The Chaser Report - Mark Humphries Roasts Charles

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

Before he was Australia's Tallest Satirist, 7.30's Mark Humphries used to work in a warehouse – which is where he met Charles Firth, who gave him his first job in comedy on a tv show called The Roast. Which is why Mark is willing, to take a break from his full-time job of going on podcasts and panel shows to tell some embarrassing stories about the early days. (The team are on holiday, but all this week we have brand new extended interviews with some of our favourite people to tide you through – and the headlines are updated every day.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report for Tuesday, the 12th of October 2021. I'm Dom Knight. Hello, Charles Firth. Hello, I'm enjoying my Freedom Week, Dom. I'm no longer locked down and I've just been spending all my time at the beach, Licking people's faces, hugging them, blowing my nose on them. It's just been awesome. Excellent. So we're once again pre-recorded and having a holiday.

Before the cases explode in New South Wales, as they inevitably will. We're all having a break. If my behaviour is anything to go by, we are definitely in for a really big spike fairly soon. Yeah, and we're actually going to hang out with the interns this week. I barely know some of these people who have been working with them for months. So I'm going to see them outside of Zoom while we still can. So it's going to be a lot of fun. Today, though, we have a huge treat for you.

We've got a very long and fun chat with Mark Humphreys. Yeah. Look, I don't really know about this one. I think maybe it's probably best to just skip this podcast and maybe go to some other thing to listen to. Maybe listen to the daily or something. That is unless you enjoy embarrassing stories about working with Charles Firth and the haphazard genius that Charles is a person who's forever founding things

and promoting other people, very, very generous. with friends and frankly less so to himself. So lots of war stories from the early years working with Charles on a project called The Roast and just his whole approach to comedy is going to be a lot of fun. I think the thing is listen to the headlines because we'll go to Rebecca Day and Muno

with Chasing News headlines and then that's basically the episode. You don't need to hear the rest of it. It's fine. Having been part of the interview, yes you do, stay with us. The Federal Labor Party has heroically adopted a climate change policy of net zero

by 2050, just one week after the fossil fuel industry did. The opposition leader Anthony Albanese said that in the coming weeks, he would be announcing other bold policy positions, including giving women the vote and abolishing slavery. Sydney has studiously avoided eye contact with Melbourne and Canberra as it headed out of lockdown yesterday. When asked about how they felt about being able to do things, Sydney just sighed nonchalantly and said they hadn't really noticed anyway. Daniel Andrews has called on anti-vaxxers throughout Melbourne to stop taking Ivermectin.

The Victorian Premier said they needed all the Ivermectin they could get for the Melbourne Cup. That's the latest chaser news you can't trust. I'm Rebecca de Unamuno, and I'm free at last. I'm free like Andy Dufrain at the end of Shawshank Redemption. Thank you for your patience. is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online,

so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.ca. It's time for one of our Freedom Week catch-ups with one of Australia's most beloved satirist, 730 sketchmaker, and the world's most frequent podcast guest,

Mr. Mark Humphreys. Hello, Mark. Thanks for coming on a podcast. I know it's a new experience for you. No, I know. Well, I had to fit you in between philosophy and ten questions with Adam Swar. But, yes, no, ever since going through the shingles experience,

I've come to appreciate even more the sound of my own voice. Good for you. Thank you for having me. You do know that it's actually law, because we looked at up, we were trying to get through Freedom Week without talking to you. You're not actually allowed under the ACMA regulations to make a podcast without asking you on.

No, no. Which reminds me. actually, of my one... You must have had some dealings with ACMA over the years, you guys. A little bit. Yeah. How many... Can you actually remember how many, you know,

cases were opened against you? Oh, gosh. Quite a few. Yeah, there's two or three that come to mind. But let's not talk about the chaser. I mean, there was the Chris Kenny thing, we make a wish thing. I think the ABC is not actually governed by ACMA, is it?

But they still get involved sometimes. The reason I bring it up is that when in the first year that I met, so I first met Charles in 2012 when I was a writer on this two-minute news show called The Roast. And it was on that show that I received my one and only ACMA complaint. And it's a joke which I wrote that Tom Glaston delivered. And then I recycled that joke a week ago on Question Everything. I decided to see if I could give it a second chance. No complaint has come through a second time around. So basically what it was is that the big news story of that.

that day, well, this is debatable, but the story we're talking about was that an Italian magazine had published topless photos of Kate Middleton. Oh, yes. And the headline that they'd gone with was, the Queen is Naked. And so, anyway, the joke that I had written for the show was an Italian magazine has published topless photos of Kate Middleton with the headline, The Queen is Naked. Naked photos of the Queen, finally I can stop jerking off to this coin, right? So that's the, that was the line.

