The Chaser Report - Tenacious D-eported | Andrew Hansen

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Andrew Hansen joins Dom Knight to discuss the recent media frenzy about a joke made by Tenacious D. But did you know that more shows have been cancelled by artists for more bizarre reasons? Andrew has put together another one of his iconic quizzes to help keep you informed. 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 Dom, without Charles. But today, ladies and gentlemen, stepping up to the microphone in freezing Melbourne, Australia is Andrew Hanson. Hello, and welcome to the Dommy and Andrew podcast. At last, we get to do it again. Excellent. Oh, yeah, I'm looking forward to a dummy, yes. I particularly look forward to your arrivals,

but it seems particularly good today, Andrew, given that, A, you tend to do research, which is not generally a feature with this podcast, but B, today it's all about musical comedy in which you are the acknowledged and indeed only specialist within the chase of the universe. The only person who does musical comedy in the world now because the rest of them have all cancelled their gigs.

They have. They've all had to pull out. Well, at least one, at least one. Tenacious D have cancelled themselves, really. after, you know, various outcries and what and odds. Do we need to go into the nuts and bolts of Tenacious D canceling? I don't think we'd do. No, go on.

If you haven't heard the story, I'm surprised. Go and just look at a news website rather than us. But I was reminded, Andrew, that Tenacious D, it's actually, it means tenacious defense. It's like a basketball term. They talk about D as defense in basketball. I didn't know that, didn't know. Jack Black did not play tenacious defense, did he? No.

It was a pretty quick. fold. It was a pretty quick fold, but I guess the kinds of people that they've upset, you'd be a bit worried, wouldn't you? I mean, you'd be a little bit scared. You know, it's a bit different from a lot of controversies where, you know, I mean, if you upset, I don't know, some minority group or whatever. But they, they're powerless minority group. Yeah, they can't come after you, can they in the same way? No, no. Whereas, you know, if you upset Marga folks, you know, you could be in a pretty hairy situation. You could. Let's talk about that various situation in just a moment.

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 FIS.ca. Now, Andrew, before we get into your research and all of the, I guess, the thoughts about what's happened,

can I just check have you done anything to get us cancer? Or are you cancelled at the moment? What's your cancellation status? Well, I'm not really popular enough at the moment to be cancelled, Dommy. I mean, you have to have something going to be cancelled, don't you? Whereas I don't, I'm working on pipeline projects that nobody's heard of yet. So fortunately, none of those have been cancelled. Very good.

See, now I would talk to the ABC News Daily podcast yesterday about all of this. And it might be in your feeds today. I'm not sure when they're publishing it. And I'm terribly worried that even though I was very careful, Certainly not to be funny, just to be very sort of analytical and whatever. I'm worried I've said something, which is going to get me cancelled. So by the time this comes out, I might have to have been deleted from the podcast. It might just be you talking alone.

It's a safe assumption, Tommy, that you have said something. Because saying anything at all is too much. And you might have to, you know, say that you appearing on the podcast is on hold indefinitely, and that all future creative projects involving me, just in dispute. He didn't cancel the band. He just, and it did remind me of our own predicament, Sandra, in the past. Just on hold, indefinitely. You put them on hold.

It's rather like when you get put on hold, isn't it? As a customer, you know, when you're on the phone, really Tenacious D have just put us on hold. They have listening to the hold music. They haven't hung up. They haven't hung up the phone. But they aren't performing their lovely songs into the phone either. It's The Girl from Epinema, unfortunately, unfortunately, of the girl from Epinema. But unfortunately, now I won't.

It's not until it blows over. It'll inevitably blow over, you would think, wouldn't it? In a few years, these things kind of... You would think so, and this is the thing that's sort of sad about this in a way, is that, I mean, the tenacious D fans, I saw them, I was looking at the comments on the frontier touring page, the other people that brought them out to perform their spicy meatball tour. And there was just such disappointment on behalf of the fans saying,

we don't care about the joke, it's not fair. You know, people from New Zealand said, we don't care over in New Zealand. We don't have that Senator Babbitt who's complained about this, the United Australia Party senator who got this ball rolling, his meatball rolling. And there's just an enormous disappointment. But Jack Black these days, we're gamers, Andrew, he's Bowser.

Bowser can't afford to cancel his career over Tenacious D. I mean, this is where I find it a bit of a, you know, a little bit hypocritical, perhaps, because I feel that some of the comments that Bowser has made at the expense of Mario in that first Mario movie were really mean and nasty and probably far worse than what was said in that Tenacious D concert

They were probably quite violent And he's not, didn't he throw fireballs at Mario repeatedly And didn't he try and destroy, you know, the mushroom kingdom? Oh no, he's a violent, nasty fellow in that movie He was very mean to Princess Pete. He captured, he acted, in fact, kidnapped a princess. And tried to marry her, tried to force her to the altar.

So, in fact, I think Jack Black is the one who should be cancelled because of Bowser. Well, that narrative has been completely missing. I'm glad we were able to bring it to the table. Absolutely outrageous. So I'm glad we've exposed that level of Bowser hypocrisy. About time.

So this is a double standard. It's very hard, isn't it, to be consistent. And this is the thing Senator Babette had difficulties with as well, is he denounced anyone calling for violence and people went back to his own social media and saw a few comments, which weren't entirely consistent, shall we say, with that standard.

This doesn't surprise me at all with the babbling babbitt. But, you know, I think he's, hasn't he been given too much credit, though? I mean, I feel like people are now saying, ah, it was all because of some obscure senator, they've had to cancel their whole career. But I don't know. I mean, just because some senator went off his tree, I'm not sure. I feel it was bigger than that, you know, there were videos of the concert circulating online. It was going to be a big thing, whether or not some obscure.

