The Chaser Report - Craig's Stuff Up: An Exclusive Investigation | Sami Shah

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

For several weeks, The Chaser Report has been investigating how Craig Reucassel managed to screw up an extremely simple clue on his new show 'Win The Week'... now, it's time to interrogate the man himself. Plus, Sami is a Senate-approved comedian, Gabbi has caught the eye of Tonys judges, and our Twitter detective holds critical comedians to account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, welcome to The Chaser Report for Wednesday, the 9th of June. Now, Charles, we have a problem. What? Almost everyone of significance has a space program. Elon Musk has got SpaceX. Yes. Richard Branson's got Virgin Galactic.

Yes. Jeff Bezos has this blue origin, but there is no Chaser's space program as yet. I can't believe that I haven't thought of that already. You're a hustler. You're a would-be billionaire. who's only 909.9.9 million short. Well, mark the date, 9th of June, 2021, is the day that the Chaser has announced its new space program.

I'm very pleased to say that I'm going to be the lead astronaut on our new space program. In the footsteps of Jeff Bezos, who is quite bravely next month, announced that he's going to be shot into space 100 kilometres above the Earth, and then he's going to descend in the capsule lowered by parachutes. And I really hope he hasn't ordered those parachutes from Amazon.

Well, if it's an Amazon rocket, surely, you know, the time that he comes down back to Earth will be, you know, between 9 a.m. and 6pm, Monday to Friday, and he won't even turn up. Yeah, but it'll take two to five days if he doesn't pay a surcharge. That's right. Although, I must say, I do think it's very suspicious that, what was it, global tax rates for corporate companies, like Amazon, is announced on what, the 5th of June?

Yeah. And then what? Four days later, he announces that he's going to space. Do you think this is some sort of elaborate tax thing where he thinks that he can evade tax? It's the ultimate offshore scheme, isn't it? Being a citizen of the universe, is it? Well, plus, also, I was thinking Charles,

he's probably going to set up an Amazon warehouse up there because just think how fast his workers could move without gravity. It'd be fantastic. And you can't unionize in space, can you? He does look a lot like Lex Luthor or something. It looks like a supervillain, doesn't he? He's got that ball. Yeah, he's got that whole thing going.

Yeah. I don't even think he probably needs a space helmet. Like, he's got such a shiny hair. It just won't burn up on reentry. Coming up on the show, we've got Craig talking about the time he fucked up. Which one? We'll find out. Sammy Shaw is going to tell us what it's like being a Senate Estimate celebrity.

And whenever in turns, Gabby Bold is up for a Tony Award. Really? Yes, and an Emmy. Why is she still? working here? I don't have no idea. But first let's go to Rebecca Day and Emuno in the Chaser intergalactic newsroom. The Liberal Party's empathy consultant has been rushed to hospital following an aneurysm brought on by attempting to explain basic human decency to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who refused medical treatment to a sick refugee child on Christmas Island for 10

days. Doctors say the empathy consultant suffered extensive damage to his vocal cords after yelling, Help the sick refugee children, you fuckwits, for seven hours. An edgy teenage girl has been anointed as the new Dalai Lama after telling her parents she just found Nirvana. The 16-year-old admitted that she knew she was special because nobody else her age had ever heard of such an obscure band. Archaeologists have dug up the remains of the largest dinosaur found on Australian soil. The ancient fossil has just got a gig hosting the next season of Dancing with the Stars.

That's the latest news you can't trust from the Chaser Newsroom. I'm Rebecca Dayunamuno. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Cups. Use them, fill them, make them, spill them. Now yesterday on the podcast, Lachlan, one of the interns, came up with a formula to come up with a fresh take on the Melbourne lockdown each day. And he said it was the secret formula that Peter Credlin, to comment on Sky News.

Turns out, Loughlin, unfortunately, has now been hired by Sky News. So, unfortunately, we're going to have to cross to Sammy Shah now down in Melbourne. Yeah, so annoying you have to talk to someone who's actually located there. Hello, Sammy. Hi, I'm so sorry, guys. I know how hot it is to do actual journalism while you're pretending to do journalism. We don't use that word in this office, Sammy. So what have you been doing?

