Do Go On - 551 - Nasubi; Japan's real life 'Truman Show'

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

In the late 90's, an aspiring Japanese comedian auditioned for a new reality TV show. What he didn't know, was that the TV show would change his life forever. And not in a good way. This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 05:32 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Jess Writes A Rom-Com: https://shows.acast.com/jess-writes-a-rom-comOur awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/may/02/the-contestant-documentary-japanese-reality-show‘The Contestant’ 2023 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubihttps://time.com/6972667/the-contestant-hulu-nasubi-interview/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-26/surviving-japans-real-life-truman-show/104810198 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun.

Lastly, very exciting news. I'm going to do a live 200th episode special of Who Knewit with Matt Stewart in Melbourne at the basement comedy club on June the 27th in the afternoon, 4 p.m. Tickets for all this stuff. I believe are online. And I'm here too. And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dev Warnikey and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins. Hello.

Hey, it's so good to be here in the year 2026. It is 2026. That can't be true. Why are you talking over a woman? I was still saying hello. Sorry. Oh, I fully tuned you out. Sorry, that was me talking under.

Is that ringing you? Thought I'd had some sort of head knock. I thought I had tinnitus. But it's just a friendship. What a relief. Here we are with episode 550, everyone. Wow. Can you believe it?

I can't. It's so many. Too many? No, I don't think it's enough. Really? Because I think once you go over 500, you may as well go for the Thao. Oh. May as well.

So long. Can't we just round up? Yeah, to a thow. Yeah. From here. So we've done it. Oh, right. Sorry, now, I think you're going to get a little, you can't go from 550.

Surely, I reckon, yeah, from after 550, you may as well go up to a thow. Okay. Before that, it's like, well, that's basically five hours ago. So this is our last chance to bail on this. Yeah. All right, everyone go around the room. Matt, you in? What do you call it when you don't vote?

I absolve. I abstain. Okay. I'm a virgin. I'm chased Whichever one of those means I'm not going A real spine of steel Don't you?

Very decisive No no I mean You got nothing else going for you Do you want me to be sincere Or really funny? Both Okay

So just say the sincere thing in a funny voice Okay This is the best one I never want to stop Say it Say what you really feel But as Kermit the Frog Why are there so many?

Why are there so many? I love doing this podcast. And I am Kermit the Frog Sesame Street News. Great to have it on type. Yeah. Just assuming you're yes. And I am 100% in that. Let's do it.

Well, whatever just said. Okay. Yeah. Hey, does it have to be unanimous? I haven't looked at our charter for a while. Yeah, well, how about, I'll tell you, for the people who've never heard this show before, what we've done for the last 549 weeks and what we pledged to do for the next 450 weeks. How about that?

Okay, great. What we do here at Dogo on is we take it in terms to report on a topic, which is often, but not always, but usually suggested to us by one of the listeners. We go away, do a bit of research on it, bring you back to the group. In the form of a report, Jess is going to report now on a topic. Matt and I have no idea what she's going to talk about. So to get us on to the topic, you are going to ask a question, which I know you were writing while we had lunch.

That's right. And my question is, which country is known for their wild and unhinged game shows? Oh, Japan. Correct. And I'm going to talk about one of those game shows today. Okay. And I guess a character, a person who gained a lot of fame from this show. Okay.

Go, famous Japanese people. Dave, go. Why can I think of any? Because he's put you on the spot. One time I played a game where you just had to come up with movie titles, but it would be like movie titles starting with R or whatever. And I just had to do one word movie titles, and I just froze for the entire minute.

Couldn't think of anything. Raw. I'd say aliens. Up. See, it is actually, but when you're on the spot, I would say Emperor Hirohito. Oh. I thought you said that.

to start with R. I'm like, you guys are getting this way wrong. I was going to say that R as well. I'm misunderstood whatever you said. Anyway. I was just telling a different story. One of them was about the R. So I'll just, I'll just tell you. I reckon I'll just tell you about this. I don't want to have to listen back to this to understand. You never would anyway. You never would. You never would.

So this topic, you'll never understand. This topic's been suggested by a bunch of people. Simon Telford, Brandon from Brooklyn, Kate Burton from Newcastle. Tim Vandenwright from Ramsdonk. Jess. It gets that reaction every time. Jess, you have to only read out real people. We don't have to pad.

Gem had it from Brighton in the UK. Taylor Lockhart from Floyd's Knob, Indiana. Brendan Taylor from Warrigal, Mitchell Grenfell from Melbourne, Mitchell from Newcastle, Nick Dennis from Eddors, Truman from Virginia and Phil Ellis from Alton in Hampshire. Greatly this topic's big in the Mitchell community. Yeah, Mitchells love this topic. It sounds like Newcastle in Australia and England.

Yeah, there's a couple of Newcastles and a couple of Mitchells, and we welcome everyone. That one topic that Novacastrians love. That's the title of the show. Everyone's going, whoa, I want to know more. Yeah, what is it? What can they love? Oh, it's about Emperor Hirohito? He thought who we're talking about?

No. We're going to be talking about a guy known as Nasubi. Does that ring a bell for either of you? Not the name, but I think the story I've heard of before, I think. I've got an inkling. Yeah, yeah. You've heard of the story of Nassi Biba, not the man. I wouldn't recognise a man's name, but I think I've read about someone who became a big deal in Japan from a game show.

Like years ago, like a long-form article type thing. Okay, Dave, I don't know how you jump into conclusions here. That happens all the time in Japan. This could be any number of people who became huge stars based on a rally show. this is Nasubi's real name is Tomaaki Hamatu who was born in 1975 in Fukushima

in Japan. Their family moved around a bit when he and his sister were children due to their father's work as a police officer. Tomaaki learned early on in his life that he wanted to entertain people and make people laugh. This was partly born out of it sounds like a bit of a defense mechanism

because he was bullied a fair bit as a child for his long face. I think in some articles it was like they've measured his face and it's like 30 centimetres long. Wow. Did that inspire you to get the ruler out and see how long your face? No. Why the long face?

Was he a horse? He was not a horse, but like, I mean, I'll pull up a picture of him. It's, yeah, okay, he's got a long face, but it's not like, I don't think it's bulliable. I'm from the long face community. They even showed, like, showed him as a, as a child. And I'm like, no, that's, that's fine. Like, it's all, he's completely in proportion. I would say he's got a long, thin face.

Yeah, my head shape. He's a tall, like pretty lanky kind of guy anyway. But if you said, you've got 30 seconds described this man's face. I don't think long, I wouldn't be like, that's a long head. Yeah, I wouldn't be like, wow! I'd be like, okay, he's got dark hair, look at that mustache. He's got very lovely facial hair. That's what I'd go with that.

So anyway, but that kind of is what gave him the nickname Nassabi, which means eggplant in Japanese. But he kind of, he leaned in and he adopted the nickname. taking it into adulthood and kind of using it as like a nickname and stage name as he worked towards a career in comedy and entertainment. I wonder how he feels about the emergence of the emoji. Yeah, I was going to ask you, do you think this before it was sexy? Yes. Maybe he made it sexy.

In fact, some argue that this is kind of where it began. Ah, I'll explain more later. That's so fun. Whoa. So, his opportunity for a big break came in January of 1998 when a new TV show was holding audits. looking for comedians to participate in their show. The TV show was called Den Poshonan, a reality TV program that became known for placing participants in extreme situations.

The participants were usually unknown comedians who were ready to do anything to get famous. Upon application, they were chosen randomly and were not told what the objective of their challenge was. What era is this? 90s. 90s. This is 98. You know what? Comedy, 90s.

Really difficult position they're putting them in. talking to the bloody mother-in-law, I bet. That's your challenge. Make small talk with the mother-in-law, hey? Make your mother-in-law laugh. Good luck. No, it's father-in-law, really, I suppose. Make your father-in-law laugh and just put up with your mother-in-law,

right? Yeah, yeah. Fucking, the devil reincarnate. See if you can, like, shut her up for five seconds. I'll tell you what. Every second you can get her to stop talking, you win a million dollars. Guess what? Nobody ever won.

We've never paid out a cent. Not quite that, but I would almost argue worse. Some of the challenges became more or less famous, while some remained relatively unknown. I don't know how you become less famous, but some of them gained fame. You're so bad at this. Even your friends don't know you anymore.

No, you're done. You know, it's be like, you know, in modern parlance, like someone on social media, loses followers from being embarrassing. You're less famous now. Yeah. Yeah. I guess.

That's how we count fame, right? Yeah. Yeah. And Jess, what are you up to? You're nearly 20K. No. I've been sitting on 17.9.

We're rounding up. We're rounding up. I'm over 20K. I'm really rounding up. Wow. Everyone ran up to the closest million on squaring up. I'm at 300,000 followers. Whoa.

Ranting up to the nearest $300,000. I'm very popular. That's famous. Yes. What do you reckon famous is like, is it a million or multi-million? Or I guess it depends on where you are. Because you come across account sometimes that pop and you go, oh, what's this?

And it's someone you've never heard of and they've got $8 million or something. True. So it might be massive in one community or one country. Fame's tricky now, isn't it? Yeah, it's very splintered. Yeah. I was thinking, like, you walk down the street and get recognized all the time. But, like, yeah, there'd be plenty of TikTokers who have millions and millions of followers

that I've never heard of because of recognised. They'll get mobbed in one scenario. Yeah, yeah. Ignored in another. Can't even bloody get the manager to come out and have a chat. But there's a toenail in my food. Back of the 90s, like in Australia anywhere, it was there five TV channels. And that's where pretty much everything was.

Yeah. So if you were on a TV show, even the lower rating ones would still have a big chunk of Australian. Yeah, absolutely. Or aware of. Now we're all off doing a million different things. Yeah. Who knows? So some of the challenges on the show, Dempashonan, so one of them was called pennant race.

That's the translation. It was probably snappier in Japanese. But this tested the loyalty of diehard baseball fans. The contestants would be confined to a single room with a TV that only would only. showed their team's baseball games. Their faces would also be hidden from public view. If their team won, they got to eat dinner and a small portion of their face would be revealed to the audience.

Oh. If their team lost, they would get no food and the lights would turn off, leaving them in darkness until the next day's game. If the contestants' favourite team went on a win streak, the quality of the food they could eat would increase as well as gain public exposure and popularity because their entire face would be shown on TV. So they want their team to win So they can eat

And so they get famous Yeah right And then as a guy who watches Baseball Yeah Because they're like They're unknown comedians So they're launching them

Are they alone in the room? Yep And then the lights go out And you have to wait You should wait till the next day It sounds like a weird science experiment Yeah An inethical one

And also unethical Well and that will be a recurring thing Imagine, Matt, if we did in this country, obviously baseball's not very big, but AFL is, and then when you're filling out the form, you have to say you're a fan of St Kilda. I reckon I might change allegiances. They'd say, this man's BMI is already too low.

