No Such Thing As A Fish - No Such Thing As A May-I Sandwich

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

Dan, James, Anna and Rhys Darby discuss dog dramas, wacky walks, and killer Kiwis.  Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes.

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's No Such Thing as a Fish. Andrew Hunter Murray is off on his holly bobs this week, and so we have been joined by the absolutely brilliant, hilarious, Kiwi actor and comedian, Reese Darby. We were lucky enough to get him because he is currently in quarantine, in a hotel somewhere in New Zealand, and frankly didn't have a lot more to do with his time. Now, you might know Reese from Flight of the Concord.

you might know him from Jumanji, and in podcast terms, you might know him from the Cryptid Factor, which is his podcast all about the mysteries of the world, which he does with a certain Daniel Schreiber, as well as another guy called Buttons, who, I'll be honest, is really the genius behind the whole thing. But we've got recent Dan on this week anyway.

I really hope you enjoy the show. We had a whole lot of fun making it. Do check out the Cryptid Factor, and for now, on with the podcast. Welcome to you. to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from four undisclosed locations, three in the UK, and one in New Zealand. My name is Dan Schreiber. I am sitting here with James Harkin, Anna Tachinsky, and Reese Darby. And once again, we have gathered

round our microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days. And in no particular order, here we go. Starting with you, Reese. Well, in 1943, a spy who topped the Gestapo's most wanted list was New Zealander Nancy Wake, who once judo chopped a Nazi to death. I don't even think that was possible. I don't know. Is it possible? I suppose if you can chop a brick in half, you can chop a Nazi in half, don't you, I suppose. I don't think she chopped him in half.

Oh, right. Let me just check my notes. Yes, in half. Wow. I mean, those are strong hands, guys. So tell us more about her. Well, she was the, and still is, I believe, the most decorated female of any war. So she's a Kiwi, she became a spy.

Now, she actually left home at the age of 16. I'm going to do the whole bio now. It'll take me 20 minutes. She left home at 16 with 200 pounds in her pocket and went to London and self-taught herself journalism. And then she ended up in. France, and she was there during all the Nazi buildup, watching Hitler's horrific actions in the early days and decided she was... She interviewed Hitler, didn't she?

Or at least she was sent to interview him. I couldn't find out if she actually got the interview. I couldn't find that. Maybe she didn't quite get through the crowds. Excuse me, Mr. Hitler. Mr. Hitler, a word, please. Just about the whole Jew thing. What's going on there?

Mr. Hitz? She's missed an opportunity if she has a karate. skills, you know, to have got him early, right? It's weird, because it would look like an erratic Sig Heil, wouldn't it? It looked like, come on, just keep it firm enough and she's busy chopping it off. And the full extension of the Heil and then come whacking down. I mean, that could be what she did. But I don't think she did.

In fact, I think the whole judo thing might have just been a little bit of a kind of fluff. It may not have been knowing her, not that I do, but knowing the way she was trained, being ex-military myself. A little bit of disclosure there. I too have been taught to kill a man in four seconds using my bare hands. It was years ago now. I was, you know, 18 at the time.

But it's more of a breaking of the neck from behind. I'm assuming that's what she did. But hey, you know, judo sounds cooler. But yeah, there we go. It sounds a bit like judo. Have you actually been taught how to come up behind someone and kill them to death with a neck shop? Kill them to death? Kill them to death.

Is that really a thing? I always thought it was a myth that people told each other in the playground when they were 12. No, no. It's you learn unarmed combat. I was in the regular force cadets in the New Zealand Army. So it was kind of an elite training school. And then once I was, I didn't actually do the full-on hand-to-hand combat until I was a signaller two years later.

And I remember doing it in Hobsonville Air Force Base. And we were doing unarmed training. And it was about, yeah, there's a certain way you can kill someone in, in under five seconds, basically. I don't want to divulge too much information. No, it's a bit gross. But yeah, you know, I was trained. If anyone ever goes to one of Reese's gigs, do not heckling.

That's what we're saying. Well, oddly enough, they don't. I think word got out. Because once someone did hekel me and I went, excuse me, come here, come here. And they went, no, play, no, plays, not pay. Actually turn around. And it was never seen again.

She was pretty badass, wasn't she? Nancy Wake in terms of, you know, I feel like if it hasn't been published yet, a little book of quotes would be a really enjoyable read. Because she did do bad stuff to people like, you know, she dido chop someone to death. And she said, I was not a very nice person. And it didn't put me off my breakfast. I just love that little extra, like she was like, I had to do what I had to do. It's quite, Arnie, isn't it? It's quite like, you know, from a action movie, the kind of thing someone would say. Yeah, exactly. And there's a sort of famous story about the fact that when she went to help, out. So she eventually helped out with the French resistance. And there's a story involving the fact that

she was married to a Frenchman. She had to leave to London. But then she came back into France to help out. And she parachuted back into the country. And when she parachuted in, she landed in a tree. And that's where she was caught up. And eventually her French contact found her hanging into this tree. And you can guess her response then. So the man who eventually finds her, the Frenchman, I hope that all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruits this year. Oh, she said, okay. And she said, she looked down at him. I've got a lovely pear.

Steady on. She won't, don't give me that French shit. And that's just, again, just wonderful, badass. Well, this is interesting. She was, she was gorgeous. And this is part of her charm. So as a resistance fighter, you know, she used to get through the guards by actually using flirtatious behavior and saying,

would you like to search me? And she used her womanly charms. But also, she had more balls than any man. So she's an inspiration. And coming from a country that she comes from, that I come from, New Zealand, with a strong feminist background, we were the first to give women the vote,

1893. We have a very strong female leader right now that the world is in awe of. And I just feel it's kind of a, This is a great person to talk about. Yeah. Because, yeah, she's a force to be reckoned with. And I wish she was alive today because she could turn a few heads.

