The Chaser Report - Sammy J vs The Media | Sammy J

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

Last year Charles and Dom spoke to Sammy J about how he got "cancelled" over an article he wrote. For more Sammy J, please bombard his socials at @sammyjcomedian with demands he join our show, now that he has all this extra free time on his hands.For more info on Sammy's upcoming tour click here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Charles and Dom. My name is producer Lachlan, and I am so sorry, dear listener, the streak ends here. We'd been doing so well at not needing to do replay episodes for the last week or so, but unfortunately, today we'll be pulling one from the vault. But I tentatively promise you, it'll be the last. time we do a replay episode this year. And so for that reason, I thought we'd pull out one that

I'm rather fond of. It's when Charles and Dom spoke to a comedian who I personally look up to quite a bit. Sammy J. Sammy had just been in the news for some controversial views. He'd declared in an article he wrote following the passing of Barry Humphreys. Now, Sammy's also made headlines a lot recently, because if you're following, if you're a Melbourne listener, you'd know that he just stopped doing breakfast radio for the ABC and as he left he decided to pick a fight with Kyle Sandelands over the fact that Sammy will always live rent-free in Kyle's head because he has better ratings. We haven't been able to book an interview with Sammy about that, but I'm sure we'll chat to him on that feud at some point in 2025. For now, please listen as Charles and Dom and

Sammy talk about the controversy surrounding the Barry Award slash Most Outstanding Award and also Sammy's show last year, good hustle. If you want updated version of that, his current show is called The Kangaroo Effect. So don't buy tickets to last year's show, buy them to the one he's doing next year. And with that, let's listen to the chat. Today it is Sammy J. Welcome, sir. Hello. Hello? Hello, great to be here.

Thanks for having me. Thank you for slumming it in podcast land, your breakfast radio presenter in Melbourne, the nation's biggest city. I don't know if it's, well, thank you. Yeah, we will take that one. I don't know if it's slumming it. Isn't podcast is like where you get to be yourself and relax, but the problem is then the other, the radio then takes it out of context and puts your comments on the paper. Isn't that how podcasts work?

They feed the mainstream media from the fringes. That's right. Oh, could you say something really controversial just to get listens to us? I'm all out of controversy this week, boys. Yeah, that's true, actually. Can I ask, have you been cancelled yet? Because over the, well, a couple of days ago, you wrote an article about Barry Humphreys. I mean, what the fuck were you thinking?

Well, I mean, it's a great question. Great question, Charles. And I joked in the article that I would probably get cancelled. And I didn't necessarily predict I'd be cancelled from all ends of the spectrum. However, the article was my attempt at nuance. So I suppose that's what happened. I should have gone shock jock in one direction. Didn't he use the phrase thread the needle, which is the thing that is literally impossible to do?

And the article did thread the needle of paying respect to Barry while also explaining why the Economy Festival changed the name of its award from the Barry Award. You explain that, threading the needle, but no one interpreted it in those terms whatsoever. And the great thing was on Twitter now, all the Elon Musk's subscriber idiots, their comments are the only ones you see now. So every response to your article was from some idiot in America who loved guns and hates you. It's incredible. And I note that my followers haven't increased, so I guess they'll come and go.

It's not like they're coming to me to stay. But it started genuinely because Barry Humphreys, as we all know, just died on Saturday night. On Sunday, I did a posted a little tribute. There's a photo when I got to meet him seven years ago at the comedy festival. He was there for the 30th anniversary. and knowing that he is not very popular with younger comedians for many different reasons, you know, and I know he also, he's incredibly popular with the great majority of Australians, you know, and so I sort of just did a trivia.