Yeah, this is dangerous. The police, sorry, the doctors, probably police too, won't sign off on allowing you to bet your life on the saints. They're saying they wait until the next day's game. Yes, baseball, they play so many games. Footy is like the week. You'd have to wait a week. Yeah, the Saints are complaining about a five days.

break. I'm not. This is great. Shorter the break, the better. We're really tired. Yeah, but I'm hungry. I'm dying. I'm in the dark, okay?

Another one of their challenges was called Den Poshonan's Vertical Africa-Europe Continental Hitchhike, again, probably snappier in Japanese. I love it, though. A comedian named Takashi Ito and a radio DJ from Hong Kong named C-Chi-Yan, hitchhiked from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa

to North Cape in Norway. The two contestants were forbidden to use their travel money and thus faced starvation, dehydration and harsh weather conditions. So they gave them travel money. It must have been for like, yeah, I don't know. Emergencies only. But like maybe you spend it, you're out kind of thing. But then that was also their food was...

Yeah, I have no idea. Oh my God. Don't know a lot of the details of that one. Just giving you an example of some of the challenges. If they get directions to a restaurant if their team won. Even if they get the wrong directions. Yeah, yeah. Like it's not, you know, other shows

Do things like Wipeout Where you just have to You know the show Wipeout? Yeah, yeah, we have to try and balance on obstacle courses above water I'm ashamed of how much I laugh at Wipeout Wipeout. Remember we watched a little bit in New Zealand The fantastic editor of AJ

He was over at our place And we were eating pizza And watching, I think it was like British wipeout from the 90s Yeah, so Richard Hammond's hosting it and commenting I will say, can I ever guess what I was doing? Pub or sleep. Sleep.

Sleep. After pub. Yeah. My favourite combo. I don't know what you were doing. You went to your room. We didn't inquire. But you're up there for a long time and we were worried.

I was playing my own little game of wipeout. Avoiding us. Nassaby goes along to an audition to participate in this new show and gain some attention for his dreams as an entertainer. I really related with being young and desperate to be famous or successful as a comedian or when I was doing YouTube videos or whatever. Your YouTube videos, you were doing your own. Basically, you were putting yourself through stuff like that. That's why I listened to every song on my iPod in a row, which took seven days, didn't take the headphones out. I did like a man versus wild sort of takeoff or I actually camped in the forest.

You did, you wore a G string? Yeah, that's right, wore a G string. That was a big one. That got a lot of views. Yeah, that got a lot of perverse. I've hearded people watching a 20-year-old man who looked about 11 in the G-string, yeah. But I'll take their advertising revenue. And that were the ones who were...

I'll take the money from those permits. You got... That were the ones who contacted you the most as well, weren't they? I got a lot of DMs, including one guy asking me to send him the G-string because he said he wanted to wear one, but he was too embarrassed to ask his mum, so he was wondering if I'd send him my G-string. And how much was... No money.

Oh, yeah, nah. I was like, I would have to... You should have said you don't have to ask your mum. Yeah. Go to the shops. Yeah, the logic does fall down and I was, I'm fairly sure it was like a 60-year-old man. And I'm asking me, probably he's like, don't worry about washing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I need you to do that. And can you send me a cup of your bath water? Which again, for a price. Yeah. Go for it, you per. What do you reckon was the hardest one to do? Hardest one. Yeah, probably the camping.

out one, I guess. Yeah, Dave doesn't like. I'm not a camper. I had to build my own shelter. I ate some bugs that I just found. And how were you filming? You were by yourself just filming. That one, my friend Jace came with me and filmed it.

He actually slept in the mate, the hunt with me, which is, I say hut, the thing. But it was mostly just on a camcorder. Right. Because this is like 2009 or something, 2010. You took my, I remember you took the G-string one down after we started this podcast because you started feeling weird about it. Yeah, it's a bit weird. Did you, and the other ones still up there?

No, I took them all down. I'm afraid, but... Patreon only. Yeah, Patreon only. Release the tapes. I'll send you a G-string. I'll be negotiating the price. Yeah, please.

I'll take a cut, but I'm going to get you a good deal. Thank you. So, Nassaby's going along to this audition. Adrian Horton writes for the Guardian. He arrived with zero expectations and a dream for some fame. Reality television was still in its wild west infancy. No contract. no protections, still just a handful of homegrown personalities.

The new frontier of reality celebrity was just opening up and Nassaby saw an opportunity. His only boundary was a request from his mother, don't get naked. Great advice. I ignored that on the G-Spring video. I want to get naked, but I'd have to ask my mum, do you reckon you could just send me a photo of you naked instead? And then I could show that to mum to see, see, it's fine to be naked. It's fine.

Oh, it's fine. Yeah. And back? She died of old age, but I'll take it to her grave. She died of old age 20 years ago. Oh, Mum, look, I found a great photo. His mom said, just don't get naked. Yes, his parents didn't really approve of his ambitions to go into entertainment.

His mother saying, for me, it wasn't a way to lead to a normal life or put food on the table. And no comedians ever heard their parent worry about that for them. Though in this case, you have to succeed to get food on the table, you, they'll take your food away from you. Yeah. I think, it's funny because my parents were pretty encouraging, but I was like kind of later in life after they discouraged me from teaching and sales. I remember telling Dad that I just got a job selling air conditioning and he's like,

oh, you don't want to do that. I just got the job. I've got the job. I've got the job. He's like, you're not a salesman, mate. Oh, that's. I couldn't even sell the idea to dad. But then you worked as a salesman for a while.

Seven years. Was he just trying to do a bit of reverse psychology? You could, mate, good luck at that. And you're like, I'll be the best salesman you've ever seen. And you were. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Still the record holder.

Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, record holder for eking out of living. Seven years running. He eked it out. Another year of eking. Oh, he's just staying on top of it.

I think he was able to pay his rent most months. They're very proud of your other siblings. Yeah, it is crazy how much, like you go, oh, they're all doing great stuff for themselves and the community. Yeah. So are we. Older sister working in the public service. Brother, plumber.

Younger sister, something with houses. You're not entirely sure. buildings it's building related okay do you want me to next time i see you're all no it's just it's like it's too long it's too late for you to ask no no i know but i think you'd be like me going i think i vaguely get it yeah you know it's that sort of specific stuff honestly i kind of feel that about our job yeah i get it she listens as well Alex if you let us know you know that i i love you and i care about your career and I'm proud of you.

So let her face, not through a microphone. You just, I know, I know, you need this barrier. Yeah. I'll break down that wall. Just before you press send on this snarky comment, new listener, yes, we do talk a lot of shit. I haven't done that warning for a while. Dog shit riffs are kind of our thing.

Yeah. And I'm sort of, I do understand that this is annoying. but also it's what it is. It's what it is. If you're here to learn, this isn't the pod for you, there's probably heaps of others. And there's a whole documentary

which I'll talk about shortly. Go watch that. Anyway, so, actually learn, it goes for an hour and a half. This will go way longer and you'll learn way less.

Okay. New idea. So. Documentary, but then every five minutes, we cut in ourselves, doing a dog shit roof, and then it goes back to the do-go-up. You learn, you get confused, welcome to do that one of these three guys.

So, his parents not stoked about his ambitions to go into entertainment. Okay. But he's got a lot of little. long face. What else has he got? He's got a long face. Like so many people, young people from rural areas, he wanted to go to the big city, make it big. So he'd been in Tokyo for a little while when this audition came up and he was in a room with around 20 others who all took turns drawing out like a card from a little lottery box. They had a little box and it had a question

mark on it like, ooh, a bit of fun. And this is all on camera. This is part of the show. Okay. And the winner, Nassaby. He won. So just as a pure luck, drew the right car. Yep. Wow. He was promptly taken out of the audition room and into the back of a minivan. And they pulled out a sheet like he's a horse.

Well, they did put a blindfold and headphones on him. Yeah. Like a horse. Blinkers. Saddled him up. Yeah. I can say this because I'm a long-faced man. Okay?

So it's okay. I think we need to measure. Yeah. I reckon I got 30. We should do. Do you have, what about? I've got a lot. long forehead. Does that like...

I mean, it all counts. After this, we're measuring it and we're going to go in order of face height. Yeah. And that's who gets the most money. I think I'll have the least height of face. This is your pitch for a game show. Just another way for the gender pay gap to fuck women over. Sorry, you've got a tiny face.

Sorry, so freakishly small. That's our new game show. They go to like an office. They line up people in a hired order and that's your new salary. Okay. But there's got to be another. there's got to be a bit of jeopardy. Like whoever has the shortest face also gets put down or something.

Oh, okay, right. So you don't get... There you go. Yeah. You know, put, oh, no, no, killed. Put down like, um... Emotionally. Oh, ugh.

Little face. Yeah, okay. And that's what you know as from now on. Yeah, okay, little face. So if it's, you know, you go to Kmart and you rank, you line them all up. Littleface has to change their name badge to... Littleface. So, Jess would be Littleface Perkins.

Yeah. Well, we'll see. We'll see. after we measure. Can't wait. So he's put in a minivan with, this is like... Yeah, I'm in. He's got a blindfold, headphones on.

He's taken to a tiny one-room apartment. It's very sparse. It was basically bare walls, a little like coffee table with a cushion. And on the coffee table was large stacks of postcards. There was a pen, a phone, a radio, and a magazine rack filled with the latest issues of numerous magazines. And then the show's producer Toshio Tchaia said one important word to Nassabi. Strip.

No! Mom and Dad are watching! That was the one thing! It was the one thing. It was explained that Nassabee's challenge called A Life in Prizes was going to be to use the magazines and radio to enter mail-in sweepstakes

until he won a million yen worth of products. And he had to live off. He was to start with nothing, including no clothes, and he'd be cut off from outside communication and broadcasting, had nothing to keep him company except the magazines he combed through for sweepstake entry forms. So he basically just has to live off whatever he can win. And this is a TV show?

Yes. I don't know. How, what are you watching? I'll get to it. A man's suffer. It's just like, you're watching in real time where they... I'll get to it. Okay.

So he's got to be condensed down to, this is a 10-minute show? So he's left in a tiny apartment, had to win these sweepstake competitions to win his freedom. There were two cameras monitoring the apartment, and Nassaby wore a microphone pack around his neck as well. I would have worn it lower. Like a loincloth. Around your hips.

Like a fig leaf. Yeah, or a loincloth. That's a better way to put it. He was told that his progress would be filmed, and then a program would be made of some of the footage once it was all completed. But Tachia said, I told him most of it would never be aired. When someone hears that, they forget about the cameras.

