The Chaser Report - Chopper's Hitlist | Heath Franklin

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Legendary comedian Heath Franklin is interviewed Charles and Dom on what it's like to break out of character, meeting the person you're impersonating, and what jokes don't work when you're dressed as Chopper! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. I am Charles Firth and with me today is Dominic Knight. Hello! And for the first time ever on the Chaser Report, Heath Franklin. Yes, good-day. How's it going? Very well.

Heath, I can see you've got a show coming up in the new year. It's called Out of Character and it looks as though you're not doing chopper. why the fuck would you not do chopper is so funny i love chopper we're watching you do it for like decades well yeah i mean the i think next year is uh coming up on 18 years of me doing chopper yeah so like a lot of 18 year olds i'm taking a year off to discover myself find out who i am but there's also i mean i've also you know been parenting for the last decade and living a very unchopper life so yeah there's just some stuff on it to get off my chest that chopper can't necessarily say you know you can't have chopper being like oh kid

They said, bloody miracles, but geez, they drive you crazy, don't know. So, yeah. Light observational chopper. Yeah, yeah. I'd actually quite like to see that. I think I want to see that show, actually, but that's probably a thought for another time. It's not the little palais at the Perth Cultural Centre, by the way, third to the 12th of February, except for the sixth. He's not doing the Monday, but other than that, get on it.

Right. So, yeah, I can imagine that that would be a bit awkward. There are some observations. You can't probably talk about human rights or the war in Ukraine as chopper, can you? No, not necessarily. I have to admit, like I'm a lefty, centre-lefty kind of dude. You know, an ageing lefty, I think so the appropriate termination for it. None of those on this podcast.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know what you kids are up to, but I guess I support it. That kind of thing. But, yeah, I've managed to sneak a few of those over the line with this chopper, but yeah, there's not everything you can talk about, you know. So wait a minute, if you've been doing him for 18 years, that must have been, mean there was overlap between him being alive and you taking the piss out of him.

Oh, yeah, there was an understanding. uncomfortable amount of overlap. Yeah. And so did you ever meet him? Yeah, yeah. It was kind of, it was underwhelming. Do you remember that amazing publication, Zoo magazine? Yeah.

Don't we know? One of our best writers was editor of it for years. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, cool. So they'd made the snappy transition from softcore porn to boating injuries. Actually, it was the other way around. He wrote for the chaser and then decided that his career was going nowhere and went to

Zoo magazine. Decided he wasn't using the word norgs often enough. Yeah, that's true. That's true. He wanted to upgrade the quality of his content output. Yeah, anyway, so Zoom magazine got us together for a photo shoot and it was powerfully awkward.

You know, I was asking him questions and he was giving me one word answers. He was trying to be the alpha dog, like just, you know, what have you been up to? But how can he be the alpha dog over the fictional version of yourself? It's like, if your chopper's the alpha, then he's still the alpha, isn't he? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, the fact that, like, you know, if you could lick your thumb and rub my tattoos off, you can do that. But with him, you know, he'd probably just murder you. Anyway, I didn't get it.

I was kind of like, you know. But it's sort of this weird thing where it was like doing an impersonation of the headmaster at school, and then everyone going quiet, and then you turn around and they're behind you, and you're like, oh. But also, if the headmaster at school was known for murdering people. Yeah, had built a career out of murdering people and bragging about it. But yeah, it was incredibly awkward. And then they were like, here you go, Mark, you can put on one of these white, white singlets. And he was like, no, not doing that.

There were moments during the photo shoot where he had me at a headlock. And I was like, this is just. Oh, yeah, because he could have snapped your neck. I mean, it was very public, but, you know. No, and you can just imagine him thinking, well, he doesn't match mine. I'm going to chew off the ear and make it a more closer resemblance. Well, yeah, he was always like, oh, you've got to cut your ears off, mate. If you're going to do a proper job, cut the ears off.

I was like, that just means that I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing it because I've got no options now. we've got to put sunglasses on and they fall off my head and I'm like, that's what I'm chopper forever. I mean, you hear a lot about people getting you know, kind of caught in a character for a very, very long time. I know Steve Coogan and Alan Partridge

it's been a little bit of a love, hate over the years. But I don't think anyone else has been caught in quite as unpleasant a character as chopper. And a real character. I mean, I remember seeing you doing it in that first show that was like the best of the reviews at the Melbourne Comedy Festival,

many, many years ago. Oh, good heavens. And you were just out of it. Was it Macquarie uni review? You'd started doing it? Yeah, that's right. Good old club Mac, the Dremack company reviews, yeah. Because it was the best thing in the show then.