I said he's done amazing work, and I said his works continued by other generations in different ways, and just that single, simple post attracted this barrage of different comments, some people going, oh, thank you for, you know, paying tribute to Barry, no one else is mentioning it, and others saying, you're a bad ally, Sammy, how dare you? You didn't know these comments about transgender people and stuff. So that in itself taught me that people have such different views about it. And when the whole Comedy Festival thing blew up, the listeners unfamiliar, the Comedy Festival changed the name of the Barry Award to the Most Outstanding Show Award four years ago

because of these comments about trans people, because I had an insider knowledge, not just of that decision, but also of just knowing my audience had sort of those very views. Yeah, I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring, make a comment. No regrets, but it's been a little more dramatic than I expected it would be. But having won the award yourself, you know, congratulations on that. and also being on the board, like, there's no way that any possible scenario or outcome, they're all your fault, Sammy, Jay, every single possibility you ought to blame for. It's just me.

It's, oh, it's, you know what, genuinely, and I know we all love our politics, I've had, you know, like, I've been slammed and cancelled on Twitter and stuff for my work before. Like, I did political sketches. I don't need to ask you boys about what the experience is like, having people react to political sketches, but that's always easy to escape through because, like, well, someone didn't like a joke. That's fine. This is the first time I actually put myself out there with a real actual comment about real world things. So it's been a different feeling.

But my feeling overwhelmingly has been sort of a curious one of, I feel like I've got to experience what it would be like to be a politician for the first time. And I mean that genuinely, because I'm in a place where I've come out and back to policy that I was part of. The name would have changed with or without me. You know, it's a big board. I was just there representing artists as we're a couple of others. But I came out to explain that decision. There's stuff that I do know and more stuff that I do know that I can't say in public. public, because it's just like politics, there's stuff, you know, you're aware of more stuff.

And then you're having people coming at you, and you have to decide which hits to take and just even though if they're not fair, you just roll with it and which ones you want to defend. And it's also nothing to do with me, you know, Barry Humphreys die. That's sad. He's a legend of the game. He was flawed because we're all flawed. That's not a shock either. And he was an old man who had some kind of outdated views.

But it's been a whirlwind of experience in that sense. It's weird, isn't it? Because you have to, as humans, accept that contradictory things can be true. Barry Humphreins can be an absolutely brilliant, hilarious comedian. I look back at some of his interviews. They're incredible. He was so good off the cuff and his comments were absolutely appalling

and it's possible for a human to contain both of those things in a life, right? I'd say that it's impossible for any of us not to have those contradictions and so you're absolutely right and that was, yeah, the article that I wrote for the age was an attempt to sort of put both those views forward.

But also his SETA relied on playing with those contradictions in humanity. Like, that was, his life's work was a sort of contradiction between... Yeah, well, it's tricky because there were some comments he got kind of cancelled for in America where he was, he was, you know, saying some horrible things about sort of Spanish speakers. But that was clearly in character and meant to be, you know, I understand that was... We need like a... I'm sorry, to jump in, but like...

We need a so much of a character here. We need a joke interpreter is what we need. With you being a character. But yeah, the trans stuff was him speaking personally, I presume. That's the thing, and that was the whole, because I will defend people's right to make jokes about whatever the fuck they want for the rest of my life. Like that is, it's not an area, you know, people, and be it on their own head, if they misjudge the room and they get the, they lose an audience for it. That's fine. It's free speech.

This was a situation where it was comments that genuinely, when I first read them, I was like, well, surely he was in character would have been a bit gross. someone unliked it, but it wouldn't have been this. This is one where as far as everyone could tell he was properly as himself saying this stuff that upset, like really upset, a whole segment of the comedy festival artists, you know, the audiences who make up the festival. And that's the point I made in the articles. I don't subscribe to the idea that changing the award was canceling Barry. That's my thing. I don't think Barry Humphrey should be canceled. I think it should be lauded for his work. But also, there was a situation where a whole lot of artists were simply going to boycott the awards, not turn up. And that's dealing with the current modern festival,

not a member of a past generation. So, yeah, Barry, he was a provocateur. He knew he liked causing trouble. He made those comments. Heaps of time passed, he could have clarified. He didn't. So it was just like that was a natural result of that. I don't think it's any more or less than that.

