The Chaser Report - Death Of The Queen - One Year On | Andrew Hansen

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

We take a look at an episode recorded the week of Queen Elizabeth II's death with Andrew Hansen and John Delmenico. Remember the time we upset the entire globe with our offensive royal jokes, one year onward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, welcome to The Chaser Report with Charles and Dom, who aren't here, so it's me, producer Lachlan. Yesterday, Charles Firth celebrated his 48th birthday, and I'll let you do the math as to why he couldn't turn up in a podcast 4 a.m. this morning. Not that they're opposed to recording wild tipsy, of course. But that's not the only anniversary that we celebrated this week, is it? No, because those of you who pay attention to the news would know that this week was the one-year anniversary of the Queen dying. Whoa.

Big, it can't believe it's been a year already. Wow, so many things have changed. Like, none of the currency and Australia's status as a republic. But a lot of things did happen in the week that we broke this news. So here's an episode to remember what happened when the Queen died, looking back one year on after this. So joining us now is John Delmenico. Hello, welcome back to the show, John.

Hello. How's everything going in Sydney? Sydney is going, like nothing's happening, so it's pretty much as per usual despite the Queen's point. Yeah, right. But my understanding is, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been talking to my parents occasionally, you know, from over here. And apparently the only topic on the news ever is just the queen. Like, there's half an hour.

How do you get rolling updates on the queen being dead? Like, nothing changes. Surely it's like a one-minute story. Well, so here's the thing, Charles. You're really overestimating how much story they're putting into these stories. Right. There was a, like, Breakfast TV, ABC News Breakfast at one point had Mike Rowland standing outside of Buckingham Palace at night going, nothing's happened for the last six hours while the family's been asleep.

But then not just going to a different story, just doing nothing for a few hours because the royal family was asleep. Right. It was gripping footage, I thought of the sleeping royals. I mean, I think you're dissing it, John. I found the whole, I stayed up for that. but what are the ratings like surely no one's watching the only one who hasn't done rolling coverage

was Media Watch who has criticised the rolling coverage and pointed to the fact that from Saturday onwards the ratings have been going down because everyone's sick of the rolling coverage Well you know John who's guilty of some of this I saw on Twitter Dommy Now he's not with us on the podcast today

but Dom Knight, who's been hosting the afternoons program on ABC Radio Sydney, he tweeted that he was devoting an entire show to pubs in New South Wales that are called the Royal. Oh my God. And it's investigated. We're going to have to ask him about it when he comes back to the podcast. So what did you uncover, Donnie, about the Royal Tubbs? The angles are desperate now.

Well, I know. I'm getting people knocking. on my bloody door here because I live in Kingsville, in Melbourne. Did you see the one about the person who loved corgis? We're going to do, yeah, we're going to do an episode next week of people who've once had a royal related crossword puzzle clue presented to them. I think we should, yes, and I wouldn't stop there. I would also interview anybody who's eaten those biscuits that are called royals.

Royals, yes. They need to be grilled. I think you guys are going the wrong angle with this because, like, ABC, recently did one that was somebody who likes corgis. No, did they? So no connection to royals themselves. They just like corgis and therefore are similar to the queen in one way. And therefore, she would get an interview.

Well, if anybody drinks gin. Does anyone drink gin in Australia? Oh, yeah, that's right. Yes, because she used to drink gin for breakfast. Well, actually, it's funny because I have, in honour of the queen, being drinking gin for breakfast as well. Good for you Actually, well before she died

That's very respectful of your child To prepare for her impending death in that way So I, a few days ago Somebody from ABC Radio in Melbourne contacted me Saying they were trying to work out How to cover the Queen's Dead And they asked me to come on and talk on the topic of

What topic would you be able to talk on non-stop So that's the word There's meter coverage I've heard. Non-stop. It's not like there's anything else going on the news though, Charles. Yeah. They have to keep everything ongoing forever with the Queen. So you were on ABC Radio Melbourne, Charles, for how long?