And it's still getting a great reception today. A classy, a classy line. Just to be clear, because this is not a visual medium. All three of us were simultaneously laughing silently with a kind of a bald look on our face. So you can't. We actually all loved it. But we're simultaneously. And this is quite a high bar for us, just quite troubled by it.

So well done. Because it sounded like it got no response. But we were just all sort of doing that Robert De Niro crack up weird, close your eyes laughing, weren't we? Right. So anyway, that, that aired at 728 p.m. just before Doctor Who. Oh, you got the Anglophiles. Yeah. So apparently, so we got this lady wrote in to Acma. She wrote to the ABC. The ABC ruled in our favor that it was fine for a PG show to say, jerking off. But she wasn't satisfied with that, so she took to Ackma.

And then Ackma wrote a six-page report about this one sentence. Wow. And debating over whether, you know, how the joke was not too visual. It's not like he had mined the act. He was purely in reference. But I remember the woman's complaint stated that her 13-year-old son had heard the joke and didn't understand what it meant. Oh, yes, I'm certain of this.

Surely her son went, Mom, can I borrow a coin? You got changed for a 20? Yeah, so anyway, that was... Surely a $5 note, it's bigger. Exactly, that's it. So that was my first and sadly only experience with Ackman. So on question everything, nothing happened. Have Stan has changed that much?

That's just a polite banter on it. Because the roast was ABC2, had much smaller viewership than question everything, surely. So that's a really interesting test. Yes, that's true, exactly. I wonder whether, I wonder whether, see, the 13-year-old would now be, what, 22. years old. I wonder whether he knows what jerking off is yet. But anyway, so that was

the fun of the first experiences I had. I've actually got the Ackma complained here if you... Have you got it there? I've got it here, yeah, I've just looked it up. Fantastic. Before we do that, can we have a little bit of explanatory memoranda here? So the Roast was a show, an incredibly ambitious daily comedy show on ABC2

that Mark worked on and Charles EP, like he ran the show. It was his brainchild, but he wasn't on camera, were you, Charles? No, I was... And he wasn't in the office either. But that was the general males. He set it up and then walked away. Much like the chaser, by the way.

It's a pattern. It was more of a shell company, really. So this thing is an amazing thing that happened every day. And all these people who've done really well subsequently, including Mark, were part of that show. So if you haven't, it's on YouTube, you can go and look at it. I'm just confirming, just fact-checking. Akma did indeed rule in your favour.

You've not breached the PG. classification of the code. Does it have the phrasing of the woman's complaint? Does it have that quote about Doctor Who? Oh, well, hang on. I mean, there's some great lines in here. I'll just see if I can find. The claimant's submission was that my husband,

our 12-year-old son and I, were watching the Doctor Who special, and after it finished, the next program began. The man on this program spoke about jerking off over a picture of the queen. Apart from the language and crudeness, the concept of a man jerking off over any woman's photo,

whether she be the queen or a commoner, is abhorrent. She used the word commoner. Proud to be a commoner, honestly. I'm wondering what the straw that broke the complainant's back is there. Was it the fact that it was the queen that was the subject?

Or was it the fact that it was just about masturbation? Or was it debasing the currency of the realm in some way? I don't know. Yes, yes. Or maybe there was like a specific, Queen jerking off related incident that happened in their family and they just worked through it in family therapy and all of a sudden

I reckon the husband is one of the suspects in this because she then goes on to say the comment although brief was not discreet when the comment was made my husband and myself noticed it immediately and turned the TV off

I reckon it was going oh damn caught out of it again and I've been doing that to audiences ever since I would love to know if they're still together. Those two or the teenager are in the coin. That as well. But as you said, Don, Charles is a serial founder. Do you remember something in that same year, Charles, called the frying pan?