I don't know. I mean, she'd just be chopping people to death, I think. I think, I quite like, I mean, I think one of the very few areas where women get off better than men is that in stories like this, you're badass if you're a woman. But if you're a man, you're really mean. I mean, she was vicious, right? Yeah. The time that she said that she wasn't... She sort of had to be, but apparently she didn't,

she had a very bad temper, and she didn't survive very well in the post-war world because her predilections were more for sort of going around, upsetting people and killing people. But when she said she wasn't put off her breakfast, that was when she'd interrogated these French women, and she'd decided that one of them was definitely a spy, and so put her to death by firing squad.

And then was like, yeah, didn't put me off my breakfast. breakfast. She was badass, but I think, yeah, she struggled in peacetime to... I believe that, you know, people are born for their time in some ways. And when the war finished, she felt lost. She felt like the action had stopped and she didn't know what to do after that because her purpose was doing what she did and she did it so well. And I think there's a lot of people that fit into that same bracket. Yeah. She did say, when you were saying that she was quite attractive. I think she, did she, she wore Chanel lipstick everywhere, I think. She was never travelling without her Chanel lipstick, her face cream, and apparently her favourite red satin

cushion, which seems like quite a cummousin thing to carry around with you when you're supposed to be a spy. She probably used it to asphyxiate people to death, I would say that satin cushion. That's it when the chop didn't work. Apparently she once fled a car that was under fire that was that she about to explode and then she ran back in order to collect a saucepan, a jar of face cream, a packet of tea and her red satin cushion, after which the car immediately exploded. I mean, that's some weird behavior. But she said that she never had any affairs, didn't she, during the war?

And the reason being, because she was so attractive, she said, if I had accommodated one man, the word would have spread around, and I would have had to accommodate the whole damn lot. So if she'd have started shagging, she would have never got anything else done. That's what she said. Now, you roll reverse that one, and it just doesn't work.

Exactly. It does seem surprising that there hasn't been a big sort of film made of her life. Maybe there has. Maybe there's a Kiwi film out there. Well, I think there's one in the making right now. And of course, they say the movie Charlotte Gray, which was a book as well, is partly inspired by her. That makes sense. I've got another quote here, because in the end of her, near the end of her days,

She ended up back in London and living in the Stafford Hotel, by the way. So you guys have been there. The American bar, which is in that hotel, is where she would, even in her 80s, would get up in the morning and have a gin. She's always a good drink. Live to 98, by the way, so that makes me feel good about my drinking. You know, that doesn't affect you at all. Now, here's a quote.

So she said in the end, because she actually sold her medals, all these medals she got. She sold them. She says, look, I'll probably go to hell anyway and they'll only melt. Isn't that great? That's so good.

Yeah, this hotel that she lived in, she was given a complete, everything was paid for. And it's a concept I love, the idea of, I think every hotel should have a resident badass or just someone with a history that you can find at the bar

and just go and get their story and they live there completely free. And so glad to know that that existed for her. I think that's really wonderful. You're thinking of the major in Fulte Towers, basically. She was a major at the Stufford Hotel. Exactly. That's what I want.

Very similar backgrounds. I was actually thinking when I found that fact out as well, that I was thinking to myself, in my older days, I'm going to end up in some cool hotel, and I'm going to be the guy there that gets free drinks. I'm just going to have to achieve a few more things but that does a great way to wind your days. I don't know.

You can either do more impressive things or you can set your sights on a less impressive hotel. So I think that maybe that's what the major did. Like the major kind of didn't do quite so well in the war, so we had to go to Forty Towers maybe. Yeah. If you just go for a travel lodge, you could probably do that right now.

I can do that right now. Your Premier Inn level, please. You're kidding. Whichever you want. The joke's on all of you because I'm already in a hotel. I'm in an isolation hotel at the Christchurch airport and I'm never leaving here I get three meals a day

they knock on the door they deliver it in a bag I don't have to do shit It's living the dream Living the dream We should say that he isn't in prison or anything He's just in quarantine It's not sort of That's very nice of you

But there is a small courtyard Where we are allowed to do a little bit of a run around Once a day if you like I went out there yesterday And there was a guy out there Having a smoke going How you going, Dobbs? You come back from L.A., Korea's not doing too well.

Yeah, I understand, you know, the old COVID and all that. Yeah. So a part of what Nancy was doing was smuggling people out of France. This is what a lot of people's roles was at this time and to smuggle them to safety. And do you know, so a lot of resistance fighters would smuggle children over the border to safety, and they'd have to smuggle them out with their ID cards. and it became policy amongst the resistance to smuggle children's ID cards inside their sandwiches

because apparently one resistance fighter realised that the Nazis never searched the sandwiches that had mayonnaise on them because it might dirty their uniforms. And that's actually why they called it May I. It was called May I as to inspect the sandwich and then they changed it over time to Mayo. That's an amazing. fact. Dan, you have had your place taken as the sender of dubious facts. I knew it was a mistake, Brigittegris son. The French Resistance is, there's so many interesting stories of amazing characters.

Some quite well-known names, one famous person who became famous later in life but was part of the French Resistance was the great MIMAT, Marcel Marceau. Yeah, and it's really a sweet story. He must have been a signal man as well, I reckon. Like, Reese, don't you think? He'd be able to get anything across. What's that, Marcel? It's windy. You're stuck in a box.

Hang on, he's pulling on a rope here. He needs a rope, does he? No, he's already got one. What's... Sorry, Dave. He's doing some extravagant mind here, which you won't be able to feel the benefit of at home. I was just audio only, is it?

I was told this was a visual. I'm more of a physical comedian. You can see why you're such a successful podcast. Yeah, he had been studying, Marcel Moseau had been studying Mime already at that point. And they snuck out a lot of children across the border. And part of the problem is, you know, children kind of don't get it. It's really hard to get children to understand the concept of you have to be absolutely quiet and so on. And so Marcel used to do mime acts to them

and using his mime and sort of entertaining them, sort of, as it were, trick them into going silent so that they were part of this act. He rescued over 70 children and his brother, over 350 children. And I believe his brother was involved in doing the mayonnaise trick as well with the ID cards.

They used to do things where they, I think it was his brother. Mayo? Still running with it. My eye. But they did stuff like they'd go near the border and they would throw a stick over and they'd get the kid to chase it

and the kid would go pick it up but then they'd be over the border and then they were fine and they had their ID card and their mayonnaise sandwich so they could just get on with life. They were dogs. We say children, we mean dogs.

