Andy Lee’s children’s series Do Not Watch This Show is returning for season two in July this year, and comedian, television presenter, and children’s writer wants you to know that it is certainly not just for kids.
Known as the ‘Andy‘ half of comedy duo Hamish and Andy, as he self-describes, Lee is a busy man between appearing as the host of The Hundred and co-owning New York City’s most popular Aussie pub, Old Mates, planning a wedding and, of course, producing the second season of his popular ABC animation.
Created off the back of his Do Not Open This Book series success that launched from a “singular book” he wrote for his “nephew George’s first birthday”, the show follows the character of Wizz, a blue monster stuck in a television show who is desperate for the audience to switch it off, ending up in exciting, hilarious, and strange adventures with his friends Kiwi, Lime, Tortoise, and Douglas.
It’s based on the cheeky reality that kids love doing exactly what they’re told not to do, but according to Lee, it’s a habit that stays with you well into adulthood!
Speaking to WHO, Lee unpacked how writing comedy for kids compares to adults, the celebrities who begged him for cameos this season, and the unexpected young adult market his show didn’t mean to reach.
‘Your imagination can run wild in animation’
While you’d think writing comedy for kids would look a little different to writing for adults, according to Lee, he “didn’t approach it differently.”
While not a father himself yet, the comedian revealed that he leaned on his friends and family with children to give him insight into the themes that resonate most with kids.
“We’ve always thought that our comedy is pretty broad, and I just wanted to make the funniest show for kids or adults,” Lee told us. “There are certainly some things the ABC have told me I’m not allowed to say, and I lean on them to say what is not appropriate.”
He continued, “We’re like, okay, just testing the boundaries! So, we’re great to have that support from the ABC to look across our scripts and make sure that we are behaving.”
The multi-talented performer was also surprised at just how much creative freedom he found in working within an animated medium.
“The real difference is your imagination can run wild in animation because a space creature or a UFO can arrive very easily,” he explained. “It’s not going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in special effects like it might in any one of the shows.”
“That was a great, fun thing to expand [my] mind and takes you back to childhood…kids just sometimes don’t have a sense of any realities, whether it be gravity or something else, and that gets slowly taken away from us.”
Lee added: “I think it just wears away as we grow older, we understand real things. So it’s nice to try and get the mind back into that mentality.”
‘We want adults to enjoy it’
Inspired by the cinematic masterpiece that is the Shrek franchise, Lee wants Do Not Watch This Show to be just as enjoyable for the parents watching alongside their little ones.
“That’s what I loved about Shrek,” he says. “There are so many jokes for the adults as well as the kids, and that’s what we’ve attempted to do with this show as well.”
It’s safe to say he’s succeeded.
The show has also attracted new audiences – one of which Lee jokingly describes as “younger adults that are the kind of people that may go to 7-Eleven for munchies late at night”.
“I suppose a lime talking to you and making quick and snazzy remarks is great for that market as well,” he quips.
And then there are the celebrity parents who not only love the show’s broad appeal but are desperate for a cameo on it.
“You find yourself in a strange spot with kids content,” Lee admits candidly. “Because with the parents, their kids are really everything in their life, their lives revolve around them, and so when they find their kids into something, parents are more likely to reach out and go, ‘Hey, Andy, I’m loving this, my kids are loving this’, so it’s been funny in that regard.”
“I remember that [Australian reporter and radio presenter] Ben Fordham being one of those people who’s like, ‘My kids are obsessed with your books’ early on, so I was like, ‘Oh, come and do a voice!'”
As a result, season two of the show will see the likes of Denise Scott, Dave Hughes, Joel Creasy, and Kura Forrester returning from the core cast, as well as cameos from Glenn Robbins, Shaun Micallef, Kate Langbroek, Becky Lucas, Dave Lawson, Rob Sitch, Sam Pang, Celia Pacquola, Leigh Sales, Rick Davies, Colin Lane, Angus Sampson, Michael Wiplfi, Clint Stanaway, Broden Kelly, and Rebecca Macauley.
The list is long, and it’s full of Aussie comedic icons!
‘It was something we worked really hard at’
While he’s certainly received great feedback from grown-ups, what Lee loves most about the show is the feedback he receives from kids.
“It’s my favourite thing because kids are so honest,” he says. “They’re so raw, and so when you do the test screenings, you realise that something may have worked or something didn’t work pretty quickly, and they don’t hold back.
“This day and age, as adults, we need to be polite. It’s sometimes tough to get really honest answers in the adult world. Kids don’t have that problem. They’re straight shooters.”
He also believes that kids’ shows are playing “down to kids a little too much at times”, underestimating their humour, considering they have so much “access to things, screens…older content earlier in life.”
“They get the humour,” he says. “And so we’ve been able to push that, which is really cool.”
Lee has also experienced the impact of this approach firsthand, as he’s been stopped on the street and at airports by nervous kids bravely sharing their appreciation.
“This kid came up and just said, ‘I really love the show. Thanks for making it,’ And I said, ‘Oh, well, why do you love it? What do you like about it?’, and he said, ‘Because Wizz talks to me,'” Lee gushes. “I just thought that was really precious that the kids are feeling like they’re being talked to, they’re in control, and it’s interactive.
“And it was something we worked really hard at, but it’s nice to know that’s working.”
Season 2 of Do Not Watch This Show will premiere on Friday, 3 July 2026, dropping at 6:00 am on ABC iview.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