How long did you talk non-stop in the end when you went on? Oh, for about five minutes and then they couldn't be bothered anymore. Oh, so you hung up on the non-stop? Really? No, it was just like, what are the things that you would, what would you be able to talk nonstop on? Like, my answer was cricket. I'd happily talk about cricket forever.

Yeah, okay, okay. Do you have any passions, Andrew? No, you know me. No passions, no passion. I mean, I could. I could talk nonstop about Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I could probably talk nonstop about the flavors that I've experienced over the years

and what I'm hoping for in the future. Well, we'll cross live to you. Oh, yes. I remember eating a pint of wavy gravy, Ben and Jerry's back in 1999, and that was an experience. I could talk great length about that. But I won't.

And John, what do you like talking nonstop about? This is a terrible topic. You can see why I hung up after five minutes. Anyway, so John, what we wanted you to talk about on this podcast today is the Chaser has been writing the ticket is coverage and you as the senior royal correspondent for the chaser have been up to your eyeballs in in good angles you you came up with the best headline i think i've seen so far which is the because the queen's death happened on are you okay day what was

your headline well it was while she was it was like when they announced that she was um that she was resting and comfortable we put out a tweet um a tweet that said are you okay day not going well the palace that did cause a little bit of controversy though yes I'm not sure how

well it got the daily mail it got the news dot com you got daily mail all the news cup outlets the lad bible were furious like they were uncharacteristically furious

they used the word seething lad bible were do they see you about that I didn't think lad bible was the most sort of morally upstanding and woke account. It was really bizarre because usually they love our stuff. I think they're British, though. Oh, yeah.

I mean, Lab Bible Australia got upset, which is the bigger, which is weirdly the bigger brand internationally. Is it really? Lad Bible does well in Australia. Ladd Bible Australia does well overseas. It's like one of the top Facebook pages overseas, but in Australia doesn't do very well. Which might have been why they really played into it.

But it also became the story that like News Corp just threw into articles to try to get people angry and staying on the websites. Yes, that's good. So we're on like crypto. There's like crypto articles that mention what the Chaser said and all this stuff. Newscop even did an article trying to figure out who the chaser wrote that headline. One of the Chaser writers writes about crypto for Murdoch. So I suspect it actually, it was probably one of our writers who was anonymously.

also attacking his own work. That night was really weird because, like, so it was the night of Gabby's last show of her debut run of her tour. So we were all out to go drink with Gabby about celebrating her successful tour. You mean Gabby Bolt? Of course.

I mean, Gabby, you know, if people don't know Gabby. Yeah, she's forgotten who she is. She used to host this show and then went off to do better things. Yeah, she certainly did. Internationally. This is very international. Yeah, we all decided we weren't going to work. Sorry?

We all decided we weren't going to work that night, and we were just going to have fun, and then at, like, 10.30, we looked at our phones and saw the breaking news that they were flying the Royals out. Fantastic. And so instead, we all just immediately started coming up with as many jokes as we could, and then picking a few of them to put online. The traditional chaser response, which is, quick, someone's dying.

Let's make jokes about it. Yeah, we also went through all of our old jokes to see which one would not be too offensive if we repurposed them. Oh, how many did you have to discard for offensiveness, John? Because I don't know. I mean, I'm not involved in this sort of online staff. So do you have a bank of very tasteless jokes that you can sift through, do you? Ready to go. The one that we were unsure about was an article that we ran last year that I wrote.

called Charles offers to put the queen out of her misery and got a photo of him holding up a pillow to her face which we thought

if we re-ran that that might upset people if she's actually so we decided not to which goes against what the media was saying about us actively trying to offend people

because we could have gotten worse that's what we our only crime is comedy yeah but But there was a brilliant headline, and I don't know who came up with it. I don't know whether it was your cam, but the Prince Andrew one yesterday,

which is, because we were reporting on this podcast a few days ago that Prince Andrew has been given the responsibility of looking after all of the Queen's Corgis, right? And so you ran with the headline. What was the headline? Prince Andrew to take the Queen's Corgis due to his vast experience with grooming. Which is a good gag That is a solid Very solid

