The Chaser Report - Christmas Eve Special

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

In this special edition of The Chaser Report - specially recorded on Christmas Eve - Dom takes us through weird Christmas traditions from around the world. Nina looks at the bad food of the 1970s, and Charles talks Christmas presents, while tries to talk presents but mostly just shits on her dad. Plus Rebecca De Unamuno with some very up to date news headlines. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In times like these, it's important to know who you can trust. At last, a new source that's reliably reliable, informatively informational and never wrong. Unfortunately, you're not listening to it. Instead, you're listening to The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Christmas Eve edition of The Chaser Report. We have Nina Ayama, Zoe Notton Lodge, Charles Firth, me Dom Knight, and our exclusive Chaser Newsreader, Rebecca Dayuna-Muno. Hello, everyone.

Merry Christmas. Hello, so, Beck, you're here. You're in person. You're in the studio for once. So what are you going to do tomorrow? What are you going to do for Christmas Day? I'm contemplating sleeping in as late as possible. Then just consuming the same number of hours I've slept in bottles of alcohol.

Pretty much, that's how it's going to go. And rinse and repeat. And are you, is there anyone special who you're going to try and avoid this Christmas? Well, I did try to avoid coming in all year to sit with you guys, but it seems I made it to Christmas Eve. I mean, well chosen in terms of the timing, given that you come right after the massive spike of cases in Sydney. Great, great decision, Beck, good to see you. Yeah, you know, I'm glad I'm here, Sydney. Who else are we avoiding Zoe?

Is there someone you're going to steer clear of this Christmas? Oh, my kids. Oh, really? Oh, God. Kids at Christmas, I mean, they just like my kid, he knows what Sandra is, knows what presents are. He wants presents. He wants like attention. He wants like joy and stuff. And oh my God, what a drain. But isn't it the most wonderful time of the year? Well, I guess I'll never know because I'm going to avoid the shit out of him.

Sounds like a job for your parents to take. Oh, absolutely. That's why you have grandparents, right? To parent your, you know, if you have a kid young like me at, you know, 35 or whatever, you know, you've got to have the grandparents to pick up the slack. Nina, you don't have any kids. You're completely childless and alone in this world. What are you, who are you avoiding this Christmas? I'm also avoiding Zoe's kids. I've heard they're a freaking nightmare.

And, you know, I actually avoid them all the time anyway, but I just want to say nothing will change on Christmas. I will be far away from those children. Oh, we should hang out avoiding them together. Yeah, I'd love that. Who am I avoiding? I think I'm going to avoid my mum because she asked me for this very specific type of anime and I ordered it from the internet,

but it's going to take eight weeks to arrive. So luckily she lives on the northern beaches and so I'm just going to use COVID as an excuse as to why her Christmas present isn't here. Also, she watches anime, so that's another reason this is too clear. That whole anecdote, like, just open up so many more questions, which we'll have to address later in the podcast. And there's a lot I need to know about this whole situation. Yeah, absolutely.

I think I'm just going to avoid people from Sydney on Christmas because apparently there's a lot of copes. That does mean my entire family. Don, dumb, that's great because we're all going to avoid you too. Yeah, no, I do have to work out how to isolate from myself. but I think it's going to be really horrible and make me feel terrible. So just a normal day, really. Well, now we should probably go to the news because this is the time in the podcast.

Yeah, we should throw to the news. So, Rebecca, tell us what's happening in the news today. Well, here's the thing, you see, it's like the week before Christmas. Right. No, it's the 24th. Yeah, this is Christmas Eve, Rebecca. We came in specially on Christmas. Yeah, see, look, the jig is up, all right?

We're actually pre-recording this. What? And there are no, I don't know what the news headlines will be on Christmas Eve. I don't have anything to read. I don't think you thought this through. Very cool. I thought we were going to not say that. Are you saying just because it's a week before Christmas Eve when we're pre-regording this,

that you can't actually just tell us the news for Christmas Eve? Yes, funny that. Oh, back, back. Okay, well, why don't you just make it up? How to start, mate. Yes. There's going to be COVID somewhere. So I should predict what I think the headline.

What happens if some of these are right? I really want to know. Oh, this is really perilous and dangerous and it could be really insensitive and awful. So I'm really going to throw you under the buffer. You do the predictions. You do all of them. Nostradamus.

Here we go of the newsroom. I hope they're all correct. So today we're mourning the tragic death of who, who back? Santa Claus didn't make it. This year. due to an unfortunate traffic incident in Ultimo. It seems as though Santa's sleigh ignored the new no-right turn sign

that had been installed the previous night and therefore landed in front of a bus. Rudolph has survived blitzer and dancer legless. I actually think we should just make up news headlines every week. They're better than the ones that are written by... Oh. What happened in sport? How did the Adelaide test unfold?

In the cricket, India has returned home after an all-in-brawl broke out on the ground during the third session of the fourth day. It seems Steve Smith thought it would be fun to chase Virat Coley with a stump. Virat Coley thought otherwise the umpires joined in and when the third umpire decided, yes, it was a fight, the entire crowd did as well. Beck, can you tell us about the...

Are you actually completely improvising these? Oh, totally. Okay, amazing. Oh, cool. Well, okay, Beck, I mean, there's been obviously a huge scandal at the capital in Can you tell us about that? Oh, yes. Politicians are no longer able to get superannuation.

It seems as though, after arguing about it for so long, they all just threw in the towel at the final parliamentary session sitting for the year and decided we don't need the money, we've got investments in all the people that build everything. What about the latest disgrace involving the royal family? I mean, this one's really shocking, even by royal standards. Megan Markle has called the queen a cunt. You know, that one's actually true.