Like, it was just this most amazing thing. And so I'm not surprised. Did you know you were locking yourself in for another 18 years? No, no. Just imagine going back in time and finding, you know, 22-year-old man be like, you're going to spend most of your life on airplanes with a little mustache in a box. that's more important than anything else you own.

And a texter, presumably. Yeah, and texts. Everyone's always like, oh, what are you just buying tattoo sleeves? It's like, oh, you can't replace tattoo sleeves at a 7-Eleven with five minutes to go before the show. The moustache in the box is my milstone around my neck. And sometimes audiences sort of suspend disbelief too much and actually end up thinking that the character is the person.

Did that ever happen to you? Yeah, some people seem to really want that to be the case. Like, a lot of people get it, you know, and it's weird. I always come out after shows to meet people, and some of them will speak to Hath and other people will just be like, no, like big, big duds with tatters and, you know, they're like, where's chopper? Oh, here he is. I'm talking to him.

And you get that sort of weird, giggly schoolgirl, like, fanboy thing out of him. From these huge days. From these hard cases. Oh, I'm speaking of chopper. Oh, that's real. And some people just, yeah, straight up don't get it. But, yeah, heaps of people. Fortunately, do.

And so have you ever felt your life in danger? No, not really. I mean, because it's sort of, I don't know, I feel like I'm on the right side of it. Like, I had a whole bunch of bikies come to the show in Adelaide. I know I just so loved it. And they loved it. Yeah, yeah.

You could become a green senator. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Not quite close enough of a relationship, but yeah. So before you did chopper, we had a bit of an incident, actually. We were doing this late night show on Trapnel that we used to do. our first ever paying gig, we're getting, I don't know, five dollars a show each or something. No, it was like, it was like $160 a show, which we split five ways. That's right.

There's about slightly more than that. And we're doing broadcasting like late at night. It was probably, I think it was 10 till midnight or something on a weeknight. And we were only going to Sydney. And so, yeah, we were. We were only, because this is the point of the show, the whole point of the anecdote, is that we were only going to Sydney. So we thought it would be safe. Yes.

To make fun of Chopper. Yeah. And he just put out this book called Hooky the Cripple. Yeah, his kid's book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which he, Adam Cullen, the artist, it illustrated. And it was quite out there. And so we were just basically being dicks about Chopper for about five minutes or so. And then the phone rings in the studio and, Gidoy, it's Chopper.

Was it Gidey, it's Chopper or was it? It's chopper. He did sound The thing that made me think it was the real chopper Because I mean I was the person Had been kind of driving the conversation In my life kind of passed before my eyes In that moment

But then he went Don't worry I won't kill you's And I thought that's probably the real guy It may not have been But he sounded like he was calling from a pub as well Yeah that sounds like him And it was quite did pan

Like it wasn't If it was some Larrick And it would have been probably playing along But the guy sounded He did sound very, very kind of out of it. But my recollection of it is that he did sort of, it was this thing where he joked along for a little while, and then he'd just go completely ice cold on you

and start threatening you. And you'd go, oh, come on, like, you know, we're just joking. But he wouldn't let up. Like he'd go, no, no, you went too far then. Like, I'm going to hunt you down now. And it was like, this is psycho. And then you go, oh, yeah, it's chopper. Yeah, and I think obviously that's one thing that's in the movie that comes across

is he'd be like, yeah, get a house again, we're friends, aren't we? I'm going to get you, you've screwed me, and then just flip back again and be very polite and then just be, you know, dark and cold, you're like, oh man, which, you know. It's almost like a life of killing people and being in and out of maximum security doesn't do good things to your head. Oh, yeah, and then when you hear about his childhood, like his mum tricked him into going to a mental asylum to get electro-shock therapy, and he was 14 or something. She sent him out to get milk or something like that

and just tricked him into going to this place and they held him down and zapped him and he came home and he was very miffed with his mum. So, yeah, I don't think that's how you breed a well-rounded person. It's lucky you're not a character actor who has to inhabit the character permanently and just ask everyone to call you chopper

in the rest of your life. But tell us about the show because when you've got this character, how do you decide what else you do? I think I've seen you do stand up, straight stand up before and kill it, by the way. But this is a full hour of not chopper, what are you going to do?

