2001 series (The Election Chaser) The show was the first television production of
The Chaser team, which had been running their satirical newspaper
The Chaser since 1999. An ABC personality,
Andrew Denton, offered the Chaser, as a collective, a contract with the ABC and they went on to produce
The Election Chaser, which first aired on 23 October 2001. It was based around the
2001 federal election and was presented in the form of an election tally room, similar to the regular ABC election coverage. The presenters (panelists) were
Charles Firth,
Julian Morrow,
Chris Taylor,
Craig Reucassel,
Chas Licciardello and
Dominic Knight. The show was nominated for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program" in the
2002 Logies but lost to
The Micallef Program, which also ran on the ABC.
2004 series (The Chaser Decides) Since
The Election Chaser, the Chaser team had gone on to produce
CNNNN, a spoof of various 24-hour news networks, which ran in 2002 and 2003.
CNNNN won the
2004 Logie for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program". With the
2004 federal election looming, The Chaser team decided to produce another series based upon
The Election Chaser. The show was titled
The Chaser Decides and ran at the timeslot of Thursday from 24 September 2004 to 14 October 2004. The show was presented again in a
National Tally Room, but only had four presenters in Morrow, Reucassel, Taylor and
Andrew Hansen. Licciardello and Firth did reporting roles while Knight stayed on as a writer. The show was hugely popular and won the
2005 Logie award for "Most Outstanding Comedy Program". The two episodes replaced the
War on Everything in its timeslot for 21 November and 28 November 2007. The format took the same as the 2004 series.
2010 series (Yes We Canberra) For the
2010 federal election, The Chaser appeared in five episodes of the retitled
Yes We Canberra!. Four episodes aired before the election date on Wednesday's at 9.45 pm and one episode after the election in that timeslot. This was the group's first television production in almost a year after the third and final season of
War on Everything in 2009. The show premiered on 28 July 2010, with the election to be held on 21 August. The shows context was supposedly part of news program
Lateline with the Chaser team being there to warm up the crowd for
Tony Jones or
Leigh Sales. To this effect the show was held on a set with the same design as Lateline (whereas the
real Lateline set does not feature an audience) with Jones and Sales making guest appearances. This was changed for the final episode when the show preceded , so that set design was used with guest appearances by hosts
David Stratton and
Margaret Pomeranz. A DVD containing all five episodes plus extras and commentary was released by Roadshow Entertainment on 16 September 2010. Extras include deleted and extended scenes plus behind the scenes footage.
2013 series (The Hamster Decides) In March 2012, the Chaser announced the
2013 election series, tentatively called
The Election Hamster. It was announced that it will be called
The Hamster Decides and the first of five episodes was to air on 21 August 2013. When Kevin Rudd announced the change of election date from 14 to 7 September, the first episode was brought forward one week to 14 August. The show was run at a timeslot of 9:15pm on Wednesday. The set used was the same set as
The Hamster Wheel.
2016 series (The Chaser’s Election Desk) The 2016 series,
The Chaser’s Election Desk, began on 8 June 2016. Instead, Taylor and Reucassel hosted a podcast,
Democracy Sausage, available for free on the ABC's website. In the later weeks of the campaign episodes were also available on
ABC iView and
ABC Comedy.
2022 series (The Chaser Report: Election Edition) There was again no TV series for the
2022 election. Instead,
Charles Firth and
Dominic Knight did a free daily election podcast called
The Chaser Report: Election Edition. Other members
Craig Reucassel,
Andrew Hansen,
Chris Taylor and
Chas Licciardello appear occasionally, as well as the "Chaser Interns", with occasional pranks uploaded to The Chaser's
social media channels. ==Home release==