Taking place in the high-rise, ‘modern’ city office of Australia’s largest corporation, this outrageous sketch series loosely follows a professional business on the eve of the dreaded and unfathomable Y2K, in the way Aunty Donna do it best: a descent into pure madness.
A high energy mash up of songs, prosthetics, animation and dance moves, Aunty Donna: 1999 is Aunty Donna more bizarre, more absurd and definitely worse dressed than you’ve ever seen them before.
Although the series is set in 1999 it is not particularly focused on that era; why did you choose to set the series in the past rather than a present day office?
As comedy makers we set out to discover the funniest year that has ever existed. 2006 was very funny, 1982 wasn’t bad, 2016 is pretty funny so far. But unequivocally, 1999 is officially the funniest year in human history. Everybody was a little bit worried about computers eating them, and that’s a very funny place to write from.
Could you sum up your series in a tweet?
What is a tweet?
What’s your background as a content creator? And how did you approach this project differently to previous projects?
In 2012, Aunty Donna exploded onto the Melbourne comedy scene with a unique brand of surreal, fast paced, alternative sketch.
We uploaded multiple web series over the years and at the end of last year we got Skip Ahead funding. Thanks to the mammoth support of Screen Australia and Google, we finally had our first opportunity to put decent time into writing our sketches. Usually, our sketches are written in fleeting moments between work on our live shows and our part time jobs. With the Skip Ahead funding we worked 9-5 for a few weeks on making this the funniest, most absurd and different work we think we’ve done. We were all really thrilled with what we wrote and shot.
What was the most difficult challenge you had to overcome in production, and how did you go about it?
There was a large cat that kept walking into our shots. It was a stray and about 6 foot tall on all fours, not standing. It was massive and we didn’t know what to do about it. We eventually devised a plan wherein we threw cat food, ‘Whiskers’ down this alley, then as the giant feline chased after it we would quickly get the shot. That cat really ruined the whole experience.
What do you want audiences to take away from your series?
A free tote bag. That would be sick. If everyone got a free tote bag. Can you arrange that MWF person?
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome making this series?
Finding truth on the stage. Finding moments every night. Chekhov wrote a powerful play and we owe it to him to find the truth each night. That can become a challenge 10 shows in, but you have to do it.
Describe the ultimate fan of your series?
He is the husband of Bella Swan and the father of Renesmee Cullen. Edward is the adoptive son of Carlisle and Esme Cullen, as well as the son-in-law of Charlie Swan and Renée Dwyer. He is the adoptive brother of Emmett and Alice Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. After nearly dying from the Spanish influenza in 1918 in Chicago, Edward was turned into a vampire by Carlisle, as the only alternative to death. Over the next ninety years, the pair gathered a family of vampires around themselves and called themselves “vegetarians”. His life and death counterpart is Edythe Cullen.
When are you completely satisfied with your work?
About 3:30 in the afternoon.
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