But that was a straight up lie. That is diabolical. You can't do that. Nassaby was filmed 24 hours a day and production assistants edited down the footage to eight hours, which was then edited down again to about six minutes on a package that aired once a week on Den Poshonen. So he's going through this 24 hours a day

for a six-minute package that plays me. once a week. That's incredible. It's wild. I don't think you even need to say that. I remember on like Big Brother and those sort of shows when they were getting big 20 years or so ago, they're like, the contestants were like, you just forget the cameras after all. You see him at first and you're so aware of them, but you're in there 24-7.

It becomes your lie. Yeah, you just totally forget about them. Yeah. So they didn't need to lie to this guy. Yeah, a lot of the resources written about it and in their, documentary which is called the contestant which I'll talk about a bit anyway but uh this is before like the Truman show came out later this year it's before Big Brother it's before any of those kind of shows so it's he has no idea what's going on I guess they didn't lie that much though

do they if it is only six minutes per week most of what he's doing isn't being shown yeah but he doesn't know any of it's being put out now oh week to week he thinks it's at the end when you Like, we'll do a little recap. Once you finish the challenge, we'll, like, piece it all together to be something. Are they showing his chop on TV? Well, because he was naked, producers censored his genitals with an animated eggplant. Oh. Which was a nod to his name, but some believe it's part of the reason we associate an eggplant emoji with a dick now.

Whoa! That, because it doesn't make that much sense because, like, dicks just aren't that kind of size, right? But they are that shape. They are that shape and color. Yeah, they definitely think. Thicker at one end. Thicker at one end, got that little frilly green bit. Yeah.

Oh, it tastes fantastic in a stew. Yeah. Mainly water, like when you... We're talking eggplant? We're talking... Oh. They both taste fantastic in a stew. Okay.

You know what I mean? Are you saying... Have you had... Pienous stew? You're cannibal? You're a cannibal? You're saying you're cannibal. No.

Oh. When you stew something, it doesn't count. I'm a stew. When you stew something... You missed me. I missed you. I miss you. Yeah. I was going to explain it and I thought, just give him a sec when you got there.

I'm a stew. Three several conversations going on at once where I'm talking some shit and it's like, what's this about this? I'm a shoot. I'm a shoot. I'm a stew. You missed me. That's really. And that's why people come to do go on. No, you're not going to learn as much as you will from others. You could read an article about this. It'll take you 10 minutes. But you come for this kind of thing.

You pick your character, who you're going to associate with this week? I'm on the mat wavelength. He's a stew. If you're on the mat wavelength, seek help. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, I've no offence, but I think you'd agree. I think you'd agree. I'm a shoot.

And if you're on the Jess wavelength, seek help. Some sort of anger management, probably. From The Guardian again, Denposhonan was the ever-evolving brainchild of the famed producer Toshio Tachia, pitting young people in survival or prank situations, accentuated with cartoonish graphics and cheery hosts. The through line, as Tuchier explained in the film, in the contestant, was that if you drop anyone into any situation, give them a task and then capture it on camera, actually all humans are entertaining.

A life in prizes felt like a stroke of TV genius. At the time, I wanted to capture something amazing, something incredible, says Tuchia, an aspect of humanity that only I, only this show, could capture. Wow. He's fascinating in the contestant documentary. He's maybe a psycho. Got a God complex sort of thing. Oh, yeah.

A little bit evil. Yeah, feels that. A TV producer? Yeah, they're not like that outside of Japan. I've heard. Yeah, I think they're fine here, yeah. Especially. Reality TV.

Yeah, yeah. There's certainly no whispering in ears or setting up applying people with alcohol before they go on camera. No, no, no, no. At first, Nisubi was surviving. on a few crackers per day, given to him by the producers so he wouldn't starve to death. Dave, and that means biscuits, not white people, you cannibal. He's not surviving on crackers.

Dave's like, oh, okay, just a couple of crackers. A couple of crackers. Put him in a stew. It doesn't care. I'm a stew. You missed me? Yeah, in the documentary, it's really like, well, I couldn't have him dying, so. That's annoying.

We have to give him something. And you're like, yeah. Correct. Anyway, he had running water, electricity and heat, and a small gas burner, but no other cooking facilities. I assume there was a bathroom in the apartment too. I didn't really see that in any of the footage because he always looks clean. But I'm also not entirely sure he had toilet paper unless he won it because, spoiler, at one point, he does win some toilet paper and he's really excited about it. So, like, what's he, how is he?

Maybe he only has single ploy and he has to win the good stuff. Yeah, let's go with that. He was excited about a really plush toilet paper. It sounds like he was basically living like I did at the original Stupid Old Studios. You had some clothes, though. Oh, yeah, well, I had to win them. Yeah, but you had them. And our kitchen was like a camping stove top.

Which apparently is not. That shower. Not straight legal. Not legal. That shower didn't look great either. No. Andy put it in. Oh.

It looked fantastic. So I was like for a guy, for a teacher. Yeah. Putting it in a shower as a hobby. It was pretty good. That's a game show. You have to build your own house. Yeah.

You build the shower. You build the kitchen. Do you just invent the block? Yeah, but you're locked in there. You can't leave. And they use tradies and stuff on the block. Yeah, they'll stop people in. My brother was one of the tradies on the block one year.

A bit of fun. There you go. Yeah. What was your brother? What was my brother? Michael. He's a carpenter, right? He's a carpenter.

I just got confused him with another computer, I know. Oh. Pretty good guy as well. Yeah? Really? Yeah. That's how I'd love to talk to you about him sometime. I got a really good book that goes in a lot of detail, especially the second half.

That's when he really, yeah, yeah. That's a slow burn kind of book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. Introduce the main character halfway through, bold. Kill him off, bring him back. What? Okay.

Okay. Okay. I'm fucking out. I'm so, you know I love to read. Yeah. I've got an absolute tear. You are. I don't have to read that one now, whatever it is.

It sounded really good. It sounded like a really good book. What stuff happens after they come back? That was so shit. Oh my God, just forget it. Dave doesn't even get it. It's the worst I've ever seen. Because he grew up heathen.

It's true. I'm just going to move on. There's a part in the documentary, the contestant, where he has entered 963 competitions and has won nothing. And won nothing. And then there's a knock at the door, and it's a delivery guy delivering ramen and vegetables. And Nassaby's like, hooray!

And then he's like, that'll be $1,700 yen. And Nassabi's like, I don't have any money. And it turns out it's a delivery for a different person. It's like wrong apartment. And it's not clear if it's like set up by the producers or a genuine mistake, but it's so unfair because he's hungry. Oh, my God. And he thinks he's got a... He's like, oh my God.

Like he must have won. Yeah, it must have won this delivery of ramen. You'd forget what you've entered. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Dave, this is. you. You remember what was it your birthday, your 25th birthday, something where you had all the free birthday things for a day? Oh yeah, that's right. I've signed up to many a competition. Yeah,

that's right. For my 25th birthday, a lot of the places have since close down, but you, like, in Australia, if you sign up to a lot of mailing lists, you can get like free scons from Brumbies, a free salad from Sumer's salad, free coffee from Jamaica, blue. On your birthday. On your birthday, sorry, so you become part of their birthday club. And I put the video at actually, maybe last year, On my Instagram and I spent a day going to all this things one after another and claiming my free thing. And that was, didn't you go around with Ryan John? Is that right? Yes, yeah, Ryan John from, now, from Tony and Ryan Fame, was helping me film that day.

And I'm just remembering you also went to Mexico because of a taco competition. Yeah, that's right. Didn't you, you won like 10 grand from a pie thing? Thanks to the listeners. You are this guy. Yeah, you'd be great at this. But I get to go around. So it's the kind of thing he's entering, like, you can still.

get them in Australia magazines that are just competitions. Like, there's like a word search or a quiz and then you fill it out and then you mail it in. So in this case, it sounds like, you know how often you'll enter a competition and you have to like, in 25 words or less. My favourite ones. Yeah. I don't think he had to do that. I think it was literally just you had to like send a postcard in with your address on it and send it off.

Yeah, it was simpler times. The bigger the barrier, the less people would enter though, I guess. Like if you do have to write 25 words, some people are like, ah, can't be bothered Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's games, that's called a game of skill versus games of chance, which is just like lottery sort of style ones. So these are sweepstakes, these are lottery type ones. Because more, like you said, less people enter the games of skill.

Yeah. Because you go, I can't be bothered doing that. That 10 grand one as well, that was the reason that you said if you want it, you were going to buy me and just lady and lordships. Yeah. That's right. And I came through. You did.

That's why we're a lady and lord of Sealand. That's right. God, we've done some fun stuff, haven't we? in Dave's slipstream. Yeah. So 17 days passed until he finally won his first prize. Oh my God, it's been on crackers this whole time.

Yeah, and he won a pack of... And David had's biscuits. A pack of fibre jelly. Like a... It almost looks like he's sort of drinking a juice box type thing. It's like a... Oh, okay. Something like triathletes have.

Probably, but not even quite that. He's so happy. He does a little dance. He shows the camera what he's won. And while it's certainly not enough to... to like sustain him, it's a bit more fuel than a couple of crackers. Like it's going to get him through. But now that he's won some food, they stopped giving him crackers.

And he had to just survive off his winnings from now on. What the, and can he leave? I'll get to that. When the person came to the door with a thing, of course, like the... There's a chance he runs. He can open the door. Yeah. Fuck, man, because like after 17, when do you call it?

You go, I've got to get out of here. The classic, like, humans are funny. We do that sunk cost thing. just go, I've come this far. Yeah. Do you hear that all the time on game shows? I've come this far. Yeah.

I came here with nothing. Yeah, but now you've literally got, you know, in one of those shows where they can gamble. It's like, you can come here with nothing, but now you have this if you want to. You can easily walk away with 10 grand, but you're going to have a shot at 15. For, with a roll of the dash. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So on day 28, a delivery arrives with another win. A five kilo bag of rice. Oh, yes. Again, this is big. He's stoked. This is big. He's so happy. Oh, man.

And then he realizes he has no saucepan and no way to cook the rice. No. He makes like a makeshift container out of one of the fiber jelly pouches and he uses the hottest water we can get out of the tap to kind of soak the rice, hoping it'll work to like very slowly cook the rice. After three hours he tries to eat it and it's basically still raw. He later attempts to heat the rice using the same container. Imagine like those, because the inside looked like, remember those juice. boxes. I used to freeze them and then cut the top off and eat that. It all looks like silver on the inside foil line. Oh, like sunny boys and stuff. Remember those? It's triangle sort of

it's that kind of container. He fills that with rice and puts it next to the heat of the little gas burner, which feels like pretty risky, but he places it next to it hoping that it'll heat it and maybe cook it and that kind of works. So he now at least can make edible rice. That's like a lone inside edition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Den Pishonan was wildly popular, especially amongst young Japanese viewers, and a life in prizes was huge. Like, it started to really take off. At its peak, 17 million viewers tuned in each week. Wow.

