''Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun'' is a

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches" or, "skits", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. While the form developed and became popular in ...

television series on

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

, created by and starring members of the Australian comedy group

Aunty Donna Aunty Donna is an Australian surrealist comedy group formed in Melbourne in 2011. The group currently consists of performers and writers Mark Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane, alongside writer and director Sam Lingham, director Max Mill ...

. It premiered on 11 November 2020. The series' music was composed almost entirely by Tom Armstrong, a member of the sketch troupe. The show's absurdist approach has been compared to the likes of

Monty Python Monty Python, also known as the Pythons, were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy ser ...

and Tim and Eric. Aunty Donna released their second show '' Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe'' in 2023.

Cast

Main

* Mark Samual Bonanno * Broden Kelly * Zachary Ruane

Guests

Randy Feltface Randy Feltface, mostly referred to merely as Randy or, on occasion, Randy the Purple Puppet, is an Australian puppet comedian portrayed by Heath McIvor. Randy is a fixture on the international stand-up circuit and makes regular guest appearances ...

as himself *

Kristen Schaal Kristen Joy Schaal ( ,; born January 24, 1978) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. Known for her distinctive high-pitched, childlike voice, she voices Louise Belcher on ''Bob's Burgers'' and voiced Mabel Pines on '' Gravity Falls''. ...

as the dishwasher (voice) *

Karan Soni Karan Soni (born January 8, 1989) is an Indian-American actor and comedian. Often appearing in comedic roles, he came to prominence for playing Dopinder in the films '' Deadpool'' (2016) and its sequels '' Deadpool 2'' (2018) and '' Deadpool & ...

Jerry Seinfeld Jerome Allen Seinfeld ( ; born April 29, 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. As a stand-up comedian, Seinfeld specializes in observational comedy. Seinfeld gained stardom playing a semi-fictionalized version ...

Ed Helms Edward Parker Helms (born January 24, 1974) is an American actor, musician and comedian. From 2002 to 2006, he was a correspondent on Comedy Central's '' The Daily Show with Jon Stewart''. He played paper salesman Andy Bernard in the NBC sit ...

as himself / Egg Helms *

Kia Stevens Kia Michelle Stevens (born September 4, 1977) is an American actress and semi-retired professional wrestler. She is best known for her time with TNA Wrestling under the ring name Awesome Kong. She also worked with Ring of Honor (ROH), Shimmer ...

as herself /

Awesome Kong Kia Michelle Stevens (born September 4, 1977) is an American actress and semi-retired Professional wrestling, professional wrestler. She is best known for her time with TNA Wrestling under the ring name Awesome Kong. She also worked with Ring ...

Ronny Chieng Ronny Xin Yi Chieng ( zh, s=钱信伊, p=Qián Xìnyī) is a Malaysian-born American comedian and actor. He is a senior correspondent on Comedy Central's '' The Daily Show'', and he created and starred in the sitcom '' Ronny Chieng: Internatio ...

as Voice-Over *

Antony Starr Antony Starr (born 25 October 1975) is a New Zealand actor. He is best known for his television roles, such as the dual roles of Jethro and Van West in the series '' Outrageous Fortune'' (2005–10), Lucas Hood in the Cinemax series ''Banshee'' ...

as Stray Man *

Sarah Burns Sarah Burns is an American film and television actress and comedian, best known for playing Krista on HBO's '' Enlightened''. Early life Born on Long Island, New York, Burns has performed improvisational comedy regularly at the Upright Citizens ...

as Pirate *

Jack Quaid Jack Henry Quaid (born April 24, 1992) is an American actor. The son of actors Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, he made his acting debut with a minor role in the dystopian film ''The Hunger Games (film), The Hunger Games'' (2012). Quaid was part of th ...

as Basketball Player *

"Weird Al" Yankovic Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American comedy musician, writer, and actor. He is best known for writing and performing Comedy music, comedy songs that often Parody music, parody specific songs by contempo ...

as himself and Lindsay *

Scott Aukerman Scott David Aukerman (born July 2, 1970 Note: see 10:20) is an American writer, actor, comedian, television personality, director, producer, and podcast host. He was a writer and performer in the later seasons of the sketch series '' Mr. Show'' f ...

as Police Officer 1 *

Tawny Newsome Tawny Newsome (born February 24, 1983) is an American actress, musician, and comedian best known for playing Chelsea Leight-Leigh on ''Bajillion Dollar Propertie$'', co-starring in ''Space Force'' and the third season of ''Brockmire'', and co-h ...

as The Queen of England *

Paul F. Tompkins Paul Francis Tompkins (born September 12, 1968) is an American comedian, actor, and writer. He worked in television on such programs as '' Mr. Show with Bob and David'', ''Real Time with Bill Maher'', and '' Best Week Ever'', later renamed ''Bes ...

as Jukebox * Michelle Brasier as various including Sports Doctor, and Leg Head *

Rekha Shankar Rekha Lakshmi Shankar (born 1990) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She is known for her writing and performing work with Dropout (previously CollegeHumor). Career Shankar grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from the Tisch School ...

as various, including woman at fight-scene * Tipper Newton as various, including neighbour *

Jessica Knappett Jessica Amy Knappett (born 9 April 1984) is an English comedian, actress, and writer. She is the creator, writer, executive producer, and star of the E4 sitcom '' Drifters'', and appeared as Lisa in ''The Inbetweeners Movie''. She was also one ...

as Zach pretending to be an English Lady at the Bar

Episodes

Production

''Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun'', which is based on the acting of the members of

, a

troupe, was announced in July 2020. Filming took place in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, as well as

Melbourne, Australia Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung/ or ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second most-populous city in Australia, after Sydney. The city's name generally refers to a metropolitan area also known ...

. In addition to Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane starring in the series as caricatures of themselves, notable actors and comedians, including

(who also serves as an executive producer),

and

, appear in cameos.

portrays the "Queen of England", and

voices the troupe's

dishwasher A dishwasher is a machine that is used to clean dishware, cookware, and cutlery automatically. Unlike dishwashing, manual dishwashing, which relies on physical scrubbing to remove soiling, the mechanical dishwasher cleans by spraying hot wat ...

Release and reception

The entirety of the first season, which consists of six episodes, was released on 11 November 2020, on

. The first season was critically acclaimed, receiving a rating of 100% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, it has a score of 85 out of 100, based on reviews from 4 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Junkee Junkee.com is an Australian popular culture and news website run by new media company Junkee Media. It covers various topics including film, university, food, TV, politics, travel, career, health, and Internet culture. Its target demographic is ...

noted that "it seems the entire world has learned that the Aunty Donna boys are hilarious, a fact many Aussies have known for a long time after their new series dropped on Netflix last week." The media website also praised the many cameos made by

, and

. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' commented on how many of

's previous

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

and

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

followers enjoyed the show, and ''Decider'' said that the members of the comedy troupe were "the illegitimate grandchildren of Monty Python and sons of

Tom Green Michael Thomas Green (born July 30, 1971) is a Canadian and American comedian, show host, actor, filmmaker, podcaster, and rapper. After pursuing stand-up comedy and music as a young adult, Green created and hosted '' The Tom Green Show'', whi ...

TV Tonight TV Tonight is an Australian-based website which features reviews, news and programming information related to television in Australia as well as OzTAM ratings information. The site was started by television critic David Knox in 2007 after li ...

gave the first season four out of five stars.

References

External links

* * {{Netflix original current series 2020 American television series debuts 2020 Australian television series debuts 2020s American sketch comedy television series 2020s Australian comedy television series Australian English-language television shows Netflix original programming Surreal comedy television series