I think that checks out. Yeah. There was also like a big food safety issue that we need to alert everyone to about Christmas, right? Yes. And Easter egg producers have been asked to fuck off until it's closer to Easter. It seems as though many department stores and supermarkets think November is the perfect time to cash in on the Christmas slash Easter slash every other holiday season and have been placing eggs in the supermarkets early. It seems as though the Easter bunny has decided that this is just not on and has spoken to the union.

The union has said that the Easter bunny should go on a slow work day, which means that it will take the Easter bunny slightly longer than it took Christ to rise again. And can we perhaps end on a positive note, what horrible things just happened to Pete Evans? And in uplifting news, it will make you want to run to the rooftops and scream, hallelujah. Pete Evans has left just everything, the building, the world, he's no longer in our news cycle. He's just gone. Sources say aliens decided to take their own back. That was amazing. Hold on, sorry.

Let's just keep recording. Sorry, kind of a huge issue. Why don't you do this every week? What is wrong with you? Why are you writing like shit headlines when you've got the best fucking improviser in Australia here? What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you just think of this?

I know, I know, yeah. That's a question for you. Yeah, I just, can I just say, is it you in charge of this podcast? You're an idiot. You're an idiot. Like, what are you doing? Each week he's like, oh, we've ever got the headlines yet.

We've got to, well, I've got us quickly whip something up. How devastating is it that Becky's like 400 times smarter and funnier than you Improvising Stupid shit that we're hurling at her Don, can we just cut this? Let's go to the next segment. I think that she should replace you.

Mutiny on the chaser ship. I'm genuinely serious though. Like you're right, what a missed on it. You fucking idiot. Hey, this is only episode 37 of 40. We can do it for the next three that we're definitely not pre-recording. We'll live for the next three.

Oh, great idea. Okay, let's do that. Coming up on this episode, I'm going to take a look at some of the stranger Christmas traditions from around the world. Oh, I'm going to look at all the sort of Christmas presents that you should buy this year from a 2020 look at Welcome to the Future. So it's all the tech gadgets that you should buy for your Christmas presents.

We know what Welcome to the Future is by now, Charles. You don't have to explain it just for Christmas. But great way to do the thing that you always do and link it to Christmas. Yeah, yeah. It's all things. I'll be talking about all the fucked up stuff people used to put in food in the 1970s for Christmas and I'll be doing a little quiz on it. I was going to talk about like bad Christmas presents I've received,

but I just actually uncovered a repressed memory about like the worst Christmas I ever had and I might just have to get that off my chest instead. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by Merchi, the Christmas toy. It's about love, about caring, but a varbler. all about collecting the whole set. The Chaser Report, less news, less often. All right, so let's do a little trip around the world to find out how the rest of the

world celebrates Christmas. And I don't know about you guys, but I find like the kind of Anglo Christmas that my family has quite dull. I mean, you're eating turkey, which is not great. You're eating hot food in the middle of hot weather. It's just not great. We need better ideas. So let's go to Japan, first of all, and this is a wonderful idea.

because they know that with Christmas poultry is a thing that you eat and because turkey is not very common in Japan, KFC jumped in and said, you know what you meant to eat on Christmas Day, KFC. So KFC is mega popular in Japan. You've got to book a place at your local KFC just to get in and have the special Christmas meal that somehow only exists in Japan.

I mean, should we all have KFC this Christmas? They'd be a lot easier, wouldn't it? I feel like we should ask the Japanese person in the room. Stop, stop a purpose. Appropriating my culture, Dom. No, eat seafood or whatever white people eat on Christmas. Just kidding. I am half white.

I know that I eat seafood. We eat white bread on Christmas. That's what we do. Why? Because we're white bread people. Is that what happened in Japan? Because I've always wondered about this KFC thing. Like, is it a KFC?

Like, was it a really bold KFC move or were they just sort of slowly evolve? No, they jumped in. Yeah, they realized that there was an opportunity. And so the Colonel gets Santa, like, clothes put on. There's a statue of the kernel outside of every KFC in Japan, and they put the Santa Gear on. It's like an amazing kind of marketing opportunity. I mean, you've got to hand it to them.

Yeah. Why is everyone looking at me? I don't actually celebrate KFC Christmas. I just celebrate normal Christmas. You call it KFC Christmas, you know. That's what the C stands for, Kentucky Fried Christmas. Yeah, but I don't celebrate that. Maybe I should start, though.

I mean, it feels like a missed opportunity. Like if my culture, like, you know, if Greek, people ate KFC at Christmas, I would be, I mean, I actually do eat macas on Christmas morning, like we, that's how weird, that is a weird tradition that we have, but it's not really a cultural thing. It's just like a, it's on the way home. It's an uncultural thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a laziness. Yeah, yeah. I must say, I think Colonel Sanders would have personally liked a white Christmas. That's, um, yeah, supremacist. Yeah, yeah. My, my Christmas thing is to go and have dumplings because it's the only

place you can get a beer on Christmas Day is in Chinatatown. Um, so you're going to have dumplings and have a beer like on the street. It's great. Wait, you eat dumplings and drink beer on the street on Christmas? Do you have a family? No, because I do the family like lunch and then, no, I'm not. Anyway. So Dom, so Dom's just, this is a real cry for help.

Dom's just said that, guys, I just, just don't know why I'm just going to be eating some dumplings on the street and drinking a beer on the street on Christmas. I don't know what anyone else is doing. Anyone got any KFC or anything? Anyone got any little seats at the table? That's why he keeps on looking at Nina. Yeah, yeah. Can dumb come to your Christmas?

