Long before The Chaser, Crikey and Working Dog were wittily taking aim at malfunctioning democratic institutions, a team of creatives were producing The Cane Toad Times magazine in Brisbane.
Published from 1977 to 1990, The Cane Toad Times was a bit MAD magazine, a bit Nation Review and a lot of sustained satirical attack on former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and his police enforcers.
It was called The Cane Toad Times because the cane toad is an icon of Queensland and the magazine’s goal was to be a pest to the ruling class.
Terrified by many indicators pointing to the end of times, surviving members of The Cane Toad Times editorial collective have launched a fresh assault on small-minded bigotry, neo-fascism and all impediments to free speech.
The Cane Toad End Times, launched in Brisbane on Sunday 3 November, is the first edition printed for 34 years, since the Bjelke-Petersen government was toppled and the rationale for the magazine lost.
L – R: Original editorial team members Johnny La Rue, Anne Jones, Stephen Stockwell at the launch. PHOTO: Vivienne Wynter
Now the world, (not just Queensland) has batshit crazy politics and conspiracy theories, there is plentiful fodder for a satirical magazine.
Going down laughing?
The 2024 bumper issue of The Cane Toad Times End Times with bonus Batshit Crazy magazine blends laugh-out-loud satire, journalism and witty artwork covering threats to humanity from Trump to the Murdoch media to people who leave Lime Scooters on the footpath.
Batshit Crazy logo: Michael Barnett
‘We were inspired by the imminent demise of humanity,’ says Emeritus Professor of Journalism, Stephen Stockwell, who with fellow original Cane Toad Times editorial member, Johnny La Rue, re-spawned the magazine in 2024.
‘The discovery of Toadzilla in the Conway National Park near Proserpine really disturbed the Editorial Collective because nothing says end of times like a 2.7 kilogram cane toad,’ said Stockwell.
The Cane Toad End Times edition features Stockwell’s writing alongside other leading lights of left-wing politics, writing and creativity in 70s, 80s and 90s Queensland. They include writer and former Triple Z Station Coordinator Anne Jones, author of the song ‘Pig City’, Tony Kneipp, artist and academic Deb Brown and artist Michael Barnett.
Queensland’s version of The Push
Full disclosure: as a freshly minted journalism graduate, my first writing job was on The Cane Toad Times in the 90s, after the editorial collective formed production company ToadShow.
I viewed the ToadShow folk as the Queensland version of the Sydney Push an intellectual and creative sub-culture. ToadShow’s wide, febrile circle included journalists, radio presenters, writers, musicians, film and television producers, playwrights, singers and curiously, quite a lot of architecture dropouts.
ToadShow’s productions expanded beyond the magazine into successful satirical theatre productions Sherwoodstock, Hound of Music and Conway Christ as well as books, websites and political campaigns.
The southern states have always treated Queensland as a backwater and it’s my belief that ToadShow are not as recognised as they deserve to be for their contribution to the arts and democracy in the Sunshine State.
Stephen Stockwell was writing about police and government corruption in The Cane Toad Times in 1985, two years before Phil Dickie’s excellent investigative journalism on police and political corruption exploded in The Courier Mail in 1987.
‘Corruption is traditionally treated as an evil cancer in the bowels of the body politic. In Queensland it’s treated as an artform,’ wrote Stockwell in 1985. He went on to meticulously detail the long list of corruption allegations the Queensland Government accrued throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Illustration from the 1985 edition of The Cane Toad Times by John Shakespeare.
In 2024, Stockwell and the ToadShow crew are somewhat freaked out by the return of authoritarian conservatism worldwide: hence The Cane Toad End of Times.
Let’s talk content, shall we?
In this edition, contributors tick the roll for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Pestilence, War, Famine and Death as present and add QANON, anti-vaxxers, preppers, Andrew Tate and AI as threats to humanity.
Sins to be accounted for on Judgement Day include putting the wrong things in recycling bins, failing to indicate until your car is actually turning and correcting other people’s grammar errors in emails.
Illustration by Anne Jones
Most articles have an End of Times theme. As a former academic, I laughed out loud at the page of lame, entitled excuses emailed to tutors by students seeking extensions in The End of the Academy.
A Banquet for the End of Times harks back to the Joh era, recommending meals ‘served cold like Bjelke-Petersen’s heart’ or ‘cooked on heat like you generate chasing student protestors’.
The articles are enhanced by witty design and artwork by Matt Mawson demonstrating AI can be used for good.
The toads of the apocalypse by Matt Mawson. Text: ‘Where’s pestilence?’ ‘Called in sick’.
There’s a fond look back at antique ToadShow cartoons such as the one below by designer, artist and animator Damien Ledwich, a ToadShow director gone but far from forgotten.
Cartoon by Damien Ledwich
The Cane Toad End Times is funny, clever and cool like the creative team who produced it. It’s a limited edition and my copy smelled like newsprint: an old school pleasure. The team have no intention to go digital though you can buy the magazine online at www.canetoadtimes.com.au
Published by the Cane Toad Times editorial collective, the magazine retails for $19.99 and is available at:
Avid Reader, Boundary Street, West End
Rocking Horse Records, 245 Albert St, Brisbane City
Sonic Sherpa, 12/360 Logan Road, Stones Corner
Mary Ryan bookshop, 85 Merthyr Road, New Farm
State Library Bookshop, South Brisbane
Gleebooks, Glebe, Sydney
Image at top of story of The Cane Toad End Times cover created by Matt Mawson