Thank you I was hoping the Daily Mail would pick that one up But they didn't Well I mean they're probably less worried They've moved on to Megan now To be fair

As they would be about you offending the Queen You clearly haven't read the articles Oh Both Daily Mail and Newscom at you Said that Chuck took specific offence To Charles making a joke about Prince Andrew being a pedophile Oh they didn't like that

Yeah, they didn't like that. And didn't one of them say you can't publish those allegations or something? There was some weird thing where they thought it was too offensive to publish the completely true allegations. Yahoo said it was too offensive to publish Charles's response to the questions about why he made a joke about Prince Andrew. That's because I can actually read out my response to them, which was, look, all I'll say is that we're doing. devastated here at The Chaser to see a life cut short like this. Our thoughts and prayers with the family at this time and in particular to all the 16-year-olds

whose job it is to console Prince Andrew. And they didn't like that. That seems very harsh of them. It feels like... Mind you, the journalist, then... He claimed it was unpublishable, but he did say, ha ha ha, ha, I doff my proverbial hat, sir. Oh.

He was a British journalist then. He was a UK journalist. Yes, he was a... British journalists who also happen to be a 16-year-old boy pretending to be a gender. Sort of the lyrts of somebody pretending to be an adult. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. My favourite coverage of it was in the Australians' like media like media wrap-up or the week whatever,

it was very strange because clearly some people, people on that team are fans of ours. And so they were like, there was a part where they referenced a joke that Gabby made months ago that the chaser interns are all maybe living in Charles's basement and forced to stay there. Really? But they ran that as an actual allegation. Oh, that's great.

You know that that can now be put on Wikipedia because now, that allegation has now been appeared in the mainstream press. Yes, it's a reference It's a reference That can now be added to Wikipedia They also like very Methodically tried to come up with Who their main suspects were

For who came up with the jokes like Are you a K day Oh really? Did they? Where they were like Oh, the Chaser interns exist But then they didn't We were the, they didn't actually come up with

Whether and why it wasn't us They just said it probably wasn't us What? But then they were like Actually, if you had to guess which three people that they came down to and couldn't pick between, who would you guess? Well, it'll be, yeah, who's got the reputation for being the bad boy of the chaser? Well, but it's also who wrote this. Do you know who wrote this article?

Because some of them have beef. Someone shared, you know. Yeah. This guy very clearly has a beef with Chris. Oh, he has a bigger Chris. Oh, yeah, well, that makes sense. Because Chris would write something offensive. Well, yeah, yeah, because he's very funny.

quite possibly be Chris. Because they also laid out their thinking for each of the usual. Okay, so Chris. Very detailed, isn't it? Yeah, this is... I mean, they obviously don't know. None of us write.

I mean, it's all written by the Chaser interns now, isn't it? I mean, I don't think anyone from the TV series writes any of the material, so they don't know what they're on about. It was written by Jared Henry. Oh, Jared, yes.

And the poor old Gerard, he wouldn't know. Well, he probably thought Julian wrote them. Yes, he doesn't like Julian much I don't think. Weirdly, the thinking of who he doesn't like, who clearly he doesn't like, were the ones, he was like, part of how he was like, or, so it wasn't

that, okay. Oh. The three names that he finalized on was it was either, you Charles, you, Andrew, or Dom. They're the three least likely people to have written any of this. Yeah. I wonder why he thought. That's very odd. Yeah, it's very, my fate, but the reason why I think he must

have, like, an actual problem with Chris is that his reasoning for why he thinks it wasn't Chris is that Chris is irrelevant. That was the only thing he said is that Chris to the irrelevant, therefore it wasn't here. Poor old, Jared, he doesn't realize that nearly all of the TV shows, like about 70% of the script

was written by Chris. But it just goes to show. Jared has never known what he's on about. But I like, yeah, instead of say, ringing us up and asking who wrote that gag. I know, no, he's never done that. He's never done that. Which you could

totally do. Like, you could easily do that. Twitter, and I would say John Delmenico, who's going up with that excellent gay He didn't have to theorise Yeah Well like also weirdly The fact that like