Yeah, they were smuggling dogs out. Chase the stick, mate. It was a ball. Come on down. It was a ball. They weren't throwing sticks for children. Sticks, balls, all sorts of things. But he was, I think. it was Marceau's, maybe his cousin, Georgesne,

maybe it was his cousin and brother, but his cousin, George, sort of led a lot of these efforts. And he died in 2018, age 108. So maybe the key to longevity is gin in the morning and just saving loads of kids' lives. Yes. Yeah. Well, we're halfway there. Yeah.

Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that John Cleese's silly walk is exactly 6.7 times sillier than a normal walk. Of course it is. Okay, so first of all, for anyone who's young, listening to this, this is a sketch from Monty Python. And for anyone... Oh, you should not have to say that. Come on.

I know. Even if you're young, please. I know, but you've got to... If you're young and you didn't know that, ask yourself a question. Why don't you know that? Wow. That's a real... Sam. See, that's the kind of comedy slam you'd get from watching the comedy greats.

So there was a couple of scientists called Nathaniel Domini and Erin Butler, who happened to be married, and they are both at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. And they looked at how John Cleese's knees flex when he was walking doing his silly walk. And they found that occasionally his knees bent around 110 degrees when he walked, when in a normal person, they would bend around 20 degrees. and they kind of put in that and a whole load of other parameters and they worked out that his walk on the show is exactly 6.7 times more variable than a normal walk although when he did the live performance in 1980

it was only 4.7 times more variable so they thought maybe as he was getting older he was getting a bit less silly so amazing but it sounds to me like you're using well they are at least and you're reiterating the scientific mathematical elements, how does that adjoin, to use a knee term, with silliness per se?

I feel like after the TED talk on the subjects, I don't understand, but I'll answer that question anyway. They had to work out what silly meant, and they decided that silliness was just basically variability, and they kind of put the two together and said, the more variable you are, the more silly you are.

And in the sketch for the young people who don't know Monty Mythen, John Cleese kind of sees another guy called Mr. Pouty, and he says that his walk is 3.3 times, and they've said that his walk is 3.3 times more variable. So it's not quite as silly, which is what John Cleese actually says in the sketch as well. He's like, oh, it's not quite a silly walk, but this is actually a point that the scientists were trying to make about funding, right? And they're saying that often when you're a scientist,

you have to go through this really difficult peer review process to get your funding normally. But what if you just had one person like John Cleese just assessing you when you walked in and seeing how silly you are or how good your science is, maybe that would be a better way of doing it than just this massive, complicated peer review system. So they're trying to, they say they're trying to make an important point when actually just looking at the silly walk. Right.

Wait, so they think you should just have one bloat, read, read what you've written and say, yeah, it's good to go. That's what they were suggesting, yeah. So did they find, is there, did they look at any actual walks of people being silly in real life and go, do we have a measurement thing now where we can tell if people have a 10 times sillier walk? Well, they, you could use their system for sure, but they didn't do that with other walks. But there was another paper a few years ago in the proceedings of the Royal Society A,

mathematical and physical engineering sciences, which did a 19-page study on silly walks, all the different silly walks they could think of, and they analysed them all, and they worked out if there was any way of a silly walk being better than a normal walk. And they said that basically there is no silly walk, which is more efficient than a normal walk. They all waste more calories. So there's no point having a ministry of silly walks at all.

They say that they should cut off all funding, and there's no point in making a ministry of silly runs either, because they're not better. But, Reese, I don't think you agree. But that in its fact is silly because for a start it's 19 pages long, which is just silly. And also the fact that a walk is going to burn, particularly with the silly nature, more calories, that's wonderful because you want to get more fit. In other ways, you're going to hurt your joints.

And let's move on to the fact that John hated that sketch, wished he'd never done it. Really? It's everywhere he would go, because it's phenomenal. It's an amazing piece of work. And people would say every time, do the silly walk, do the silly walk. And, of course, the older he got, he couldn't do it. And he, for a start, didn't want to have to do that crazy walk because it, you know, it starts to hurt your limbs. This is also coming from me, a physical comedian who sort of, you know, obviously very much inspired by John.

over my tenure of, which happened to be 10 years, of, actually it's more like 20, but what's half a career between friends? I ended up hurting my joints. And at the moment, I mean, the last couple of years, I haven't been able to do the physical comedy I once did. But I never not liked it, but I don't like it now. And I see why he started to regret it.

Yeah, and also he's had, hip transplants, his knees are shot to death, and people still ask him to do it. And so, yeah, it's a... If you look at that walk, it does seem that maybe that's the reason he's had to have a lot of of knees and joints replaced. I mean, that's going to crack your knees. If you look, it's a hard one to emulate. I don't know if anyone's tried to do it as well.

I mean, a lot of it is the fact that he's so lanky back in the day. and he had such great extensions and control over those ridiculous limbs. Yeah. I like extensions as if he had some robotic additions to his own body. But he was inspired by a guy called Max Wall, who was a musical and kind of Panto entertainer guy who was big in the 20s and the 30s. And he played a character called Professor Wallofsky,

who did this really, really stupid walk. It's very similar if you watch it. Oh, wow. It's still very funny. And he played a pianist who also did this stupid walk. But he was a great character, Max Wall. So he married a woman called Marion, and he's called Max. And they had five children.

They called the first Michael. And then they thought, oh, wow, we've done the three M's thing. And so they went on to have four more children and called them Melvin, Martin, Meredith, and Maxine. So they were all... I have the same thing in my family. Mike and Maxine, and they started calling their kids all M's as well. I'd love to tell you their names, but their cousins. This is so bizarre.

Yeah, they've, I should find out while you're, while you guys are rambling on with your facts about, I'll find out what my cousin's names are. I think you should. I think the listeners are really on tenterhucks at the moment to know what your cousins are called. It's annoying, though, because whatever we say now, all the fascinating stuff, no one's listening. Mike,

Are you there? What's your kids' names? I'm just on an audio podcast. Yeah. No, it's a bit dull. It's all facts and figures. But they, I want to, yeah, they need to know your kids' names, right? So you've got, oh, right, Matthew.