Did you catch the Senate Estimus yesterday? Oh, such a comedy festival. I mean, look, Senate Estimates has required viewing every time it's on. It's basically the Bachelorette without the sex appeal, the interesting people, the charisma, the charm, or anyone worthy of being anywhere near television, yet somehow it continues to happen. Here's the funny thing about Senate estimates. It featured a very young politician named James Patterson. The thing about James, young James, is, I have a beard. Charles, you have a beard as well?

I've got a beard, yep. Yes. Dom, do you have a beard? Oh, a bit of stubble. Yeah, certainly not clean-shaven. Oh, okay. Well, look, you might not know this as well as Charles and I do, but the beard adds instant gravitas. It doesn't imagine who you are. It doesn't matter what baby face you have. The moment you grow hair onto your face, it makes you look like an adult, sound like an adult, respectable, authoritative, all of those things. There's only a few people in the world who can fuck up a beard. Ted Cruz is one of them in America. And here in Australia, we have James Patterson, who is, I will say that out of the many people who've got beards in the world, he is not pulling it off. With James Patterson's face, it looks like someone just stuck a dead beaver to his cheeks, and it's not a cool look.

It doesn't add gravitas. It looks poorly stapled to his upper lip. It really does not work as a look for him. Now, he tried using that false gravitas to accuse ABC journalists of having a bias because they liked a tweet. from satirical website The Shovel, and it's a very familiar thing for me because I've come under similar critiques and criticisms in Senate estimates myself. Oh, really? Yeah, a lot of people don't remember this because no one cares about me, but there was a period in 2017 when I was working at the ABC in Senate estimates, Linda Reynolds from W.A. Senator Linda Reynolds, who recently

recovered from a very serious health condition to avoid questioning in Parliament was reading out tweets of mine in which I was questioning the motivation behind Peter Dutton's erections and what might be causing them. And my basic supposition was it was probably some kind of torture and abuse of refugees. Those tweets were read out in Senate estimates and my veracity as a journalist was then questioned by not just Linda Reynolds, by Eric Abbott's as well. So, you know, I've been down this road once before and I know how it ends with basically the ABC journalists being fired two years later. And Sammy, like, did you think that Linda Reynolds did a good job reading out your tweet?

Yes, definitely. As a cold reader, it's a, you know this. Cold reading is hard. Someone puts a script in front of you and says, read it out, and you just have to try to add the emotionality of the writer's intent into the work. And Linda, just, you know, to her credit, she really put the effort in, particularly my tweets in which I was talking about, people. Dutton and Tony Abbott and all these wonderful politicians we had at the time.

So remember, 2017, so it's a while ago. The idea that Peter Dutton is heartless and cruel to refugee kids is, I mean, that's in the historic past. Absolutely. It's a vague and distant memory. People don't, you know, I don't know if people, young kids these days know who Peter Dutton is anymore. I've actually found the tweet here, Sammy, is it, does Peter Dutton wake up every morning with a hard-on for abusing refugees? Each day brings some new unnecessary cruelty. I think that's definitely one. There was a time when he was in charge of Department of Home Affairs when he was releasing a podcast.

There was an announcement of a Department of Home Affairs podcast. Oh, I remember listening to that. That was quite a special piece of audio. That's right. And my tweet there was the podcast is Peter Dutton's ambient music podcast, just the sound of refugees being beaten and abused. He works out to it. So just a serious observation.

about the state of Australian society and politics at the time, which for some reason just caused a lot of controversy. So the question I have, Sammy, is, you know, the shovels having their tweets read out, Ben Jenkins is having his tweets read out, you're having your tweets read out. Do you get residuals for it? Like, is this a bit of a money spinner? Oh, you have no idea. I'm currently broadcasting from my island volcano hideout.

I got here on my yacht, and I'm going to be eating caviar off of a naked James Molino's body later today. So this is very much how us rich, you know, Twitter successful folk hang. Although, Sammy, do you think when you lost your job, it sexually aroused any members of the government? Look, I would be disappointed if it didn't. I know Erica Betts has always had a hard-on for my career and the fact that I don't have one anymore must be, you know, at the very least must be a mildly tumissant experience for him. Well, let's hope there's not any desks nearby. We do know how much their parliamentarians

love a good desk. Now, in tribute to the Liberal Party's love of reading out comedy tweets, we've actually done a bit of a sketch showing a day in the life of a Twitter-like detective. So, Sammy, sit back, relax. You can just look at that desk while you listen to this

wonderful sketch. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much. It had been a hard day. I was kicking back with my first glass of scotch. I Enough at tantalizing voluptuous desk. When the phone rang, it was the senator. He had a job for you. I have a job for you. He wanted me to look into the most heinous crimes he'd ever seen.