The sad truth is I used to do that for like 10 years every Christmas when I was sad and alone But now I have a kid, so there's no way I'm going to be allowed to go and have a beer, you're kidding? No way, I've got to do the bath and whatever. Anyway, let's move on to Norway. I've got to make this less about me Where Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve in Norway is believed to...

How did you make Christmas in Japan about you about being really sad? It's the dumbest thing ever. We're talking about this fun Japanese tradition and somehow it becomes really sad and about Dom in like the sub three minutes. It's also like a weird thing of like whenever anyone talks about like an Asian culture, like the whole room looks at me as if I have to like explain everything about it.

And I'm like, I don't actually like I grew up here guys. I don't know that much about Japan. Nina, I'm looking at you because otherwise I've got to look at Dom or Charles. Okay, that's understandable. I'm very beautiful. So in Norway, they hide their brooms before they go to sleep on Christmas Eve. Oh, and you use a broom to clean, do you dumb? Great.

I love this story already. Because otherwise a witch will take it and fly around. Well, that's just sensible, isn't it? Like, if you've got a witch problem in your country, you put away your brooms. It's the first principle of witch management. I like it that witches are like these magical creatures, but like they can't get any magic started without a broom. Like that just seems not conducive to the entire thesis of witches who are magic.

Like surely like putting a broom in the cupboard is not going to stop a witch who knows like The Secrets of the Universe. And also, if you've got a witch in your house, you wanted to get on the broom so she can fly away from your house. This is a terrible tradition. I thought you were going to say, you wanted to get the broom so she can clean like a woman should. Yeah, well, that's what I was thinking. And that's what I think of you. All right.

So what about in Venezuela and Caracas in Venezuela, what they do is they go to church on Christmas Eve and they go on roller skates. they actually get the cars out of the middle of Caracas because everyone goes to church via roller skates. I mean, that sounds amazing to me, not so much the church, but the roller skating sounds really fun. Roller skating in church does sound fun. I haven't really been to church much,

but if I was going to go, I think I would get some skates. I feel like it would make church more popular if they turned into roller skating rings. I feel like it would make church like a 90s kind of comedy, like slap. stick movie.

Yes. Especially if the women wore fairly tight shorts. Yeah. Yeah. Well, is this one a bit too... That sounded really fun, but is this one too scary? In Austria, there's a sort of an evil devil who's like the flip side of Santa, I'm called Crampus, and he's a demon who punishes bad children.

And so many dress up in devil costumes can go through the streets, carrying chains and a basket for abducting bad children. Presumably they don't actually abduct any children, I'm hoping. Is that pushing the like, don't be naughty thing a bit too far? It's a good grift for somebody who wants to abduct children, isn't it? We've got to play quite a long game to create this legend for hundreds and hundreds of years. And now I'm just going to abduct a pile of kids in the spirit of Christmas. Festive, yes.

Yeah. I think it's like I'm elf on the shelf, but like a little bit too far, I think. Oh, that's true. Because the elf on the shelf is pretty chilling. Grampus on the campus. Yeah, elf on the shelf is like a psychological, you know, experience for your child because it thinks it's always being watched. It's like you create a panopticon. Nina, are you okay?

Did you have an elf on the shelf at home? Mr. Elf are here right now? Where is it? No, help me. Nah. Now, here's something that I didn't know was real. You know how on South Park there's like the Mr. Hanky, the Christmas poo? Well, in Catalonia in Spain, there actually is a defecating log.

So what they do is they have a log. They draw a face on it, put all these fruit and nuts, and stuff in it and then um wait like a like a log or like a poo no an actual to the actual log and then they sing a song which goes if you don't crap well i'll beat you with a stick and they whack the log and the log shits out all of the candies they put in it and then they eat the metaphorical shit and then linking into that their nativity scenes have small pooping ceramic figures because it's a festival for pooping are you sure this isn't a german thing no it's catalonia so it's just a really budget

kind of pinata. It's a budget pinata and a bunch of pooping characters around the Christmas tree. Which is around every pinata, isn't it? Just kids shitting themselves? I don't think we should poo shame. I think, you know,

the rush to judgment against sort of festivities based around pooing. That's a very Anglo-centric perspective. But I actually think that's quite a good... Because, like, I think there's a really good cure for constipation. Because you know when you're constipated, everyone's like,

oh, have these pills but when you're scared, you shit yourself. Yes. So it's actually a great solution. Because it's like, if you don't crap, I'll beat you with a stick. No one wants to get beaten with a stick. Then you have regular bowel movements. This is quite genius, Dom.

And especially if the Haribo candy, then you just shit yourself after you've had about five of them anyway. So just a question, though. Like, if these... That's just you, man. No, that's just you, man. No, no. I think you have an allergy that you don't know about it.

No. Yeah, and you have like five rebos, and you break out in hives. It's like so crazy. And then my throat closed up. It's like so weird. Everyone gets that. So hold on. If you're saying that these poo traditions are non-anglo-centric,

are the poo joggers just doing cultural appropriation? Ah, yeah. It's so racist. And finally, in Portugal, they set extra places for relatives who've died around the table. So you've got your big, lovely Christmas table, Christmas lunch. and then there's a special chair for granny who passed away during the course of the year.

John, when you were doing, when you were preparing this segment by which I've been reading a pre-written article that somebody else had done with these 10 traditions, were you like, this is going to be a really fun one. The one about the table settings for dead people in Portugal, let's do some riffing on that.