One of the people he rules out is Cam Smith The editor Digital editor and social media manager Who It's everything you do At least Jared knows Cam exists though At least he knows that much

I mean Jared's Also they did Because I think he I think he has an unhealthy Obsession with the Chaser I mean, the amount that he's written about the Chaser's brand over the years is an unhealthy amount for anybody to write. He recently called, like a few months ago,

he called Charles a middle-aged man who should stop with a childish stunts. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. As he's headlined. Oh, right. Well, to be fair, Gerard was saying the same 12 years ago about all of us as well. And he's probably quite accurate. Yeah, yeah, I know, quite fair.

I mean, I agree with pretty much everything, Jared writes, except for the factually untrue stuff. Where does he write this stuff? What publication? It's at the Australian. There's this like weekly media wrap. That's like their answer to Media Watch. And it's really long. It's so long.

Like it's like 15 pages of just someone rambling about exclusively the ABC and the chaser. He's achieved the impossible and made gossip, a gossip column boring. He has the most boring gossip. Yes, it's so long-winded, it's extraordinary. Poor old, I remember poor old Julian once was stuck in an email conversation

back and forth with Gerard. It was one of the only time, perhaps the only time that Gerard actually contacted one of us. And we were weeping with boredom, I remember, in the office at some of these lengthy emails that Jared was sending to Julian. They went for pages and pages and pages. And eventually Julian just sent back a one word reply.

that said unsubscribe That's very good That's very good Well, John So are you going to be live tweeting The Royal Funeral of what it's called On the 22nd Or are you going to take the day off

Because it's a public holiday Like how do we What's the employment situation there? See, I kind of want to say going to live tweet it but then I'm also realizing nothing's going to happen. Yeah. Like in my head, Ben Robert Smith being there means he might kick over a coffin

and push it off a cliff. But like that's not going to happen. They're all just going to stand there and be boring. Like I think the only interesting thing could be if the FBI shows up because that's somewhere they know Andrew will be. Oh yeah. Yeah. Surely they'll be the rest of you people who say accurate

things at them. There'll be a few They won't like that. They definitely won't like that. Like there's any, especially if there's any non-white people who are using this time to inappropriately talk about the monarchy, which we shouldn't be talked about at a time when the monarchy

is front of mind in everybody in the entire world's brain. And I love the people who are saying, we shouldn't politicise the queen. Even though she's the head of our political system. She's literally the actual

head of our political system. She embodies politics. She's above politics because she's literally on top of all the politics I think it's not too late though For the Queen to make a sort of James Bond You Only Live Twice style escape from the coffin I'm kind of hoping that you know Without nobody noticing while people are distracted

She's going to leap out of the coffin Hopefully wearing scuba gear And you know dart off across the English channel To further adventures I will watch the funeral just in case that happens We can always hope I'll be disappointed if it doesn't

Keep up the good work John And have a good weekend Yeah it'll be fun I'm sure Because my best part is They also get to read all the news Because of my job So I'll get the exciting thing

Of what we've done wrong Or what Megan has done That is bizarre We should get Megan on the podcast And vote on To respond to critics Yeah we will Can you do that John?

Yeah. I'll try, but a recent hit piece I literally just read is that she horrifically and disrespectfully paused her podcast until after all the funeral stuff's done. Yeah. See. And like News Corp is very mad that she has done that. That's disrespectful. Well, that's right. The only reason we've kept this podcast going is out of respect for the queen.

It's so respectful to be doing this right now Yeah I mean we should probably make some extra episodes Shouldn't me I mean just to show true contrition and respect We should be podcasting more frequently It's what she would have wanted

She would have wanted her Our gear is from road We're part of the ACS creator network We'll catch you next week.