And on and on, this went. Nassaby spending large portions of his day writing postcards to try and win sweepstakes and also keeping notes in his diary, which the producers had given him, you know, as something to sort of do. Except his diary entries were being published. and became bestsellers in Japan. While he was still in there? Yeah. And he's, they're making all the money off it too, I guess. Yeah, I assume so.

I mean, either way, that's fucked. Isn't it? It's like, in my private diary. You don't know people are reading it. No, he doesn't know people are watching. He has no idea. As he gradually starts to win more and more prizes, his tiny apartment, filled up with boxes.

Not all of them were useful for his survival, like movie tickets, a vacuum, a bicycle. But they all counted towards the one million yen gold. Can we ask, is that a lot of money? A million yen at the time? I think I did look it up, but yen to a UD. I think it was around like $8,000 or something. Okay, so it's a fair because obviously it's not a million, I think.

It's 8,000 now, or 8.5 grand, Australian now. Sort of gives a vague idea. I was just wondering, like, is it like an insane amount? Yeah, it's not like a million dollars. Yeah. And the bike was worth $7.5 grand. It was a really good bike. It was a really good one.

Yeah. So it's... It was a norco. It was like a norco plus. It was a norco cross huffy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With mongoose pegs. Whoa.

Oh, pegs. Spoky doaks? Yeah, Spoky docks in there. Oh, all of that together. It almost gets us over the lawn and itself. Spoky docks. If I had one more Spoky dokeye. It would get us to the milling in.

Oh, just one more Spokytock. I love our culture and our accent. It's cool. When he ran out of rice, Nassaby was forced to resort to eating dog food that he'd won. Okay. This is total sunk cost now because you'd be looking around at all the prizes going, it can't be that much more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you're eating dog food, dude. But dog food, like, I'm not a, I should say this, I'm not a health expert or a nutritionist or anything. The dog food seems like it'd be a healthier diet than two crackers a day. Am I wrong? Probably more protein rich. Yeah. It's, you know, high calorie. I'm really hoping he's got a bathroom now, though.

Yeah. He's shit in a bucket in the corner. Has he won the toilet paper this day? Yeah, probably. There was like a kibble that he won multiple boxes of, and that was okay. Is that like crunchy dog food? Yeah, it's like the dry food, yeah. Dry, hard meat.

Yep. That sounds good to me. Just little discs of meat. He never won clothing he could wear. He did win some ladies underwear that was too small for him. Dave. I forgot he was nude this whole time. He's naked the whole time.

nor did he ever win anything to trim his growing facial hair and fingernails. So his hair is growing, he's got a beard and his fingernails get really, really long. And a bush, I guess. Yeah. Which you'd be combing down. Which, I mean, I actually can't confirm that because of the eggplant. The eggplant? But was the eggplant having to get bigger and bigger?

Yeah, to come a bush. Who calls eggplant Orbijeen? I think that's the superior name. I think the Brits do. The Brits called Orbanjean. Pretty sure. Yeah, that sounds so much fancier. Yeah, it does sound fancy.

Eggplant. Orbing. Do Americans as well call it that? Don't know. Salantro. What does that mean? That's something the American say. Yeah, that's coriander.

Corrianda. And they say oregano. Yep, that's oregano. Yeah, that one's a little closer. And they say pecarn, pecan. Oh, pecan. I like that. Oh, my favorite type of pipe, pecan.

Didn't Patrick Stewart play him on Soucher? Captain Picard. I didn't see this in the doco, but Wikipedia says at one point he won a TV set, but he wasn't able to use it as a TV because there was no cable or antenna hook up in the apartment. That was intentional. Pro because I worried that he'd see that he's on TV. Exactly. But I think he later won a PlayStation and a copy of a train simulator game.

So he had stuff to do. But obviously, any time doing that is not time spent surviving, which he has to do. That's right. He's naked, how deep in. And is there heating? Yes. So he's not freezing his tits off. No, but he's naked.

Yeah, you just, well, you'd get used to it, I guess, but I'd just like to have something on me. Yeah. After several months. At the workplace. After several months of the show being broadcast. People on the internet started to hypothesise that Nassabi was just out and about living his normal life, and then they were just filming these segments for the show. They're like, it's not real.

Highlight real, yeah. So the producer, Tuchia, thought, well, I'll show them. That's his words. And literally, you did. Have a look. This is when he introduced an online live stream. Oh, no, that's not right. None of it's right.

None of it's right. Like, if you don't know, and then, like, yeah, 24-7, anyone can see what you're doing. And you aren't. And they're not doing. Yeah, I'm going to say you can't eggplant a real time. You can. There was, it was a huge undertaking. And this was 1998, so this is very new for, like, live streaming.

But there were 50 staff members working 24 hours. a day and there was a dedicated team whose job was to live censor his genitals. So they just thought everywhere he walked, click, click, click. No, they had like a little joystick. To follow his stick. You're not going to. 24-7, someone is following his cop.

About five people at least are working on. Oh my God. You can't get it right the whole time. It would like, it was a pretty big circle. It wasn't an eggplant then. It was just like a, it was for the, it was a beach ball. It was for the TV show, but for the live stream. It was just like a large purpose.

So you had a bit more of a cock cam all the time. That says how much money they're making that they could have 50 people working on cock cam. Yep. This live stream, as I was saying, ahead of its time, only added to the popularity of Nassabi and the show had become so popular that people were starting to figure out where the apartment was. Paparazzi fans and even the press stood outside the apartment building with Nassabi inside, ignorant of the fame he was amassing. He has no idea.

Also, I don't really know what they expect because, like, he's not coming out. Of course You're not going to see him You can't come out Is it windowless? Yeah Oh yeah Basically yeah

Well phones There was no like Streaming on phones At that point No So people have to be watching On a Probably on a desktop

computer mainly Yeah Yeah I can't believe They have to Sence alive The joystick So now that people are

That's awful I know Are showing up at the apartment building On day 155 Tachia entered Nassubu his apartment, waking him up with a flashlight to the face, which I think we can all agree is the preferred wake-up method.

And once again, they handed Nassibia blindfold and covered him with a blanket as they transported him to a new location. Basically, it was a very similar apartment, and he's understandably a little confused. He thought maybe he'd completed the goal, but producers, they're careful of the fact that he didn't know the popularity of the property. They couldn't be like, oh, people figured out where you were living. So they're just like, oh, we've moved you to improve your luck. this location will have better luck.

They're treating him as a fool. Yeah. And what's so interesting in the documentary, and this is what Dave was sort of asking before, is he talked about how he could have escaped at any time. The apartment door was unlocked. Okay. And Megan McCluskey writes for time,

physically he was losing weight and hair, struggling to sleep and suffering from near constant aches and pains. In the contestant, Nassaby speaks about how he frequently wished for death during this time in the room. Gosh. But he says psychologically, rather than escaping or doing something radical, staying put and not causing trouble feels like the safest option.

Like when you're in that, and you know, like, the effective malnutrition on the body and that would be why he's losing hair and losing weight, obviously, but your brain doesn't function properly if you're not getting enough nutrients. And you're isolated completely. Exactly. You lose your mind a bit. Yeah, absolutely. And so he doesn't know.

yeah, it doesn't feel safe to just leave. He's institutionalised. Kind of. James Oaten writes for the ABC, and this is a quote from him, I was feeling silent pressure, he said. The person I was talking to was a very famous TV producer, so I thought it would be better for my future in the entertainment industry to not go against him. I was trying to make a name for myself.

So he dutifully stayed, entering sweepstakes and living in isolation. On day 335. Oh my gosh. Nassaby was 586 yen away from his goal, having just recently won a set of four car tyres worth around 84,000 yen. So he's about $5 off his target. Spokey-jokies. He's so close.

Are the tires in the apartment? Yep. So he's running out of room to move as he goes as well. It gets crowded. Yeah. So he's $5 off. that day, a knock at the door revealed he had won a bag of rice which pushed him over his one million yen target.

He'd done it. Congratulations. Producers entered his room that night and it's, again, a pretty weird interaction. Tachia kind of stands over him popping party poppers. Just kind of meant, like not saying anything, just sort of, he wakes him with a party popper. Again, beautiful way to be woken up. That's got sucks.

Again, he's been alone for nearly a year. he's malnourished, he's in shock, he's very confused about what's happening. And Chachia's like, what's this? And now, so he's like, yeah, and what do we do with these? When do we use these? And now, so he's like, when do we celebrate? Like it takes him a while to sort of put it all together. Eventually, he's like, oh, did we hit the goal?

Am I there? And they're like, you did? And he's stoked. He's given back his clothes and then blindfolded again and taken to a surprise location. They remove his blindfold to reveal that he is at the international departure's terminal at the airport, and then he's blindfolded again, and when they take it off, he is in South Korea. And he's like, what?

They flew him there. They flew him to South Korea. So he'd written in his diary that Korean barbecue was his favorite food. So the producers took him to Soland Amusement Park, and they, like, where he had Korean barbecue and went on all the rides. It was just like this big reward. And was he having fun? Oh, he's having the best time.

He's stoked. Like, what the fuck is going on? Am I dreaming? Yeah. Am I still in that apartment right now? No, he's very happy. He's having a bloody great day. But it also must have been so overwhelming.

Oh, the stimulation is suddenly receiving. Yes, too much. Going from not seeing anyone to being in a theme park? Yeah. That's zero to 100. It's a lot. But the show wasn't over just yet. Okay.

At the conclusion of their fun day out, Nassaby was blindfolded for one more surprise. he was taken to another apartment he was once again asked to take off his clothes and challenged to enter sweepstakes this time the goal was to win enough money to afford a flight on Japan Airlines to return home because he's just in an apartment in Korea

oh my God that's fucked isn't that fucked in the edit of the show it's edited so the producers say like strip and he goes like, oh no, but then he does it straight away. But that's not actually true. He was incredibly hesitant, obviously scared,

and the other crew left the room so that Tachia could talk to Nassabi just one-on-one. And in the contestant, Tichia said it took him about three hours to convince Nassabi to continue. Oh, my God. And it feels a bit gross because some of the other crew and producers are interviewed in the documentary, and it's always kind of like, well, Tachia had the final say. Or like, oh, I wasn't in the room. we all left and it was just them talking. I'm like, you guys, this is so ethically awful.