I'm going to throw it out there and then I'm going to ask three other people to make jokes about it. I thought it would be really appropriate for the last one to just be a real doubter just to make everyone feel a bit sad, yeah. You're like, everyone's going to joke about poo and then I'm going to throw them this death curveball

and it'll be real confusing. Anyway, so it was like for every relative. That would be a lot of chairs. Cumulatively, it would, wouldn't it? I think, yeah, no, but that's probably quite nice to just sort of go, oh yeah, that person's dead. I mean, you know, like, you could have like a photo or something or like just talk about them.

Or just, you know, find something that smells a bit like them. I mean, with social distancing, it could be quite good. You've got one person and then how many dead relatives' chairs you need And then the next person, it's like 1.5 minutes apart. How many dead relatives apart do you need to sit? This is so awful. This is why I hate it when you bring sad shit. You make us all look so terrible by improvising bad, mean jokes.

Do you want a more uplifting one to finish on? Yes, please. Just Toland, is there a risk of over catering, though, with the dead relatives thing? Because, you know, you'd set 38 chairs at the table. And you go, oh, okay, 38 people are coming. But actually, you know, most of them are dead. You've said, yeah. Well, actually, if you've seen Casper the ghost, you know that ghost can actually eat food.

Oh, they can eat, I'm sorry. Yeah, they can eat food and it like digest through the system and then it comes out and sludge on the floor. Thank you, everybody. All right. And then what's, where's that a tradition? What's it like Portugal? Well, let's go back to Spain where at the end of the year, so I ran about Christmas, everyone gets new red underwear.

And in fact, the small. Perian underwear? I don't, not necessarily. Everyone gets to read underline. Handy though. Yeah, very handy. And in the small town of La Font de la Figuera, there is a run around the town

with the runners wearing just the red undies. Quite a nice way to say goodbye to the year. No? Yes? Or just random and stupid? Don't make us call other country traditions random and stupid. I mean, I don't know enough. You've read one sentence about it.

They wear red underwear. Why do they do it, Dom? Let me press this. Why do they wear red underwear? What's it about? Oh, you don't know. Oh, you've not done a thorough press. What's going on here, Tom?

The strange thing is that the town also has the highest incidence of pneumonia in the country, apparently. So is it like really cold? Because it's winter. When you dare someone to do a nudie run in the cold. And they go, I'm not going to do a nudie run, but I will go in my red underpants. And then everyone goes, hang on, we've all got red underpants on. Let's just do this. That's what happened.

Oh, it's like a car that makes you go faster, red underpants. Yes. That's what's happened. All right. Well, I'm going to put my red underwent. We're on and run away from these podcasts. Can we just end on the death one? Yeah, I love that.

Hold on, oh wait, keep recording. You've got the death one. I'll do one more uplifting one. Everyone has pneumonia. And they're naked in the snow. They can tee up with the death one, you know. That'll be great fun. I just bid myself.

Merry Christmas. The Chaser Report. More news. Less often. This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by Merchie the Christmas toy. A focus group-driven universe of characters your kids will instantly want to buy. Your kids will love Merchie, and Merchie will love your kids, as long as you buy them all. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust.

So, guys, 2020 has been a big year for food. It started with people baking their own bread in lockdown. It ended with everything being cake. And then somewhere in the chaos was the Alison Roman Shillot pasta recipe, which everyone made, and then immediately felt bad. about making it because Alison Roman was cancelled. So it's been a very emotional year for food. Now, can I just jump in and say that I have no idea

who Alison Roman is or why she was cancelled? Well, then you haven't been paying attention. True. That's just, just can we clarify. I can go into it, but I'd prefer not to because I don't want my segment to end up like your segment. Fair enough, but nobody wants that segment to end up like Dom's segment. That's like the golden rule of segment.

The first rule of segment, no, make it like Dom segment. I feel like it's an unspoken rule. Oh, it's spoken now. We could just do the old segments we did on the radio show Or we could prepare new things Which I have not quite adequately Which you've done Which I've done I was just looking to do a little segue

So this for this segment I'm going to go back to a different time A time where food elicited only one kind of emotion And that emotion was disgust I'm going to do a quiz on Christmas dishes From the 1970s And you're just going to have to suck it up And take it like people did

With the Christmas dishes from the 70s So basically what I've done is I found a bunch of old retro dishes online because obviously I wasn't alive then because I'm very young and amazing. And I'm just going to ask you questions based on that. Some of them multiple choice, some of them not. Are you guys ready? Yes. Okay. So in the 1970s, people love making food into a Christmas tree shape. Which of these ingredients have not formed the basis for a Christmas tree? A, canned tuna and maraschino cherries. B, corn flakes that have been dyed green. C, spam and tuna inside lime green jelly or d shrimp and olives so the question is which of them have not formed

the basis for a christmas tree i reckon it's the first one the one with tuna and what was it tuna maraschino cherries canned tuna and maraschino cherries that's what charles says but what um what does everyone else say i'm trying to work out which it'd be the structurally hardest one to make into a christmas tree maybe the spam and tuna inside the lime green jelly that sounds very challenging what was the last one you said in it. Shrimp and olives. Yeah, I reckon just shrimp and olives. I reckon it's, I can all the others were. We're legit. Okay, the answer is, C, spam and tuna inside lime green jelly.

Yes. Oh my God, I should have gotten the pictures up because then I could show you. But that sounds like a good recipe. That would actually be tasty because spam goes with anything. Oh, the question isn't, didn't they, did they eat it in the 70s? Can you make it into a Christmas tree, isn't it? But you could just, you could get a mold. You can make jelly into anything.

Oh, yeah, it's makeable, but it wasn't. in this disgusting list of retro Christmas things that I found. Don't worry. It was shaped into another thing. But all those other things, my favourite one was corn flakes that had been dyed green because it looks fucking terrible. Oh, I should get the pitches.

