Show of the week

From football to politics, general entertainment to books, the studio-based panel show has proven a hardy perennial for program makers.

Relatively cheap to produce, a hook for crossovers and demographically targeted guests and, occasionally, a perfectly apt vehicle, panel shows have also become the programmer's equivalent of a Christmas-stocking filler.

Tractor Monkeys, the latest addition to ABC1's Wednesday night line-up, was ostensibly set up as a way of reusing the treasure trove of time-capsule footage held in the ABC's archives.

But it's well nigh impossible not to see it as an attempt to clone Spicks and Specks and resurrect an all-singing, all-dancing Broadway night on the ABC, something that Randling in 2012 failed to do.

The set-up is identical to the fondly remembered music-trivia quiz show: two teams of three, led by captains Dave O'Neil and Monty Dimond, are marshalled by joke-cracking host Merrick Watts to riff on a series of unusual questions that are prompted by archival clips.

The clips are doozies. Blogger David Knox speculated when this show was announced that the title was a reference to a little-known incident that occurred in 1966 when a tractor-driving monkey went missing from a car outside GTV9 in Richmond.

The monkey was due to make an appearance on a quiz show and led authorities on a chase through Richmond before being found. It's that type of obscure yet weird event that springboards the panellists not only into joky repartee but reflections of the They're a Weird Mob variety in Tractor Monkeys, homing in on trends, fads and mores of eras past.

The first episode, for example, makes hay from bizarre '60s-era footage of bikini-clad women, which certainly prompts one to consider the prurience, sexism and conservatism of an era that continues to cast a shadow on contemporary Australian society.

Yet it's less an exercise in nostalgia or sociology than a sobering reminder that today's fashions, advertising stunts and what might pass for a sensible idea are likely to look equally ridiculous to future generations.

Tractor Monkeys is the type of quiz show in which a level of historic knowledge and insight may or may not be an advantage. Like QI, being imaginative, playful and cheeky is far more likely to be rewarded than being correct.

Chemistry is, of course, a prerequisite for this type of show, which the highly polished first episode has in spades.

Watts is the genial pot-stirrer to O'Neil's suburban dag and Dimond's impertinent Gen Y-er, while performer Frank Woodley, comedian Tom Gleeson, musician Ella Hooper and radio presenter Adam Richard banter like rowdy dinner-party guests. But it seems to be a decent party that you would be pleased to be invited to.