I mean, it just makes me think in the end of the day, Sammy, why do you hate Barry Humphreys and why do you hate emerging comedians who just want to find a safe space? At the same time, how do you hate them both at the same time? Dom, I hate all generations. And I hope the Herald son pick that up and put it into a headline. Fantastic. That plus working for the ABC, well, let's not go into working for the ABC at this time of, should we say, evolving ratings, that's a whole other concept.

Does anyone work for the ABC these days, or are we all on temporary work experience contract? But, I mean, these characters, the characters you're bringing out in the show, Good Hustle, your kind of greatest hits from the past couple of years. I mean, they were good years for doing satire on the ABC. They might never be done again, but great innings, I've got to say. I mean, you'll get cancelled for those characters down the track, I'm sure. But for now, we can say they were really good. Hey, thanks.

Yeah, no, it was a fun run. I had a good innings doing character work on the ABC, the Thursday night spot. It was so fun, you know, like three minutes every week. I mean, I could still have a life outside that, but we got to pick a target every week and write about it and then argue with ABC lawyers for the rest of the week about whether we could do it. Good time. Why did we never do things in three minutes? I mean, that's fantastic.

It goes viral. Well, Mark Humphreys, who shares your slot, Sammy. he complains about, because he does three minutes of fortnight, and he complains about being overworked. Like, you ring him up and ask him to do any other job, and it'll be like, oh, sorry, I've got, you know, a sketch coming up on Thursday week. I've got a fact. Yeah, exactly.

I've got a fact check mark there because I swear sometimes he got away with sketches at two minutes or two minutes 30, and I was at a stop watch out because we had a minimal contractual obligation for our show because it was like a separate thing in the program, which is a three minute show, whereas Mike's part of 730. So he added some more flexibility. So I will not allow any charges from Mark about being overworked. I think he got to phone it in by less than 30 seconds. Oh, you heard it.

He heard it first. Mark's going to cancel you now as well. Well, no, he can't, though, because he'd be canceling himself because I still get complimented in the street from Mark's sketches because everyone thinks were the same person. That's what I really want to see. I want to see the two nice guy satirists of ABC TV somehow fighting. What would the weapons be? compliments i don't know how you'd yeah pen and a quill or you know um hair gel a love of musical

theatre i feel it would be something like knowing mark humphreys it would be something like a not very well done souffle like it would be like like a not cream pie in the face you get a slightly perfectly cooked souffle yeah yeah yeah in your gullet yeah do you know like he's a real gourmonde like he is i feel that's we're within the fact that we are largely the exact same person our differences are that I feel more like a street fighter and he's more like, you know, wearing the top out. I'm the Jean Valjean to his javert if you like. He would enjoy that. That's a word he'll appreciate it. He'll love the musical. Yeah. He'll love the musical. Yeah. The Chaser report. News you can't trust. Have you thought of doing a show together? That would be a massive

mind fuck, I think, if you actually work together in some way. We've thrown the idea around it, you know, we're young enough that there's many years. So like we both said, we'd love to. But I'd I'd love to, I think you'd have to agree to it, like, as a two-hour brainstorm to begin with, with all parties are okay to walk away at the end, because you never know, working with people you love and admire, it can be great in theory and trickier in practice, particularly when you're both, you know, as all performance are, they've got your own strong creative vision and all that. And I imagine, because presumably it would be a musical, like a Broadway-style musical.

And I suspect that your funders would not accept the five-minute running time of the musical. It would be a bold pitch, but the way things are going with the TikTok generation. I mean, if you've lost people's attention span in three seconds, it's all over. So I think we could do it. Are you on the TikTok? I've got a limp, flaccid little account that I dropped. I was sort of created it, you know, because the ABC wanted me to. And I drop in it now then.

Like, I'm literally like an absent grandfather who pops his head and gets confused by all the words and runs away. So I guess now I could just claim it's a security sort of, I'm just patriotically. staying off it, but really I just didn't get a following and it hurts me. That's sad. Have you got it? I don't. I signed up for one and then never use it. I went viral on the TikTok a few weeks ago.

