Pizza (TV series)
Pizza/Fat Pizza (titled Fat Pizza: Back In Business from season six onwards) is an Australian comedy television series created by Paul Fenech. The series premiered on SBS on 24 April 2000 where it aired for its first five seasons between 2000 and 2007 before moving to 7mate for its sixth season in 2019. The series has a spin-off feature length movie, "Fat Pizza", released in 2003, and a best-of highlights video and DVD that featured previously unreleased footage and a schoolies exposé, released in 2004. In addition to this, a theatre show entitled "Fat  Pizza", starring several characters from the show, toured the Australian east coast. In 2014, the storyline of the series was combined with that of "Housos" to create the motion picture "Fat Pizza vs. Housos". The film was shown in Australian cinemas from 27 November 2014. Through some ironic and self-conscious references, "Pizza" involves themes of ethnicity and stereotypes (similar to "Acropolis Now"), cars, sex, illicit drugs and violence to produce its dark humour. The television program is noted for its frequent cameo appearances of numerous Australian celebrities of all varieties, including actors, comedians, professional athletes and other public figures . History and development. "Pizza" began in the early 1990s as a black-and-white short film entitled "Pizza Man" created by Paul Fenech, in which he starred as the eponymous pizza man. In 1995, the short film won third place in the Tropfest film festival. The subsequent television series "Pizza" is written and directed by Paul Fenech, who portrays the protagonist of the series, pizza deliveryman Pauly. In a few of the episodes, Pauly breaks the fourth wall and as Paul Fenech, the self-described "fil-um maker", presents featurettes that reveal the history of the series, often in a  tongue-in-cheek or parody manner. It was first broadcast on the SBS network in 2000 until the fifth season in 2007. The half-hour program was part of the SBS Monday comedy slot, noted for its offbeat comedy shows including "South Park" and "John Safran". The "Fat Pizza" feature film was released in 2003 and the second "Fat Pizza vs. Housos" in 2014, also featured characters from another Paul Fenech comedy series "Housos". In August 2019, it was announced the series would be returning for a new season on Seven Network’s multichannel 7mate, titled Fat Pizza: Back In  Business. The season premiered on 5 November 2019. On 29 January 2020, it was announced that "Fat Pizza: Back in Business" had been renewed for another season. The season renewal was officially confirmed at Seven’s Upfronts in October 2020, and premiered on 8 September 2021. Synopsis. The show focuses on the activities of Pauly and his fellow co-workers, as they deliver pizzas for "Fat Pizza", the Sydney-based pizzeria of Bobo Gigliotti, whose slogan is "they're big and they're cheesy". Throughout the series, the dangers of pizza delivery are exemplified by encounters with aliens, killer kangaroos , bikies, bogans, petty criminals, muggers, drug dealers, addicts and/or cartels, dominatrices, celebrities, the CIA, ASIO, Australian Border Force, the Australian Tax Office, the New South Wales Police Force, the NRL, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Army, Arab and Asian terrorists, organised crime gangs and even evil Satanic forces that conspire to bring about the end of the world. In spite of this, the characters remain unfazed and unsurprised, and they persist in their dead-end, below-minimum-wage job, which pays A$2.00 per hour. Cast. Employees at Fat Pizza. Other employees at Fat Pizza are: Guest appearances. "Pizza  has an extremely long list of guest appearances of many Australian media personalities (hence this list is incomplete). Many have recurring roles, or reappear in later episodes as entirely new characters. They also show a high degree of retroactive continuity. Series overview. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Awards and nominations. Logie Award Australian Comedy Awards Australian Screen Sound Guild Filming location. In Season 1, the internal and external shots of the Fat Pizza restaurant were filmed at 322 Pacific Highway, Lane Cove, New South Wales. The restaurant used for filming in Seasons 2 and 3, as well as the Fat Pizza" movie  and live shows, was at 67 Hume Highway, Chullora, New South Wales. The Chullora and Lane Cove shops had actually operated as pizzerias; the Lane Cove shop still operated as one until approx 2016 (since turned into flats) and the Chullora shop operated as a pizzeria between 2000 and 2009, but as of 2013 it had been sold and the interior stripped completely. It was re-opened as "Kyoja Dumpling" a Vietnamese dumpling take away shop but was not profitable and by 2017 the shop was empty once again. In 2006 parts of the series were filmed at the Babel  Restaurant in Fairfield Heights before moving to St Johns Park in 2007. Some episodes were also in other parts of Australia. The cast also went to Bangkok, Thailand, Mumbai, India, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Paris, France.