TV review: Slow to get to the laughs but some great one-liners

The cast of Jono's New Show. Photo / Supplied

Dicks is one of the new segments on Jono's New Show and it comes with a warning. "The following three minutes will be the unresearched, unfair, and wildly judgmental rantings of two complete morons," states Dicks' loud-mouthed and yobbish creators Matt Heath and Chris Stapp of Back of the Y fame.

Much of that disclaimer could apply to the entire hour-long C4 show made up of bad-taste pranks, music, interviews and other random stuff.

Last year, the show fronted by radio jock and long-time C4 host Jono Pryor won best entertainment programme at the Qantas Television and Film Awards. While the new series is good - if more than a little mindless - entertainment, it's hardly cutting edge local tele. Mostly, the gags are a hoot, like when Pryor manages to get his cheeky mug on live broadcasts by both TV3 and TV One, but getting to the hilarity can be long and laborious.

Although the show has some of the best one-liners on the box like Stapp's "Look at this sack of walnuts", about a "shirtless dick" walking proud as punch down the street with no shirt on.

It has undergone a few changes for its third season. Gone are the busty babes - first there was Vicky Lee and then Joe Cotton - and it's about lads doing laddish things and Pryor linking it together with rants about everything from the recession and reality TV to "Marc Ellis popping up everywhere like herpes".

Some of C4's other locally made shows have fallen by the way, but it seems the youth channel has focused its efforts on Jono and Co and it comes across like several shows within a show.

Comedian Dai Henwood does celebrity interviews and this week he charmed naughty British pop star Lily Allen by playing her a cover of Piano Man on a cute roll-out keyboard.

"You don't look a day over 18, Dai," says Lily.

"It's because I shave a lot. I'm very hirsute. I've got a lot of testosterone," he replies, to which she cracks up in disbelief.

There's also show regular Jimmy the Dwarf on the prowl again, and Wind Up Your Wife sums up the sort of bratty behaviour celebrated on this show. Last night, posing as a customs officer at Auckland airport, Jono's first victim was Sarah.

He duped her into thinking her hubbie Paolo was being detained after trying to leave the country with a kilo of P. Cheeky old Paolo - soon to be battered and bruised Paolo one suspects - was in on the joke. Poor Sarah.

Pryor is a likeable host but it's Stapp, Heath and Henwood who steal the show. Henwood, to use the show's own terminology, is golden talent. And those other two provided the highlight when they presented the Silver Dick trophy to lycra-wearing cyclists for winning the Urban Attention Seekers award.

"Put some clothes on," was their simple suggestion. And to prove aerodynamics are a bunch of bollocks, Stapp jumped on a penny farthing to race a road bike and kicked his arse. Okay, so he probably didn't really win, but remember the disclaimer?