Can I just say how much? You shouldn't. But then I could hear you guys go out of the pitches. Can I just say how much I enjoy a segment that's driven from a list of cool? Like, I completely think that's how to do podcasts. Isn't that what you just did as well? Dominic.

It's very professional. All right. Well, this one is, Dom, I actually drew from three listicles. Thank you very much. I did my research. So thorough. Okay, so this next question is not a multiple choice. That's three times more work than Dom did, by the way.

I'm just putting that out there. So this one's not multiple choice. So there is a dish whose defining feature is three bananas peeled and cut in half, like, lengthways. And they're standing upright with mayonnaise dripping from the top of the banana. What Christmas item is this meant to represent? The Opera House? Santa's dad at the end of the process. Oh.

Oh, because Santa's dad famously has three dicks. Everyone knows that. Is it? Yeah. Oh, the three wise men. Is it some sort of reindeer thing? No. So we've got some sort of reindeer thing, the opera house, and...

I revise my penile thing to the three wise men. As I points out, there at least three of them, that might make more sense. And the three wise men, no. No, the answer is that they were meant to represent candles. Guys, you're all disgusting. Because the thing about candles is like, you can just have candles on a table with dinner. Like, that's quite normal.

Like, you don't really need a, they don't need a representative to appear for them because they're busy. The candles can come. Zoe, this is the 1970s. It's got to be done in food. And also, you can't eat candles, but you can eat bananas that have got mayonnaise

dripping from the top. Yeah, I would 100% rather eat a candle. But mayonnaise and bananas, that sounds insane. Hey, man, it was the 70s. You'd... Anything goes. Anything goes. Were you guys around for the 70s?

Did you eat any 70s food? Yeah, I was born in the 70s. Like, so you, like, did you, did you have any crazy Christmas food in the 70s? Um, we had white bread. Um, we had, with the hundreds and thousands on it. Fairy bread. Very bread. That's not 70s, bro.

That's still a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, great. I haven't ever. It's since the 70s? You can just literally go get that, like bread, butter, sprinkles. We can do that for you. We really make you Christmas.

The thing that we used to have was celery with peanut butter, but I think that was an American thing. Oh, really? I thought that started with the parent chap. I thought Nancy Myers invented that. Well, I don't know who Nancy Myers is, but, you know. It's the quick to and fro that makes this so seamless. All right, okay, I'm just going to move it, cut that bit.

Let's go into the next question. So this Christmas pudding is only five ingredients. It's raisins, sour cream, cheese, cranberries, and something else. What is the missing ingredient to this five ingredient dessert? So first one, vermicelli noodles. Second one, shrimp. Third one, avocado. What?

The last one, spaghetti. Oh. There you have four options for things in this Christmas pudding. Well, it needs something carbys. So it's either noodles or spaghetti. And I don't think noodles existed in the 1970s. So I reckon it's spaghetti. Spaghetti?

What do you guys think? I think shrimp, because the only thing I know about the 70s food is that shrimp was in it, like shrimp cocktails, shrimp, this shrimp. That's a good. Things that we'd call prawns now, but I'm going to go with shrimp. All right. Yeah, I don't even know if avocados existed then. I reckon like, I reckon it's spaghetti.

You're all wrong. The answer is vermicelli noodles. Oh, my God. Yep. Because it was fancy. It was fancy and foreign, was it? I have no idea, man. I don't know why these people.

I think they were all on drugs or whatever they took in the 70s, free love. So right now we're on one point amongst three. That's dumb for saying the right thing. The first question, okay, this is a question that you guys might get. Now, we all know in America, Christmas is in winter, so it's very cold, which means people like to drink hot drinks. One of the beverage suggestions is actually a soft drink that has been warmed up on the stove. Can you guess the drink?

Oh, wow. Not multiple choice. It will be fanta. It will be fanta. You're locking that in? I'm locking that in. I know that you can do warm apple cider. Oh, that sounds too nice.

That's what I thought, though. I'm assuming it's not that because it's too nice. All right. I think it's like a soft drink. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. It's got to be fanned. If it's America, I'm thinking it's root beer because I don't even know what that is, but I don't like it.

I'm going to get creaming soda. But my money, I'm going to go ginger beer because ginger festive Christmas. That's what I'm going to go. ginger beer, creaming soda, fanta, ba-bang, all wrong. The answer is Dr. Pepper. Oh, God. Americans like to drink a hot, a bit of hot cup of Dr. Pepper. I mean, in our defence, I think getting these wrong is a good thing.

Not coming up with Dr. Pepper. No, that's fair enough. It does taste like medicine as well. It's not very good taste. Okay, this is, don't worry, the hell will be over soon. This is the last question. It's a multiple choice question. What is a meat star?

is that A, Frank Furt's arranged in a star shape, B, a chopping board in the shape of a star that has pureed meats on the star points and a fire in the middle. C, a pink yellow layered with ham and duck patte created in a star shape mould or D, a meatloaf in the shape of a star filled with a circular olive and mayonnaise centre.

My God. I'm trying to think of which is the most disgusting out of these ones. It's so hard to know. I'm sort of envisaging this gross. There's actually a giveaway in this one. which is that the last one has mayonnaise in it. So that must be the answer. Because I think everything has had mayonnaise in it.

All right. So Charles going meatloaf with mayonnaise. I think that the star-shaped chopping board with all the random bits of meaty carnage on each point, I think that's on it. And with the random mayonnaise in the middle? Yeah. Oh no, it's got a fire.

