 1.1 in the state. That's impressive.

Blake had a gap year. I guess that means he didn't immediately go to university after high school. I wonder how common gap years are. I have a feeling that it's more common in Australia than it is in America.

Lord Wiki has a whole entry about it. He agrees with me. It is rare in America. The good news though is it's growing here. I don't know if I'm reading this correctly; but I think Lord Wiki is saying that there seems to be indication that students who do the gap year are more likely to graduate college.

The life of a typical American is pathetic. It's all about getting into the "right" schools, and rushing through your education so you can get the "right" job. Then, in that job, you rarely take a vacation.

You know, I see Australians worrying about American words being infiltrated into Australian culture. I do think that's a concern...a mild one. But the real concern should be that, in this global economy, Australia and other countries will take on American work/lifestyle ethics.

After Blake's gap year, he went to the University of Melbourne. He went for a double degree in science and commerce. A little time after his enrollment, he met Andy Lee. The two were funny together, I guess. Eventually, Blake dropped out of university to pursue a career in comedy.  It seems that gap year didn't help Blake stay in school. Heaven forbid. Now he's a successful comedian. See? Horrible things can happen to you if you drop out of school!

It seems the Hamish and Andy comedy thing took off in 2003. They did a show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

I'm looking at the festival website now. Have any of you ever been to it? I'm sure it's fun.

The next one begins on 24 March. They have a roadshow as well. They travel all over Australia.

At the festival, Hamish and Andy did a show about their trip to Queensland.

Next they did some radio stuff. And they did access television stuff. They made a show called Radio Karate. It was on Channel 31 in Melbourne. I just tried watching a video on their site, but it took to long for the buffering. I lost patience.

Radio Karate won an award in 2004 at a community television award thing. Soon after the big guys were after Hamish and Andy. The duo got a national show on the Seven Network.

Their Seven Network show premiered in March 2005. Well, here's some sad news. It was a failure, and was canceled after two weeks.

I'm sure Hamish and Andy weeped a little. But they jumped back on the saddle and made a mockumentary called The Greystone 2800 I'm going to watch it in a bit. The story sounds funny...a couple buys a house not realizing it's an open display home.

The video is funny. I laughed out loud at least three times.

Rove McManus liked the film as well. It caught his attention, and he let Hamish and Andy do some work on his show. He also helped them develop a show called Real Stories. It was a parody of current affairs shows. This aired on the Ten Network in 2006. I'm looking at the website now. It has some funny stuff. Actually, some of the stuff is quite tragic. I don't know how anyone could be so callous to make a joke about these things.

They have a story about someone who broke a chain letter thing. So dangerous. So unnecessary. So not funny. Do people not realize how damn important it is to keep chain letters moving? Why would anyone ignore such a letter? Do they WANT to be cursed? Do they not want to find their soul mate? Do they not want to win millions of dollars in the next lottery?

Here's the answer to that boring old question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why? Why?

Because some jerk didn't forward the chain letter. That's why!

In 2006 they did another radio show. It was called Hamish and Andy. It did very well. They were successful. I bet I know why. Hamish and Andy took the time to forward all their chain emails.

Blake has a monthly column in the magazine Cosmopolitan. I personally hate that magazine, but I bet Blake's column isn't too bad.

Blake is in a relationship with an actress from Neighbors...Anna Jennings-Edquist.

That's about it for Lord Wiki.

Where should I go next?

Maybe I'll do IMDb. Blake did an episode of Neighbors in 2006. I wonder if he worked with his girlfriend.

The guy is fairly tall according to IMDb. He's six feet 4 (1.93 meters).

Here's the Hamish and Andy website. They want me to pick my state. Since Texas is not included on there, I guess I'll just pick the Australian state I like the best.

In my favorite Australian state, Hamish and Andy is on at 4-6 pm on weekdays. Just turn your dial to 104.1

There's something here about Seinfeld in Newcastle. I thought it was a joke, but I think Seinfeld really did come to Australia to film some commercials. It's not that I think it's shocking that an American celebrity would come to Australia to do commercials. I just expected most stuff on this website to be a joke. I was watching the video...waiting for the punchline.

Hamish and Andy are on Twitter. Well, no. Actually, they're not really. They do have a lot of followers, but they have no updates.

People ARE talking about Hamish and Andy on Twitter.

Jcohrer says, Hamish and Andy cubicle laughs out loud today: six. I think my coworkers hate me. It seems Jcohrer's cubicle is located in Pennsylvania. So apparently Hamish and Andy have reached international audiences. Although Jcohrer could be an Australian expat.

Greerharney says, Hamish and Andy: essential listening is absolutely hilarious :) Greeyharney recently won thirteen dollars. Awesome! Why did that happen? I bet it happened right after she forwarded a chain letter. OR it could be that she ate frozen raspberries on that day. Maybe frozen raspberries are good luck. Although she won THIRTEEN dollars. That's a bad luck number. Maybe the money is cursed. 

I hope not.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure where to go next. I think I'm just going to head over to YouTube and watch videos.

Here's Hamish and Andy on Rove doing their ghosting thing. I read a little bit about that with Lord Wiki. It sounds creepy. I wonder if I'll find it funny. In this sport, Hamish and Andy invade someone's personal space. They follow directly behind someone and see how long they can do that without the person noticing.

I've learned something about Hamish from the video. He's good at tying double knots. I'm not. When I tie a kids shoe, it comes untied about five minutes later.

The video was pretty funny. I laughed out loud four times.

Now I'm watching a video about newlyweds at a caravan park. It's pretty funny. Biting. Some of it reminds me of my own marriage.

I just learned that this skit is from a British show called Thank God You're Here.

Here's another Hamish Blake skit from the show.

I'm guessing these skits are improv. I didn't get that from the caravan episode, but it's more obvious to me in this 1950's dating scene thing.

Okay. Lord Wiki says it is improv. He also says it's Australian. Why did I think it was British?

Oh no wait. I think I got it. Blake was in a British version of the show. Why wasn't he on the Australian version?

My brain is spinning in confusion right now.

Blake reminds me a little bit of Brendan Fraser. I'm not sure why.

I'm really liking these Thank God You're Here things.  So I'm going to watch another one.

Hamish Blake is brilliant. His mind is so quick.

He really does look like Brendan Fraser. He's like a cross between Fraser and that guy from Third Rock From the Sun. What's his name again? Here we go....French Stewart. I almost wanted to say Victor French. But French was the guy from Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven.

I'm still trying to figure out if these clips are British or Australian. I think Blake has been on both versions of the show.

Ah! I figured it out. The clips I'm watching are Australian. I figured that out by figuring out who the host is. It's kind of hard to explain, so I won't try too hard.

I probably should have figured it out by The Hungry Jack's commercial at the beginning. But I figured maybe they had that in the UK as well.

Anyway, that last video was HILARIOUS. I loved it because it was about pharmaceutical companies. There's some great lines it it. Watch it. Okay? Please?

Here's Hamish and Andy in Los Angeles via Rove.

I'm going to watch another episode of Thank God You're Here. These are very funny.

That one was about a kid being brought home to his parents by the police.

I could probably spend all day watching these things.

I should watch more other stuff though. Here's Hamish and Andy trying to live the life of conjoined twins.

The video is fun, but I like the Thank God You're Here stuff better. It does make me think about how challenging it would be to be a conjoined twin. Although if you've been born that way....I'm pretty sure most of them are used to it. If you've never had privacy, would you long for it?

Anyway, I think I'm going to end this now.

I started this post not really knowing who Hamish Blake was. Now I might be a fan.