Mint. No, I'm just making these up now. You couldn't even think. No, I'm going to leave it. Craig, yeah, I knew there was one with a seat. All right, mate. Good luck on the farm. May I?

May I? That's the other one. Oh, let's hope your family who doesn't listen to this podcast because they're never going to speak to you again if they do. There's a place in New Zealand called John Cleese, isn't it? What? New Zealand?

Yes, there is. It is the tip in Palmerstead North. Because he famously visited Palmerston North, and he said this place is a dump. So they named the city dump after him. That's so funny. Has he been? Because he's done tours of New Zealand.

Eric Idle has been when John Cleese and Eric Idle did a tour, I think John Cleese stayed in the hotel and Eric Idle went for a walk up the dump. That's so good. Idled up the Cleese. The BBC didn't love Monty Python, did they, despite commissioning it? Yeah. Well, it was commissioned by David Attenborough, wasn't it? Oh, was he, he was the original?

David Attenborough used to be the channel head for BBC 2, I think he was the original channel head. And I remember reading years ago, and I can't find it since. So this is, I want this to be true, but I'm not sure that it is. He didn't, he wasn't on top of everything that was going out. And Python was on quite late at night. And it was very cult, and it started getting this following, which they didn't expect for something in that kind of late night slot.

And the story that I read is that Attenborough saw what this show was. Someone showed it to him eventually. And he went, this is terrible. And he wanted to decommission it. But they said the numbers are so high, that would be a stupid thing to do. So he let it go on. Now, as I say, I've read that years and years ago. And I can't find where I read that. Maybe because Attenborough has tried to bury that, if that's true. But he is responsible for it existing. The one tarnish on his career. is one timeish on my career. And if I look back, this is a great excuse for me to do the voice that everyone, literally everyone can do.

I've got three, I've got that. Sorry, this is back on me again, is it? Yeah, go for it. Absolutely, it's been at least 30 seconds. Come on. I can do him. John Wayne and Frank Spencer. Those are the only three.

And, you know, I took those to Hollywood with me. And, of course, the only one I thought I might have a better chance with was John Wayne. and they said, no, we're not, I mean, it's not bad, but we're not going to need it. I mean, he's long gone now. And, you know, if we do a biopic, I don't think it's going to be you, dubs. Well, I think it should. I think it should be me. No biopic of Frank Spencer in the often in Hollywood, is that?

I wish there would be. I mean, well, wouldn't it be? I was in condo, man. Did you know that? he was in a big Disney American film Michael Crawford. What's he? Who was still with us, thank God, called Condor Man. Now, I've always wanted to remake that.

So if there's any listeners out there, and I know there's not any visual people, but if there's any audio wallabies... I think we've lost... Most of the listeners have dropped off at this point. Remake Condor Man and put me in it. That's all I'm saying. If there's one thing I want to get out tonight, it's that... And yeah, just try and get some visuals happening with this show.

Those are the two main points. What are you talking about? Okay, it is time for fact number three, and that is Anna. My fact is that in 1814, there were days of rioting in Dublin because a dog, who was supposed to be starring in a play, failed to show up on stage. Why did he not turn up on stage? What was...

Well, he was actually demanding better pay, which the dogs had a very strong union in the early 19th century, the dog actors union. How talented was this dog? Could it talk? It couldn't... Well, it could talk and dog.

It could bark. Yeah. Dogs could understand it. But, well... How's your treatment? Roof. Ruff. It's rough.

Wow. But my dad literally told me that joke when I was five. And even then... Well, there you go. We're still rocking it. I'm on my eyes. Yeah.

So this was a play that was very famous at the time, actually. It was called The Forest of Bondi, and it was based on a play called the Dog of Montagie, the Chien de Montagie, which was written in France in 1814. And it was a phenomenon. It was so popular that it was immediately adapted into English and played around Britain and Ireland. And yeah, it was being put on, and there was a big hoo-ha about it being put on in Dublin. But the dog's owner thought that the dog was not being reimbursed adequately, given his extreme talent, and people turned up at the theatre, and they thought they

were going to see this play with a live dog on it, which they were very excited about, and a different play started, because they hadn't been able to secure the dog, and they lost it. And there was rioting. And so, like, chandeliers were broken. Wow. The whole orchestra fled, so all the instruments were destroyed, boxes were pulled down, doors were flung off their hinges, and this just went on. So the following night, the audience returned, thinking, surely they'll give us the dog tonight. Same thing. Tried to put on a different play. Same riot. And it went on

four days. Hang on. The whole place was destroyed and they turned up the next night going, well, I'm sure it's reopened. I'm sure. I was a bit confusing to me too because they did seem to be smashing the place to shreds every night, but then the next night would come back and it would be miraculously

re-purposed. They must have had like a joinery company who would come in every day and fix everything. And then they'd get a fun. Oh, God, the next morning going, oh, Dave, you won't believe what's happened again. Yeah. Are we up again, are we? We're in.

Okay. All right, guys, we're back in there. Fix those instruments. Get those walls plastered. Anyway, so the place kept being destroyed and then rebuilt in the night, apparently. And eventually the deputy manager of the theatre came on stage to apologise, but was sort of booed off and had to flee because projectiles were being thrown at him. And the theatre manager just resigned.

That was it. He resigned a letter to the paper saying he was emigrating. that was that. It's literally leaving the country. Wow. That's amazing. The play itself is, as you say, it was extremely popular and it was based on a legend

that was written by Julius Caesar Scaliger. The idea was that it was based on a real court case. So there was a French courtier to King Charles V who was murdered. And so they found, the murderer and the only witness to the murder was the dog of this courtier and the dog recognized this murderer and so there was this weird thing whereby they made the dog and this murderer go into arm to arm combat they sort of like put them together to have a fight and the guy was given like a little club or something to fight against the dog and they had this big battle and the dog won

and then the guy once he was defeated confessed to the murder and then he was himself executed And that's the sort of the basis of the story. And it took place in this town that you mentioned Anna, which was Montagie. Montagie, yeah. Montagie. And there's actually a statue there of the event of the dog and the man fighting, which you can go and visit if you go to this place. I like the way you say it's based on a myth by Julia Caesar. As it's hoping that people will just think Julius Caesar wrote the myth when actually it's a completely unknown author from the 1500s called.