Fire in the middle. Yeah, no, that sounds awesome. I'm going to go with that. Because if that doesn't exist, then it should. Yes. Unfortunately, all the ingredients you said have blended into one fucking disgusting thing in my head. head, so I'm just going to have to just pass.

All right, the correct answer is a chopping board in the shape of a star that has pureed meat on the starboard and a fire in the middle. The winner of this game is Dom with two points. Everyone else has zero, sorry. Does that redeem my last segment? No, I'm telling it. No. Absolutely not.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the chase of report. Now it's time for a Christmas themed episode of Welcome to the future. Yes, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through all the tech gadgets that were invented this year and that you could use as Christmas presents for tomorrow if you had any sense in buying them beforehand. Well, I'm really glad you're telling us now when it's Christmas Eve. Well, these are things that you might get for Christmas tomorrow. So the first one is called smell sense.

Does anyone want to guess what smell sense does? Is it like a thing that's like a, what's that thing called a Shazam? Is it like a Shazam for smells? And then you put it in the air, then it goes, oh, that smells like a flower. That sounds so good. Yeah. You know what also does that? What?

Your nose. Yeah, but I don't know exactly what kind of thing my nose is smelling. When do you ever smell something and go, oh, I don't know what that smells like? Oh, all the time. That's such a common thing where, oh my God, where do I know that smell from? Yeah, and it's always a weird thing because you're like, oh, it smells like my childhood. And then you're like, but what does my childhood smell like?

It's a very confusing. For me, the answer is usually Charles not wearing deodorant. That's the usual one. Okay, well. Is it like, oh, hold on, I've got a guess. Yeah. Does it like amplify your sense of smell? No, and you wouldn't want it to.

That product sounds far too good for a Charles segment. Yeah. I don't think Charles invented it. It'd be a very COVID-friendly thing because you lose your sense of smells. So you could... Hang on. But no, that is not... And for where you locate this particular item,

you would not want it to amplify your sense of smell. That's a bit of a hint. Smell senses in sensing or is it smell senses in incense? Maybe... Sense, S-E-N-C-E-Sensing. What is it? Is it something to do with masking the scent of garbage? Oh, it's sort of...

That would be good. We're sort of getting there. Here, I'll let the guy at C-E-S-Explan. Place this cute little bear inside of the bathroom and then remotely you'll be able to figure out if the bathroom is safe for you and your nostrils to enter. And what is it sensing for exactly? So it's actually sensing the chemical compounds that makes up a human fart.

There you go. It's a fart detector. It's a fart smeller. It sniffs the air for you so you can figure out if there's been a fart. That's genius. So instead of the inconvenience of using your nose to smell the fart, smell you just have a gadget with an app you just open up your app and you go oh yeah there's a fart hang on but does it get rid of the fart or does it just tell you that a fart is there

it just it just tells you that it's there but how would you like sorry do you leave it in the bathroom yeah you leave you leave the little bear in the bathroom and it smells for you and so then you know when somebody's done a fart in the bathroom go oh i won't go in there but then how do you know because the bear is in the bathroom so then you have to go and check the bear, which means you have to go into the bathroom, and then you have to smell the fart that the bear is smelling. Is there an app? There's an app.

It's Bluetooth connected. Like you look on your phone. Oh, it's got Bluetooth. Yeah, it's got Bluetooth. Of course. Everything has Bluetooth. Blue tooth. Pooh tooth.

Yeah. I hate it so much. I think like, I think the thing I hate the most about it is the sort of this bear that's just like a vacuum for farts that's just like absorbing them all. So if you go in and look at this like fart bear that's collected all your farts. I love it so much. Like, when the robots rise up, like, all the machines will get together. And one of them will be like, I'm the toaster.

I toasted the human's bed. And one of them will be like, I'm a fridge. I kept the humans food cool. And it would be like, I'm a fart bear. And I smell the human's farts so that they didn't have to go into the toilet. And I'm just a cute bear and I just smell their farts all day. What if every fart makes it stronger? I think it might be one of those things where that is the,

that's the thing that pushes them over the edge, isn't it? That's going to be where the revolution comes from, from the smell sense. Okay, so we're now in the bathroom, all right? Great. And there's a company called Cola, which is actually quite a big old engineering company from America. Is it in Coca?

It's in Colin? What? Is it in Coca-Cola? And it decided to, K-O-H-E-O-H-E-R. Oh, got to. It decided to get into the smart device business this year. But they wanted to do it in a classy way,

not just, you know, fart detectors or anything. And in fact, this is the principle that their CEO laid down. The key question when I'm looking at anything is, you know, what is it meaningful? What does it really do to enhance the user experience? And we don't want to do technology just for the sake of not. Yeah, exactly. So you don't want just a cute bear smelling your farts.

You want to really, you know, find things that can be made smart in the toilet that, you know, are really useful right. So how could you usefully bring the internet into the bathroom? Like, what sort of devices? Arguably, I already do. Okay, okay. So what you're saying is it's useful to have a phone in there. Oh, I bring my food in there all the time. What if you forget your phone?

What if you forget your phone? Oh, internet projected on the wall. Is it porn? Laptop? No, no. Oh, God. Something that analyzes your pur to see if there's COVID in it? It's more integrated than that.

It's an Alexa-enabled smart toilet. Kohler's smartest toilet than NUMMI is getting the Kohler Connect treatment as well with the addition of app and Alexa voice controls. And yes, you can ask Alexa to flush the toilet. You can also ask it to do anything that Alexa does. So you can actually, this is honestly true. You can ask it to play music. You can ask it to order Uber Eats.

