Clarence, Do You Ever Shut Up

FUCK YEAAAAAAAAA-

So I recently stayed up with M and finished The Big Lez Show, and the thing is, I’ve never felt more like a bed was church, and a laptop screen was god’s eye staring back, and we were the only two idiots left on Earth who knew what it meant to laugh like you’re being born again, again and again, every time Donny pops out of a bush with his voice ten octaves higher than it should be, and Sassy’s yelling about the spiritual realm like he’s trying to contact the ATO.

And it’s crazy because I swear no one really gets it. Like not in the marrow, not in that tender part of your ribs that bruises when you hear the theme song and realise it’s over.

If it weren’t for me and M, no one would lose their shit over the fact that it was literally made on MS Paint. Like. MS Paint.

By one person. Jarrod Wright. One man. A volcano pit’s worth of chaotic genius exploding in short shorts and mullets and bush turkeys and metaphysical kangaroo battles. It makes me want to cry and punch the sky and high five the moon because how could one man know exactly what my dreams look like when I’ve eaten too many grapes too late at night?

M and I, god, we sat through it all, like apostles at the altar of pixelated perfection. We screamed when Choomah screamed. We repeated lines like they were proverbs: “Hmmmmm, fuck yeah!!” or “Whatdoyoutalkingtobeet” and the best part is we didn’t even have to say anything half the time, we'd just glance at each other mid-bite of shitty instant noodles and the memory would crash back like a psychedelic flashbang. I think that’s what real friendship is. Inside jokes embedded so deep in your spine they echo.

People don’t understand how sacred Clarence is. Like they’ll watch it and be like “haha this guy’s so weird,” and I’m like no, no you fools, Clarence is the essence of unfiltered chaos, Clarence is the scream inside every soul who’s ever walked into a room and forgot why they were there, Clarence is the divine idiot prophet sent to tell us that intelligence is a scam and life is just vibrating wildly and hoping you don’t spill your drink. He’s not weird. He’s enlightened. He’s what Buddha would be if he did ketamine and had the voice of a seagull being exorcised.

I remember this one time, I think it was 3:47AM and M was slouched so deep into the pillow, he looked like a worm reconsidering capitalism, and we hit that scene where the boys are camping and they do nothing but smoke and laugh and somehow… somehow, it made me cry. Like not sad cry.

That nostalgic ache wrapped in absurdity. It’s weird how often I find my deepest emotions hiding behind cartoon grass and a guy in a tracksuit yelling “ya fackin’ dogs.”

Every frame in that show feels like it was drawn by someone who saw the universe and decided to doodle it instead of explaining it, which, honestly, thank god. Because sometimes I don’t want lessons. I want vibes. I want long-ass pauses before punchlines. I want the way Lez just stares off sometimes like he’s hearing a whale song from another dimension.

I want characters who enter the scene just to vibe and leave. Like Mike Nolan, bless him, the most chill junkie philosopher to ever ride a hoverboard across my heart.

The best part? It’s Australian. Like properly, grittily, gloriously Aussie. Not the clean, tourism-board aesthetic. I’m talking sweat-in-your-cracks, bogan-accent, rusted-ute-in-the-driveway Aussie. And it feels like home, even if I’ve never been there. It’s the kind of show where the dirt has character, where the trees probably have opinions, and where even the smallest voice actor moment sounds like someone’s cousin who just walked in mid-recording session with a beer and stayed.

And I swear, no one talks enough about the animation. Like yeah, it’s janky and lo-fi and completely unapologetic, but that’s the point. It’s the rough edges that make it real. It’s how the mouths don’t quite sync up, and the frames skip like they’re dodging responsibility, and the backgrounds look like they were coloured in during a maths lecture, It’s garage-band animation. It’s what happens when you care more about soul than polish. More about feeling than finish.

M once said something while we were watching the Sassy vs. Lez fight, and it hasn’t left my head since.

He looked over, eyes bloodshot from sleeplessness and maybe something herbal, and went, “You know, I think this is the most honest depiction of friendship I’ve ever seen.” And he was right.