And you're all just going, well, it wasn't me. It's like, it was. And it's sort of, they know that it's crook now. It's seen as been. I'm not sure. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

It's not clear in the documentary. None of them say like, yeah, it was awful. Right. But it took three hours of, come, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And Nassaby said in the documentary, that he kept saying to Tachia that there were so many times in the last year where he'd wanted to die. And Tuchia had said, I understand how you feel, but if you could just hold on a little bit longer, you can grow to another level as a human.

Oh. If he's got his best interest at heart. Nassavis said at the audition a year before this, Tachia was like a god to me. But from that point on, in a flash, he became the devil. Yeah. Yeah, hey, I can offer you a little something. You just got to keep suffering. Now you're in a different country.

Yeah. Like, will you not fly me back if I don't want to do this? Exactly. You don't know. And if he tries, if he just sort of, if they, when he was still in Tokyo, if he just left, I mean, yes, he's naked, but could hopefully get home and then just, but now you're in different country. Where's your passport?

Like, how do you? Yeah. And he's probably thinking like, wait, if, because he doesn't know that any of it's, he's like, I'm doing this for a career thing. Yeah. If I leave now, are they going to scrap it all? The whole thing gets scrapped. So that's, yeah, sunken cost as well.

Then you don't get the leg up in the industry that you wanted. But let's also remember, he's in a different country. So the first thing he had to do was learn the Korean alphabet in order to write the postcards. Is he doing Korean competitions now? Oh, my God. He really loves kimchi. So when they were all out having their delightful day out, they bought him this huge, like, contain a big pot of kimchi.

So he has that in the room with him. So he does have some food. Oh, that's nice. Isn't that nice? But apart from that, he's starting again, like, filling the pipeline with... Yeah. So reaping and sewing, right? He has to sew or do all these entering, and then it might start from the food.

But before you do the entering, you've got to learn a new language. Yes. And it's not like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not like, you know, I was going to say Australian, English, and, like, Italian and share the same sort of alphabet, so I may not understand the words, but I could copy the characters down, right? These are different characters. Oh my God. So it's, yeah. So it's a smaller goal is the only thing as well, because he just needs to make the amount of a flight home.

And he actually quickly met this goal after several weeks of entering competitions. So it was revised multiple times, first to afford a ticket in business class. I was going to say this upgrade to go, Sorry, man. It's a really expensive ticket. We've put you in that Emirates lamp, that thing where you're flying a room on your own. Like, he doesn't know how much everything's, so he doesn't know as it's going. He just gets to it and they go like, well, he's kind of reached it, but let's just say it's actually for this. Yeah, yeah. Because he's the cash cow for them. He's the big hit on the show. He was progressing much faster than they'd hoped, so they kept moving the goalpost. They didn't tell him this. So he just sort of kept plotting along. Eventually, producers heard him sort of say to himself, surely I've met the goal. by now and they realized it's time to end the game.

Should have taken the piss. Yeah. So once again, they burst into his dark apartment in the middle of the night and said, let's go. To avoid attention from the press and the public, they opted to return to Japan by ferry. And Nassaby says... Wait. I want a business class flight.

I just earned myself a business class. He doesn't know. Business class. But it's still fucked, isn't it? I know. So they... But he says in the documentary that he was treated like luggage because he stayed in the car on the fair. Oh, because it didn't want to be seen.

I guess. They returned to Japan, and Tuchia wanted the ending of the 15-month ordeal to be spectacular. So he's like, how can we go out with a bang? So Nassaby was blindfolded, taken to another apartment in Japan. And shot out of a cannon. Another apartment. Oh, my God, you'd be... He'll never want to live in a...

I bet he lives on a ranch or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd be breaking down. When the blindfold was removed, he looked around and he's like, okay, just instinctively takes his clothes off. He's just like, all right, fine. So he takes his clothes off, expecting to continue the challenge. However, the walls of the apartment fell away. He's naked.

He's naked, and he's actually in a TV studio with a huge live audience. Oh, my God. I hope they got that joystick ready. For everyone. Jesus. He's actually revealed to be live. Oh, my God. The walls fall away, all four walls.

That sounds like spectacular footage. It is. The ceiling's like hanging on a crane type thing. So it all just falls away and he's just sitting there. And then there's hundreds of people in front of him. He doesn't know he's famous. You'd feel like you've lost your mind. It's a hard watch in the documentary.

He's pretty clearly in shock. The audience chants Nassaby, congratulations on reaching your goal. They chant that? Confetti can't. Yeah, they count down. They go ready and everybody says it. That's pretty impressive. The entire audience had sat there in complete silence as he's walked in in front of them,

taken into this little room. Close the door. I think Japan is famously good at that, having quiet crowds. At least when I gig over there. You can hear a buddy Pintra. I love that face. Hello, Japan. Nothing.

Nothing. I get nothing. Oh, like, yeah, they are a polo. audience. Yeah, they're very nice. They're loving it. They're smiling. Yeah. I think they're laughing and so on. Yeah. So the hosts of the live broadcast approach him. They're kind of like, he's just sitting there like in complete shock. He has pulled a cushion over his junk, but he is naked. Right. He's probably more comfortable naked. Probably. So the hosts sort of explain what's happened. Watching it, my heart breaks for him, but I also said out loud to myself,

fuck he's good talent because the hosts approach him and as soon as she puts the mic near him he says my house fell down and the whole audience laughs he gets like he gets quite a few laughs throughout it um he is good talent but it's awful the host tell him the audience have been watching him every week for the entire 15 months you'd be going oh no no exactly done some stuff in me he's like you all saw me naked that whole time and everyone's laughing their heads off and he's like what the fuck. They tell him they've watched his celebratory dances when prizes arrived, seen him eating dog food. And one host goes, funny stuff. And Nassavi says, that's a bit wrong, isn't it? Oh, my God. Really? And the audience laughs. It's so weird to watch as he's like, what, this is

wrong? And everyone's like, ha ha ha ha, wow. Wow. Exactly. That's why we love it. I know. It's so interesting. That's so odd. It's really hard to get your head around. There was a BBC journalist Juliet Hindel, who was a correspondent in Japan at the time. She's interviewed throughout the documentary. And there was sort of like a press conference, which I guess was all sort of still happening at the same time as this big reveal, because he is still naked and sitting on that set. And she gets up and asks him a question.

She asks if there were days where he struggled mentally, and he answers almost every day. And again, the audience cracks up. What? I just, this is so fucked. They never laughed at anything I said. And you also were struggling mentally. I was naked.

So at the end of the live finale, Nassabi was finally given a blanket to cover himself. Nobody thought to give him a bit of dignity. He was taken to a hotel. Oh, no. He's checked over by doctors. No, it's okay. It is over now. But to him, he'd be like,

this isn't a doctor. It would take you so long before you go, okay, it is actually over. Yeah, it would do. Yeah, you're right. And there's still cameras, like it's because you can see all. of this in the documentary. There's a bit of a press frenzy that follows, but Nassaby, understandably,

was really impacted mentally by the experience. He was only young as well. He was like 22, 23. The show had left him with like no faith in humanity. The physical and psychological impacts were intense. He found that after 15 months with no clothes on, wearing clothes again left him feeling really hot and like claustrophobic.

He said he felt like he'd forgotten how to talk to other people and he struggled with things like knowing where to look when talking to people. Like he really, being in isolation for such a long time, it really left him struggling socially. James Oten writes, After emerging from isolation, Nassaby entered the world again and struggled to get his bearings.

He could not comprehend why the show was so popular and that he now was a major celebrity. From about halfway through, the idea of doing something funny as a comedian had disappeared. I was really struggling to survive, he explained. He said fans of the show were brainwashed into believing he was having fun. My distrust of people grew, he said. Everyone who was watching me was laughing. I felt that the fact that they had been laughing at me without knowing how hard I was finding

it a bit scary. I felt a kind of fear, a fear of people. So it really impacted him. Yeah, that's full on. Don't worry, we're not ending on grim, though. Not much is written about the next few years in Nassaby's life, but Wikipedia said after rigorous, after the rigors he went through in order to become a famous comedian, he was unable to succeed in the variety TV world. Instead, he became a local talent in his native Fukushima, as well as a dramatic stage actor founding the stage troop Eggplant Way performing across Japan. So he kind of tried to get back into like a somewhat normal life. But then in 2011, which you might remember, an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and a major nuclear accident started at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. And that's his hometown.

town. The subsequent inability to sufficiently cool reactors after shutdown compromised containment and resulted in the release of radioactive contaminants into the surrounding environment. It's regarded by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation as the worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl. So it was horrific and obviously very, very devastating for his town. Understandably, given the massive crisis, it wasn't easy for him to travel back. It took him about a week to be able to get there. And luckily, his family was all okay. And Nassaby decided to do whatever he could to help his hometown community. So he helped remove debris, removed mud, cleaned the shoreline, the really like tedious and important grunt work.

And his presence as a celebrity really lifted morale. He can see in the doco as he's like outmeeting people and they've lost their homes and it's like, it's awful, but they're so happy to see him. They just say him and they piss themselves. They're just like, this. guy's hilarious. Cleve up nuclear waste. It's kind of sweet. In the docker, his sister says people would come up to him and say, you came, but we're sorry, we lost your autograph with the house.

And he was like, that's okay, I can make more. And it's sort of, his family had had some really mixed feelings about his time on TV. Like, they didn't know. Obviously, he didn't have time to be like, I'm going to do this TV show. Like, it just all happened. He never agreed to any of it either. He didn't expect to be out for over a year. Exactly.

He kind of disappeared for a bit. He pulled a card out of a hat. He went to a thing one day and then didn't come home for nearly a year and a half. He's like, wild. So they felt a lot of like fear, obviously. His mother was like, I don't know. Who do I contact to get him out? Yeah, exactly.

They felt shame. They felt protectiveness. And it feels like this was a point where they started to feel pride in the impact he could have. And so he decided to take on a new and unexpected challenge as a way of uplifting his community in Fukushima, while also reminding the rest of the world of the devastation these people had faced. So to do so, he was going to climb Mount Everest. Okay. I mean, it's logic.

It's the natural next step. Yeah. I think, yeah, if you never want to see the inside of a flat again, I reckon top of a mountain. Yeah, can't get me up there. Like, what a, what a life. The walls of Mount Everest fall away. Oh, no. He approached Kenji Kondo and experienced mountain,

guide to guide him on this expedition. The contestant focuses on his climb in 2015, but other sources say he had aborted attempts in 2013 and 14. So on his third attempt in 2015, they arrived at base camp on April 23rd. Two days later on April 25th, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal and surrounding countries. Oh dear. And with an earthquake comes an avalanche.

