The local comedy world is in mourning following the shock death of beloved satirist John Clarke.
Clarke, a regular fixture in TV and film – most prominently his groundbreaking political interviews with Bryan Dawe – died while on a hiking trip in Victoria, aged 68.
His death has sparked countless tributes from local comedy personalities who worked with the prolific star and have spoken about his enduring legacy.
Most notable among those has been fellow giant of Australian comedy Barry Humphries, who is outraged at Clarke's sudden passing.
"How dare he die! John wasn't just funny, he was original and he was very, very nice," Humphries said.
"When Bruce Beresford and I were making the first Barry Mackenzie movie in the early '70s we had a scene in a London pub favoured by Australians. We'd cast a mob of noisy Aussies drinking and when we ran the somewhat random footage Bruce said, 'Watch this bloke'. We ran it again and froze frame on a young man at the bar drinking. He might have had one line, or maybe just a word, but he was terribly funny and terribly real. It was John Clarke.
"I've been watching him and admiring him ever since. He deserves a state funeral."
Frank Woodley, who worked as a script editor and "mentor" on his 1997 series The Adventures Of Lano And Woodley with Colin Lane, shares Humphries' admiration. "From the first time I heard a Fred Dagg cassette to this week's Clarke and Dawe, John Clarke made me laugh. Every time," he said.
"John could be silly and serious but he always had a twinkle in his eyes that made me happy. 'Trust your instincts. You boys know what you're doing.' I can still hear John's distinctive dry voice saying that to me as if it was yesterday."
Charlie Pickering, host of ABC's comedy slot The Weekly, on which Clarke and Dawe appeared last year, praised Clarke's towering impact on local political satire.
"If you are going to have the nerve to make jokes about the news in Australia, you do so knowing you will never clear the bar set by John Clarke," he said.
"John and I once talked about how writing a good comedy script was somewhere between poetry and physics. Whatever that middle ground is, John Clarke deserved the Nobel Prize."
He had "an incalculable gift" for comedy, said Max Gillies, for whom Clarke wrote The Gillies Report in 1984. "At school we were told sarcasm was the lowest form of wit, but John Clarke spent his whole life giving the lie to that. It was in his comic bloodstream, a deep sense of outrage that kept his blood pumping and the electricity in his brain firing."
Wendy said Clarke was instrumental in making comedy mainstream by fighting for television funding in the mid '80s. In doing so, he gave and many others their big break.
"Comedy then just completely took off," she said. "It was the thing everybody wanted to watch. John had sown the seed. For something like 30 years, John has been advocating and mentoring for comedy to take its place among the Australian arts.
"I think his contribution to the nation has been peerless."
Fans, both local and from across the Tasman ("Now we'll claim him back. He's our Phar Lap of comedy," New Zealand director Taika Waititi said), shared personal recollections of the man – and tidbits of his most celebrated work.
"He was always a lovely guy to me," said Dave Hughes. "He was a brilliant man who made me laugh a lot from a very young age and continued to make me laugh over the past 25, 30 years. It's such a big loss."
"John can read the Mildura phonebook and get a laugh," said Matthew Saville, who directed him in his final film role, as real estate agent Phillip Lang in 2015's A Month of Sundays.
Wil Anderson, who spent much of the day leading a YouTube deep-dive into Clarke's best bits, called Clarke "the funniest satirist on TV, until the end that came way too soon."
Clarke's stablemates over at ABC, including 7:30's Leigh Sales, also shared their memories of the comedy legend.
"Respected by his peers, adored by his fans, loved by his colleagues with a reputation as one of the nicest blokes," wrote Sales.