Good God, that sounds horrific. I hung up the phone and apologize to that desk. Stay right there, Toots. I'll lank on you later. I hit the streets. First stop was a seedy joint infested with snowflakes and sewer rats, the ABC head office. It was the kind of place where tweets were cheap,

and retweets were even cheaper. Even the health minister could find himself like in a BBW cum-dumdusters 69 tweet here. The senator told me he was here I'd find a woke brigade that was aiming to undermine the government by legitimately reporting on stories of public interest. The sissy low-life scum. They had to be stamped out and stamped out quick. I sat in the foyer and logged on to Twitter. I looked through the likes.

My God. It was worse than the senator had said. The number of mildly amusing quips that softly ribbed the government was stomach churning. And even worse, they'd been increasingly. occasionally liked by someone at the ABC. A tweet from The Shovel, another from Ben Jenkins. These weren't just anyone. These were Australia's most obscure comedians.

It was clearly an underground movement. Then I saw it. Nothing in my two hours of Twitter scrolling and prepared me for this. What was I looking at? Was it satire? Was it ironic? Was it even meant to be a joke? Someone.

An on-air personality had tweeted that the NBN was a bit sluggish. I gave him a quick left-right click, good night, and reported him to the senator. guy's going to be tweeting through a straw. You know you never solved mysteries in this town. Every time you put down a tweet, there's another one around the corner. All a man can do is lean back on his desk and have a wank. Forget about it. It's Twitter Town. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by that cup of tea you made this morning and then you forgot to drink it so you popped it in the microwave and then you forgot to get it

out of the microwave so it's just still in there. Now, Craig's in, and joining us is one of the interns, Zander. Hello. And his here is my seat, sitting on him, just so he really understands being an intern here at the Chaser. Yeah, I've been doing morning yoga. Just make sure my back's strong enough for Craig. Yep, yep. Craig is working on a new game show.

What's it called? It's called Win the Week. Win the Week, that's right. And actually, all of us, Wendon saw a pilot of it. Yeah, I was quite a shocked that you guys turned up. Why? You were just joking when you said, can I have some 10? I think it's just the kind of polite thing you say.

But it turns out it was quite a good pilot episode to go to, wasn't it? It was a good show, if that's what you mean. I fear you may mean other things. What's the premise of the show? What do you need to know? Say you were the executive producer of the show as say you are. Yes, okay, yes. What is the one thing that you'd expect the executive producer of a show about the news of the week to know about?

Look, I've got to go at a limb here and say fish. No. Is it the news, maybe? Yes, the news, right. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yes. So, and Craig, there was a part of the game show where it was just extraordinary how little you knew about anything.

It was not that I didn't. Look, okay, so in my defence, this is, you've got to figure something out from, like, cryptic clues, right? It's a picture clues. It's a picture clue. And I'm not good at cryptic things. I thank God you don't, yeah. So I'm going to know one will ever see this, but I didn't really, yeah, I wasn't getting it right. I was incredibly close to getting it right, but I was definitely not getting it.

You were close to getting it right, were you? But as the audience, as all good, you know, you don't show the audience either so that they can play along, right? So we didn't know either. And I still didn't get it. See, well done, Zanda for backing me up here. And I work here, and I've got to pay attention to the news about it. But you also, to be fair, if you were not looking directly at the clue, no, nor were you one of the contestants on the show.

And also, you're incredibly dumb. Yeah, that's, I mean, I'm working here. Hang on, who you're talking to here? Anyway, no, no, so I managed to get hold of this moment. This has not been broadcasts. I know, this is a leak from within your game show. As you're listening along, see if you can get the clue at home. Your time starts now.

I have, and just stick with me on this. I've got like 10 nets. There are 10 nets in a row, and they've got numbers next to them, and the 10th one is Circle. And then there's a Yahoo logo next to it. Oh, Yahoo is getting rid of something with cities. Yahoo?

Oh, Internet Explorer is getting rid of Internet Explorer. I'm just telling you it's not. So stop, guess it's not that way. See, we see. Yeah, so Alex was, at this point, was very kind to you. Alex is the host, yes. At the moment, the clue is 10 net. There are 10 nets and there's a Yahoo symbol.