Julius Caesar, Scalaga, wasn't it? Scaliger, yeah, Scalliger, yeah. Not Excalibur, not Julius Caesar Excalibur. That's not a name to live up to, isn't it? It's a big one, yeah. What's your name, mate? Julius Caesar Excalibur. Okay, all right, well, I'll get you just to do the mopping up at this stage

and we'll make sure you get Darby a drink at some point, won't you? Broad Excalibur. Yeah, so this is a big deal. of this play. Yeah, it was a big deal. When it was played at the court of Grand Duke Charles Augustus in the Weimar court, Gertor was like, you can't put a dog on a stage. Like the stages for humans, for actors, you can't put a dog on there. And they went, no, we're going to do it anyway. And he's like, well, if you do it, then I'm going to resign. And by the way, I'm Gertor. So really, you've got to hear what I say. And they said, no, we're going to put it on. And so

he resigned. And he was dismissed from the Grand Duke's theatre just because he was. He didn't once have this dog on the stage. It's amazing. Wow. But Gertrta just had a thing against dogs. He did. He hates the dogs. Because I was like, why is he making such a fuss about this play?

Just let it go, Gertor. But sounds like, I mean, so there's Faust where actually Methistopheles appears as a poodle at one point. So that's bad, you know, he's like a demon. But then in Gertor's semi-autobiographical novel, there's a play that's disrupted by irresponsible dog owners. In another play, there's a couple of women who bitch about how they dislike dogs so much. He had a thing against dogs.

Is this done after him being fired? Is this revenge, dog anger? He and the Duke, basically, the Duke loved dogs and Gertrta hated dogs and their whole relationship was them just arguing about whether dogs are awesome or really shit. It was like, that's all they ever talked about. Wow.

Because they were very close. It was like a marriage where there's just one thing the wedge that's driven between you all times, wasn't it? And that was the dogs. Dogs can be hard to work with. And I come from experience. I have worked with a dog.

I've worked with a few animals over the years. But on a show called Wrecked, where I played an elderly man, I said to them, look, I'm not going to play an older guy. Can I play a young, handsome guy? And they said, all right, but we're going to give you a dog. So it was a payoff. Anyway, I'm not a dog person.

I've said this many times over the years, but they, like you guys, didn't listen. And so I got a massive dog. They gave me a great dain. Like, it's the heaviest dog you can imagine. And this is in Fiji, we're shooting it. And they said, oh, yeah, these are all trained dogs. They're not.

They're just not wild dogs. Okay, so they don't have acting dogs in Fiji. So when they say trained, they mean, you know, they know where their bowl is and they've got their name on the bowl. That's about it. So I've got this ginormous dogs. sitting on me and I'm supposed to, he's like, he's meant to be my support dog. Well, anyway, we're on a plane, not a real one, it's an acting plane, and this dog is on

my lap and it's 200 pounds and I am, is squashing my cahoonies. And it was wanting to go away all the time and the only reason I would be staying on me is that I had to keep feeding it tiny sausages. Anyway, push comes to shove, which I did do by the way, and episode two I said, to the team, look, either the dog goes or I go. And the guy gave me a ticket for the plane and I called my lawyers who were also my agents and the dog was out on its beautiful hind-ass. Really? Is that a dog feature? Yeah, gone. Of course. What would you rather have? Me or a massive dog? Don't make people answer that. Yeah. Unfortunately, the dog was busy today.

We also worked with ducks, but that's another story. Oh, yeah. Are they better to work with? They don't crush your balls so badly, I guess. They didn't crush my balls. So we got along quite nicely, actually. Pierre, and if you watch the movie, it's called Lovebirds. I actually fall in love with the duck.

It crash lands on my roof. And, yeah, we sort of, we hang out. There's also a female I'm in love with, but the duck does come between us. And eventually I don't want to spoil it, but I've got to let the duck go. Oh. I've got to let the duck go. That's really sad.

You know what you were saying about how they didn't, like, they didn't bring in a professional dog for your to sit on your lap and eat your tiny sausage. Like, that is one of the main problems that they have in Hollywood. So there's a guy called Bill Berlone who runs a company called Theatrical Animals, and they have dogs and other animals which are specifically trained to be in movies, as in they know how to work on movies, how to work with the lights and the cameras and stuff. And they say that 80% of the calls they get is where people have decided to put on a show and just use someone's pet or used like a trained animal rather than a properly trained animal.

And they've decided after about two days this is not going to work at all. But as a huge union, you have to use the acting dogs, the acting animals. You know, there's a massive industry. And if you don't use them, then they'll be hell to play. I actually did just on stage dogs. So dog and back to the 19th century, dog drama was a really popular thing, especially between the 1820s and 1860s in the UK, then they were usually short quite bad plays,

but people loved them because they just went to see the dogs perform. And they were well-trained dogs. We're not talking any fission bullshit here. So they were trained to do one particular, move which was called Taking the Seas. And this meant basically as an actor, you had to have a string of sausages concealed around your neck in a scarf. And at one point in the play, the dog would always, the dog would always be trained

to leap up to your neck and mull away at the sausages to try and get to them. Wow. And then you're taken down to the ground and it looks like the dog is tearing away at your neck. Oh, yeah, right. It's a very famous move. It was used in a very popular play at the time, Dog Hamlet. which has the superior version of Hamlet which apparently according to the owner of the most famous

dog Hamlet actor who was called Devil's Hoof that was the name of the dog his owner said dog Hamlet was conceived by mistake when Hamlet was being played on stage and this dog was in the wings and when he saw the wrestling between Claudius and Hamlet at the end the dog galloped onto stage and sort of got involved in the fighting

and the audience loved it and they went well, we've got to make this a thing. And so dog Hamlet became a thing. And the plot of dog Hamlet was basically the same as the plot of Hamlet, except there was also always a dog on stage accompanying Hamlet the whole time. And in the final scene, he got to pin Claudius down while Hamlet killed him. It sounds great. I don't know why it doesn't get played at the National Monarch.