Do you remember what the frying pan is? Friing pan. Charles's memory is shot we found out the other day, by the way. So he will be enjoying this as much as anyone else. Frying pan. Was that a satirical website or something? Even I'm not quite sure what it was. Basically, you got it in your head.

that every future endeavor you should be involved in should have some sort of cooking-related title. So you had the roast and so you went, okay, well, the next one's going to be called the frying pan. And so what it was, it was me, you improvised Daniel Cordaux and communications strategist Peter Lewis. Yeah. And it was a studio that, I don't know if Peter owned it, or what have you, but... No, it was owned, I think, by the Union Movement, maybe. It was owned by New South Wales Trades.

Oh, no, no, I think you're right. Actually, maybe he owned. You're right. He did. Yeah. And so it was like a pilot that we shot. And, you know, it was, you know, to put it generously, it was a shamble. Oh, fuck, yes, I remember that.

It was an actual pilot. Yeah, it was like a panel show. That's right. And so Daniel Cordow was playing Alan Joyce. and you were I remember you I specifically remember you trying to kind of inject

some life into it and so you just sort of started an argument with Peter Lewis based on nothing where you just accused him you said that's because you hate Australia that is such good impression

thank you and yeah and that was sort of yeah so then you sort of had this mock argument but you know we never discussed it again And I never saw a tape of them. I'm not even sure there was any film in the camera. I'd never heard of this. This is fantastic.

So this is during the... So Charles set up the Chaser Empire, basically. He was his idea. He recruited us all. Then he went off to America and he did all this stuff. But then he tried to start another comedy empire, kind of in competition with his original one. I remember when I came home and I told everyone about what I was doing.

During a board meeting of the Chaser, Greg, I'd like to just discuss how Charles seems to be setting up a completely competing organisation to us right under our noses. You basically were attempting to create Batuta before Batuta. So there was the chaser and the shot. So Charles's original ideas have sort of drinking vessel names. And I think he's got some more that he's brewing away as well. Were there any more cooking-based schemes that were made? Well, so, I mean, while we were working on the roast, we received a couple of very large deliveries of items that Charles and I think his business partners at the time had decided to sell.

Do you remember Gungham style? Yes. No, that's not me. That was not me. No, that was definitely not me. Well, now I want to know what it is. I want to know. So do you remember, can I, oh no, do you want to tell the anecdote?

No, no, you can tell, you can tell it. Which I think I know the detail of you. Because Charles will tell a biased version. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Because this doesn't involve me. I don't have any sort of thing. No, the funny part about this story is that do you remember how Sye was for a while, like the hottest thing in the world?

Oh, massive. Yes. And so one of my colleagues thought, well, you know, let's cash in on this sensation. You can get bobblehead. versions of SIE made up for like cents on the do. It was like 30 cents each, right, and shipped over from China, right? And they had just set up a sort of China import, export business or something. So they thought, this is a good test run of our, you know, business acumen.

So they got it designed and they shipped over the, you know, they sent over the specifications at great expense, I think. They even flew over there to sort of make sure the factory was just. It was up to making bubble heads of pirate, by the way, pirate bubble heads of Sye. Si didn't see a sense of this. And then after they'd paid all the money, they got told that they then had to be shipped out. And they just hadn't thought about the fact that shipping from China takes three or four months. Yeah, whereas Sye's popularity was about three weeks long.

Exactly. It was way after. It wasn't just like, you know. It was insane how long after. the side bubble had burst that the bobbleheads arrived. Can I ask, what was the plan if you got them in time anyway?

What were you going to use the bubble heads for? Well, I mean, look, demand can manage itself when there's just infinite demand. Like, at the height of the side bubble, you're going to just walk down on the street and people would have mummed you for one. I'm going to say,

where a lot of us were sort of saying opan gungnam style, before I get into polite conversation. Well, there you go. I mean, we laugh often at Charles's errors of ordering things in from China to this day, but that is far more foolish than anything Charles has done. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important.

Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. All right. another, since since Charles was not now responsible, I will not mention the other product

that was also imported, but I'll save that. But, um, what was it? It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles of water that once we opened it, like, you could see there was clearly some sort of sediment or something at the, at the base of it. I spoke to Clark Richards, uh, who was on the roast, uh, with us, I just spoke to him, just moments before coming on to this podcast.

