Pizza (TV series)

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Pizza is an Australian comedy television series on the government funded Special Broadcasting Service. It has also spun off a feature length movie ("Fat Pizza") in 2003, and in 2004 released a highlights video/DVD which also included previously unshown footage and a schoolies expose A theatre show entitled "Fat Pizza" starring several characters from the show also tours the eastern coast of Australia. The show relies heavily on ethnic stereotypes, sex, drugs and violence to produce its humour. It is also famous for its consistent cameo appearances of famous Australians (actors, comedians, and professional athletes etc.)

History of the show

The show is written and directed by Paul Fenech who also plays the main protagonist of the series Pauly, a pizza deliveryman. In certain special episodes Pauly will break the fourth wall and as himself (the "fil-um maker" ) present featurettes revealing the history of the series, often tongue-in-cheek.

It first started as a project of Fenech's in the early 1990s, starring himself and shot in black and white. In 1995 his short film Pizza Man won him third place in the Tropfest film festival.

The show was first shown on SBS in 2000 and as of 2004 is up to its 6th season . The half hour program is usually shown in the Monday night 8:30-9:30pm time slot — common for offbeat comedy shows such as South Park, John Safran, and Quads!.

The premise

The show centers around the activities of Pauly and his fellow co-workers as the deliver pizzas for the Sydney-based small business of Fat Pizza, whose motto is "they're big and they're cheesy". True to the business' motto, the humour in the show is often repetitive with sometimes entire scenes previously shot being recut to give the illusion of new material. According Pauly, in the first episode, Pizza delivery is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, a fact reiterated by a news reporter on a nearby television. In the suburbs of Sydney, this appears to be true as during the series the men have dealt with aliens, killer kangaroos, bikies, drug dealers, dominatrixes, the FBI, and even evil Satanic forces conspiring to fulfill Armageddon. Despite all this, noone seems quite suprised at any of this happening, and they persist in the dead end job which pays AU $3.00 an hour.

Special Deliveries

In certain special episodes (called "special deliveries") Paul Fenech will sometimes break the fourth wall and act as "himself" (or a stylised version of himself, still much like the character he plays) and introduce the segments. These special deliveries are usually clip shows or mock-u-mentaries on the show. In 2004 the series was a live-studio broadcast of auditions for the next series of pizza (interspersed with stunts, music and nudity), series finales had previously adopted a similar format with the crew "hijacking" the SBS television studio. In the latter half of 2004, a mock-u-mentary entitled "World Pizza" was broadcast which featured Pauly, Rocky and Toula travelling from Sydney to Napoli, Italy – "the birthplace of pizza". According to the show, they could only afford stopover flights, and had to stop in Japan, Los Angeles, Las Vegas before reaching Rome. Bobo and Habib (who along with Davo had been arrested by Customs for drug possession in the airport prior to departure) appeared as talking heads through this series.

"Special Delivieries" include:

  • Pizza does Sexpo
  • Pizza Live
  • The History of Pizza
  • The Beginnings of Pizza
  • World Pizza
  • Pizza goes to Nimbin

The cast

Employees of Fat Pizza

  • Paul Fenech as Pauly – main protagonist, pizza delivery-man, kickboxer, and aspiring "filum maker". His favourite derogatory comment for people is "stooge", originating from a comment a teacher once made to him.
  • Paul Nakad as Sleek the Elite – so named because he is "sleeker than slick", an aspiring rapper, ladies man and a pizza deliveryman. He was the main co-star in the first three series and the movie. While having superior luck with the ladies, it was suggested several times Sleek was in fact gay, or at least bisexual. In the fourth series (2003, after the movie) it was revealed Sleek had been kidnapped by Islamic terrorists while holidaying in his homeland of Lebanon for "rooting all their women".
  • Tahir Bilgic as Habib – supposedly meaning "friend" or "mate" in Lebanese. Habib featured as a supporting character in the earlier series of Pizza, as friend of Sleeks; a stereotyped young Lebanese (Bilgic is actually Turkish) drug-dealer and fence of stolen goods (typically mobile phones). He has played a larger role in the theatric versions of pizza. In 2003 after the loss of Sleek, he was employed at the shop as a deliveryman, a position he regularly utilizes as a front. He is socially inept, and used to be unlucky with women, but has hitched up with Toula.
  • Rob Shehadie as Rocky – self stylised "lebanese Rambo". A tall muscular homophobic egotistical Lebanese friend of Habib (often role of enforcer), seems to be able to score with any number of young (and likely underage) women.
  • Jabba as Davo Dinkum – a stereotyped bong-smoking Aussie. Being the only non-"chocko" at Fat Pizza sometimes leaves him at the end of discrimination, but he gets on well with the drug-dealing Habib. Introduced in the movie and has appeared since.
  • John Boxer as Bobo Gigliotti – the psychotic pizza chef who is the "boss" of Fat Pizza. He has little patience and those that cross him usually end up on the wrong end of his chainsaw. He is a horrible boss imposing dreadful working conditions and abuse. Additionally, he is consistently docking the delivery-boys' $3/hr pay for any deviation from schedule. The only thing Bobo likes is his Mama and his new wife Lee Ling (and making pizzas).

Supporting cast

  • Annalise Brakkensik as supermodel Claudia MacPherson – though pronounced "Clow-dia", the name is an obvious play on models Claudia Schiffer and Elle Macpherson. She is dimwitted, rich, blonde, bulemic and very very hot.
  • Maria Venuti as Bobo's Mama – Bobo's overbearing Italian mother who actually owns Fat Pizza. Despite being quite physically abusive Bobo still loves his Mama and still lives with her.
  • as Lee Ling – Bobo's diminutive mail-order bride from South East Asia. The Fat Pizza movie partly dealt with the arrival of Ling, and as such she only appears since 2003.
  • Rachel Wilson as Toula – a young obese girl who is Habib's (first?) girlfriend, whom she refers to as her "Habibi". She is a voracious eater, and accompanies Pauly and Rocky in the "Pizza World" mock-umentary. In Los Angeles she asks a tourist center if they have star map, but one that marks all the fast food places rather than celebrity residences.

Guest appearances

Pizza has an extremely long list of guest appearances of many Australian media personalities (hence this list is incomplete). Many have reoccurring roles, or reappear in later episodes as entirely new characters. They also show a high degree of retroactive continuity

In the "Sexpo" episode, Pauly interviews porn stars Ron Jeremy and Serenity

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