One of the reasons that these dog dramas were so popular is because of the licensing act of 1737, which basically meant that whenever you wrote a play, you had to give it to the Lord Chamberlain and he had to check through it and make sure that there was nothing bad in there. And it was a real arse of a hoop to get through. But luckily, a dog drama didn't really have any lines apart from bark, bark, bark or something. You know, they were melodramas. There was hardly any lines in there at all. And so they were really easy for people to write and get past the Lord Chamberlain.

Nice. Right. It's clever of that, isn't it? Yeah. Yes. Just one last thing is I found a quite nice thing, which is that animals used to, in Hollywood, be acknowledged for their contribution to film and TV. And there used to be an award ceremony that took place called the Patsy. And the Patsy stood for Picture Animal, top star of the year.

And it ran for a number of years. And the very first one was hosted by Ronald Reagan in 1951. And it's great. It's just nice to look through the list to sort of acknowledge all these. incredible animals. So in the first year, animals that were acknowledged were Francis, the talking mule, black diamond the horse, lassie, the dog, lassie gets its first mention there. Wow. But yeah, the patsy and they stopped doing it. That's a shame because there are a lot of animals in movies that are still given their all. That's interesting to me that they

stop that because they're held in such regard, especially in the States, you know, these acting animals. So I wonder why. Yeah, absolutely. I wonder why they stopped the award ceremony. Maybe because the animals don't realize they're getting awards. Yeah. I'm not sure. Probably, yeah. I mean, the animals don't even realize they're acting.

Why are they held in high regard? Well, that's the big question. Yeah, it is the big question. Do some of them. Do they? Because you look at the such, like Lassie, for example, or the other famous one, I can't recall the name, but the dog that was in Frazier.

Do you remember that little? Oh, yeah. He definitely knew what he was doing. And the owners and the trainers will tell you, they'll come off and they'll look at you and they'll be sort of like, how do I do, how do I do? And they'll want to do another take as well. Absolutely, because they know they've got to run on,

I've got to do a certain thing and they have to do it in a certain way and then they'll come back and they'll get a treat or whatever. But they know that there's cameras there, and especially if they're doing it for years. So, you know, even though I took the Mickey out of the dog, because I've been working, I have had experience with it, I do acknowledge the work that goes into it. Do you ever see those guys like The Duck?

Do you ever see The Duck in like social settings anymore? No, sadly, I have not visited The Duck. Is that because the duck's too busy or you're too busy? Do one of your careers really take off? Look, it's an actors thing. When we leave the film, we leave each other. That's what you do. It doesn't matter whether you're human or animal.

And you might see each other at the awards, you know, not so much now if there's no animal awards. But, you know, the agency Christmas do. You might. Do you get occasional calls from it going, Reese, I see you've been cast in Jumanji. Lots of animal roles in that. Slip a word in?

Pierre, I'd love to work with you. But as you know, these days, A lot of them are computer generated. Okay, so you real life animals, you know, you're a bit of maintenance, aren't you? Wow. How rude. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact. My fact this week is that while filming Return of the Jedi in the forests of California,

the actor who played Chubaka had to be accompanied by crew members in brightly colored vests so that he wasn't shot by Bigfoot hunters. Wow. Amazing. Yeah. And this is, for a long time, this was a sort of a legend of the behind the scenes filming that no one had properly verified. But Peter Mayhew, who sadly passed away last year,

who played Chewbacca in all of the movies right up until the last. Sorry, that's Mayhew, not my eye, isn't it? That's what's Mayhew. Mayhew. So, yeah, so he played Chewbacca in all the movies. including the Force Awakens. He sadly passed away and actually he was unable to do the one after the Force Awakens. What was that one called?

The Last Jedi. I think it's called No One Cares anymore, wasn't it? Yeah, that might be it. But he's still consulted. He's in the credits as Chewbacca consultant. And he was on a Reddit AMA where he was asked the question and he confirmed that this was the case. They were in these forests of California, which is a big, bigfoot hunting territory. It is where all the most famous encounters of Bigfoot

happened in the Californian forest. Bluffs Creek is where the most famous footage that we know of, the Paterson, Gimlin. If you picture Bigfoot in your head, that's the footage you're thinking of. That happened in a Californian forest. So you can see that there would be slight concern of a giant Chewbacca-like character walking around

that he might be hunted down. So yeah, it's what happened. Also probably grizzly bears, do they have them there? Like, they might shoot him because they think is a grizzly bear rather than something that doesn't exist. Okay, so two points there. No.

Okay, there's no Grizzlies in that territory, and they do exist. Clearly, okay? In fact, I've got many facts here. How long have you got to prove to you guys that there's an estimated number between 2 and 6,000 of these creatures? That's one bad of evidence, yeah. In North America. Okay, they have extreme elusiveness. They have fear.

of humans, they nocturnally feed, and they have nomadism. Okay, that is basically they, in their groups, they migrate, they move, on the move all the time. More than 10,000 people in the US have described encounters with Bigfoot over the last 50 years. And a third of all Bigfoot sightings are recorded in the state of Oregon. Ries, I do see that you're reading this, but where did you get these facts from? I was just wondering. These are out of my 007 note pad that's Leon Kirkberg. got me for my birthday.

Okay. So your source is yourself. What I answered that? I've written, they're hand written by me. These are facts written by me. Last year, 2019, scientists unearthed new evidence

of the original Bigfoot. What do you think that is? Oh, the giant hominid thing, is it? Like, giants or something? Yeah, 10 foot tall ape, gigantopithecus. Mm.

Which they believe is related to the modern. day, Arangutangu Tang. It's interesting. It's, you know, obviously there are more people who disbelieve in Bigfoot than there are people who believe in it. But the people who do believe that she might exist are quite, it's quite interesting. People like David Attenborough has always said he thinks that the Yeti, for example, could be a real thing.

