The show that wouldn't survive 2026

It's been exactly twenty years since The Chaser's War on Everything first aired. Twenty years since a bunch of comedians could dress up as Osama bin Laden, storm APEC security, and somehow make it feel like legitimate political commentary rather than a national security incident.

I watched some old clips this morning. The APEC stunt. The fake Canadian motorcade that got within metres of world leaders. Chas Licciardello getting arrested at the Logies for attempting a citizen's arrest on John Howard.

And all I could think was: That show wouldn't survive 2026.

Not because it wasn't funny. It was brilliant. But because somewhere between then and now, we lost something essential—the capacity to laugh at ourselves without someone, somewhere, being catastrophically offended on behalf of someone else.

The Chaser worked because it assumed we were smart enough to get the joke. It respected our intelligence even as it mocked our leaders. It trusted that democracy was strong enough to survive some comedians with fake security passes and a camera crew.

That trust feels foreign now.

It's not just comedy shows. We're losing institutions weekly now.

Fletcher Jones—a century-old Australian menswear institution—closed its last store in January. Your mum probably dragged you there for school pants. It survived two world wars, the Depression, and decades of changing fashion. But it couldn't survive 2026.

Sass & Bide is shutting down this month. The brand that defined Australian fashion in the mid-2000s, born at Paddington Markets, worn by everyone who mattered. Gone.

And just last week, Barbeques Galore collapsed into receivership. Sixty-eight stores, 500 jobs. The place your dad would take you every weekend to debate gas versus charcoal like it was a theological discussion. The ritual of the Saturday morning BBQ shop—as Australian as the snags you'd cook on whatever you bought there.

These aren't just business closures. They're cultural losses. Each one represented something distinctly ours—a way of being, of gathering, of moving through the world that was recognisably Australian.

We're living through the great flattening. Everything interesting is being sanded down to avoid offence. Every rough edge smoothed away. Every joke pre-approved by a committee that's never told a funny story in their lives.

The result isn't a kinder world. It's a duller one.

The Chaser understood something we've forgotten: sometimes the most loving thing you can do is point out when someone's being ridiculous. Sometimes mockery is a form of care. Sometimes democracy needs comedians more than it needs protection from them.

But we've traded that messy, chaotic, occasionally uncomfortable version of public discourse for something safer. Smaller. More manageable.

And in the process, we've lost something I'm not sure we can get back.

Here's what I know: the good stuff always finds a way.

When institutional media gets too cautious, independent voices emerge. When big businesses fail, smaller ones fill the gaps (often better than what they replace). When comedy gets sanitised, funnier people start making jokes in places the committees can't reach.

The creativity, the humour, the irreverence that made The Chaser possible—it didn't disappear. It just moved. It's in group chats now instead of on prime time. It's in podcasts your friends recommend instead of shows the network approves.

It's still there. You just have to look a little harder.

The question is: are we content to let the best parts of ourselves exist only in private? Or do we find the courage to bring them back into the light?

I think about my daughter growing up in this flatter world. What will she rebel against if we've already removed everything worth rebelling against? How will she learn to think if we've pre-sanitised every thought?

Maybe that's the real loss. Not just that we can't make certain jokes anymore, but that we're raising a generation who might never understand why those jokes mattered in the first place.

I'm not nostalgic for 2006. I don't want to go backwards. But I do want to remember what courage looked like when we had it.

And I want to believe we might find it again.

Because twenty years from now, I'd love to write about the generation that refused to live in the safe, sanitised world we're building for them.

The ones who brought the chaos back.

Talk soon,
Sam

P.S. Speaking of things that are coming back—Sizzler is returning to Australia. Opening at Sydney Airport this year. The cheese toast lives on. Sometimes the universe gives you exactly the ridiculous detail you need to maintain faith in the future.