At least 22 people were killed. Oh. And condo estimates around 150 people. people were injured. But he also said of Nassabi, Nassabi switched on to rescue mode right away. He immediately said about rescuing others. He was so dependable, he looked like a superhero. Kondo stayed on for two months, helping in the recovery after the avalanche, and he says Nassabi stayed on for weeks longer than that. So he just stayed on and was helping with recovering, people with recovering. It was, yeah, he just... And Kondo said, I think Nassabi found his true

path his purpose on Everest. And Nassavi says, I realized that by helping those around you, you can find deep resources of inner strength. So it actually started to help him. Wanting to attempt the climb again, Nassavi didn't have the money to do the climb. Wait. He never got, did he get paid for the show? I'm sure they, like, I don't know amounts.

Yeah. But, I mean, it wasn't like, he's not a billionaire. And we know that climbing Everest is incredibly expensive and this is his third time doing it. He's going for four. I assumed that at the end there was going to be like, but obviously here's a million or probably more than that, yen. Yeah, yeah. Here's a novelty chain.

Yeah, I don't know. I assume there was some prize money or something, but I don't know how much and I don't think it was enough. It wasn't Everest money. It wasn't ever, it wasn't four times to Everest money. So he doesn't have the money to do the climb again And someone told him that Tachia, the producer, was wanting to contact him Oh dear

And Tichia says in the documentary that he was used to being hated But it was particularly strong from Nassaby And he was willing to do anything if it helped Nassaby Because he felt bad I think so from Time magazine I didn't have contact with him for more than 10 years This is from Nassaby saying I didn't have contact with him

for more than 10 years and during that time he was a symbol of hate for me, someone I really despised. But when I decided to climb Everest, I contacted him for the first time and he said, I would do anything to help you and apologise for all the awful things he'd put me through. So in the final few days of doing some fundraising, there was this huge swell thanks to Chichia and he was able to make enough to do the climb from time again. During his interview and the contestant, Chia speaks in what seems to be a cold and callous way about what he did to Nassaby, which I agree with. He comes across as a bit of a psycho.

He comes across as unremorseful about his actions. When asked how he feels about Tchaia today, Nassabi told time that his emotions are complicated. I have hatred towards him, he says, but he did agree to be interviewed for this film and helped us get footage from Nippon TV. So that's kind of an act of redemption, plus the money he helped raise.

So he's kind of like, they're not friends, but he sort of feels like he has a, at least kind of acknowledged or tried to make some amends. Anyway, so he prepares to attempt to summit Everest again, and this is his fourth attempt. And in the preparation and the support he gets from the people of Fukushima, he says in the contestant that slowly he made a few friends he felt he could trust, and that helped him to heal and feel more hopeful about the world. He said, my loneliness could only be filled by those around me. I came to realize it was their support an affection that filled that void.

And the documentary ends with Nassaby at the summit of Mount Everest. He made it. He made it. Crazy. And he says, I'm more aware than anyone else that people can't survive alone. When people are affected by disasters or other calamities, they inevitably feel lonely and helpless.

I can't save everyone, but I think it's my personal mission to keep doing what I can do. And in the decades since, Nasabi now has, he's built a successful career in TV and radio, and devotes a lot of his time to helping others. He's only 50 now. The ABC article sums it up. Nassaby fully appreciates why people do crazy things for a chance of fame, but he urges those seeking stardom to do so with a clear sense of purpose and awareness. If you only pursue what the

world wants from you, you end up becoming a really empty person, he said. To this day, people sneer at Nassaby for being that naked guy on television. Not that was his choice. Rather than be consumed by negative emotions, he takes a philosophical look at his time on the show and has forgiven those who he feels have wronged him, including the show's producer. I am who I am thanks to the hardships I went through back then, he said. Continuing to hold on to that anger and other negative feelings was becoming a burden for me. I'm definitely happy.

And then they say, and what does he want next in life? World peace, he laughed. Sounds like he's working towards it. Yeah, that's awesome. If anyone's going to get there. Yeah, I reckon it's Nassaby. It's a real shame Dave didn't hear that advice. you know, when he was starting out.

You're just going to feel empty, Dave. Yeah. Yeah, it's lonely at the top. Yeah, he's up your own head of room. Me, Nassobi. It's such a, the contestant's a great doco. So I recommend you watching it, but it's, yeah, it's tough at times to watch. It's rough.

And what a strange and scary situation that is for him to be in. But it's nice that it can kind of end on a more positive note. that he's like filled that void he felt that he has connections with people and he has sort of this purpose in his life now and that he's happy now and he's done some pretty cool things so that's pretty nice yeah thank goodness but yeah what a wild wild wild ride for him isn't that crazy that was voted on by the patrons as well um when i put up the vote i'm just i'm having a look now to find it because the comments on the on the patreon page we had a j our very own a jay being like vote for the fucked one everyone.

And they did. This wasn't the fucked one? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The docco is narrated by Fred Armisen. Yeah, parts of it are, yes. That's fun.

Yeah. So, yeah, it's very well done, but yeah, it's a pretty cool guy. Yeah, what a cool guy got through. It's so funny how, like, it would have be, I imagine so different if a different person had been pulled out of the hat that day. Yeah. Maybe they would have, like, not being great television. Yeah, exactly. have cancelled it or not being up to it or not been able to go through all the hard chips he went through.

Yeah. So it wouldn't have become a thing. But like out of chance, he's pulled. Yeah. It's like Nasubi sounds, it's a great nickname. But it's so funny to think of someone's nickname as eggplant. Yeah. Eggplant.

Yes. Like I know you want to be nicknamed Cobra, which is also just a thing. Yeah. But a vegetable is, I don't know. Do we know anyone who's just nicknamed as a vegetable? Although we've got Aidan Jones whose nickname was Tarko. Oh, that's true. It's not a vegetable.

But a carrot top. Carrot top. Yeah, true. Peter Dutton was known as potato for a while, wasn't he? I don't know. Spard for allie, actually. There you go. Okay, yes.

That's getting closer. Spard. Yeah, that would sound ridiculous. Probably if you didn't grow up with him as a hero. Translated. I wonder if, you know how, we all have that association, I guess, culturally with Japan. They do these crazy game shows because, like, they're parodied and that kind of stuff in our media. Is that kind of TV still popular in Japan, I wonder.

I did see there was, I don't remember this in a lot of detail, but it was something in one of the articles I was reading that at a certain point, they did sort of bring, they sort of changed some, like, legislation around it. Okay, well, that sounds good. Rain it in a little bit, but I, yeah, I think it's... Not too much, I hope. Yeah. Because you don't want to lose what makes it great. Yeah.

Humiliating people. Exactly. That's funny. That's why we watch it. But it does sound like that, I mean, it's morally wrong and probably should be against a lot to lock someone in a room and not feed them. Well, like, you know, you think about Big Brother and stuff like that, they know what they're signing up for. They've all agreed to it.

Things like alone where they're just out in the wilderness, they've signed up for it, they've agreed to do it. They know what it is. And if there's an emergency or if they're just really done, you can see. say I'm out. Yeah, there are health and safety checks. Right. But this is like a whole new thing. They were obviously making it up as they went along.

Oh, yeah. This is a big hit. We can't let him go out. Now, let's business class flights. Exactly. They couldn't just ended it just under a year when he reached the goal because they're like, wow, but we can get so much more out of this. A lot of people are watching.

Ring it. Ring it dry. Wild stuff. Yeah. And if no one's ever, like you said, like Big Brother, especially from the first season on, you've watched it or you've heard about it in an overseas version. You know what the show is. But this.

I didn't even know what it was. It sounds like it. Oh, very interesting stuff. Pretty wild stuff. I recommend the docker. Give it a watch. If you want. No pressure.

Yeah, no pressure. I've got to work on a lot on the list at the moment. Oh, my God. I'll make it watch it for movie club. Oh, no. Yeah, that sounds good. Well, that brings us to everyone's favorite section of show where we thank our great supporters, our Patreon supporters,

for keeping the show. without them, you know, this show doesn't exist. 550 episodes strong, holy shit. Now, and that's without counting the 300-odd bonus episodes. Yeah. Which you can get if you sign up to patreon.com slash dogo on pod on the D, Dreamboat Cooper level or above. There's heaps to different rewards as well, Dave.

Voting for topics, hearing about live shows, getting live-show discounts before anyone else being part of the Facebook group and all the things you're about to hear us do. And you will be supporting DoGo On as well as our other shows. Who knew it with Matt Stewart? Book cheat. primates and Jess writes a rom-com and a little shout out here because Jess

just finished up season one of Jess writes of rom-com We did it. And Jess, spoiler, wrote a rom-com. I did it. That's right. It might be coming out in video form this Friday. Yeah, I think. It might be. It might be.

I can't promise. I don't know. But you can definitely listen to which I've done and Matt's listened to a large portion of it at the time of recording. Jess is two doors down. Your rom-com with a guest voice cast. Oh, yeah, great cast. And I cannot talk highly enough of it.

I can't even talk. I'm speechless. I've broken him. I love it. He sent me a message and said I could give Emily Henry, one of my favorite rom-com authors, a run for her money. And I said, take that back. Dave, could you get, why can't you get this in her hands or in her ears?

In Emily, Henry. Rom-Roms or whatever. Emily Rom-ROMs? No, Emily Henry will steal your far better ideas. I see. Oh. No, I mean, they're already out in the record. Just, can you...

Do you have a connection, Emily, from? Yes, I will admit, Jess, when I message you that I initially wrote Eleanor Henry, and then I had to Google and make sure I was... Eleanor Henry. It's Emily Henry. And I haven't listened to any of it work, but from your descriptions, I think that you are even better. That's not true, but thank you for believing in me. If anyone out there knows Emily, Henry.

Henry, please let her know there's a new collaborator in town. and she should get in church. So, yeah, that's right. You didn't say listen now, which is another one of those shows on the network. It's there too. Which is halfway through the second season. It's been on hiatus to six years. I'm so sorry that I overlooked it.

But primates, let's talk about that then, primates. You've just finished April. Well, yeah, now we're doing what might be called Maple or Mangrel. Or Macac. Maycac. That's suggested. Or Tamayrant. April's better.

Yeah. What about Tamayron? The main 200 episode of Who New With Matt Stewart is going to be live in Melbourne at the basement comedy club on June 27th. That's the thing I'd tell people about. Believe it. If I had a choice to. No, I already mentioned April.

Damn it. That was your one. And bookcheats back with the new episode too. Matt Stewart and Nick Mason on a two-parts real fun. Did you leave in my tempted riff about Lee Friedman? when Mesao said, who's that for, Matt? He saved it, yes. That was so funny.

Matt, who's this for? Who's this for? It was just like, he was worried about it. Matt, are we wasting everyone's time here? So, yes, a bunch of different things if you sign up at patreon.com slash too go on pod, supporting all those shows, all those extra rewards and whatnot, including shoutouts. And if you're on the Sydney-Shaunberg level or above, you get to be involved in the fact quote-a-question section, this very section, Which we get into with a jingle go, something like this.