He's setting multiple interviews. If you look at his career with all that Monty Python stuff, can he really be believed that guy? He was tarnished a long time ago. You're right. The only second tarnish that he has that he's been trying to dust under the couch for a long time is his Bigfoot belief.

And here, I can't believe I'm saying it, but Bigfoot is real. On Chewbacca, okay, there is a Star Wars comic from 2004, an official Star Wars comic called Into the Great Unknown that says that the Millennium Falcon crashed, landed into the Earth in the Pacific Northwest, before the area was colonized by people and that Chewbacca survives, he kind of is immortal or something,

and he became the mythical Bigfoot. So maybe Chewbacca is Bigfoot. I love this theory. It's also a comic, I believe, but because it makes total sense. And, you know, now he would have to have mated, but then a population can grow. and also it counts for the spaceship situation, ancient astronauts, for example. So therefore, extraterrestrials have landed here, which we all know is true as well. So it does tie in with the Bigfoot and UFO factor, which I find fascinating. And that's why Star Wars is such a popular documentary. Exactly.

Well, everything's based on fact, and that is a Derby quote. It's in the book. It's in the 007 book. It's in here. I wrote it. It's on page four. Have you guys, recent Dan, ever been to Willow Creek? Or you're familiar with Willow Creek, which I think is sort of the home of Bigfoot, isn't it? In California. It's one of them. Familiar with it, yes, have not been no. Because it's kind of amazing how well they do.

Like the Willow Creek Museum apparently rakes in $500 a day, which for a microscopic museum in a microscopic museum in a microcontract. microscopic place in the middle of nowhere is a lot of money. A lot of people seem to go to this place. The entry fee is $500. Right. It's amazing. And it's you every day, isn't it? There's another museum. There's a Sasquatch Museum in Georgia, in Cherrylog, Georgia. And they, it's called Expedition Bigfoot. And one of their main things they have is a buttocks

imprint of the Sasquatch. Oh, really? So apparently the Sasquatch. I know about that one. Oh, do you? Okay. Well, I don't. I mean, it's a plaster cast, isn't it? Yeah. So it, they left an apple out, and the Sasquatch came in the middle of the night, and it, because they're nocturnal. And it went to grab the apple, but it didn't go right up to it because it, so it sort of actually leant down and on its buttocks on the, on the, unfortunately, I think it was muddy ground and reached over and got it and took off and left an imprint. And they've got that whole cast. And they did the cast, yeah. It's a famous one.

And according to Jeff Muldrum, professor of anthropology at the University of Idaho, it has obviously prominent buttocks that are well muscled, and the hair streams downwards and inwards towards the natal cleft. If anyone wants to know what a big foot butt looks like. Yeah. And I've got a tattoo of a natal cleft on my right shoulder blade. So delighted this isn't a visual medium.

And every listener was thinking right now. And underneath it, it says everything's based on fact. So this podcast is obviously broken now. Apologies everyone. But the very famous footage that I was mentioning before, that we all know, the Patterson Gimlin footage, those guys, those guys are very interesting. So Bob Gimlin is the surviving one of the two. He's in his 80s.

I've met him. And you've met him, Reese, which is so interesting. because he wasn't a Bigfoot hunter. He was basically a daredevil to an extent. He used to ride... Stuntman. Yeah, he was a stuntman, and he used to write carts through the canyons.

He was courted by Evil Caneval to be part of his daredevil team, and that was going to be his whole career. And then he was filming this thing with Patterson, where they were actually filming a movie about someone else's account about these eight men in California when they suddenly found Bigfoot and took this footage.

And for 30, five odd years afterwards, Gimlin's life was effectively ruined because no one believed them, what they were saying. His wife used to get teased at her workplace and constantly people would be revving up to their house saying, let's go big foot, you know, drunk people.

And then, I think it was in the early 2000s, he decided to show up to a conference where suddenly he was met as if he were a god. And it was only then that his life turned around. And it's interesting that just in those 35 years didn't break him down the sort of what it did to his life that he sort of admitted it to being a hoax.

He's always stuck by his guns. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. He found his people. Yeah, exactly. Because when they got the footage, Patterson was a bit of a showman and took it around everywhere, but Gimlin didn't really want to have anything to do with that.

He just wanted to look after his horses and stuff. And so Patterson hired someone to pretend he was Bob Gimlin. No, really? And they massively fell out. I mean, this is what I read. I don't, Reese might know this, but like, yeah, they massively fell out. and it was only towards the end of Patterson's life that they kind of made up.

In fact, when Patterson went around with this cousin, I think, who's called Diatli, they were making so much money that they did the classic thing of at the end of each night, they would go back to the hotel room and have money fights where they threw money at each other because they were making so much from this. The flip side to that is while Patterson is having these money parties throwing him around the room,

Gimlin sold the rights to the footage to a fellow Bigfoot researcher for 10 American dollars. That's all he made from it. You've got to get that in tiny denominations to make a good money quite out of that. I was reading about what scientists thought of this film. There's a guy called John Napier, who's like a big, bigfoot scientist. And I think kind of fair on both sides, as far as I was reading it anyway. And he thought that he was quite struck by the way that the Bigfoot walks in a really exaggerated way.

And he says, why ruin a good hoax by ordering an actor? to walk in such an artificial way. Sorry, how many times more silly is the Bigfoot walk? That is an awful way. There was an anthropologist called Daniel Schmidt who said on this. He said, either this is a person trying to walk funny or Bigfoot walks in a manner that is more or less identical to a person walking funny. And let's not forget it has breasts.

Let's not forget that. Yeah, because why would you put a, put, breasts on a on a fake bigfoot suit, it would give you that extra moment of difficulty to get that accurate in terms of its movement and, you know, go to those troubles. There's, you know, I'm not here to scientifically prove and argue this case, but, you know,

if you do want to dive into it, listeners, please cross over live now to my podcast, The Cryptid Factor, which you'll absolutely enjoy. It's also, it's visual, it's not just audio, although we haven't got the visuals up yet, but it's like this as less facts. I can't believe our podcast has been one long advert for the cryptid factor. We're not putting this out.