Because underneath the explosions and laser vision and random shirtless brawls in parallel universes, it’s always been about that bond. That love. That dumb, chaotic, loyal, feral kind of friendship. The kind where you scream at each other but would still jump into a spiritual wormhole if your mate was stuck inside.

And don’t even get me started on the soundtrack. Oh my god. The music. The way it sneaks up on you. Like you’re just vibing through a scene and then suddenly it’s like someone melted lo-fi, prog rock, and dreamcore into a smoothie and poured it into your ars.

There’s something about the way it scores the silence. The stillness. The weirdness. Like in Choomah Island, when everything goes sideways and there’s just that eerie synth track playing while the gang loses their minds. It’s art. No one talks about it enough. I want to tattoo the vibe of that music on my soul.

It’s kind of scary how much of myself I see in that universe. In its inconsistencies. In its rawness. In the way nothing really makes sense but everything feels right. I think that’s what growing up is.

Realising that life is less “coherent narrative” and more “long-ass Big Lez episode with interdimensional weed and friends who are just as confused as you are.”

Anyway, we finished it. All of it. The last scene faded out, and M didn’t say anything for a long time, just let out this little sigh like someone who just saw a really good sunset but also just dropped their last chip on the floor. And I looked at him and whispered, “We’re not alone, are we?” and he shook his head and said, “Nah. We’ve got Clarence.” And that was it. That was church.

There’s something about the finality of an ending that feels like breaking a pinky promise with the universe. You know?

Like the show ends and suddenly you’re left with this hollow, glowing ache, like someone yanked a part of your insides out and replaced it with echo. I swear to god, when that last episode faded to black, I didn’t feel like I finished watching a cartoon, I felt like I buried a friend. A friend who spoke only in absurdity and spiritual jargon and occasional off-key yelling about interdimensional sex caves. But a friend nonetheless.

It’s been days now and I’m still hearing Sassy’s voice in my dreams. Still imagining Donny crawling out of my backpack during class and screaming something completely irrelevant but weirdly profound. Like "Ya ever think the clouds are just the Earth's farts, Lez?" and everyone laughs, but I start spiraling because what if they are? What if the whole sky is a joke we’re not in on yet?

I wish I could tell more people about the way this show feels. Not just the plot, who even cares about plot anymore, plot is for cowards, but the texture of it. The sound design that makes you feel like your ears are stoned.

The way each character looks like someone drew them with their foot. It’s this raw, beautiful, trashy masterpiece, like someone spilled wine on a painting and it only made it better.

And okay, let’s talk about Mike Nolan for a second. Just one second because if I go longer, I’ll cry. Mike, sweet Mike. The accidental philosopher. The guy who should be a mess but is actually the only one in the group with a moral compass that’s somewhat functional. The way he says “fuckin’ oath” like it’s scripture. The little moments when he’s just vibing with his sandwich or dragging a body through a swamp without a single explanation. I think Mike is the friend we all think we are, but we’re actually Donny. And that’s okay. We’re all Donny when it comes down to it.

That show isn’t just a comedy. It’s a study in chaos. A thesis on weirdness. A rebellion against polish. It says, “You don’t need to look good to be godlike.”

And that’s something I wish more people believed. That your art doesn’t have to be perfect. That it can be glitchy and pixelated and shaky and still hit like a train of emotions going 200 mph through the station of your brain.

Sometimes I think about how Jarrod must’ve felt, sitting alone, clicking pixel by pixel, drawing moustaches on intergalactic space blokes and rendering weird kangaroo-men with floating hands. It’s like he cracked a dimension open and let us peek inside. And I don’t think we’ll ever fully grasp how much effort that would’ve taken. Not just the time. But the loneliness.

The madness. The commitment to a world so bizarre it stops being fiction and starts being myth.

And the inside jokes, oh my god, don’t even get me started. M and I still shout “SASSY SASSY DON’T SMOKE IT IT’S FOR THE O-PHANS” across the street when we see each other. We’ll do the Clarence voice in line at the grocery store and get dirty looks from boomers but we don’t care because we know. We’ve seen. We’ve crossed realms. We’ve witnessed the hotdog man.

We’ve mourned poor Quinton after he got vaporised by a floating head on a spiritual mushroom trip. We’ve transcended.

