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Seven resurrects Santo, Sam and Ed

Roar Guru
13th December, 2011
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4318 Reads

Have you heard? 2010 World Cup favourite “Santo, Sam & Ed’s Cup Fever” is officially back! Well, sort of. Early yesterday morning the date for the revamped version of Santo, Sam & Ed’s Cup Fever was announced.

From January 30th, the hilarious trio of Santo Cilauro, Sam Pang and Ed Kavalee will reunite in front of a live audience, with interviews, sketches and bad desk mugs. But while their previous effort together was a roaring success there’s been a few changes to the formula.

So are they good or bad changes? I’ll let you decide, but here’s the jist of it.

Firstly, the program is no longer just about the World Cup and the all-round antics of the world game. The show has been given another life covering all sports, hence the revised show name of “Santo, Sam & Ed’s Sports Fever”.

Good news is we don’t have to wait until the next World Cup to see these guys in action again and football fans won’t be the only ones who’ll get a kick out of the show. Bad news is that the broadness of sports they can cover might water down the hilarity into some lesser version of Roy & HG.

Another obvious change is the broadcaster.

The boys will no longer call SBS home. Instead, the show will air on Seven.

Each have experienced the ups and downs of commercial television, but none moreso than Ed Kavalee. His gig as host of “TV Burp” (on Seven) only lasted one season before being canned, and though his role as co-host of “Joy of Sets” (on Nine) was well received, the show was bumped to a later timeslot for the last few episodes. Such is the fickleness of commercial television.

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Then there’s the Sitch-uation.

While Rob Sitch will be on board as a writer and producer, at this stage he will not be taking part in front of the camera. This video summarises just how great Sitch was in “Cup Fever”. When his bread and butter is sketch comedy, no Sitch would be a massive, massive loss to the show.

Finally, and in my opinion the most dramatic and potentially devastating change, is the timeslot. On SBS, even when we’d all be up in the early hours ready and raring for a World Cup fixture to kick-off, “Cup Fever” always had primetime.

It aired each and every time at 8.30pm, with later repeats on SBS TWO. But on Seven, “Sports Fever” will start at the 10.30pm timeslot (9.30pm for Queensland). Harsh way to start if you ask me.

Even with these obstacles, I’m truly hoping the show is a success, and like “Cup Fever” before it, is a lovely, lovely way to burn.

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