The Chaser Report - BEST OF: Wil Anderson

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

BEST OF: Wil Anderson - At the start of the millennium The Chaser team met with one of Australia’s best standup comedians to explore the prospect of working together. Which, in hindsight, would have been a great idea – at least for us. It did not go well. 20 years later, Charles and Dom talk it over with Wil Anderson – and discover why nothing excites him more than a standup show with no plan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chase of Report. It's Wednesday, the 29th of December, 2021, and if you're listening to this, you're still alive. Congratulations. It's not at all foreseeable at this point when we're recording this. What we're doing is bringing out the best interviews of the year, so that you have something to listen to in between Christmas and New Year. We'll have fresh content for you next week, the original Chase team. We're going to join us for looks back at stunts that we've done over the years. and some of them were in the room for the moment that we discussed, Charles, with Will Anderson here, which is the most awkward meeting we've ever had with anybody in 22 years since we started this thing.

Yes, it was extremely awkward, and it went on and on and on. It went on for about 45 minutes. It was just... He was the best faux parr ever seen. It was right at the start of his career, and he just tap danced for 45 minutes. It was impressive. Oh, look, it probably influenced the spin zone. thing of grew in a bit. Yeah, it didn't work. Anyway, we love Will and he'll join

into the moment. Will Anderson, thank you for joining us on The Chaser Report. How are you? Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. I wish people, I mean, you know what, let's take them behind the scenes because obviously we're pre-recording this. We're all in different places. This is the modern world that we live in that, you know, no one's ever in the same room to do these things anymore. And I do a whole bunch of different podcasts. And old podcast, Mike, who is my producer, who edits it all together, I do nothing to help. Like, you know, I have people on going, do you need to do a countdown? Do you need to do a clap?

Do we all need to push record at the same time? I'm just like, oh, he'll work it out. Like, you know, I'll ask my first question. He can put the answer at the end of the first question. The rest of it will be fine. I've come into you guys, and it is like we're doing a Rock of Stedford. We're counting down, we're doing three claps. I thought I was going to have to, like, drop to my knees and do a spin.

I must say your magic hands weren't as good as I was hoping for Will as a season podcaster. No, I appreciate the three claps too. I don't think that I've ever, like I've done some where it's like a countdown and a clap. I always like, three, two, one is a good countdown. But I always like when somebody's just decided three, two, one is not a good enough countdown. I've done podcasts where they've gone from five. I even did one where they've gone from 10 and I'm just like, are you the count from Sesame Street?

Is that who I'm doing a podcast with today? because that is two big a countdown. If you are launching a rocket to the moon, you go from 10 to start a podcast from three is five. Three is fine. Yeah, no, we have this thing where we go three, two, one, clap, clap, clap, and Will said clap rather than clapping. And I thought that was good enough.

But Charles said, no, no, we've got to do it properly. No, because I was a skeptic, like Will, I was a skeptic of the necessity to clap. And then I had to edit something one day. And I realized, actually, it's really useful to clap because you can see it on the waveform. It's a brilliant thing that you've, it's a genius idea, Dom. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm 100% on board with it. I'm not anti-clapper.

I don't want you to think that I am some sort of anti-clapper conspiracist that I don't believe that you should clap at the started podcast. I've seen your name popping up on sort of anti-clepper Reddit. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you've been on telegram. Obviously, at the start, I loved the fact that, like, because I thought we were rehearsing. I was like just going through it. I was just like, so we're going three, two, one, clap, clap, clap.

And then Dom just started. And I was like, no, no, hang on. I didn't clap. That was just me getting my head around the concept. And Dom's just decided I'm such a sensitive artist that I won't touch my hands together. I'm just going to say the word clap three times. Well, I was thinking to myself, look, we've only got Will for half an hour. There's a lot to cover.

Let's get into it. Not realizing that I was giving us up first five minutes, which I think will be very useful to anyone working out how to start a remotely recorded podcast, but we've got to rip off the bad ad on this. This isn't the most awkward meeting that we've had, is it? We talked to Jan Fran, and I wasn't planning to bring it up, but the first time we met you in a meeting room, all of the chaser, as we then were, talking about working on a TV show together.

Yeah, so it was in inner city, Sydney, I believe, and it was organised by a fellow by the name of Nick Murray, who happens to be the co-executive. producer of both question everything and grew on the television shows I make these days. So it happened at his back office, I believe. And it was myself and all the team from the chaser. And the idea, I think, was that Nick was putting us together in the same room in the hope that we might make some sort of satirical comedy television show together. And in, I think I was, I think my thought was that I was trying to be complimentary, which is why this story hurts so much.