How did you do it? To the extent that my sons saw me on TikTok, not because they follow me, because they wouldn't, but because it got served to them because the algorithm. Did they briefly respect you? Yes, they totally did. Wow. Was it like, were you like dad picking nose in car park? Or was it for your own actual work?

No, yeah, it was for, we're doing a show called Wankanomics, and we did, it was just a bit from our show, which was all about how, you know, how to, how to speak in, in the modern office. And it was all about how you turn a, what you do is you speak like a wanker by turning a noun into a verb. And then, like, so, you know, idea becomes ideate. And then you turn that new verb back into a noun. So ideate becomes ideation.

Then you turn it back. back, that verb back into a noun, so ideation becomes ideationing, and then you turn it into a seven-word cluster fact, so an all-hands blue-sky ideationing session. And that is the best thing you've ever written, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Because it is so, I've heard every step of that from idiots that I know in the corporate world. Yeah.

Wow. But it's also true. It's true. That's how it works. Well, and now you're an influencer. Now you can let go of this podcast business and just start cashing in. He's an ideationer. is what he is.

That's crazy. So, Sammy, you're burning off the characters, good hustles touring. It's a long list of dates. I'll read through them. Sydney 5 and 6th of May. Newcastle 11th, Brisbane, 12th, 13th, Perth, 19th, Adelaide 20th,

Camber 26th of May and Hobart 27th of May. You're going everywhere. Are you doing a Barry Humphreys, ironically? Yes. And retiring the characters, only to unretire the year later because you don't have anything better. I mean, that's what he did with Edna, isn't it? I mean, John Farnham's the reference I'd use in this,

this week but uh yeah well time will tell of course uh no this genuinely is five years of doing the sketches every week was so much fun but it got to the point where it was less fun because i you know the characters you know the government coach is one of my characters i got to like gate crash parliament when malcolm turnbull was uh being knifed by scott morrison i was standing at the gates of yarolumla when scott morrison was calling the election heaps of fun but it was meant to be one sketch it was one joke five years ago it went on it was fun but i just had a genuine creative sense that if i don't kill these characters off get them all on the knees and put a bull in their head I won't do new stuff.

And that's a sort of lame, sincere, artistic answer. But it's true. I want to push myself out there and see what comes next. Maybe nothing. Maybe I've peaked. Maybe I'm cancelled forever. But I thought doing a tour and calling it a goodbye tour is the best way of forcing myself to commit. While knowing that the cliche is that you just bring them back anyway.

Well, I mean, you know, if the people demand it. Because a lot of, I guess a lot of particularly during the lockdown, we all enjoyed the Hook, Turnistan, Melbourne stuff. How is it traveling? How's the city coping now that it's number one? I mean, do people still either ridiculously love or ridiculously hate Dan Andrews? Is that still a thing, people calm down? Great question. So Dan's romped at home in the election last year.

So in that sense, you know, the Murdoch press, as is becoming more and more apparent, has less power than they think because it was a huge win. They haven't even cancelled you for the horrible things you said about Barry Humphrey. That's a bit shade of yourself. I know. I'm the new Dan Andrews. But we've been doing Hook Turnusand on stage, the character who just loves being locked down so much, he just loves that he salutes the president, Dan Andrews. And it's only been in Melbourne, so it's brought the house down.

We have Dan Andrews or a version of Dan Andrews in the form of my co-star James Pender coming out on stage in his North Face jacket and locking the theatre down, and people love it. I'm about to find out, like, next week, what Sydney's first came off the rain, whether it travels. I hope it does, otherwise we have to explain the joke a bit more, but hopefully people still understand that Melbourne went through some shit. I think the North Face, you might need a Gladys reference in there, maybe. Anyone who's ever bumped into anyone from Victoria does actually know about the lockdown because it's been explained to them for hours and hours and hours.