Fact, quote, or question. Ding. He always remembers the ding. She always remembers the sing, and I'm starting to do a little bit underneath. Your harmony is nice. It's nice. It's absolutely beautiful. Now, if you're on the Sydney-Sharmberg level or above,

you get to give us a fact or a question or a brag or a suggestion or really whatever you like. But beautifully, this has just landed in this order this week. We got a fact. We got a quote. We got a question. No. Wow. Magic.

Let's buy lottery tickets. Today's a lucky day. I don't read them, so I read them. So I have no one. Maybe that won't be true because we're going to have to delete one after I start reading it and it's full of awful stuff. But anyway, let's find out. The first one comes from Bob McBobbobody Bobbington, aka chief protagonist of football mass black holes. I should say you also get to give yourself a title. And the chief is giving us a fact writing, if the universe is infinite, it would be so mind-bonglingly big that anything. possible within the rules of the universe would happen.

As particles can randomly come into existence, this means somewhere a mind would pop into existence that has no external senses, but imagines it is you and is having the exact experience you are right now. There would be no way to know if you were actually that mind of the human. There would also be planets made of chocolate, yummy Cadbury's as well as ones with the vomit taste of Hershey's, Weasels

Little Come up that Hershey's A little backhander there Or front hander really Weasels and even Some made mostly of granite In the shape of Dave's head It is unlikely the universe is infinite though

So there is unlikely to be a planet Just like ours Where humans are in general good So it's unlikely to be a Dave-shaped planet Of granite? Granite planet Well there you go What a roller coaster's from Bob

You give and you take it away. First he givers. That's crazy to think about. Next one. Yeah, it's crazy to think about it and he says it's probably not. Probably not true. But if it is like I am just like an orb floating somewhere with consciousness but I can't feel anything. And I'm imagining all this.

How good is my fucking imagination? Yeah, but also like you could be anywhere doing anything and you've chosen this. Yeah. But there's a lot of things that I don't want to be doing. True. Even more so. Just lying. I've got to go.

I just fly through the ceiling. Next one comes from Nell Smith, aka Muz. That's the title. Nell's got a quote, writing, A true individual is precisely one who is different from the rest of the world

and there is no formula, no set of rules, no code of conduct that can possibly capture in informative terms what it is to be like that. This is or was written above a bar in Melbourne CBD. I saw it in 2018 and added it to my phone notes.

I'm not sure where it originated, so if you've heard it before and know the author, please let me know. Kay, thanks bye, XOXO. Never heard it. No. No. One more time. A true individual is precisely one who is different from the rest of the world and there is no formula, no set of rules, no code of conduct that can possibly capture an informative of terms what it is to be like that.

Wow. A couple of thinkers so far. Or, am I, like, yeah, back me up on that because I have a migraine and I don't know if my brain's working. Oh, I don't know. We're definitely, we're in think territory? Yeah, yeah. It's not my week.

Yeah, that's deep thinking up there. That's either inspires you to deep think or inspires you to become a sovereign citizen. If you take that too. Yeah. Too far. No code of conduct applies to me. Yeah. I'm a true individual conduct.

Thank you so much, Ms. Nell Smith. And the final one this week comes from Katie Shannon Sharp, okay, Emeritus, Professor of Listening. Am I saying Emeritus, right? Emeritus. Emeritus, Professor of Listening. Oh, I never reached Emeritus State. What is that? You don't even have a Fogne 2 in listening.

Yeah. Does you have a Cert 1, though? That's pretty good. What? You flunked out. It felt it was so. I'm sorry. Jess,

stop talking under me, even though you started first. Jess, I'd hate to have to explain jokes to you. He'll do it. But I will. But I won't enjoy it. That's important you know that.

Katie, as a feminist, I think it's really my role to educate women. Yes. Now, Katie has a question writing, Happy New Year, Jess, Dave, Matt, all do go-oners, or do go-unas, and AJ. Today is New Year's Day, 2026. Holy shit, it does sometimes take a while to get to you.

Happy New Year, we finally met it to 2026. I do, because I try and I try and rotate it so everyone gets an equal go, so I'll list them all with when they were last read out, and I try and sort of the way. Anywho, Katie, go. goes on to say today is New Year's Day, 2026, and I rather than have a resolution, I'm heading into the year with intentions. Yeah. This year I intend to live with more clarity, bravery and energy. My question is, what word slash words would you like to represent the year ahead for you?

If this is too personal, then please resort to absurd or fallacious answers only. Fallacious? Yeah, things about dicks. Whoa. I think fallacious might be my word of the year. Yeah. I'll answer sincerely because intention was also my word of this year. Really?

Yes. Okay. What would mine be? What would mine be? I mean, we're in May. Like, just start fresh next year. Yeah. Give up.

Yes. Give up. Give up. Give up. Give up. Give up. My, I wanted to... Give more money to Jess.

Yeah, that's right. I want to be generous to Jess. But that's three words, so let's not go in on that one. I wanted... What was the thing I wanted to do? I want to be able to touch my toes but standing up. So stretch, stretch. Okay, yeah.

Stretch. You can't do that. Yeah, Jess can put her palms on the floor. It's disgusting to watch. Yeah, that's true. And then her elbows. And her shoulders. She just sort of collapses onto the floor.

And then, yeah, next thing you know, she's really, and that's what she does politically as well, head in the sand. Yeah, and then I turn into a silver puddle like Alex Mack. It's really cool. Like an Alex Macro. All that GC161 on the order. Yeah, maybe, yeah. Stretch. How about yourself, Matt?

We're a third of the year and now. I should really have one. How about for you, less? Less is more. Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea of just trying to remember to be present as well. Yeah, that's nice.

Which I try and do and be appreciative. Hmm. But you might just be an orb floating somewhere. know. Yeah. I appreciate that. You couldn't be more present because without you, we all fade away. Thanks a lot.

Thanks, Katie. Great question. And Bob, it is. It was a very sort of what you said before, mindful, my, uh, thinky. It was thinking. Thinky, philosophical. Yeah. What's a word I'm thinking?

Dave, what's the word I'm sticking? Or just, word I'm sticking. Cerebral? Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that right? Well, well, It's good for what you're trying to say, I think, yeah.

All right. Thank you so much to Nell, Katie, and Bob. Next thing we do is shout out to a few other great patron supporters. Just normally comes up with a game. These are more recent sign-upies on the shout-out level or above. Vegetable that's covering their genitals. Oh, that's good. Which becomes their nickname, I guess.

Could be fruit. Okay. Vegetable or fruit. Fruit or veg. Okay. You're really playing right into my... Obviously, I worked in the fresh food department for many years at the supermarket, It's so.

Okay, are you saying you'd like to do the first? No, I'm just saying I'm pretty intimate with fruit and veg. What? I've been intimate with fruit and veg. Can't put it more. People like him are the reason I wash my fruit and veg before they go away. Before you go away. Before they go away, like into the cupboard, into the drawer.

Yeah, yeah. You put your fruit and veg in a cupboard. Well, it's like, yeah, potatoes, onions. You wash, you pre-wash, Dave. I don't believe. leave what you just said. You don't wash your potatoes and put them in a cupboard. I actually don't wash potatoes.

Do I? No, I don't watch potatoes. But any other fruit of vegetable. Bananas. You've lost all credibility. You're washing your bananas? Yeah, I said any other fruit of vegetable and I will not make myself like an idiot. Are you actually washing bananas?

Yeah. I'm a fucking psych out. David? David? Yes. David. Yeah. Don't you lie to me?

Don't lie to Justin. You've never lied to me before. Don't start now. Have you lied to me before? I don't watch bananas. Do you ever think? Do you think you've lied to me? Surely.

No, I didn't notice you had something of your teeth. I'm stone cold. All right. You two do it. I'm looking up a list of the weirdest fruit and veg and we'll see. All right. Do you want me to do, we'll go one for one? Yeah.

All right, first time I would like to thank from Kalinga in Queensland. Thank you. And hello to Raz, R-A-Z. R-A-Z is covering their junk with a durian. Ooh, really stinky. Yeah. Which would probably mask the smell of your junk. And it's quite prickly too.

I mean, it's only a picture of it isn't. It's an animated one, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure if I've ever eaten that, Durian. No, I've never had Durian. But I'm open to it. Just know that it has a very pungent smell. I think you're the right, is that the right freedom of that is, yes, it is. This shows you how many of these sort of videos I'm watching,

but looking at a chopped up, dissected sort of durian, I see a cow's hoof that's being showed. You need to change the algorithm a little bit. Wow. Yeah. Next up from Durham in North Carolina. Durham would have been sorry for that. But Miss Pupp.

Mangostein. Oh yeah. This is from Discover.hubpages.com on their article weird fruits and vegetables. They say, let's take a look at the mango scene. You'd think it's somehow related to the mango, but it's not. It's actually a pretty bizarre fruit. Native to the Sunder Islands in Southeast Asia, the mangosteen actually comes from an evergreen tree. The fruit is about the size of a tangerine, purple creamy, has a citrusy flavor with a hint of peach and lake cheese and is very starchy.

It's also called the Queen of All Fruits. Oh, wow. Food of the Gods. Whoa. It's amazing. I praise. Fantastic Nick Cave in the Bad Seeds album. Mangostein.

Love that Mangosteen. Ghostine. Bit of a little joke there. Yeah. That was really good. You could ask, who's that for? Who was that for? It was supposed to be for Matt, but then he really didn't like it.

So it took me. I'm like, oh, ghost, you mean ghost, stain? Oh, you're one of those. He was like, oh. Hang on, who are you saying it's one of those? Me? Or him? Him.

I like all the stains, oh, you go. Yeah, I really like his work fronting the East Street band. Mango, like Bruce Springsteen. It would be a similar sort of joke, you see. Just see the next person. Yeah, we'll do. I'm just saying that's what you did. Yeah.

Hey, let me settle this. You're both fucking idiots. Dave, over to you. What an honour. From location unknown to us, probably deep within the fortress of the malls right now. It's Eleanor or Elena or Alina, E-L-E-N-A, looking at your email. You're at Outlook.com. Yeah, if that helps.

Well, I mean, a beautiful way to start the new year with a good, fresh new outlook. Now, you're covering your junk with Cherry Molyers, also known as Custard Apple and Bull's Heart, native to the Andes. Oh, I don't think I've ever heard of that before. You custard apple? Yeah, I've heard a custard apple. Oh, yeah. I have, but I've never had one, but if it tastes like it, what it says it is. Yeah.