And the 10th one is Circle. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Everyone at home is going, no, I don't have this anyway. Yeah, okay. So then Alex starts guiding you through. Even though you're the bloody, you're the EP of the show. The whole point of the EP is literally, I am locked out of all writings,

just for the very reason that I don't know anything. That said, I'm now regretting. that decision very heavily. Okay, so here's Alex guiding you through. She doesn't do this with any of the other contestants. All right, sound now, see if you can figure that out. What have you got there? I got 10 nets.

10 nets? 10 nets? 10 nets? It's the 10 net. 10 net Yahoo. 10 net Yahoo? Is it? Yeah, say it out loud.

Pressure. Why don't you stop? Ten at Yahoo. Okay, he's not going to get it. All right. Mark. Mark, did you come in? What is it?

He's like, Netanyahu. Oh! Benjamin Nathou. It's great to relive that. Thank you very much. That was Mark Humphreys. What I loved is that he buzzed in

and he looked at me as if to say it is physically impossible for you to be this close and not actually have it. But I was just, I was on the track. I couldn't. Oh, man. And as soon as he said it,

I literally died inside. I was like, I cannot believe you cannot be that close. Anyway. I feel for you, Craig. I feel for you. It's good. It's good. I'm very glad that you've come up with a game show

whereby I'm going to humiliate myself on national television each week. Talk to you, Nina, Yama, about this. And her theory is actually that you're just nervous around Mark Humphreys. Because you know he's better looking smarter than you and knows more about, say, Israeli politics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. It's exactly it.

It's interesting because one of the things about doing this is because I can't know any of the questions, right? So it's just this weird thing of going, how do you study the news? Like, literally, there is so many sources of news. There were so many stories that came up during that thing. And I've been reading newspapers all week and reading things. You're going, I'd never seen that one or that one of that. And it's kind of fascinating now. It used to be that news was just, you know, what was on the late night news that night.

It's from everywhere. It's just absolutely ridiculous idea trying to get people to study it. Well, if you want to watch Craig humiliate himself, then does it start next Wednesday? No, it starts on the 23rd of June on the ABC. I will know who Benjamin Netanyahu is by then. It's not relevant. He'll be gone by then. This is the problem.

Every time I learn something new, it's going to change, damn news. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by the complimentary coffee that your co-worker brought you this morning. But it's actually a really awful cup of coffee. But you and your co-worker are not yet in a place socially where you can tell them your real coffee order, so you just sit there and begrudgingly drink it. Okay, now something quite unexpected happened today, Charles. Someone in the office did something that was genuinely good and hugely successful. Gabby, get in here.

Hi. Gabby, why are the Tony Awards following you on Twitter? Right, well, the whole reason I'm remotely successful on TikTok is because of a show called Ratatoui, the TikTok musical. I kind of just took a joke too far. with a bunch of other people and wrote a song that ended up getting used by a professional Broadway company called Seaview

and Wayne Brady ended up singing my song in a professional, technically professional Broadway production of Ratatouille, the Rat Who Cooks? This is absolutely extraordinary, isn't it? So I saw this last year on the internet. During lockdown and when everything was sort of closed and people were bored, the notion of a Broadway musical based on Ratatoui

sort of did the rounds and was incredibly fun and exciting. And then you wrote one of the songs. Yeah, and I was just living in Bathurst at the time. Time progressed on it. It all kind of happened, and we were all kind of like, that was fun, whatever. And then I sort of made a video back in February about why Ratatusical probably doesn't deserve a Tony, but why I think I do? And why do you?

Well, I just, the whole point I was making was I just really want, A, a trophy, because I've never won a trophy in my life. And B, something to take to the pub and earn a free drink pretty much anywhere. Because a Tony is pretty extraordinary thing to have. I don't know many people who have one. I think we have a lot of uncultured listeners. So we should probably explain what a Tony thought is. It's the Oscars of live theatre performance. Yeah, Lynne Manuel Miranda has heaps.

Yeah, he took them all. You are now the Australian Lynne Manuel Miranda. I don't make the rules. That's definitely me. Not any of the other Australian composers who have definitely won Tony's. But I sort of made that video in February and forgot all about it. They never really interacted with me. I posted it to all my socials, and the Tony Awards, of course, were too good for that.

