The stand-up was often topical, usually focusing on the week's news, or it was about a topic of the host's choosing; for example, in one show Santo talked about his family's highly ethnically styled home — which was eccentric even by their community's standards — with the sequence in question complete with video clips of the house's odd exterior and interior.

For example, when covering the replacement of Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, footage from an Asian bodybuilding competition was shown.

The skit would always end with Gleisner calling in Men in White Coats to douse Molloy and the News Desk with fire extinguishers.

Martin went through hours to apply prosthetic make-up to be interviewed in-character as Paul Keating, Prince Charles, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Jackson.

The 2-minute-long segment was played in the middle of every show, featuring old music clips, with a countdown displayed on the top left-hand corner of the screen.

Shitscared starred Rob Sitch as a stuntman combining Evel Knievel and Ed Wood (in that he was similarly unable to grasp his own sheer incompetence and lack of aptitude in his chosen field) compounded by the 'spanner in the works', Mick Molloy as his half-witted assistant and Tom Gleisner as the interviewer.

He would boast about his own significance, mumbling and glossing over any questions relating to poorly funded, rundown buildings and stunt apparatus variously referred to as 'Stunt HQ'.

The Olden Days was a segment where the cast overdubbed Rush, a black-and-white historical drama series produced by the ABC in the 1970s.

Actors Brendon Lunney and John Waters appeared as surprise guests on The Late Show after the last episode of The Olden Days.

Replacing The Olden Days in the second series of the show, Bargearse was an overdubbed version of Bluey, a 70s police drama set in Melbourne, Australia.

The segment was originally to be an overdubbing of an Australian soap opera, The Young Doctors, titled "Medical Hospital", but the rights to the footage were pulled at the last minute.

The ABC series Truckies was considered for overdubbing in a segment intended to be titled "Truck Wits", before the writers settled on Bluey.

This change left the writers with very little time, and as a result the planned 20 short episodes was cut down to 10, which aired in the second half of series two.

It was stated on The Best Bits of The Late Show DVD commentary by Jane (who played the segment's other recurring character, Miss Tammy) that Rob Sitch was in the suit.

The Shirty costume was actually that of Percy Panda, a character played by Jack Manuel in the ABC children's show Adventure Island.

The sketch featured purposely bad overacting from the children and usually involved an unimposing villain or disaster (such as a "smuggler" stealing "native fauna"—sticks and twigs—from the bush) that had to be prevented.

When the dog was required to bark to alert the others of danger, obvious overdubbing was used over footage of Charlie with his mouth closed or looking distracted.

Parodies of real songs, complete with highly accurate recreations of music video sets, costumes and wigs.

Charles "Bud" Tingwell played the grandfather in Charlie the Wonder Dog, and popular TV and radio voice-over man Pete Smith was also a regular.

Kennedy, Gleisner, Cilauro and Sitch formed Working Dog Productions, and made the TV programmes Frontline (1994–1997), Funky Squad (1995), A River Somewhere (1997–1998), The Panel (1998–2004), All Aussie Adventures (2001–2004) and Thank God You're Here (2006–2009, 2023–), and the movies The Castle (1997), The Dish (2000) and Any Questions for Ben?

Martin and Molloy had a popular radio show Martin/Molloy (1995–1998) with co-star Pete Smith joining them often, before moving into film with Tackle Happy (2000), Crackerjack (2002), Bad Eggs (2003) and BoyTown (2006).