Pizza (TV series)


Pizza/Fat Pizza 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, 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",sic| 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.

Synopsis

In the series, long time pizza man Pauly, teaches new employee Sleek Paul Nakad that pizza delivery is dangerous. This fact is reiterated by a news report. 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 and/or addicts, 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

Fat Pizza employees (2000 - 2007)

In the 2005 series of Pizza, new characters were introduced to accompany Pauly and Habib in delivering pizzas, after Bobo decided to turn Fat Pizza into a franchise.
The new employees at Fat Pizza are:
In the 2019 series of Pizza, new characters were introduced to accompany Pauly.
Pizza has an extremely long list of guest appearances of many Australian media personalities. Many have recurring roles, or reappear in later episodes as entirely new characters. They also show a high degree of retroactive continuity.

Episodes

Series 1 (2000)

Series 2 (2001)

Series 3 (2003)

Series 4 (2005)

Series 5 (2007)

Series 6 (2019)

Special series

''Pizza Live'' (2004)

''Pizza: Special Deliveries'' (2004)

''The DaVinci Cup'' (2006)

''World Record Pizza'' (2007)

Specials

''A Real Slice of Pizza'' (2001)

Stage show (2016)

Feature films

''Fat Pizza'' (2003)

''Fat Pizza vs. Housos'' (2014)

Other appearances

Logie Award
Australian Comedy Awards
Australian Screen Sound Guild
In Season 1, the internal and external shots of the Fat Pizza restaurant were filmed at 320–322 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 shop's had actually operated as pizzeria's, the Lane Cove shop still operates as one 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.
Some episodes were also in other parts of Australia. The cast also went to Bangkok, Thailand, Mumbai, India, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Paris, France.