The Final Glass House Episode: a debrief

Oh boy. I don't even know where to start - at the risk of sounding like a completely conceited twat, the final night was just so filled with amazing moments that I'm hesitant to even try to recount it for the inevitability of omitting some cool bits. But...in short, the show was awesome, Tim and I watched it from the celebrity-filled green room (glasses of red in hand) and the biggest buzz ever (aside from congratulating Adam Spencer in person on getting away with calling Kyle Sandilands a c*** on national television) was seeing my sweated out jokes actually getting laughter - and occasionally even applause - from the audience. Whoa.

I also had the great privilege of videoing some behind-the-scenes action including the rehearsals for the final show. Other specific moments worth mentioning I will write here in bullet-point form, no less and in no particular order:

• rocked up a the ABC studios, walked straight past Dave Hughes in his dressing room, reading through the script. Dave wins my award for the friendliest famous person I've ever met - minutes later he strolled into the green room, looked at me and went "Hello! What's going on? What's your name?" and shook my hand. Later in the night when I went to say goodbye to him, he remembered my name and I told him "I've just given my hubby the biggest rap about you being not only the funniest but the friendliest comic I've met."
  
  "Well, good!" he smiled.
  
  I then pried my foot out of my mouth after realising I'd just said that as Arj Barker stood beside him.
  
  "Hi Arj," I said, shaking his hand.
  
• said hi to Corinne Grant (who, even though I'd met her before, I introduced myself to anyway - after a warning from my good friend and hilarious muso comic Dave Eastgate not to assume that famous people will remember you after a 5 minute meeting) who not only remembered me but let me get changed in her dressing room. Tres tres cool. As I approached her at the after-party to say goodbye, she was being gushed over by a young girl fan, who proceeded to thank her for not being prissy and worrying too much about how she looked, like some of the other guests (one of whom she named, but I won't). Corinne immediately stepped to said lady's defence - in a very nice and un-offensive way - which fully impressed me, given how passive aggressive us ladies can be at times.
  
• had a lovely time catching up with Fiona O'Loughlin (who really inspired me to go into comedy after seeing her on the Comedy Gala on TV a few years back) and told her I'm going to be supporting her at the Bangalow Big Joke Fest in February. She was all "that's fantastic! Oh I'm so glad you'll be there, we'll have a great time!"
  
• Georgie Parker got my other vote as one of the friendliest - if not a little hyper - celebs I've met. She caught my eye in the green room, smiled and said "Hello, I'm Georgie." We chatted for a bit, she told me about her kid "one's enough!" she laughed and her dismay at people calling her "Georgia" and other variations thereof.

I dunno...I'm starting to feel like a cheap media slorry just name-spilling like this. Kerry-Anne Kennerley seemed lovely and un-diva-like...what else? I dunno...suffice to say that indulging in the pre-show dinner buffet sitting shoulders' distance from Kochy, Merv Hughes, Rhys Muldoon and others was just a bit surreal. The coolest part was that Tim was more star-struck than I was. It's funny too, to think that this is my second celeb-filled function of the year (the first being the Comedy Fest Gala after-party), but this time it went up a notch, from just ogeling people I know from the telly to actually having conversations with them.

Wil was the last person I said goodbye to: "did you get any jokes in?" he asked, giving me a hug.

"Yeah, I did actually - that was awesome."

And on that note I'm chuffed to tell you that the jokes that made the final show included the closer of Wil's monologue: "Politicians called for the axeing of Big Brother but denied calling for the axeing of The Glass House - turns out you can turkey-slap on national television, so long as the turkey's not a member of Parliament"

and the final joke of the show, in the headlines:
Bracks: "Howard won election for me."
Howard: "Thought I was SMSing Australian Idol."

There was also one of the video clips in there about Beazley photocopying his arse, plus a bit of a smuttier one about Greg Norman and the Olsen twins that got a good laugh on the night but didn't make it to air!!

Then right at the end of the shooting of the episode, all of us in the Green Room got called in to go onstage for the finale streamered goodbye, which, as you'll know if you saw the episode, really involved so much confetti that I might as well have asked you to all "tune into the blizzard and look out for me in a black dress!" Hehe, oh well, it was certainly a buzz.

This was followed by the after-party upstairs in the ABC building for some speeches from all the guys, including this cracker from Dave Hughes: "I'd like to thank the ABC who were actually very supportive of us in our early years. They took us like a little seed, and watered us and helped us grow, and waited until we became like a beautiful oak tree...until deciding to sell us to the Japanese as mulch!"

I am so bummed I didn't have my camera there to capture the look on Courtney Gibson's (head of ABC Arts, Entertainment & Comedy) face.

All in all, what an unbelievable privilege, to be a witness to - and a part of - such a big event in TV.

I hope it's not all downhill from here.