We need listeners. Can I ask? And I can't even believe I'm going down this road. What am I doing? I hate myself. But presumably there are male big feet as well, because if it's just female, how are they breeding? Or do the males also have breasts?

How is that working? No, it's this male and there's female. And there's youth. And people have seen all three. Okay. So it's not just females that people have seen. No, it just so happens in this footage. Bigfoot in this footage is actually called Patty. Just a little nugget there. Patty, the Bigfoot, is the name that's given to her. The Bigfoot research organization go out and they do expeditions every year, maybe four times a year. And you can sign up if you go on the BFRO website, you can be part of an expedition to try and find these things.

and quite often, almost every time, they will at least hear the howls in the forest. And, you know, it's well worth your time. Well, I mean, that's a matter of opinion. Look, you can either do there or go and watch dogs on stage. It's up to you. Can I just, I know it seems totally unrelated, but can I say something about the Yeti,

which I found really amazing? It's very related, yeah. Well, you know, I don't know if the Bigfoot fans hate Yetis or whatever, So the Yessi is obviously the sort of Nepalese equivalent of Bigfoot. So it's Yetty and Abominable Snowman are Himalayas, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, then North America. And a Yessi finger was once smuggled out of Nepal by my personal favorite actor, Jimmy Stewart. It's an insane story. Where did he smuggle it?

Where did he put it? Where did he put this finger? No, no. What did you like to know? Did he cover it in mayonnaise first is what I'm asking. May I? Absolutely not. So, now.

Now, see, that would have worked so much better if you guys had video because, for the listeners I put a finger right up. We used to have our own TV show, and every time you say this would work well in video, it's a dagger to our hearts. Oh, I'm so sorry. And also, if there are any BBC Commissioners listening, they're going, thank God we definitely did the right thing.

Yeah, you'll hear next week, okay, you guys you've got the visual show but you're going to have to have restarting that's that's that's going to be about big for no we got decommissioned by attenborough interestingly yeah he came back just for one-off decommissioned again i can't believe that guy i know so many cock-ups in that career Anna can I ask what happened with um did you say jimmy stewart what happened with his um with his yeti finger where is it now and the finger well thank you for asking james so this basically started when there was a yety hand apparently that was in a Nepalese monastery in the 1950s. And basically there was a guy who had a great name of this huge oil magnate called Tom Slick, very cool name for someone who's made wealthy from oil.

And he organised this expedition of scientists to go and basically get the Yeti hand. And so this guy was sent out to get it. He was called Peter Byrne. He was an explorer. And a British scientist had given him a human finger to swap with the Yessi finger with one of the Yeti fingers on this hand. So he got into this monastery. It's a bit up in the air

whether he got permission from the monks or whether he just stole it. But essentially, he hacked off the Yeti finger, replaced it with this human finger. Wow. Stop, stole. We're falling on the side of stolen. But then it happened that he was mates with James Stewart

and James Stewart's wife, Gloria, who happened to be in the area. And so he said, I'm so sorry, guys. Would you have I heard you're going to the UK? Would you mind taking this Yeti finger back with you? And they did, and they small. I've struggled it out in Gloria, Jimmy Stewart's wife's lingerie case, which I actually didn't even know that was a thing.

But apparently no one searches lingerie cases. In fact, they asked at customs at the other end in Britain, you know, did you open the lingerie case? And the customs official said, no, of course not. We'd never open a lady's lingerie case. So I should say that they have done analysis on this finger, which was kept in the Hunterian Museum. They've done some analysis recently,

and it is, in fact, just a human finger, turns out. He swapped it back. He swapped it back. There's always a response, isn't it? That's the good thing about this kind of thing. Because, yes, because now Jimmy Stewart or Tom Slick has the actual Yeti hand. And of course, if you've got that finger, you're not going to divulge that information. That's up in your glass cabinet up on the third floor near the landing by your big footbooks.

It's in the notebook, guys. I love how a respectful. James and Anna are big to you, Rhys. If I said this, I'd get fucking murdered. Oh, yeah, but don't forget who edits this thing. I'd like to get a copy of all the things that I said that don't end up in the show. I'll throw them on my show. Okay, that's going to be all the things you're saying.

So we can just send you the full show. There's a limit on the size of file I can send. Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we have said over the course of this podcast, we can be found on our Twitter accounts. I'm on at Schreiberland, James.

James Harkin. Reese. Please don't contact me. It gives me anxiety. At Chisinski. That should have been your line. Wish I thought of that phrase five years ago. You can email podcast.cui.com.

That's right. Or you can go to our Twitter account at No Such Thing or a website. No Such Thing as a Fish.com. All of our previous episodes are up there. can check them out. We also have little bits of merchandise so you can find the links to. Do check out Reese's fantastic podcast, The Crypted Factor.

Thank you. Do you do that on your own, Reese, so? Predominantly on my own. Now and again, I have a couple of guests. But yeah, it's all fun facts and foibles from my notebooks. I've heard the guest tend to bring it down.

You're thinking of putting them out on you. All right, everyone. We'll see you again next week. Can I just, I'd also just say it's been an honour being on this show. I'm a big fan of the podcast and I like to do a special shout out to my son Finn who's also an avid fan. Hi Finn.

Hey Finn. I did it. Hey Finn, we should have got you on. For God's sake. Oh yeah, he's more sensible. It's very up that you would end the show with just Finn, isn't it? Yeah.

Oh, yes. And also I'm going to say Theo, my younger son. Otherwise he'll be like, why didn't you mention me? and my wife, Rosie, and Michael and Maxine, um, moosh, minky, mud, and of course my favourite, may I?

All right, see you good next week, guys. Bye. Bye. I just want to look you in the eye really quickly and check, because it's very hard to tell with you. Do you believe that Bigfoot is the real thing? Are you talking to me? I am, yeah.

Yes, cool. Yes, absolutely. Isn't it fun? Isn't it fun to think? that? Yeah. And I'm all about fun. Yeah.