It wasn't like I'd come in to particularly go, here we go. I'm going to put these guys back in their place. I'm absolutely going to zing them around this table. I'm pretty sure the sentence started with, what I love about you guys is that you don't do this, not revealing at that stage that you were the guys who had done this. And I think it was about, I said, your stuff's really clever. It's not like you're going to press conferences and holding up like fried chicken

at Kim Beasley instead of microphones or whatever the bit had been. And then one of those moments where no one needs to say anything because the silence says it all, like Marcel Marceau didn't communicate with silence the way that you guys communicated with silence in the room that day. That moment where you're like, oh yeah, okay, so that was you guys? All right, well, let's reset this conversation. Yeah, we've been filming a secret pilot for Andrew Dentany.

You've also worked with, you know, I grew and everything else. And part of, there was some smart political satire I like to think, But there was also, and I think it was my idea, actually, a corn, cob and a piece of fried chicken in front of Kim Beasley held up by none other than Charles Firth himself. And I will have you know, Will, you know, that may be lowbrow, too lowbrow for you. But that clip has now done 22 million views on TikTok. So it has got a second life. 20 years later.

I mean, there's a lot of anti-vaccine conspiracies theories that go well on TikTok as well. I'm not sure that how many views you get on TikTok should be our measurement of whether some things are worthwhile piece of content or not. But it's nice that Kim Beasley's brief and unsuccessful leadership has a life to this day. And presumably the kids don't even know who he is, Charles. They just like the fried chicken and the corn co. You know, it's because his reaction is so human. It's actually a corn on the cob that I hold up to him.

and he sort of clock I think it was the first thing that we'd done and so he sort of clocked it and then he sort of double takes and then sort of goes to grab it actually like it's almost like he wants it it's really and it and he's quite a you know tubby man so it really works I mean I think we understand what the bit was I think everybody gets what the bit was I'm glad that you felt like you had to walk us through that charles in case we weren't understanding what the bit was No, but what I remember about that meeting was you then spent the next, I would say, 45 minutes tap dancing. Like literally just, you were so... No, literally tap dancing. I put on some tap shoes, I got on the table, and I thought this is the only way out of this awkward situation. And then, and you just talked at us for 45 minutes. And then you, because you were obviously trying to hide your embarrassment or something like that.

And then you just left. And it was like, that was very weird. That was a really weird. The record needs to show that Will was right. Yeah, we wouldn't have done that joke today. But the other thing he could have done is just sent out for some corn on the cob. Like that would have been fine, which is a shame. This is like I will say honestly, like your recollection of it would have been entirely true.

Because for me, like making a faux pile like that, that is my absolute worst case scenario. I wish I was one of those people who could just be like, have the confidence to laugh that off or be like, yeah, well, this is my opinion. And if they don't, you know, if they have a problem with that, then who cares? You know, this is what I think. But instead, that is the, you know, young kid brought up with polite manners by his nana going to like the Church of England to, you know, sing hymns and, you know, be polite and, you know, shake hands with people and say, I honestly, I mean, I still carry it with me. Like, even when you mentioned it, when Jan was on your show and I listened back to the, like, there's still a bit of me. that the curb your enthusiasm music starts to play in my brain when that anecdote comes up.

The thing is, it's just such a perfect example of the form. And normally Craig Roocastle's the one who does massive faux pas without realizing. But now, it's one of those things where you can just, you just have to go, look, it wasn't meant to be, which is a pity because it would have been fun to work on the glasshouse. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, it can still happen. I think, you know, I mean, I think what the ABC needs is a whole bunch of old white guys making a TV show together. All together.

We'll get Rue Castle, get Sean McAuliffe, get Charlie, just have a super, put the wall in the one show, open up some space. I mean, maybe that's the way to deal it, free up some airspace, you know, for other people. You go, yes, we are going to use Charlie and Sean and the chaser and, yeah, all those guys are going to be on. We'll get Adam Hills back, it'll be fine, but we're just going to put them all in the straight white guy show, and then we're just going to clear up some real stuff. Bring back the glass house, call it the White House. Just get everyone else off the air somewhere else. But, no, no, but Will, I want to go to that, the idea that you're a polite little boy who cares. Because why then did you choose stand-up comedy as a profession?

Because surely that's the most exposed thing you can do in the world. Oh, so, you know, often it's probably because of that, right? I think that one of the things I've heard said about stand-up comedy a lot is that people become stand-up comedians because they want to control the way people laugh at them. And I think that that awkwardness in a social situation, when you're the person standing up in front of the room full of people, it's a very controllable conversation, right? Like I feel like I'm having this conversation. The audience is very much part of it.