I mean, what a combo. Yeah, I'm in. Yeah. Next up from Bridgewater in Great Britain, it's Andy Dutton. Andy Dutton covering the junk with a Buddha's hand fruit. Have a look at this thing. Whoa. Yeah, it looks like a, it doesn't look like a hand.

It looks like a hand. It looks like a. A lot of fingers. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like an octopus or something. Yeah. An octopus made love to a packet of twisties.

Yeah. Yes. It's like a lemon has got twisty tentacles. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Fantastic work you do. See?

When you guys work together, you are unstoppable. And Buddha's hand a fantastic Nick Cave in the Bad Sea. That's really good. Who was that for? Next up from a location that is unknown to us, probably deep in the fortress with Eleanor. It's more. M-A-A-W-S, Moles. Moles covering their junk with an Osage orange, which by the look of it, is an orange at all.

It looks like an orange with some sort of infection. Yeah, like a tennis ball. A bit of a dermatitis kind of thing. A mold all over it. The creepy fruit that resembles a green brain is said to smell a little like an orange when it's right, but humans don't eat them, although squirrels and horses are unknown to love them. And the horse told you that, did he? You're fucking idiot.

Next up. This guy. From what's this place? Wait, hang on. It's known as the Osage Orange is also known as hedge apple, hedge ball, horse apple, green brains, monkey balls or mock orange. Wow. A fruit I've never, I've never heard of any of those. Has so many names.

Has so many names. Next up from, what would you say, Dave, virgins. Virginis. Virginis. Virginis. In Vermont. Oh, for my home of the Creamy. Silas Mullen.

What a name. Covering the junk with Chinese Arctic chokes, aka Crohn's, that's the French name. It's a root vegetable and a member of the Mint family. Also known as Cherogi, probably due to the rich flavor, which is similar to that of artichokes. That's what's called Chinese artichokes. This is another wacky kind of cool looking thing. Yeah, very seedy. I love Nick Kay Vander, bad.

Seedy. I think, who's that for, Dave? And I do love that, like, animals are like that as well. Like, I feel like I could look up new animals every day and never run out of. Totally. And Fred's cool that that's the same with fruit. I wasn't expecting to be discovering new fruits today. Yeah, we're learning.

Virgins, looks like it's pretty else, I'm serious. V-U-R, J-E-N-S is the way it's telling me. Virgines. But I love it. From Virgins. Thank you for looking that up for me. Is that you just said one? Oh, no.

So that was where... Apologies. I definitely was paying attention. Not looking at the next fruit. Next up from Florenceville-Bristle. That's all one word. Florenceville hyphen Bristol in Canada. It's Jamie Ellison.

Olison. Jamie Orbison or Allison. Allison. Allison. But it's double L so making sure it's not Orlis. It's probably Alice. Listen. Covering the junk with horned melons. Whoa.

Horn melons go by many different names including jelly melon, hedged gourd, English tomato, Milano and Kiwanos. These prehistoric looking fruits are native to the Kalahari Desert. And my bra, I call my tits horny melons. Yeah, oh yeah. Is that something? Yeah. No, it's not something.

It's everything. Wow, you're, that doesn't, I wouldn't have even said that that's a fruit. No, that looks like a. spider's nest. Yeah, like a rock formation. It doesn't look appealing. A couple more from... But it would really hide your junk if you wanted to.

Oh yeah. From location unknown, so once again, deep within the fortress of the mulls, another Jamie, Jamie McKinnon. Oh, Jamie McKinnon. Hiding their junk with a Capucho fruit. Capuch is one of those super fruits that seem to not only have lots of health benefits,

but it is also said to have great taste. This large family comes from the Amazon has creamy pulp which tastes like a chocolatey pineapple, and it's used in desserts and sweets. It's also used as a moisturiser. I love that the person writing this listicle clearly hasn't tried any of the fruit. Yeah, apparently, it's like this, yeah. I only like apples. These are all a bit weird for me.

I don't even really like grapefruit. That's a bit scary for me. I like an apple and that's it. Oh, don't make Dave do his anecdote about grapefruit. Oh, Dave. Save the anecdote, mate. Sorry, guys. Dave's the doten.

I've got to do it. We don't have time for my famous grapefruit anecdote. And finally, I always think. Someone recently commented, I couldn't believe Dave said his grapefruit story again. And I was like, what? Do you mean talking about how I don't like grapefruit? I love that that's an anecdote. That's my anecdote.

That's you at dinner party. Such a hit at party. Just whenever we're at a dinner party with you and we see you chat with someone, someone you've just met, we go, how long totally grapefruit? And it comes out. And then, before we know,

always minutes later, he's gone. So did you know that I don't really like grapefruit? I'm pretty good at working in, though. I go, geez, this salad's got tomatoes in it. You know that technically tomato? It's a fruit. I believe, and fruits, like I like a lot of them. I'll list some that are like now.

I like apples. I like oranges, but there's one I don't like. Grapefruit, and then I'm off. Yeah, yeah. And I've got 20, 25 minutes on grapefruit. And they are enthralled. Honestly. You actually take the grapefruit on the hero's journey, don't you?

Oh, absolutely. Just when you think they're down and out, they're back. All right, looking forward to seeing how I pronounce this next one. This is our final one. Our final one. They're a mole dweller. We don't know where they're from, but their name is Hugh. Hugh, and to see know who you are, you are at,

Oh my God, how do I give this way with it? Hugh, your name at like a particular website starting with L.com. Yeah, that'll do. Because I think it's very specific what the email is. Hugh, you're hiding your junk with Jabuticaba fruit. Whoa. Now they're right, what's weird about this fruit is that it appears to blossom right out of the bark and trunk of the tree. Actually, when the Djibukutikabah tree is in full bloom,

It looks like it's had a bad purple pimples break out. Oh. Jabu Jabu, Jambu, Taka. It's native to South America, and similar to grapes. And in its uses as well, wine and liquor are made from Jabu to Kabba. No. Looks like sticks. It's sticks.

That's not a stick. I'm not drinking stick wine. Stick wine. Oh, can I have a glass of stick wine? I'm good. I don't need any of this. I'm fine, thanks. I've got enough toilet wine to keep me.

Yeah, I'm good. No thank you. Keep your fucking stick wine. Thank you so much to Hugh Jamie Jamie, Cillis, Malice, Andy, Eleanor, Miss and Raz. You got some of those right. Which ones? That's pretty good. Now we need to, let me just double check if this is the last thing we need to do.

It is, there's no one in the Triple Trip Titch Club this week. So we just have to welcome in two people into the Triptitch Club. Jess, do you want to explain what it is? Yes, the Triptych Club is for people who have supported us for three consecutive years on the shoutout level or above. We welcome them in. I think of it as like an airport lounge. I think Dave thinks of it more like a gentleman's club. And I think of it more like a Frank Sinatra sort of red velvety club.

Speak easy kind of place. Somewhere like somewhere between a speak easy and speak loudly. All right. Keep going. We have everything you could possibly need. Once you're in you can't leave it, why would you want to? We've got air hockey. We've got bathrooms.

they're recently renovated. They're honestly quite frequently renovated. I keep destroying them. I'm behind the bar. And Dave, you normally book a band. Yes, you're never going to believe. Who just said? Just check the email to make sure they are.

We've got the Japanese singer Aido is here. Aido. Oh, that's right. Who, in 2020 at the edge of 17, made her debut with Usiwa, which picked at number one on the Billboard Japan Hot 100. And 2025 her Hibana World Tour was credited as the largest global tour by a Japanese artist. So she's the big time.

That's really, can't wait for a bit of a go. Yeah, it's actually a huge get. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for organising that. Just do you have a drink this week? Yep. Great. This is a bit of a surprise.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just going to squeeze an eggplant into a martini glass. Oh, yeah, that's actually. Just squeeze it oil, eggplant juice. With your hand? Yep. Whoa.

Are you cooking the eggplant first? Nah. Raw eggplane. I'm on a bit of a squeeze. Squeezed into a glass. So the way... It's disgusting. The way this works is I'm on the door.

Theater of the mind. Got a clipboard with a guest list. Two names on it. Obviously, there's a thousand old people in there already. They're having a good time. Dave's already doing a bit of pre-show work. He's warming them up. A bit of close-up, magic.

Letting you guys... You would. Teach myself for the book. Get the warm welcome you deserve. Okay. So if you hear your name, run on in, Dave's going to hype you up to the crowd. Wouldn't surprise me if you got into close-up magic.

Really? You are? I mean, did you ever do one of your videos like that on YouTube? About magic? No, I've just got no patience at all. Right. Dave, you've worked with me for 10 years. You have the patience of a fucking saint.

Thank you. So Dave's going to... Finally a bit of acknowledgement. Dave's going to be hyping you up based on some weak word play on your name or where you're from. Just going to hop up Dave because in this section of the show he pretends have low self-esteem. Now, which if you want to feel any better, that is him acting. He is unflappable.

Try and flap me. Just try. Without further ado, if you hear your name, run on in. Here we go. First up from San Antonio in Texas. Welcome to the Triptage Club, Larissa O'Neill. Larissa, I wouldn't miss you. Come on in.

Give us a no feel. You can say that, I can't. Sounds real weird. Yeah, girl to girl. Yeah. And from Hazelbrook in New South Wales here in Australia. Welcome into the club. Josh.

Josh H. Josh, H, Danny for Hero. Josh Hero! Woo-bo-W-W-W-W! Make yourselves at home. Josh and Larissa, you know, grab a mystery eggplant juice. There's not a lot of mystery there, actually. Eggplant sucks, too.

Yeah, I don't like it. I don't like it. Do you like eggplant? Yeah, it's cooked in things. Yes, an eggplant palmer can be good, but it's usually gross. Yeah, I think it's like a vessel for whatever you do with it. Yes. You're like in a past, it's like, covered in tomato. sauce. I'm like, but you tolerate it.

And the world, I think, yeah, it's just often done badly, maybe. Kind of bitter, and the skin's a weird texture? And you know, where you get the Mediterranean, inverted commas sandwich, there's just like this sloppy egg plant and artichokes and stuff. You're like, fuck this. I'm like, and it's often the only veggie option at certain things.

You're like, they'll have it, but I won't enjoy it. I guess I have to give you all of the vegetable. You're like, no, it's okay. A couple would be fine. Well, that brings the end of episode. Can you believe that? Oh, my God. Welcome me, Josh and Larissa. Please, live it up.

Live it up, baby, live it up. Yeah, don't, hey, you there with the sad face, come up to my place and live it up. Agreed. Now, Jess, anything we need to tell people before we go? We love you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for following us on social media. Do go on podcast on TikTok.

You can suggest a topic. There's a link in the show notes. And Dave, boot this baby home. We will be back next week with. another episode but until then we will say thank you so much for listening and goodbye. Later!

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