You can even ask it to post to Instagram what you had been doing it last night. Sorry, okay, hold on, hold on. I just need to understand something right, because this is an Alexa enabled toilet. But I just feel like the toilet is like the real estate agent, the middleman. Like what the fuck does the toilet have to do with any of these things? Alexa's just doing them. Yeah, you could just have an Alexa speaker. Like what is the toilet has to do with it?

You could just have the echo, apart from the flushing, there's no, the only other thing. Like, it flushes, yes, everything else you just have a like to speaker in the bathroom. So you're saying that the $8,000 price tag for this device is not worth. You could have 50 bucks on an Alexa little speaker. If you want something stupid to flush your toilet, just get one of those funny little, like, chicken things. It's got like a ball on the end that just tips over and just leave it next to the flush. Yeah, I mean, that is a good point. Actually, you're just thinking about it.

You could do that. But you wouldn't be able to tell your friends, I've got a smart toilet. That's a great talking point. And does that bird post to Instagram? I think not. Is that bird going to sing to you? I think not. It might.

But hold on. How does it flush the toilet? Like, if it's Alexa, like what is it? Also, sorry, I need to think about this bird for a second, but because it will be repetitively pressing the toilet button, that means the toilet will be flushing like every second of every day. And that's not very water friendly. Also, does the bird?

know the bear? Are they friends? Yeah, in the revolution of all the robots is the bird. The bird's not electronic though. Well, I don't think the bear would look down on the bird. The toilet's not going to be able to rise up anyway because it's cemented into the ground. Like, you can't. Or is it?

Imagine all this army of toilets marching down the street. No, no, we had the worst job. So does this meet the CEO's criteria of not being a novelty? An $8,000 smart toilet? It's definitely not a novelty, and it doesn't delight and amuse briefly. It's just a terrible idea. Okay, so look, I know that this segment

usually just pours shit on the tech gadgets, but I actually want to leave you with a gadget. The last one was literally just pouring shit on a tech gadget. So I want to leave you on a bit of a high. It's Christmas Eve. You want you to sort of, you know, and I want to bring you something. something that I believe is actually useful.

Now, 2020 was a big year in tech. Vaccines were produced in record time. We had reusable rockets. We were put into regular use all around the world. All great household items. Yeah, we had the... Reusable rockets. Smart toilet.

Reusable segments from our radio show, particularly this one. But I think that 2020 will be remembered for one invention and one invention alone. And what is that? Uh, it involves toilet paper. So you're on the toilet, the paper runs out, what do you do? You get Alexa to order more rolls from Amazon and they arrive in just 24 hours. That's so 2019, John. You call up Charles Firth and you get four rolls of his beautiful printed toilet paper.

I like you thinking, Nina, but no, there's an actual invention for this exact moment. This is this technology 2020. The world's first toilet paper droid. delivery system. Never run out of TP again. Robot delivers a fresh roll to you on the bowl. Amazing. Just absolutely amazing innovation here.

It's just a tiny little, it looks like a Roomba or something like that, but it's got a little sort of thing, and it brings you a toilet roll. Is it a voice command? Do you say, yeah. Yeah, you've got to go, give me some toilet paper. I've got a couple of concerns. Firstly, is the door open for it to fly in and out of the bathroom? that's like kind of gross. Secondly, it's invented in 2020, a year well known for the complete

lack of spare rolls of toilet paper everywhere. I just come and say, sorry, nothing. It's sold out everywhere. It's funny. I actually don't need this one because I've recently, like my kid, he's like, you know, two and a bit, and he's recently just done his first useful thing, which was like, I was like ran out of toilet paper and I was like, oy, get us a roll. And he was like, okay. And he was so excited to to like do a little task, like my tiny little toilet paper butler. So I can also recommend, you know, you can borrow my kid if you want. Okay.

Well, actually, and that might be cheaper as well. And how much is that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I invented him. Well, although I'm thinking. 20 bucks. Yeah.

Conversely, I'm now thinking of stopping my two-year-old for a toilet paper drone. The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. So Merry Christmas, everyone. Are we all excited about the big day tomorrow? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Are you excited about getting gifts or? I'd know how excited I was if this wasn't pre-recorded at a time when a massive outbreak was just beginning. So I don't know how excited I'm going to be in a week. Yeah. I mean, I think didn't we discover that you can't really get COVID from gifts, like from opening presents. Like that was a bit of a myth at some point. But I think you can open your gifts. Yeah, you can open your gifts as long as they don't have spit on them.

Except like I've got friends in New York and they all, they desanitize or sanitize or they're shopping. before they unload it. Like, I think that is a thing. In places around the world where there's lots and lots of COVID, yeah, you probably do have to be careful. I think it's okay as long as your gift is wearing a mask, then it's... Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

I was going to talk, okay, I was going to talk about some Christmas presents that I've received in the past because I have had some traumatising experiences. And like the most, I've got two really traumatising ones. Like, one was when we were at like my aunt and uncle's place for Christmas. And my mum opened a present. from like someone's grandmother, very old lady. And it was like a belly dancing skirt. And we were like, okay, I mean, that's a very weird gift.

And then gave my dad some chocolate body paint. And I don't know whether she thought, I don't know whether this was like an informed gift. I don't know whether it was just like, oh, that's a lovely skirt and some nice chalky or if it was like, you know, I want to. This couple is freaky. Yeah, I want to just give this freaky couple who are my parents. some, um, some, some stuff.

I don't know, but that, like, that was, that was one year. But then, like, the next year... You know what I reckon it is? I reckon it was left over from that freaky grandma. Did you know how people re-gift things? Like, oh, shit. Oh, the Northern Lodges are here. Ah, I didn't get anything for...