And he described it as, his theory was, he said, that was fracking water. And like Pecari's sweat with actual sweat. And I do know about this one, because I did actually order those bottles. Oh, Charles. No, because we had them specially labelled with the roast, remember? Like, they weren't just,

it wasn't just a random set of water bottles. It was. They were labeled sweaty betty, okay? That's what they were labeled. I don't remember ever seen the wood. The roast. I don't know, but the whole reason why it got muddy. And the whole point is you just throw out the muddy ones.

That was our instructions to you, right? Yes, that's right. When you come across a muddy batch, just throw it out. Hang on, isn't sweaty Betty the name of Roxy Jacenko's business? Yeah, I think what happened was, Roxy Jacenko was going to put on some event, and she needed a whole of the bottles. And then we did a whole of the bottles.

I think they arrived late, so it was too late for the function. but then also they were full of mud So we thought We're going to Not to go off But this water had gone off No no no no No no you're misunderstanding

It sounds like someone was trying to poison you No it was spring water Mark The pad bothered to filter It was up in Gosford was the place Where it came out of the spring And The whole point is

The whole point is The like You know you can't control spring You'd have to put in it on filters or something like that. It would be really extended to the spring. It's just a muddy puddle in a bottle. What is the water necessary?

Why did you just buy bottles to put water in? Like Appalachian Control A. Gossford. I just don't think that's a margin. But the point about spring water is it's much cheaper than tap water. Because it's not filtered. Because it's just literally there. It just comes out of the ground.

Oh, wow. It's just. Um, can I, anyway, so the point is it gets a bit muddy. Anyway, so I think Roxie Ducco had rejected the muddy water. And so we thought, we're just giving them to the staff. They'll love it. Um, Mark, can I suggest a project? Can we, can we write a thinly disguised, um, like TV series based on a failed entrepreneur?

Okay. So it's funny to say that because as I was compiling these anecdotes, there's too many for me to mention on this podcast. And I'm just one person who knows Charles. I've got a whole other set. I mean, the university scams of Charles were legend. Charles, I'm amazed natural selection hasn't gotten you yet. I'm amazed.

No, it's because all the assassination services in New South Wales are run by me, so they don't work properly. No, clearly they're run by Gospon-Sprickwater. That's true. One of my great ambitions in life is to get Charles elected to office just to see what I-CAC does to him. Yeah, and then they come forward with all this stuff, and Charles goes, oh, that's nothing. That's the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, he is so readily available to admit.

I feel like Charles has never once really denied anything apart from the sigh situation. But apart from that, I'm pretty sure Charles has just immediately accepted that he's done that stuff. So how did you get to be on the roast to begin with, Mark? Where did you spring from? So I worked in a warehouse, and that was it. Was it a warehouse full of dodgy Charles products? It was that how you met? He had all these sigh bubbleheads and he claddy bottles of water and he wanted to know which idiot had ordered them.

Yeah, so we just shipped a bunch of right-said Fred bobbleheads and then came to the delivery. And so I worked with Clark Richards in this warehouse. And Clark knew Charles and was starting on this new show, The Roast. And Charles said to me, oh, you know, I think you'd be really good on this. You know, do you want me to put in a word? It feels, oh, that would be amazing. And so Clark then spoke to Charles. And then I had a phone conversation with Charles.

And Charles said, yeah, well, come in on Monday at, you know, 9 a.m. and blah, blah, blah. And so I turn up to, you know, become an intern on this show. and what I later found out is that Charles, who was not there, had not told anyone who was there that I was coming. Oh, classic. So I just sort of come in and Nick Richardson, who is the showrunner, goes, hello. I was like, hi, I'm Mark Charles said I could come and intern on the show. And Nick's like, okay. and then just sort of politely tolerated that

and only later on told me that he was like internally he was like, who the fuck is this guy? Yeah, yeah, he was quite angry with me. He had words with me. Yeah, like all of his suggestions are about jerking off to coins.

I don't really understand what this guy is, how this guy fits in. No, but it shows you that you're really good is that about a week later, Nick said to me, oh, Mark's brilliant. Like, well done for bringing him in, Charles. You're so wonderful. This is the great thing.