I always think about stand-up as being surfing. You can't do it without the audience there. You know, they're an integral part of it. but at the same time, it is a very one-sided conversation. This is the way that I like to speak to people, you know, for 70 minutes at a time, and I do most of the talking, and that's all the interesting things I have to say for a year, and I'll see you again next year. Like, I think there is a real element of not wanting to be in those situations where I can make

those faux paths, where I can be nervous. Like, there is an element of control in stand-up that I think is, you know, really powerful to people who have a little bit of social, But don't you think it's interesting because I reckon, I don't know, this is my perspective on your career and, you know, you can disagree with it. It comes to faux par many years later, in revenge. Here's my faux par back. I know.

I'm very comfortable with other people having takes on me. For me, like, somebody insulting me, that's not a problem for me because, like, I look at my own stuff and I probably am my own worst critic. There's not anything that anybody else can say to me that I haven't thought myself. Me like saying something awkward to someone else, it is much more dangerous to me. It's hard enough to write an hour or 80 minutes of great material and coming back year after year as you do.

But it seems like you would like making it even harder for yourself. I've seen you do improv sets before and you go to the audience. And is the adrenaline from that experience even greater? Is that like the new rush? of not even having any material walking out on the stage? Because as someone who had quite a bit of stage fright in my younger days, that to me is a nightmare. But you just seem completely in your element when you do it.

Now I feel like I am. Now, I mean, we had, we cancelled them, unfortunately, because of COVID. But I had booked the Enmore. We had a sold-out night at the Emmore. I think your face is still on the side of it. I was going to do my improvised show at the Amore, which means for people who don't know the Amore theatre, like the Rolling Stones played there when they, you know,

came to Sydney, the idea that there's 2,000 people, you know, and I'm going to walk out on stage in front of 2,000 people with no idea what I'm going to talk about for the next 90 minutes is exhilarating to me now. It used to be nerve-wracking, but now it is exhilarating. In fact, in some ways, it ruins you for all other comedy. You know, like if normal comedy is skydiving with somebody else, you know, you're strapped to somebody else's, someone else's experienced persons on your back and they pull the parachute at the right time and you get all the kind of thrill of it. But, you know, with the safety that somebody else is looking after you, I mean, that's your act, right? The act is the experienced skydiver who is on your back

ready to pull the parachute out. With these improvised shows, what I always say is it's like jumping out of a plane and just assuming that you can teach yourself to fly on the way down. And so all your brain is desperately trying to do is going, how can I work out how to fly? How can I make this work? And it is incredibly thrilling. Yeah, you're watching your brain figure it out and trying. It's almost funnier when you can't get something for a moment in that situation. That's what you've got to.

So the big thing for me was people would always say to me, you must go in with something. You must have something prepared. You must have a backup position. The minute that I didn't was the minute the show started working. Because if you have a backup position, the minute you get in trouble, your brain just very naturally goes, go to your backup position. Whereas if you don't have a backup position, And every time you dig a hole, a lot of the joy is in people watching you dig your way out of the hole.

In fact, I think that's a lot of the time why people come. I mean, there's nothing better at the Olympics than seeing somebody in the gymnastics absolutely nail the pommel horse and land to do the perfect landing. The only thing I would argue that is equally as compelling is seeing someone completely fuck that up. That's what makes the highlight shows. Either way, I think it's like car racing. People come for the skilled, you know, really fast driving, but they also. come for the crashes. The idea that there's a possibility that it's going to crash as to what

makes it exciting. Have you sort of looked at some of the greats who did there? I saw Billy Connolly in New York once and, well, I'm pretty sure he didn't have a plan for the show. It certainly felt that way and you're right. Like actually part of the show was he sort of, the audience stopped laughing for a while and he took, he literally took 15 minutes to scoop up literally every single person in the audience and get them back laughing. And it was, it was the most amazing 15 minutes I've ever seen. Do you actually, do you look at those, those people who've done that sort of stuff? So when Billy Connolly was touring Australia, this is like a maybe 15. So first, you know, proper comedy gig I ever went to, the night I decided I wanted to be a comedian

was that a Billy Connolly gig. I was 17 with my mum at Haymer Hall in Melbourne. She'd like taken me down. I was about to go off. the university, you need to study journalism. And I remember sitting in the room that night just thinking, I don't really know what this is yet, but I know that this is the first time I've ever sat somewhere and just gone, this is it. This is where I feel at home. This is, whatever this is, I want to be around this. And so I'd been doing stand-up for about, I reckon, four, five years. And I was doing a split bill at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival with tripod. So I would do half an hour, tripod would do half an hour. And then we would come