Well, I mean, I've got most of it written, to be honest, which is pretty good. But you're just, I don't know, just, all the funny stuff that just wouldn't sound right coming out of chopper. It's kind of hard to explain, okay, this is the best I can come to for the moment. I was in Melbourne doing shows for the fringe, just getting it up and going and testing it out. And there's a shop in Melbourne that used to be called justiosers. Right, and what did they tell? Just, just geosers. Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah. Right there on the packet. And then recently they've updated the name of their restaurant to just geosers and more. Oh, no. Oh, so just jeans had the same problem. I mean, you went in there thinking, okay, I really want to focus on my... There's shirts. It's bullshit.

Yeah. So that's, I kind of feel... Just geosers. So I feel like chopper's geosers and Heath Franklin is just geosers and more. Right. If you like geosers, there's been 18 years of them. And now, I don't know, there's a salad or something. as well. I've really undersold that.

I'm so bad at the ceiling. Yeah, the salad. Well, I'll be rushing out and buying it. It's like the coastal you push aside when you get geosos from just geosos. That's what the new show is like. No, it's always this people like. So there's a bit of chopper material as well as light observational parenting advice. Is that the sort of show that you're marketing here?

Yeah, I guess. I mean, once again, I'm doing a terrible job selling it. But like, um, yes. Okay. Yeah, right, yeah. Everyone's always like, what can we expect from your show and you're like, oh, I can give you the setups or I can give you the setups and then the punchlines, but that's given it away. But, uh, yeah. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice.

The Chaser report. What did you do during the pandemic when you couldn't actually do live stuff? Did you, were you stuffed? No, that's when I started making chopper video. I went out and I figured out how to set up a green screen at my place and started doing some, you know, travel band videos and stuff like that and all sorts of different chopper stuff. And that was brutal because after, you know, TV, you're kind of working with a crew or whatever and you know when stuff's funny because people are laughing and stand up, you know, things are going well because everyone's laughing. But then with the internet, you put something out there and you've just got the comments. Yes.

When your mental health's already a bit roping, you go through the comments. oofed so yeah that's what i did during the pandemic because i um tried not to read the comments on my videos basically but they went very well didn't they yeah some of them well i did a bunnings out about you know that karen that went in there and went crazy and it went pretty well and i was all and i've kind of upskilled a fair bit as well in terms of learning how to edit and green screen are you on the tic-tok i've been thinking about it it kind of looks like fun i mean i've got this weird thing i was saying the other day i film in landscape because i'm what i'm Oh, yeah.

Oh, no. Old-school dinosaurs who recognize the fact that our eyes have been placed next to each other laterally because our life occurs that way. But, yeah, there's something about turning your phone side on and not bothering about costumes or production values or anything. Or comedy. Yeah, all comedy, you know. Instead of dressing up like a cat-y, your word cat-o-up or something.

Isn't it all you need to do? You just need some sort of dance to an existing piece of music. My understanding of TikTok is you just say something terribly misogynistic about women. and then you get followed by everyone. You become the Andrew Tate of TikTok. You can do whatever you like in TikTok. It's great. You can just sit behind your car steering wheel

and rant about something. You can steal someone else's TikTok and then get more famous than... Yeah, it's just... We sound like old codgers. Oh, in my day, we had production values. Back in my day, you need a stake in it. That their phones rotate to landscape mode as well.

Can he watch... It's just as easily. Nothing. This is my old school hill to die on. You know when people trying to film something that's naturally happening in landscape, like a car driving past, and they're filming it in portrait and you're like... Yes.

Yeah, I'm watching quite a lot of tennis videos at the moment, right? I love watching tennis on YouTube because I mean, trying to get back into tennis. And it keeps showing me all these shorts that are in portrait. And you can't watch tennis. You can't actually see the tennis court. It's ridiculous. It just scrolls backwards and forwards. It's no.

I'm happy to die with you on that hill. of middle-aged irritation at portrait. But apparently the only way you can sell tickets to shows now is if you go on TikTok. But that's apparently where all the people who buy tickets to things are. Yeah, well, I've turned up to the comedy store to do, you know, gigs with me and the old grizzled stand-ups before. And there's some show that's on before us

that's sold out three times over for someone called, like, yeah, nah, Gary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're like, people are queuing up around the block for autographs. I'm like, how can I've never heard of yeah, nah, Gary? and he's doing better than I am. TikTok is the answer, apparently. He's quite happy to film in portrait mode.

