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For decades now, the tireless Pauly Falzoni has been delivering pizzas to the suburbs of Sydney in various incarnations of the comedy franchise Fat Pizza (originally known simply as Pizza, and more recently as Fat Pizza: Back in Business). But there’s still room to wonder who Pauly actually is at heart, beyond his capacity for hard work, the sick subwoofers in his Valiant and his fondness for the word “stooge”.
Played by the show’s creator Paul Fenech, Pauly is a foil to the crazy characters around him, an archetypal little guy who just wants to get through the day, working his blue-collar job in the multicultural melting pot of western Sydney. Nonetheless, he’s constantly getting into brawls with cops, clowns, bikies, bogans, S&M freaks, little people, and other urban tribes – and when it’s time to punch on, he’s prepared to give as good as he gets.
For decades now, the tireless Pauly Falzoni has been delivering pizzas to the suburbs of Sydney in various incarnations of the comedy franchise Fat Pizza.
A similar divide exists in Fenech himself, or that’s the impression I get chatting with him ahead of the 20th anniversary screenings of the Fat Pizza movie which he attended in Sydney and Melbourne, at the start of the month. While part of him wants to keep his head down – his sunglasses stay on throughout our conversation – another part can’t resist stirring things up.
You can see the amateur boxer he was as a young man, and the naughty kid he was before that: by his account, many elements of Fat Pizza are carried over from the first short films he made in his teens. “There was a fight, there were funny characters, a few jokes and a chase, which is basically everything I ever make,” he says. He lists his influences: Eddie Murphy action comedies, The Blues Brothers, Monty Python, The Three Stooges – no surprise there – and most crucially Looney Tunes.
As he acknowledges, there may also be something more directly personal in his addiction to violent slapstick: “I think I was just one of those guys who ended up having the kind of anti-bully syndrome. I was kicked around as a kid, and I over-compensated for it by being very overly aggressive as a younger man. I’ve got over it since, thanks to comedy.”
Yet another piece of the Fat Pizza puzzle is Fenech’s background in reality TV, which he drew on when he came to shoot the 2000 Pizza pilot for SBS, having learned the channel were looking for an Australian South Park. Everything was shot on location, with Fenech and his co-stars – such as comic Tahir Bilgic and rapper Paul Nakad, otherwise known as “Sleek the Elite” – playing heightened versions of themselves.
Pauly is a foil to the crazy characters around him, an archetypal little guy who just wants to get through the day, working his blue-collar job in the multicultural melting pot of western Sydney.
The goal was neither literal realism nor anything resembling political correctness: this was after all, a show where characters were routinely carved up with chainsaws for laughs. Still, it was at least a cartoon of a recognisably modern Australia, as opposed to the Anglo enclaves of Neighbours and Home and Away.
Looking back, Fenech acknowledges a desire to bring “different faces” to the screen, though he’s not entirely on board with the term “diversity” as it’s now used, which he associates with a certain tokenism. “I find it sometimes insulting, some of the casting I see,” he says. “The diversity now is like the Neapolitan ice cream that you get that comes from the American factory – it’s got different colours in it but it doesn’t taste all that good.”
How does he view the idea, more widespread now than when he was starting out, that characters from a given ethnic background should necessarily be played by the real thing?
Fenech’s first reflex is to take the “anti-woke” line. “It’s crazy, mate! What happened to acting?” But then he swings around. “Look, OK, I can see both sides. No disrespect to Chris Lilley, but…how many millions of Australians we got here? You can’t find one who can play a Tongan?”
Fat Pizza turns 20 this year.
Then he swings around again, reflecting that if the rule of authenticity had been strictly enforced we wouldn’t have got Fonzie on Happy Days. “One of my great iconic TV characters, this Jewish guy playing an Italian. Is that wrong today? Maybe. I don’t know.”
While Fenech’s own heritage is most frequently described as Maltese, it’s been reported he’s also Indigenous on his mother’s side. Would he feel comfortable playing an Indigenous character?
“I’d play any bloody character,” he says immediately. “I mean, I’ve got a big family tree, and my mum’s side’s actually very diverse.”
But again, this proves to be one part of a more complicated answer. “I think there’s people who do Indigenous media better than I do, to be honest,” he continues. “I’ve always had a go at just about everyone, but I don’t like negative portrayals of Indigenous characters, just because I think that the Indigenous community gets so kicked around. To me, that’s maybe one line in the sand.”
The goal of Fat Pizza was neither literal realism nor anything resembling political correctness: this was after all, a show where characters were routinely carved up with chainsaws for laughs.
Another line gets drawn when I ask Fenech about Rebel Wilson, who got her first big break in the 2003 Fat Pizza movie, then appeared in several seasons of the show before departing for Hollywood. Fenech says he hasn’t heard from her lately though he’s proud of her success from afar.
Under those circumstances, how did he feel about the interview Wilson gave to The Daily Telegraph in 2020, in which she described Fat Pizza as “the most extreme culturally insensitive show ever”?
It turns out this is the first time Fenech has heard the quote – and while it possibly wasn’t meant too seriously, he’s not about to take it lying down.
“Culturally insensitive? I don’t think so, because we always had people playing the roles that they were.” (Perhaps ironically, Wilson’s Greek-Australian character Toula would be one of the clearer exceptions.) “And there was so much ad-libbing with the main cast…like the Arab characters, or the Lebanese characters, all the nuances all came from them, not me.”
How does Fenech respond to criticism of Fat Pizza’s portrayal of women, who tend to be divided into “sexy babes” on the one hand and “fat chicks” like Wilson’s character on the other?
Fenech sighs. “People read too much into it. They go ‘Oh jeez, it’s been deliberately designed as misogynistic, and it’s against women.’ It’s just a bunch of horny guys and their perspective. I mean, you know, if you write anything for some characters, and you want some authenticity, you gotta think about their point of view.”
Sure, but how far does Fenech align himself with that point of view? “When I was a younger kid I was probably similar to these guys,” he grants. “But look, I’ve grown up, and been married and divorced, and met a whole range of different people. And I think my perspective now in life is like, OK, I don’t care who you are… It’s about fairness for me, and I like to write stuff that attacks inequalities and the unfairness that’s in the world.”
Pauly’s story may be on pause for now, but Fenech’s own work ethic hasn’t flagged. His latest show, the municipal satire Darradong Local Council, recently started its run on 7mate – and while he describes it as something of a departure, he pledges that fans won’t be let down.
“It’s a little talkier, because it’s politics,” he says. “But I can’t help myself. There’s always a fight in it, you know.”
Darradong Local Council can be viewed now on 7plus, with new episodes premiering Thursdays 9.30pm on 7mate.
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