Occasionally Charles's... And you were like, yeah, but how many bottles of water is he drunk? But occasionally Charles's haphazard scattershot hopeless approach. Yields diamonds, right? Just why many of us have had a career out of the chaser to everyone's great surprise. You should be raiding every warehouse in the country to find the next talent. but so that was how that sort of started and um and then yeah so through knowing charles like it's you'd end up i just found an old ad uh that that charles and i are in which was about

what it was so it was something that there was a new tax that was being proposed to do with the to pay for the fire department or something and uh yeah that's right and uh anyway so i i you brought me in charles to deliver the line i'm the guy who who is opening up his mail to find out there's a new tax. And my line was, a new tax. Okay, so you remember that. Anyway, so that was my line.

I've got the ad here, actually. So wait a minute, did I pay you for that line? I should think I probably got $100 out of it or something. I'm sure there must have been some arrangement. I love how you got rubbed into an anti-ta. It's very progressive of you. That's it. Yeah.

No, I'll see if I can find it, and then I'll play it over the phone from my end. But anyway, so that was, that was, you know, one of the many things we got roped into,

and I remember you running a campaign about Mitt Romney called Romney Problems with something else that you were, then you wanted to do something with Gina Reinhart and Balloons. I can't remember what the balloon job was. Gina Ryanhart and Balloons, just those two concepts together. Sound ominous to me.

We once did a whole website and set of videos called Gina Ryan Hart for Prime Minister, right? Designed it all. It was huge. Like, it was a big thing. And then the lawyers took one look at it. It took them literally about an hour and they said, you are never releasing this to the public. We spent like tens of thousands of dollars.

Is this during your time as a union stooge, Charles? Yeah, yeah. That's a whole other conversation. How did you meet Evan, by the way? your great collaborator, Evan Williams. Was that on the roast? Yes, that's right. So Evan had been part of the...

Did he randomly walk into the office as well? So Evan, I mean, he could drink water like you wouldn't believe. And Evan had been on the one-minute version of the roast, which had existed a year earlier on Fairfax website. So the roast evolved from a one-minute show in 2011 to a two-minute show in 2012 to a 10-minute show in 2013 to a non-existent show in 2015. and it was quite a journey but there was something else that

yeah so I went through all these emails back and forth of Charles over the years and this one's from 2013 while we're working on the roast this is an email from me to Charles the subject is downstairs toilet

hi guys I'm not in toilet entirely sure who I should contact about this as it's relatively low priority on the day of our first episode but the chain on the urinal downstairs has come out so can no longer be flushed. I had also heard rumors of there being someone to clean the toilets

as that urinal has attracted its fair share of flies and odors but I don't know if there's any truth to it. Anyway, enjoy your dinner. So, yeah, so we wrote that 10-minute version of the roast out of this weird sort of, I mean, it was a fire hazard, really. It was a room that if something happened, you would be, it was a death trap. You would, you would. Actually, I'm going to fact-check you on that, because we went to great lengths to make it appear like that room was not as long as it was,

so that the fire engineer would it give it by approval? Because the whole problem with the, so under New South Wales law, you've got to be at least 100 metres. like within 100 metres of an exit, right? And that room was literally 101 metres long, right? And so it was a complete desire. It's why no one was renting it. And so we sort of boarded up, it created this sort of false wall.

And then everyone was safe. Wow. So you were working in a death trap. That seems pretty something. Approved. God. Now we're trying to think how many of these. I think there's something that Charles can actually be aired.

I mean, because it's worth noting that someone, and we don't talk about this enough, Gabby won't know about this. No. There is it, someone once made a TV show parodying the chaser that was written by two people who worked with us and didn't have a great experience.

So there's actually an entire narrative comedy TV series designed to mock. It was called The jesters, that's right. And there are characters vaguely based on most of the chase team. I think Charles and I got amalgamated. Mick Malloy was in the Andrew Denton role, very strangely.

So Charles' success has inspired unsuccessful other programmes. It was on cable. It was one of the only cable-only comedy shows ever made in Australia. I remember that. And bizarrely, when I was an intern on Hungry Beast in 2011,

so before, prior to the roast, I went to Andrew Denton said could I possibly have 15 minutes of your time and he generously did give me 15 minutes of this time and at the end of that meeting he gave me his copy of the jesters on DVD that's true I've never watched it I'm kind of fascinated I'm definitely going to find it and watch it you've got to review that for the podcast Gabby

it's my duty now I love this I just keep finding things that have happened to you and watching as a fourth person expect uh sorry as a spectator it's great i had totally forgotten about that entire incident i think it in right now aspects of the parody were genuinely quite upsetting but um anyway as you'll find out another charles uh show that did not get up sadly uh do charles do you remember what catastrophe was oh that's a very charles name vaguely he can't remember his failed ventures no wonder he's so optimistic about his future ventures So basically, because the roast did not run all year round, it basically meant that everyone who worked on the show was employed for about, I think maybe seven or eight months of the year, but then had a very long period of unemployment.