You don't understand. You don't understand. I know you were then had enough at a lockdown, but you don't understand. You don't understand what it's like to have to talk to people who've been through it. And the North Face Jackson. Just to stay away from Melbourne. That was weird, the North Face Jacket thing like that. I don't know what the thing, was their thinking, surely he did focus groups on that.

Was it, was the garment like, like I could be locked out of the wilderness? He did have a focus group on a jacket. Of course he did. In the middle of a pandemic. Maybe it's like aspirational or something. They worked out that's the sort of bloke that most people would be able to afford the North Face brand of jacket. Yeah.

I mean, I presumably got it free as an influence are right, don't you? Isn't it just because Melbourne has fucked weather and... Oh, is that one? So he had to grow up. Actually, like him doing press conferences outside in winter was just really, really chilling. Yeah, yeah, that's what it was. It's so jarring. I work in the ABC, so I'm just, you know, not allowed to mention brands and alone wear them.

So he's just like, like, he's a complete embrace of a brand like that. I was just like, oh, full credit. Good on you, Dan. I mean, you've got to choose a brand. Well, I mean, I must say, Joe Biden with the, with the Wayfarers thing, you can't tell me he's paying for his Raybans at this point. Like, he must have a truck of that stuff. Or is it bad for a brand to have someone as old and uncool as Joe Bryden?

Um, constantly wearing your product. I mean, that's, that's tough. And it's dangerous for a brand to associate themselves to someone in case that all goes wrong. You know what I'm saying? Maybe. Like, what we should do is we should start wearing brands. Yes. And get them to pay us to stop wearing those brands.

That's a very good idea. Yeah. I was quite shocked. Tim Minchin, um, you know, I'm a big fan of. He just asked on, on Instagram, can I just get some pink Doc Martins? You really wanted Pink Doc Martins. And they rushed them to him within six hours. Oh, wow.

And I just sort of thought, That's just, that's beneath you, Tim Minchin, isn't that? I saw that, and it was such like, such a flex, such a boss move. Like, oh, six hours, like, oh, here they are, they're here. But I mean, flawed it if you got it, you know. Have you ever, I mean, I know you work for the ABC at the moment, but if you were to leave the ABC, would you start doing that sort of thing? Do you think you've got the juice at this point?

You know, my first time, like, filling in on for ABC four years ago before I started working the breakfast shift, I was just filling in. Because I had no idea, really, about the ABC's editorial policies, I wrote some poem about a thermos, it was a cold day, and I had like a thermos with me, like the coffee or something in it. I didn't even realize thermos is a brand. I thought it was a thing, but that thermos is an actual brand. So I wrote, I did like a 90-second poem about a thermos and how warm and great it was, and then Thermos sent me like a box of stuff to the office. Oh, no. And I was like, dude, what's this? The manager's like, what's going on? I said, I did a thermos

problem. It's like, basically, I started my career with cash for comments accidentally. That's fantastic. Why have I never done that in all my shifts on the ABC? I don't have Sammy Jai's prematurely, yeah, that's true. Or because you've read the training module that's 11th. Sammy, look, congrats on all the years of playground politics and all the laughs and of managing

to have an ABC program that seemed to be sustainable somehow, because it was three minutes long, no more and no less. People should go and see good hustle because this is the last chance to see these beloved characters until Sammy brings it back in 2024. Yeah, yeah, I promise you at least two years. But no, it's fun.

Heaps of characters, James Pender, who many of your listeners will know and he's fantastic on stage as well. We've got a cheeky cameo from the Prime Minister, which is awesome. And it's been really fun. It's a nice way to say goodbye. Surely you've also got Peter Dutton for editorial balance.

Peter Dutton is on stage as well. I won't explain in what capacity. Go buy some tickets, baby. Very, very good. Thank you, Sammy. Thanks for being with us. Cheers, boys. Our Gere is from Ride with part of the Iconiclast Network.

Thank you. Thank you.