But then, yes, like yesterday, they followed me on TikTok. And they commented on a video where I sort of acknowledged that they followed me, and they commented just this little cheeky, smiley face emoji. And I wrote back, please don't tease me like this. And so I don't really know what's going to happen from here. But for all I know, I could win a Tony in a couple weeks. But it goes even further than this, Gabby, because I was looking at it. And I found this headline on Variety, the industry website.

Ratatooie, the TikTok musical, gears up for any consideration. Yeah. Your musical, you could be an egot in a couple of weeks. Which does raise an obvious question. Why are you still here? Funnily enough, all of those things don't pay money, Charles. And you're not Charles. I just looked you in the eyes and called you Charles.

That's okay. You're too big for us now. You don't need to know what our names. Gabby, can we become your interns when you become really successful? Absolutely, I'm going to need people. I still don't have people. I don't have management or anything. I just refer them to you guys and you guys ignore them.

It's extraordinary that with the pandemic and everything, it just became like everyone was in a bedroom somewhere, right? So all the barriers were flat. It didn't really matter. You could be in Bathurst writing a song or on Broadway. It didn't matter. They were all worth the same. Yeah.

I guess Gabby, what I'm saying is that when, normality reasserts itself and Broadway becomes Broadway and Bathurst becomes Bathurst again. I'd be in Broadway if I mean. Well, you think that, but I actually had a great time in Bathurst during all this because the problem was I was also,

not only was the only Bathurstian, shout out, Bathurst, but I was also the only Australian to do with the whole production. So they would announce things at like three or four in the morning, my time. And I would just wake up to them super late. And so I was always just sort of waking up in a really weird fever dream for like a month. Well, let's have a listen to the original version that is now basically a Tony and Emmy Award winner

and probably will also win a Grammy. And let's say an Oscar. Don't waste your whiskers on dreaming. Try to see life as I do. Taking the smell of it steaming this wonderful dump here in front of you. This is the last time Gabby Bolt will appear on the Chaser Report, but it's been good. And I should clarify that what you just heard, the whole story about Gabby being eligible for these awards,

it's not our usual bullshit. This is actually a true thing that is really happening in the real world. I mean, to be fair, I'm sharing this award with like 70 people. No, Gabby, they're sharing it with you. Humble as ever. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by the cup you refuse to wash up that is now just growing a small but mighty mould colony. Soon there will be a mould world with mould religions, mould social constructs,

mouldy stores with mouldy offices and little mould people living little mouldy lives with their little mouldy cups of their own. So give it a wash or face the dirty mouldy god complex circumstances. Now Charles, just before we go, I don't know if you saw this news story yesterday, but the Australian federal police actually managed to stop raiding journalists for long enough to do something really good. Oh, yeah.

The AFP ended up controlling this encrypted messaging app called a nom along with the FBI. And they used all these influences in the criminal world to convince all these crime figures to use this encrypted messaging app because the feds couldn't read it, except that the feds could read absolutely everything. So they've arrested a huge number of organised crime. crime figures and basically tricked them all onto this secure service that was completely monitored by the AFP. So you've got to hand it to them. This is very impressive. This is one-dimensional

chess, isn't it? I know. We'll set up a social media platform, tell everyone it's safe, and then arrest everyone. So they've moved from the secure platforms to the non-secure platform. It's genius. They've arrested more than 220 people and seized 3.7 tons of drugs, tons of drugs. Yeah, yeah. But they'll resell that. So there's nothing to worry about. Charles, when you say there's nothing to worry about, just want to subtly suggest that you know how we and the chase are using encrypted apps for planning events, for stunt coordination?

No, no, no, no, no. It's all right. I use this special encrypted service called Defame, which I'm assured none of the federal government ministers have anything to do with. Yeah, and it definitely doesn't go directly to Christian Porter's lawyer. That's it for today and probably forever. Look, it's been fun a while it lasted if you want to relive the podcast, just past episodes available in your app of choice, of course.

And I found out the whole podcast rankings on Apple to do with engagement. That's why you've got to keep leaving reviews. So if you like this podcast, please keep leaving reviews. Otherwise, we drop in the rankings. Yeah, just right, because you begged. Or use the secret passphrase, put Charles in space. I like that idea. Thanks for listening.

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