And Charles, to his credit, tried to create a project that could keep us busy. And the idea that Charles had was called catastrophe. And it could go into the further details, because I have since discovered the pitch document. But the memory that everyone who was in that meeting has was that Charles's pitch was, it's Mark with a moustache and that was the extent of the pitch Mark with a moustache and so we all sort of came out of that meeting

lacking enthusiasm I think and so we're sort of like okay he's like so if you can go work up a pitch document and we're like uh-huh anyway so then we all leave and we're all quite sort of what do we do with this and we're all walking up towards Redfern station as we're walking up Charles zooms by in his car

rolls his window down flips us the bird and goes fuck you all and zooms off and that was the end of the catastrophe I mean it did what it was said on the tin it was a catastrophe

have I vaguely remember having a terrible meeting where no one was and I think because it was Evan in that meeting Evan was... Yeah, and he really poured cold water on it. He hated it.

And he was not impolite. Like, he was completely impolite about it, wasn't he? Well, yeah. And Evan and Clark both have an anecdote about a meeting that they were in with you that I was not there for. And I don't know, Dom, if this is an experience that you've had with Charles in other business meetings or you're Gabby. But where it was, for the roast, it was most people's first time on television. So they had to go to the ABC and go to a special meeting,

learning about the standards and censorship and all the kind of what you can and can't do. Anyway, I think everyone was quite thrilled to sort of be in the ABC. And according to my sources, Charles spent the entire meeting on his phone except for one moment when he suddenly burped. Was that the media law briefing? Because that's not a surprising. at all.

And Charles is on his phone right now. Yes, and I think the meeting is sort of temporarily paused. Nobody said anything. And then the meeting continued and no reference was made to the burp after that. I mean, my expectation would have been like that episode of the office, that's called Training Day, Charles would have basically gradually taken over the meeting and then given the briefing by the end of the... That's a fairly standard play as well. Can I just interrupt because...

Go on. I think that I have been unfairly maligned. I've just found the pitch document for catastrophe, which I think we later renamed Absolute Worst, right? Do you remember this? And I'll read you out the pitch. And tell me if you wouldn't watch this show.

Okay, sure, we can do that. All I'm saying is that just the overriding memory that people have of the meeting is not the substance of the pitch itself, but rather your enthusiasm for me and a moustache. So clearly that was what he pitched to the team. Let's see what he said to the network. What if a meteor, the size of the moon, hit New York? What if gravity stopped working properly?

What if Ebola and H1N1 emerged to create a superbug that then became as easily transmissible as the common cold? That's not. I'm joking, that's not in there. What? Is that in there? That's in there. Get out of town.

What would happen if a sinkhole swallowed up the White House? Bacon is delicious, but what if all pigs suddenly died? Absolute worst is a pseudoscientific investigation of hypothetical scenarios taken to their worst-case logical extreme. I think that's a great idea for a TV show. That sounds like the intern's failed pitch documents. To be fair, Mark in a moustache is also. a level of catastrophe on the same level as the White House pinker to you by a

sea goal. I think it would be fair to say. No, there's still maybe something in that Charles and look, you know. I mean the amazing part of this story, all these tales, Mark, is that you, like many other people that Charles has worked with, has gone on to have a very successful

bordering on, you know, legendary career in Australian media. Well, this is the thing. My career exists simultaneously in thanks to and in spite of Charles. That's true. And all of us in the Chaser would say exactly the same thing. Charles saved us from a far more boring life. Yes, and he should probably get a percentage of a lot of people's careers.

