{"id":857453,"date":"2026-08-16T15:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T15:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/857453\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T15:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T15:56:10","slug":"logies-2026-as-it-happened-sam-pang-wins-gold-logie-touching-tributes-to-sam-neill-and-johnny-young-deborah-mailman-inducted-into-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/857453\/","title":{"rendered":"Logies 2026 as it happened: Sam Pang wins Gold Logie; touching tributes to Sam Neill and Johnny Young; Deborah Mailman inducted into Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AndrewAndrew Denton with Amanda Keller backstage.Getty Images<\/p>\n

In the media room backstage, Andrew Denton appeared with his longtime comedy partner Amanda Keller, and was asked about the recent controversy around the Gina Rinehart incident on the ABC\u2019s Race Around the World.<\/a><\/p>\n

When he was starting out, he said, \u201cthe ABC\u2019s editorial policy was, \u2018you made the show, and if we don\u2019t like it, we\u2019ll let you know\u2019. Now I think there\u2019s more an attitude of \u2018be really careful, and if we don\u2019t like you, we might take it off air\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cited Mel Brooks\u2019 old maxim that tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die to illustrate the point that what\u2019s funny or offensive is subjective.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about where you stand,\u201d he said. \u201cYes, you can step over the line. Yes, offence can be caused, and you can apologise for that offence. But satire is so important in terms of holding up a bent mirror to what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked where the next generation of TV comedy talent might emerge, Denton suggested the period between 9pm and midnight could be opened up \u201cto give people a chance to play. It\u2019s where I started out, it\u2019s where a lot of people started. You need a chance to play, you need a chance for people to do things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referring specifically to the Race Around the World controversy<\/a>, Denton acknowledged that \u201csomebody may have overstepped. They\u2019re going to learn from that, but that\u2019s what it\u2019s about. If you haven\u2019t made a mistake, you\u2019re not trying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Denton with Amanda Keller backstage.Getty Images In the media room backstage, Andrew Denton appeared with his longtime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-857453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}