A flannelette shirt, footy shorts and bare feet. A VB stubbie glued to his hand, a clip-on mullet wig attached to the back of his head. It is the unlikely image of Wollongong's freshest comedy export, Ben French, in his garb as Secret Agent Bazza.
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"What's going on?" French drawls as he saunters on-screen in the debut episode of AZIO: The Bogan Spy Agency, a series of French's own creation funded by ABC TV's emerging talents program Fresh Blood.
"Call me Bazza, bro."
French prepared the series of five-minute skits, premiered on ABC's iView online portal, with a $10,000 grant the ABC provided to 24 creators around the country. The skits are the latest venture from the Illawarra local who has become a viral video star with almost 8 million views on his dozens of short YouTube comedy clips, including controversial hit S--t You'll Never Hear in Wollongong.
"AZIO is about how England has MI6, America has CIA, and Australia can have an agency of bogans," French said.
"I play Agent Bazza, who solves crimes with his unconventional bogan skills."
French, originally from Austinmer, has had a chequered path to this point. After making the state finals of the Raw Comedy competition in 2009, he began chasing a career in stand-up. He began working as a substitute teacher in local schools, but said he "hated it" and soon left teaching.
"I got on well with the kids, but my head wasn't in it," French said.
"There was a day when a kid was annoying me, and I almost tripped him down the stairs. I knew then that I had to get out."
He began making short comedy clips after struggling to break into the competitive field of stand-up comedy. The S--t You'll Never Hear video established him locally, and helped him connect with other YouTube comedy stars including Neel Kolhatkar and Josh Wade, with whom he regularly collaborates, but it was more humble achievements that initially pushed him to pursue online infamy.
"The night after the Wollongong video came out, I got free drinks all night at the Harp," French laughed.
A series of short clips poking fun at the local area - "the parking rangers are so lenient here", "sometimes I feel too safe on these train stations", "you don't need to lock your car, we're in Bellambi" - raised the ire of Illawarra residents, with a Mercury story prompting readers to accuse the video of everything from affecting tourism revenue to a "hate-inspired smear campaign".
"I love Wollongong. It's a great place, and what I like is that it can laugh about it itself," French said.
With videos on topics comparing how young men act around their mates as opposed to around their girlfriends, sending cringeworthy pick-up lines to girls on dating app Tinder, and embarrassing dares from dancing in the Sydney University quadrangle in his underpants to shaving his hair into a "bowl-mullet", French's YouTube channel is a testament to young adult humour.
He is studying a diploma of film production at the SEA Institute, and has local film company Laww Media in his corner to spruce up the Agent Bazza project.
"The $10,000 sounds like a lot of money, but it's all going to cinematography and sound and editing. We're taking barely any money for ourselves," French said.
AZIO is streaming on ABC's iView, but French's next projects are already in sight.
His stand-up show Frenchy - Live & Lanky is part of the Sydney Fringe Festival in September, and he will keep making YouTube clips with the hope of breaking into the live comedy circuit.