off stage, and because it's in a big theatre centre, for people who don't know how those theatre centres work, there might be a big room that say 2,000 people, but they have these monitor screens in all the back stage areas that people can watch for their cues if they're doing, say, Swan Lake or that sort of thing, right? So every night after our show, Billy Connolly would go on in the main room. So we would just go down into the green room where they had a pool table and me and the boys from tripod had a thing that we did for two weeks where we would play pool until Billy Connolly did a joke that he had done the night before. And that was our thing. So he was doing like 10 nights in a row or whatever. And we would play pool until we heard one

story or joke that he'd done the night before. And we'd be there minimum an hour every night before before. And sometimes then he'd get to a story that he told the night before, but he'd tell it in a completely different way. And that's one of the things. that I don't rule myself out of doing in these improv shows now. In the past, it used to be very much, if you've told a story before, like, it's out of the set now, but I realize that was a terrible way to do it because sometimes your brain, you've just got to let your brain roll in those improv shows and let it go wherever it wants to go. So if I get to a story that I've told before, the only rule I have for my shows is you've got to tell that story in a different

way than you told it last time. You know, you can't do the same jokes, you can't do the same beats. You've got to look at it from a different perspective. You've got to find something new in it that last time you told that story wasn't there. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, Billy Connolly's my absolute hero. Would not be doing stand-up comedy without Billy Connolly. And very much the inspiration of these shows originally probably came from watching Billy work in that way. We should get on to Gruen, given that they've organised this interview as much I'd love to hear you talking about. Ah, you know, Gruen's on Wednesday night. It's 8.30. Everyone knows what growing is. It's been on for 13 years. If you haven't got the hang of it now,

then you probably won't like it anyway, guys. It's fine. What is it you love about podcasting, Will? Because you do an awful lot of it for a man as busy as you. Well, I mean, I don't know. Like, I mean, I like it, I guess is probably the simplest of all answers. You know, I'm at a point in my life where I just try to do things that I like, you know, that I find creatively satisfying. I like the, I like the, I like the space to explore complex ideas, even silly complex ideas. You know, you can explore an idea from every angle. You don't have to have that radio style. This is my take and this is my perspective. And if someone came through this conversation halfway through, we need to reset and let them know what we're up

to. The jokes always have to be that first beat jokes because people are listening while they're, you know, doing something else or any of those sort of things. I think that podcasting, you have that opportunity to have long, in-depth, complicated, complex conversations with people. That's the thing that I find most compelling about it. In some ways, it feels like it's the opposite of social media. I think one of the reasons why podcasts is sort of so successful alongside social media is social media drives you towards extreme conclusions with no subtlety. And podcasts are where the subtle.

conversation can happen. And one is completely advertiser driven and sort of focused on invading your privacy. And the other one, it puts the listener at the center of the experience and just goes, well, what, you know, what would be great to listen to? And that's the other thing is that I often have, you know, you get feedback from people because now the commercial world is in the world of podcast. So it's all like, oh, show's got to go for 40 minutes or it's got to go for 15 minutes or you've got to get this person, ah, like, who cares? I hate all that. We, we, that's what we got told.

We got told, oh, we should do this, this show should never go over 20 minutes, because then you'll get a really good spot on Spotify. Yeah, who cares? I don't care. That's not what it's more. We jettisoned it after about a week or two because it was like, no, but that's not what we want to do. But also, who cares? Like, I mean, honestly, who cares?

This is the one space where we get absolute creative freedom. Why am I going to hand over that sort of creative freedom to other people? I love this. You know, people will say to you, even sometimes guests like on philosophy or whatever, you know, we'll get to the, sometimes I'm in a two-hour chat with people and they'll be at the end going, well, if anyone's made it this far. And I'm like, mate, people make it this far. I see the numbers. People listen to the whole thing. They don't listen to the whole thing necessarily in a go.

Like, you know, often they'll listen to it over four days driving to and from work or something like that. They'll get back to it, whatever it is. but this idea that we have to bend our world into the commercial world again. Oh, I hate it so much. Stop ruining something that is great. Stop bringing in celebrities that host podcasts that they're not invested in that have to go for 20 minutes so you can sell dumb advertising to your dumb podcast that is not going to last and no one's going to give a shit about in like,

you know, six months. Like, you know, there's going to be this gallery. of failed celebrity podcasts. Celebrities were like, oh, I should have a podcast and then just realized it was hard work and their heart wasn't in it and therefore the audience's heart wasn't in it.