Filthy, amoral. Yeah, it's sort of the Hitler of comedy. Yeah, we're going to break some rules. Well, that's it. I would like to hear Choppers' version of TikTok. What Choppel would have some TikTok? Yeah, because there's... A lot of them are how-to videos, aren't they?

they? Oh, the TikTok ones? Yeah, they're usually, like, how to chop up, you know, onion properly or whatever. You can do how to chop up in here properly. Yeah, yeah. I have to, my favourite sort of TikToks, because, you know, the good ones make it through. I love developing countries doing things with excavators, like, the countries that don't have much occupation, occupation, oh, yeah, yeah. We're going to drive this 36-ton excavator onto a dinghy, and you're like, all right, yeah.

Yeah, because there's real jeopardy there. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes they pull it off. And you're like, all right, good on you guys, yeah. Or Americans wearing black gloves trying to put more cheese in a recipe that's already mostly cheese. That's a TikTok as well. What? Yeah, they just get a hamburger and then a syringe and they just pump it full of cheese.

It's bloated and crying. Jesus, and then they deep fry that in some cheese and you're like, oh, my God. Good on your American. You know that TikTok serves content that it thinks you will like? Yeah, that's a scary bit. Because after the Olympics, I got into skateboarding. on Instagram. Oh, yes, because they had all the...

I was so good at the Olympics, wasn't it? It was incredibly entertaining. Oh, yeah, the skateboarding the BMX was the best thing. So I got into... And there's something about these bender young 20-year-olds that throw themselves down a flight of stairs 40 times in a row and absolutely eat it. And then the glee of time number 41

where they just nail it and skate off and all their forensics are. And it's like, all right, this will help me get through the pandemic. But then I've got burnt through too much of it. And I got to the point where it was just offering me, like, four-year-old girls trying to do backflips on BN. MX bikes.

And breaking their next. Yeah, I was just like, I think I've run out every Instagram, damn it. You got to the end of real. Yeah,

I clocked it. So are you doing any, are you working at all before the end of the year or are you just literally focusing on February? Like, is that the next time

you actually do any work? No, I've got some, I've got heaps of chop with gigs coming up. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, yeah,

doing some fun North Queensland shows, uh, doing the Sunshine Coast Comedy Festival. Got a gig coming up in Newcastle. So yeah. Oh, okay, I'm kind of flipping back and, back and forth between the two.

Basically, you don't need us to plug those. Those are solemn cells because they're chopper. But the one in February, which is something else, that's the one to... Yeah, get behind it, Perth. Yeah. Take the lid off and give it a good long sniff. See if it's good. The things he can't say as chopper,

parenting advice. It's not advice as much as frustration. I mean, those are the thoughts that occupy 90% of my brain on a given day. So I'm on board. I've got an 11-year-old and a 9-year-old. Oh, I'm so sorry for you. Yeah, I had a mate ages ago, and he had a baby, and I had a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old.

He was like, it gets easier, doesn't it? I was just like, no. No. There's a sweet, I had like a 12-month period where they do what you tell them to, and then they start doing what you do, and you're like, oh. You say things like, we don't shout in this house, and then you'll be like, yeah, you do, though, and you're like, oh. All right, Heathwell, all the best with being you,

and if it doesn't work out, look, there's plenty of, Plenty of juice in the old chopper lemon yet, I'm sure. In my defence, I've spent a lot of my life being me. Anyway. How much of your life have you spent being yet? Easily most of it. Yeah, with the exception of maybe one or two hours a day. Yeah.

Every now and then. Well, I did, I have to, me, when I first started doing chopper live, like, on 2007, I was started, like, I remember my mum once told me that if you start dreaming in the language that you're learning, it means you're getting close to mastering it. I started having chopper dreams. Oh, wow. I just wanted around and being like, what's this going on? Oh, bloody, give for some lunch.

There you go. There's a door. Oh, it's got my dad behind it. Oh, look, finds a salmon. You know, like, yeah, it was. It comes too easily. Alarming, yeah. Wow.

And did you start randomly murdering people as well? Yeah, it was this whole, like, fight club thing where I wake up with blood on my hands. And I would have achieved a lot, obviously, but, you know, no memory of it. I can't take the credit. Is that who is. behind the Melbourne Gangland War. Sleepy Heath. Solved.

Me and my boxer shorts and a T-shirt saying things like, if you don't move, I will bloody shoot you. I can't believe we've just turned into a true crime podcast. We've solved our first crime. Yep. Yep.

It's the new Underbelly series sold right there. Underbelly narcolepsy. Our gears from road and we're part of the ACAS Creator Network. Catch you tomorrow. Thanks for having me.