And there was this one scene, just a tiny thing, probably thrown in as a joke, but Lez is sitting on a rock, smoking, watching the sky, and there’s a moment of absolute silence. No music. No talking. Just Lez, looking. And I remember watching that and feeling like my chest had been cracked open and filled with sky.

Like the show suddenly said, “Here. Sit with yourself. It’s okay to be quiet now.”

There’s poetry in that. In how absurdity gives way to softness. In how the loudest shows can still have the most tender moments. That balance? That’s what makes it art. That’s what makes it eternal.

Anyway. I should probably sleep. But I just keep thinking, the spiritual realm isn’t just a joke in a cartoon. It’s real. It’s every moment that doesn’t make logical sense but makes emotional sense. It’s the place you go when your best friend looks at you and says “I love you” in the middle of a bong rip. It’s the silence after a laugh. The stillness after the final credits.

The whole point of the show wasn’t to teach us anything concrete. Maybe it was to remind us that the most ridiculous shit is usually the most honest. That reality is overrated. That friendship is holy. That we’re all just blobs of cosmic goo trying to hold it together, and sometimes the only thing keeping us sane is a dude in shorts yelling “FUCK OFF YA DOGS.”

And if that’s not spiritual, I don’t know what is.

The weirdest part is how no one talks about the in-between moments, you know? The in-between frames, the little shrugs or stares or walks that go on two seconds too long, like the universe forgot to cut the scene, and suddenly you’re just there with them, standing in the backyard, watching Lez scratch his head, hearing the soft hum of whatever spiritual wormhole just closed behind them, and there’s this weight in that stillness that feels heavier than plot, heavier than jokes, it feels like time itself is resting its chin on your shoulder and going, “Hey. You okay?”

And I’m like, No, but thank you for asking.

One of my favorite things is how no one ever really grows in the way you’d expect. There’s no sudden arc where Lez becomes a better man. No redemption for Donny. No epiphany for Sassy. They just are. They continue. They spiral. They go on trips, get lost in realms, get shot, get back up, have the same dumb arguments, and love each other anyway. And that? That’s life. That’s people. That’s the messy, maddening, unconditional reality of loving your friends even when they’re absolute units of nonsense.

Sometimes M and I sit in silence after watching an episode and I can feel him thinking the same things I’m thinking , That we’re all just Sassy in the spiritual cave, yelling at ghosts and hearing no reply.

Or Donny, feral and uninvited, but still showing up to every scene because love doesn’t need permission. Or Lez, holding it all together but secretly unraveling, the responsible one who’s one bad trip away from becoming an abstract painting.

And then there’s Norton. Sweet, terrifying, glitchy little Norton. I think about him more than I should. How he represents everything that’s both threatening and hilarious about chaos, this echo of a voice, this half-presence, glitching through scenes like a corrupted memory. And it’s like, yeah. That’s anxiety. That’s trauma. That’s the stuff that shows up uninvited, warps the air around it, and speaks in distorted tones. But also? That’s healing. Because once you laugh at it, it loses power. Once you name it, once you draw it in Paint and give it a stupid little voice, it becomes yours. Containable. Even loveable.

And you know what’s underrated? The mundane. The backyard beers. The milk runs. The little moments before everything gets weird again. Because that’s what gives the weird its weight. You can’t fly through space without first cracking open a cold one on a Tuesday and talking about how your cousin’s dog got possessed by a sentient tree stump. You need that balance. You need that grounding. You need to see these absolute maniacs just be, just exist in the sunlight for five minutes, shirtless and sunburnt and stupidly alive.

And now that it’s over, there’s this void. This ache. Not just because the show’s done, but because it held a version of me I can’t explain to anyone else. Like the version of me that laughs at the joke and then immediately spirals into an existential crisis. The version of me that sees a poorly drawn background and feels safe. Like, “Ah yes. Imperfection. My old friend.” The version of me that needed a place to go when the real world was too clean, too curated, too goddamn normal.

That’s what Big Lez gave me. A home for the weird. A soft landing for the chaotic. A reminder that maybe the best parts of life aren’t found in well-written scripts or perfect arcs, but in the awkward, messy, unfinished scenes that linger too long. The parts that feel like a glitch. The parts that feel like real life.