You know what? Yeah. Let's give them that. You're so right. Freaky sex stuff that we haven't put our fingers in yet. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All that they have. Like, who, who knows?

I bet or you don't know your parents as well as this person does. Mate, I'm confident I don't know my parents. And my parents, like, you don't want to know them. We did, like, a Christmas, we were doing, like, the quiz one, one Christmas. And, like, the question was, was, what's the first public holiday of the year? Right? Okay. And what, can you guess what my dad answered?

So it's not New Year's Day? Well, I mean, you think it's a pretty, like, obvious, like. Particularly because I mean, this was published about the time of the year. Oh, my God, I was going to say Australia Day. Such a better guess than my dad. Easter Sunday? He looked at us, right? And like, just to be clear, like, you're doing the quiz in the morning.

It's like 10.30 days. There's no one's drunk yet. And he's like, thinks about it for a second. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah. It's the second of Christmas. Oh. What? We were like, what?

And he was like, the second of Christmas. And we were like, okay, let's just unpack this, right? let's just unpack this for a damn minute. So it's like, okay, yeah, so granted there are 12 days of Christmas, but none of them are called the second Christmas. Was he trying to say boxing date? And the second, even if he was, that's definitely not the first public holiday of the year.

It's famously like the last one. I mean, the only thing I'd say in his defense is that the second of Christmas is actually a beta a name that makes more sense than boxing date. Yeah. And I'm going to call it that for now on. And yet, that's fair enough. and yet would you describe Boxing Day as remotely close to the beginning of dinner?

No, it's more, it's in fact technically the final public holiday of the year. Is it some sort of orthodox church thing where, you know, I don't know, Christmas falls in the new year because of the moons? I mean, he's Welsh. But he is Orthodox Welsh? Yeah. Look, I mean, he like, was he on heroin or something? He does. Okay, like, I just tell you something else.

This isn't Christmas related, but like he has a real way. like the other day like literally he was like oh yeah have you seen have you seen the code of outbreaks today and I was like go dear I was like how can you mistake COVID like it's that's the word that everyone must have heard like it's the word of the year yeah yeah he also he also and he gets quite defensive about it and like just to be clear like he has all of his faculties he you know like he's a he just has a real way with words and for quite a while he was saying he was called it and i'm not talking like you know on the second of march i'm talking like late into the year we we're talking about this illness this condition a million times a day

everyone's talking about it and he was like oh you know blah blah has coronavarius and i was like what that's a bit of name are these genes are these jeans are these jeans why you're your son instead of saying car hunts is hard cut oh yeah there's some some james It might be, yeah, Nina. So you did miss this. So I recorded my kid. We organized a little car hunt for him, like to collect cars. We wrapped them up.

And he was like, I want a hard cunt. Doesn't everyone. Yeah. I have another Christmas story. But is that enough? I think that's enough. I think that's great. I was going to say, it's like he's trying to own the coronavirus.

Like, you know, when you own someone, you don't want to like say their name properly, like, I'd be like, who's the name of Charles? I'd be like Charlie or whatever. You know, you like deliberately. Oh, like dismissive of it. Yeah. And you deliberately say people's names wrong to like, you know, kind of make them angry and incite anger in them.

You say that, Nina. He also, he also, when my sister was younger and became vegetarian, he was like, oh, so you don't drink, you don't drink soy milk then. And we were like, okay. What do you, let's just, let's just stop for a minute. What do you think a soy is? And he was like, you know, like a soy, like, like, like, like, moo, like a soy. And we're like, do you, do you think a soy is an animal?

And I think he'd confused a soy with a sow and then thought it went moo. But it is, it is true that it makes no sense that soy would have milk. Like, I think I'm on your. dead side. That soy is an animal. No, no, but it makes more sense if it is an animal. You're riddled with coronavarius of the brain. If you're on my dad's damn side. None of the medical advice

contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. This episode of The Chaser Report is brought to you by Merchie the Christmas toy. I don't know about you, but I'll be getting my kids a Merchie Mobile this Christmas. They come in costly cream, rip off red, and pesta

power purple. Check them out on YouTube and every other screener kid looks at in the lead-up to Christmas. The Chaser Report, less news, more often. Oh, that's about all we've got time for, except Rebecca's still here, so why don't we throw something else at her? Oh, you know there's that huge weather event. Oh, yes. Tasmania is bracing themselves after being blown completely off the map. Huge winds finally forced the tiny Tasmanile to eventually leave the map, as many have

been hoping would happen for quite a few years. years. Now, it seems as though the Premier of Tasmania is about to start his own nation, micro-nation, to be called Tasmania land. Oh, I've just had word. I've just had word. None of that is true. None of that is true. Big thanks to our producer, Mike Liberali, and to you for making it this far through the podcast. You can find out more at chaser.com.com.com. But frankly, those headlines aren't as good as the ones Beck comes up with on the spot. So I don't.

Now, but we're going to leave you with a very special ad for a very special product. And I employ, and it's not just because I own shares in this company, I implore you to please buy it this Christmas. Merchie, the Christmas toy is back, just in time for shopping season. From the makers of the Merchie Mobile, the Merchie Moonbase, and the Merchie Offshore Tax Haven comes our most overpriced piece of plastic yet. Murchy's 2020 lockdown-themed dollhouse. Hi, kids, and welcome to my dollhouse.

You're going to be spending a lot of time in it this year. The 2020 doll house comes complete with an extra big toy fridge to hold twice as many toy wine bottles as normal and an entire range of newly purchased exercise equipment that has barely been touched. Hey, Promo, let's just stare at our iPads all day. That sounds like a great idea, Murchy. The Murchy the Christmas toy.

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