>>>Merrick and Rosso Articles<<<

It's the festive season and it's time for all and sundry to get on the sauce and try not to tell your nanna to get fucked on the big day. Christmas has many pitfalls, yet also manages to give you a great opportunity to fuck things up in a massive fashion. December is a fabulous time of the year to try new things, immerse yourself in new experiences while knowing that there is still the familiarity of Christmas to make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Nothing says summer is here, like the end of year Christmas party. Across the nation, people are losing their minds at the prospect of getting pissed with their workmates and getting into some sly fingering near the photocopier. The office Xmas party is like the grown up version of Barley in chasey, where you can't get caught no matter how messy you are.

Like a time bomb ready to explode all you need is a few beers, some cheap cask wine, some half raw snags, a bowl of cheezels and a couple of dickheads in a novelty tie and you're away. Sit back and watch Darren from the mailroom have half a dozen Island coolers and tell the boss to get fucked. Why not watch Mark the 18 year old stud of the office (well he is the only person who wears denim) get an X rated massage from Stacey who somehow conveniently forgot she's 47, married and has two kids. Not only is it the season to be jolly but don’t be surprised that after two or more hours of power drinking, someone will be spewing on the PABX system quicker than you can say Michael Tunn. One thing that will be different at this year’s Christmas Party is a direct result of Bogans continual assault on the drug, Ecstasy. Bad enough in the hands of seasoned professionals if disco bikkies find themselves in the hands of some over zealous real estate agents on a Harbour Cruise they may just chew the boat to pieces. Well it may be good to see those cunts not get their bond back for once!

Christians have been complaining for about the last 2000 years that their day is over commercialised and you can do something about this yourself. Why not join a Christian youth group and attend one of their weekly Bible readings. By very coy and reserved for the first session and then come week two, bring along a tape recorder and tell them you’ve brought a very special Christmas song for them to learn. Now everyone knows that Christians are nutty for a singalong, so when you’ve got them all standing in a circle holding hands, whack play on the tape deck and before they know it, they’ll be singing Hallelujah along to Kevin "Bloody" Wilson’s "Santa Claus you cunt where’s my fucking bike?" Trust me, you’ll be a hit.

As you get older, Christmas isn’t just about your own family but your partner’s also. For some this will be a blessing in disguise as your "new" family maybe easy going, have a pool, be fairly keen on seafood and not scared of keeping a slab of Crownies in the fridge in the garage. One ripper of a situation is if your boyfriend or girlfriend comes from a family of just boys or girls. Nothing is more exciting for a Dad with only girls, to talk shit to his future son-in-law. Hang out with him, laugh at his shithouse jokes, call him mate, and when it comes down to the crunch encourage him to have a lie down on the couch after he’s had too much pudding. Before you know it, he’ll be calling you son and slinging you a fifty every time you go out. By the same token, girls if use the same approach, a mother with no daughters, will have you down at Jay Jay’s on Boxing Day and into a discounted pair of three quarter pants quicker than you can say Dolly Doctor. This is of course presuming your new family likes you. If you find yourself in a car 15 mins out of Blacktown with your new girlfriend and she says " By the way did I tell you I’m Turkish and I have 15 mad brothers?" Drop a hand breaky and get your booty down to Bondi and hand out with the geezers. Believe us hanging out with pissed backpackers will seem like the perfect Xmas when its stacked up against Mustafa and his 15 disciples of death. Lock up your Adidas Tracksuit pants!

If you do find yourself on Bondi Beach on the big day why not get down and make a spare bit of cash selling Nurofen as fake E’s. With enough luck this will make you enough cash to cover those expensive Chrissie pressies and your own New Years Eve real pill bill. If selling fake drugs concerns you but you still feel like ripping off a heap of Poms with their stinking pound sterling. Why not get some no name baby oil, put a bit of shaving cream in it and sell it off as sunscreen. Not only will you make a bit of spare cash but also you will help ensure that a shitload of cocky Europeans will be so sunburnt that they will be backpacker bound on New Years Eve.