We've got one rule in terms of guests on our podcast, which is that there's got to be somebody who you'd want to go for a walk with because we sometimes get politicians on and people who, you know, a bit controversial or don't necessarily agree with. But there've got to be people who you can invite into your earphones, you know, so, you know, it's not, it's not the same as going, okay, well, we'll balance it out and, you know, we'll talk to some hard right fuck wit and then we'll counterbalance with a boring left winger or something. You just go, no, no, it's just got to be someone who you want to go for a walk with.

And I think that's, that is what podcasting is. It's, it's company on your walks. Yeah, and what I love about it is that so much of my other work, like particularly my television work, you know, I've always, you know, my shows serve the shows. So my voice on Gruen is a bit different to my voice on question and everything. They are voices that serve the show, you know, that, well, they're meant to serve the show. What does this show need from me? But it's not the full me. You don't get a sense of what I truly believe about things. You get one particular perspective that serves the show. Whereas in podcast, you know, you, you know, you. you get to see a little bit more of what my thought process is about what I am interested in. Even with philosophy, the way that I choose the guess, I have a real policy of like, I don't have anyone on that I don't like. Like, never. Like, this is my world.

I'm just never going to have someone on who's a contrarian or for the sake of having that conversation with this person who doesn't believe what I believe. Because I've done 300 episodes of that. And I talk to people that I like all the time who believe completely different things. to me on a whole range of topics. In fact, I don't think I've ever done the podcast and got to the end of it and thought, oh yeah, I agreed with everything that that person said. You know, and that's with people that I like and love and admire. The idea that I need to invite someone in that I don't like or that I completely disagree with is something that I'm

like, this is my space. I'm just going to keep it nice. If you, if you see a guest on my podcast, you know that it's because I personally am interested in that person and I want to have them on the show. And I think that's part of the agreement. I'm saying, come to a party at my house. I've invited a bunch of cool people. You're not going to get stuck in the corner talking to Joe Hilderbrand. Does this mean you haven't had Pauline Hanson on philosophy as yet? I mean, Jessica Rowe got her first. That was the problem. But I'm not even going to have, you know, the drummer from the band Hansen because of his anti-vax views. Like, you know, he's a Q&ON guy. So, like, I don't want to go that extreme because I think that's dumb anyway.

I'm sure you guys probably have a similar perspective, which is this idea that balance comes from taking somebody who is, you know, ridiculously far on one side and then putting someone who is ridiculously far on the other side and getting them to yell at each other for half an hour. And we consider that in our modern world debate and balance, which is the most, that's the most ridiculous thing that we have absolutely as a society succumb to. Like, that is unhelpful to anybody. Two people who are never going to change their mind yelling at each other and never going

forward. It's why in the early season of Gruen, like Russell and Todd used to yell at each other a lot. And it was a popular bit. Like, it's entertaining for people to watch. But we really said to them two or three seasons in, we were like, don't make this the caricature. Don't, you know, Todd and Russell agree with each other 95% of the time. It's the 5% that they don't agree on that makes it interesting and moves us forward

because we can have a genuine debate. But if you get two people who completely disagree on every topic, you are never going to move forward on anything. Yeah, no, because it's interesting because Sky News, I was touring to some at Sky News a couple of months ago, and they were pitching a show where they wanted to get a left winger on and a right winger on each week. And then the left winger would have to, you know,

explain anything through that lens. And it was like a game show, perspectives and I said to them but you're misunderstanding like politics is not a game the fact that you're treating the whole thing as a game actually shows that you're not interested in politics as a sort of way to move humans in the right direction you just it's not a game well they just have Hannity in combs remember that was like Hannity was the popular one and they got the drippiest liberal they could possibly find yeah I was a bit insulted that they want of me to be the left team.

But, oh, you think I'm the pathetic person who make the left bad? Hey, Will, thank you, Sanch, for joining us. It's been a joy and much better than the first time we met you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. And I appreciate that you sent me this fried chicken microphone to talk into for this interview. Thanks, mate.

Thanks for that. And look, I hope it was clear that we do actually get on with him. We've just never really worked with him. and probably, look, we're the losers in that. I think it's now fair to say. Yeah, that's right. If only that hadn't happened and if only we'd done better stunts.

Anyway, our gears from remote microphones with part of the ACARC's Creator Network. And tomorrow, we're going to give you a genuinely inspiring message about climate change with Saul Griffith. Yes, optimism. Optimism. Who knew that was possible?