And M? God. M saw that too. He got it. Not in the “oh this is funny” way but in the “I will carry these characters with me until I die” kind of way. We built something together in that glowing laptop light. Something that doesn’t fade just because the show ended. And now every time I hear a bin lid clatter weirdly or a bird scream like it’s in pain, I smile. Because it sounds like Clarence. And that means he’s still with me.

Sometimes I sit in silence and hear Sassy’s voice echoing in the back of my skull, that desperate, half-philosopher, half-bogan tone, ranting about the spiritual realm like it’s Woolies on a public holiday. And I think, that’s me. That’s me trying to explain love to someone who’s never been held mid-panic attack. That’s me talking about fear like it’s a person I owe rent to. That’s all of us, really, vibrating messes trying to make sense of the frequency.

Because at its core, I think The Big Lez Show is about people who’ve been cracked open and didn’t quite close back up. People who’ve seen too much, not in the “I’ve been to war” kind of way but in the “I looked inside myself too long and found a guy doing burnouts on a spiritual lawnmower” kind of way. People who try to patch the hole with laughter, with weird voices, with inside jokes and shared glances and dumb plans that fall apart five seconds in.

There’s this line, it’s barely a line, more of a grunt or a moment, where Lez just sighs and goes, “Fuckin’ hell, Sassy.” And it’s not angry. Not really. It’s soft. Tired. Loving. Like someone who’s seen you fuck up a hundred times and still saves you a seat. That’s what I want. That’s the kind of love I believe in. The fuckin’ hell, Sassy kind of love. The “you’re impossible and I’d still fight interdimensional beings for you” kind of love.

I’ve never been able to explain to people why this show matters to me. Why it hit deeper than so many books or lectures or expensive-ass therapy sessions. But maybe it’s because it let me feel stupid and sacred at the same time. Like I could be holy in my chaos.

Like maybe the spiritual realm isn’t some place you go after death, but a place you make when you’re laughing so hard you forget to be afraid.

And now that it’s done, now that M and I have seen the whole thing, I feel like we’ve shared a secret. Not just a fandom. Not just a show. But a portal. A glitch in the system. A way of looking at the world where trees talk back and hotdogs hold grudges and spiritual caves echo your worst thoughts and also your truest ones. A way of being alive that doesn’t require a script, just a mate, a backyard, a couple of voices in your head, and a deep, guttural belief that nonsense can be holy.

I miss it. I miss that world. I miss the way it made my laughter feel like an exorcism. I miss the moments where M and I would quote full scenes out loud and then sit back in silence, like the performance itself had summoned something sacred. I miss the late nights, the bright screen, the gentle unraveling. I miss feeling like the show was talking to us, just us, like we were the only ones who knew the language.

But here’s the thing , we still do. We still have that language. We still carry those lines. We still know what it means when someone says “get in the fackin’ car Lez.” We still know how to walk through a Tuesday like it’s Choomah Island. We still know that even the most broken moments can end with a laugh and a beer and a strange noise that probably came from the bush.

So yeah. It’s over. But also, it’s not. Because every time I look at M and he goes “ya dogs,” I remember. Every time I walk through the city and imagine Norton glitching through a billboard, I remember. Every time I draw something badly on purpose and feel proud of it, I remember.

Big Lez lives in us now.

In our inside jokes. In our weird accents. In our refusal to be serious about things that don’t matter and our fierce loyalty to the things that do.

In the chaos. In the love.

In the sacred, stupid magic of a show that never tried to be deep, and accidentally became the deepest thing I’ve ever known.

And maybe that’s all life is, in the end. A couple of dumb characters, drawn a little shaky, loving each other anyway. Screaming at ghosts. Smoking through fear. Holding space for one another’s madness. Surviving by laughter. Bonded not by blood or fate but by the inexplicable fact that we get each other , even when no one else does.

So here’s to Lez. To Sassy. To Clarence and Donny and Mike and Quinton and Choomahs and weird floating heads and every fucked-up frame Jarrod ever built in that pixelated dimension.

Although me and him fell asleep almost immediately, while dreaming of sassy.

And here’s to us. The ones who saw it. The ones who felt it.

The ones who still do.