More than anything its important that you havea safe festive season. Remember no matter what they tell you, if you’ve had fifteen beers, a slug of Mylanta won’t stop you showing up on the breathro, so stay off the roads, stay indoors half naked on the couch, watch the cricket and eat yourself senseless so you’re too fat for your boardies or bathers.

Have a safe one

Merry Christmas with Love from Merrick and Rosso.

December 11, 2000 Revolver

The Weekend Australian, November 11-12 2000

"Tell them I ‘bird of preyed’ an old bastard at the lights and freaked the shit out of him," is my brother’s ingenious contribution to my list of impressive things to ask Triple J comedians Merrick Watts and Tim Ross.

Listeners wouldn’t be blamed for tuning into ABC’s Triple J radio during Merrick and Rosso’s program and wondering what the hell they are on about.

As Merrick declares, they are more of a running style than a running joke and, as mockingly clichéd as it sounds, if you don’t get the style, you just don’t get it.

They fit together like two parts of a hard-boiled egg: complete each other’s sentences, compliment each other and find the other one absolutely hilarious.

Together since 1994 a s a comedy duo, these Melbourne boys began their Triple J drive time show in January last year.

Tight arse Tuesday is a favourite amongst listeners who want to dob in stingy relatives. In one story, Rosso remembers, a widower remarried and refused to buy his new wife clothes, telling her she would just have to wear his dead wife’s wardrobe.

Hello Australia, the segment that began when Rosso stopped by a road house to find chocolate crackles among Mars Bars and Kit Kats, promotes Aussie prototypes, munching on meat pies and skolling VB while watering the garden outside a fibro homestead.

Both segments attract thousands of emails.

Among a plethora of characters played by the two presenters are Gary and Gavin, a pair of globe trotting dags flopping their way around the world, and radio play personalities Captain BJ and the Pirate Helmut, a German porn star, who have each accumulated a cult like following among younger fans.

Forewarned by many, I try to approach the experience with quick wit and jovial humour.

As demonstrated by Merrick at the outset of the interview, the bird of prey is a sly eye movement accompanied with a freakishly twisted head action.

Merrick bows his head and rise, chillingly twisting his head, focuses and blurts out: "Bird of prey, flying high", in that shrill, teenage boy, breaking voice.

Bird of prey has been described as the New Age answer to road rage.

Obviously two highly intelligent men with the ability to engulf life and spit it out distorted, they admit to trying to take the piss out of everything.

Merrick: "When we’re going on holidays, we’re still thinking about stuff."

Rosso: "We try not to"

Merrick: "And what happens is when you come back from holidays, we have an accumulative amount of funny stuff and you’ve got no audience, and your friends become quite annoyed with you quickly and relatives will become a little annoyed with you as well"

Rosso: "It’s the old standard, I think, finding the absurd."

Merrick: "Mmm. Not surreal, just a little odd…A lot of other comedians might find it a bit risky. They wouldn’t take something like bird of prey as being something funny."

Rosso: "yeah Mez!"

Merrick: "You can’t just say to somebody it’s funny for this reason. Sometimes we have to justify it to our producer, Jenny, by saying: "Jen, it’s funny." Sometimes we have to beg don’t we?"

Rosso: "From working with us, she’s got a fairly good call on what’s funny. We’re not just bagging her out today Mezzy"

Merrick: No, Jen’s great. There is some fairly bizarre stuff though, that we do that if anyone else tried to have a shot at, they would look really unfunny"

SP: "I went to see you at Goldmans in Newtown in Sydney."

Merrick: "Oh did ya? Did you get a free ticket?"

SP: "No"

Merrick: "Did you pay?"

SP: "Yep"

Rosso: "Jesus"

SP: " Is stand up a lot more confronting than radio?"

Rosso: "We swear a bit more, you gotta do more jokes. I like the energy of it, the excitement."

Unlike other radio personalities, Merrick and Rosso blame their lack of weirdo-crazed fans on the fact that they are disgustingly honest and lacking in radio mystique.

Rosso: "If anything, people meet you and get a little bored."

Merrick: "They find us rather disappointing, don’t they?"

I relate stories of people who tape their show and listen to it on personal and car stereos, and ask if they find this following a little odd.