And then no, the rest of your life and done really well. Well, another anecdote. When Evan and I wrote our first book for The Chaser called The Chasers Australia, uh the the night that it needed to be sent off to the printer all right we're in your office charles it's you me and evan uh and you had just come to us a few hours earlier and said uh i think you've done you've done the maths and worked out uh we need to cut eight pages oh yes because i've fucked up the pageination it's really easy to do by the way so we're and and you had to send the the manuscript off you know the document off that night and so all first thing in the

morning. And so we're in your office and frantically doing that. Meanwhile, it is raining heavily outside and your office is flooding. Wow. So while you are on in design rearranging pages and you know, shopping and changing, you know, chunks of text, you're also stopping every few minutes to get a broom, to go and sweep away this tsunami that's sort of, you know, pouring into your office. And then so Evan and I are still frantically writing. And then at a certain point, you know, and this is something that I've experienced with Charles many, many times, you suddenly stopped and went, ah, I have to leave. I have to leave. And you get up, you know, I've got a date. I've got to date with Amanda. And you had to go. I've got to date with Amanda. And you had to

go, you had dinner arranged with your wife and, and we're just there, you know, with our feet up to trying not to get our socks wet, trying to finish this book. And yeah, and you race out. And then I think you race back in briefly to say another great Charles quote that I've heard you say a hundred times, which is, where's my wallet? And then you left. Somehow the book came out. Somehow the book does exist. I'm not really quite sure how. But, That was the final night that it had to be finished. So you must have gone back to the office after your date and put down some towels or something.

I remember the landlord being very annoyed at me because I just got rid of the water and just let it dry out for a few days because it got a bit stinky for a while. And then a few months later I mentioned the landlord, oh yeah, all the floorboards are warped because there was a huge flood. Why didn't you tell me?

I could have got that on insurance. I'll give you one more anecdote with Charles, which is that Charles was supposed to do an event in Lismore. Ah, yeah. And had to pull out for some reason. And it was an event with Charles and the writer Mark Dappen, who at some point had been the editor of Ralph magazine. But since then, I've written books, and he'd had a whole other career.

He's lovely, Mark Deppin, yeah. He's lovely, lovely guy. But he had, for a period, being the editor of Ralph magazine. Anyway, Charles, for whatever reason, can't get to Liz Moore, and then says to me, Mark, can you go and basically be me, go and appear at this sort of in-conversation event? This was 2016, so I was like, you know, I'm hardly a household name now. Five years ago, I was really known. one. And anyway, so I go, okay, I'll do this thing.

You were doing the feed in 2016, were you? I guess I just started doing that. Yeah, you were around. Yeah, I think I just started doing. You were. And so Mark and I have to fly to Lizmore. Our plane was delayed by two hours, I think. So by the time we actually got there, the event was already, like everyone had already been waiting for an hour for the event to start. And they'd patiently wait. it around and my heart sank and that's the other thing mark daff and didn't want to talk about ralph he was like that was something that i did do but it's not really what i do now so i don't want about ralph anyway when we arrive at the venue there's a big sign outside the the venue that advertising tonight chaser versus ralph and i'm chaser okay and guy who worked at ralph 10 years

ago is ralph i mean it was just it was just horrendous and So, you know, there's just certain things now for Charles. I'll always take a call about, if it's a podcast, please. But there's some things I just won't take the call about anymore. Oh, that's a pity because I've got a few favours I was going to ask you after this podcast. Well, but that said, that said, Mark, if we do write the series about Charles, I think we know Nick Malloy can play Charles. Mark, would you say that your adventures with Charles have been a parody of a friendship

or a parody of a business relationship. I think all the business sides of things. It's been a wonderful friendship, but definitely a parody of a business relationship. Well, Charles, thank you for teaching an extremely successful television performer, what not to do. Thank you for your patience.

Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. Fizz is 100% online. You can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Well, Charles, I certainly enjoyed that.

How did you feel? Well, I feel like... Actually, I muted myself during that whole thing. I didn't actually hear anything, so... It's probably for the best. Okay, so tomorrow on the Chase Report, we have an interview with the... I guess the other most prominent Australian podcaster alongside

Mark Humphreys. Will Anderson is back with Gruen tomorrow on the ABC. We're going to talk to him not so much about Gruen, if I'm honest, but really about his whole approach to comedy and the most awkward first meeting ever between Will and the Chaser team. Yes, that was... That's the whole reason we wanted him on, wasn't it?

Yes, that's right. To ask him whether he remembered that. He didn't need us to plug Gruen. Gruen's going to do fine without our help. But there were some issues that needed to be resolved. That's tomorrow. on the Chaser Report. Gary is from Red Microphones

and we're part of the Acast Creative Network. Catch you tomorrow. See ya.