Merrick: "That’s illegal and we’ll have them done for that. No, that’s cool. The difference is that we’re more accessible"

SP:" So what do you want to do with this influence?"

Merrick: "I’d like to use it for evil"

Rosso: "Depends on how much money we’d make out of it. If we knew it was that big, we would have put out some dolls."

The boys have just released a book, with a CD on its way. It’s a mix of skits, photographs, letters and replies to notable Australians such as John Howard, John Laws and the Nesquick Bunny.

So whether boring the shit out of rock stars at a concert or tormenting people on the phone, these guys have the ability to make people laugh and., at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.

Comedians Merrick and Rosso don’t deny they have been on a "massive flog" recently with the release of a new book, CD and a season of shows at the Valhalla to promote. Such output would normally mean you’re on top of your craft. Popular even. But the pair who host drive time on Triple J, aren’t quite ABC flavour of the month.

Surprisingly Merrick and Rosso haven’t been asked to return to the national broadcasters youth arm next year.

Not that they’re too perturbed.

"We presume we’re staying here next year but we haven’t formally been asked" says Rosso (aka Tim Ross)

Merrick adds, "There’s all this weird management shakeup stuff going on here at the moment so we don’t really know what’s going on. The kids [listeners] want us to stay but we need to be asked."

The duo’s attention has been elsewhere recently anyway, working overtime to fit in a full schedule of interviews and appearances to plug the shows and merchandise

"We’re on a massive flog at the moment and can you believe the ABC wanted us to release a T-shirt too?" asks Merrick Watts (the taller of the pair)

"We’re just like ‘Whoa you can’t milk us anymore, just give Merrick and Rosso a break. You’ve got a CD and a book out of us’ They [the ABC] obviously aren’t merchandising enough, they’ve flogged Sandman into the ground, they don’t have Good News Week flogging anything for that market anymore so they’re trying to get us for all we’re worth."

Merrick and Rosso’s show, Solid Gold, opened at the Valhalla in Glebe on Wednesday and will continue until November 25.

The old theatre wasn't the original choice of venue for the show, which Merrick describes as "a real theatre-style show"

The Enmore Theatre was the pair’s first preference, but after seeing a band play there they decided they needed a more intimate space

"The impact of the music was lost a little bit because the theatre is so big and we were worried that’s what would happen to us." Says Merrick.

The Valhalla is the last stop for the all-ages show, which premiered as part of this years Adelaide Fringe Festival in January.

Both say the show has changed dramatically since the Adelaide season but maintain their live comedy differs only slightly from their on air humour.

"It’s not really different at all, apart from the swearing" says Rosso. "I think I tend sometimes to be a little darker on stage. The nature of stand up comedy is that you have to make the audience laugh or its all over. In that respect it can be a little different to working on radio, but I think they are both complimentary."

Although they have been working together since 1996, both Merrick and Rosso say they aren’t worried about their comedy getting stale…yet.

"I think we’re a couple of years away from that" Rosso points out.

"I think there have been times when we’ve been paranoid about it but the audience will let us know when we’re not doing a good job anymore."

Sydney Live, Daily Telegraph, 10/11/00, Chelsea Clark.

 Triple J's comical duo Merrick and Rosso are not confirmed to stay with the station next year. Word at the ABC radio's Ultimo bunker is that the presenters have not actually signed on the dotted line.

The stand up cmics, aka Tim Ross and Merrick Watts, have garnered a cult following since hitting the airwaves in 1997 with songs such as Teenage Mullet Fury.

Daily Telegraph, 20/12/00

Merrick & Rosso Leave Triple J
Afternoon duo depart youth network allegedly over pay dispute.

Comic duo Merrick & Rosso, who have been the darlings of national radio broadcaster Triple J for the last year, have left the youth network allegedly because the ABC was not willing to meet the high profile larrikins´ new salary requirements. According to a Triple J insider the two DJ/comics, who has been with the station since 1997, had originally planned to stay on with their highly popular 3-6pm drive time slot for 2001 but after ABC heads refused to increase their salaries sufficiently they decided to leave.

At this stage neither comedian has commented on their plans for the future but it is believed they will continue to work together (possibly at a commercial radio network where they are sure to gain significantly higher remuneration).