Australian senator, you know. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. It was entirely to do. I mean, I didn't see the reaction from the Fox News of this well, but I imagine many in America got quite stuck in to this. It's the free speech people who usually most object to free speech when it doesn't agree with them, I suppose.

And, you know, I'm sure they didn't agree with this particular piece of free speech. But there you go. And Andrew, you know that I've got a long history on this of not believing in free speech for anybody. I think everyone should shut up. That would be preferable, wouldn't it? It's probably you and I, too. In fact, should we get into the quiz?

Let's get into the quiz. I've brought one along. I've brought one along in honour of the cancelled Tenacious D tour. I thought we'd have a quick dive into the history of cancelled shows. Oh, yes. So, here you go, Dommy. I'll run a quiz past you and this quiz is called... The History of Canceled Shows.

What a snappy title, beautifully delivered to. I haven't had much of a think about it. I've just dug around to see. Well, who else has cancelled shows? And I find out, you know, why. Like, what are the reasons behind it? Let's start with Lady Gaga. Now, she cancelled the concert in Brazil, Domi.

I don't know if you were across this, but for what reason? In Brazil? Goodness me. I mean, people were quite against the former president there. There was Bolsonaro, I think his name was. There's a lot of talk about his political record and so on. But did she have a sore throat or something more boring than a political statement? Somewhere in between the two, actually.

And you had no chance of... I don't even know why I asked you this because if you didn't already know, you couldn't have guessed. You're probably hoping for a funny answer, which I was unable. No, no, no, just a genuine attempt would be great. And it's a very unfair first question. But Lady Gaga apparently has a condition called fibromyalgia.

Oh, dear. So you didn't guess that. It's a condition that causes chronic pain. Lady Gaga said that she wanted to be, quote, strong and perform for you all for the next 60 years or more. Goodness. I don't know if she meant in one gig, because that would be a big replacement show.

It would be, wouldn't it? It's impressive, though, isn't it? I don't know if the fans would have particularly bought the message. I mean, many of the Tenacious D fans were saying, you know, I booked a hotel, I booked flights to come and see the band. The notion that, you know, this is in the interest of 50 years down the track, seeing another gig. Not that I think Tenacious D will last that long.

But, yeah, Lady Gaga, I don't think you'd be, you know, if you're a little girl wanting to hear telephone. Yeah. And you're going, well, thank goodness I can catch the gig in 55 years time now that she's taking the break. Well, yeah, just because she took one show off and that'll allow her to perform for another 60 years. Have you ever cancelled a gig, Andrew, in your musical career? No, I don't think I have cancelled away, except for COVID. I mean, you know, like Senator Ralph Bavitt is now COVID.

He's trying to cancel gigs left, right and centre. He's the new pandemic. Deporting people. Well, he wants them deported, yeah. Imagine deporting someone because you don't like their joke. 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. The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. move on to Adele, shall we? Now, Adele, Dommy, she cancelled not one but two gigs at Wembley at Wembley. Yeah, yeah, like big, you know. Really? That's a reasonable size venue, okay?

Setting down millions of dollars. I'd say so, yes. Hmm. Why did she do that? I would imagine. Think about your, sorry, oh yeah, no, go ahead. I was going to give you a hint, but I won't. Thinking of Adele's music, you know, which I admire in some respects. But I imagine she was, you know, getting through, going around London, getting ready on the day or something. And she heard one of her songs. And she just went, oh my God, that is so fucking miserable. I can't.

I just, I don't want to go and whinge about my ex. I'm not rolling in the deep. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing any bit. She was just sick of Adele. And I think many of us who've listened to the radio in recent times can relate to that. So, Domney, you've opted for. Adele cancelled the gig because she was sick of her own songs.

Well, I mean, I don't mean forever. I just mean on that day. I mean, imagine if you're, of your music was that miserable, I mean, I often wondered, does Taylor Swift wake up on a day and go, I don't really want to do a three-hour show about every single ex-boyfriend I ever had one after the other? Well, she could have been doing a great service, really, to the many fans who'd bought those tickets at Wembley. I mean, they were probably equally relieved, I guess. They would be much less miserable that if they'd gone and heard Adele and sobbed with her in the stands.

No, you're right. They could have been like, you know, they could have hired maybe a party band instead to do Wembley Arena. could have hired mental as anything. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, the actual reason was that Adele had just finished doing 121 gigs and lost her voice. Oh, I mean, that's a good reason to cancel it. Did she play the gigs later? I hope she did.

Well, I don't know. I haven't done enough research. She didn't make all the money back. No idea. No idea. Now, this is a new one. Oh, yes. Jennifer Lopez canceled her 2024 tour.

She did. I saw this. The reason she gave for that was to spend more time with who. Who? Well, here's the thing. If I recall, wasn't the tour off the back of her album about how much she loved Ben Affleck? And wasn't the problem that Ben Affleck didn't necessarily seem to love her back anymore, partly because she'd made their relationship incredibly public and written an album all about his love letters. So perhaps, I assume she said, spend time with my family. But I think what she's actually ended up doing is spending time without Ben Affleck. I gather there on the verge of broken up and he's in a different house. So, yeah. You're much more across the J-Lo gossip than I am. I had no idea. I didn't have a clue about anything. Did she say with my family?

Maybe she meant with her children. Yeah. Well, she said family, you know, to spend more time with her family. Mind you, I mean, you know, it has been pointed out by some people that not having Jennifer Lopez at a Jennifer Lopez gig mightn't make that much difference to the singing anyway because she has been accused of canceling her own vocals in the park.

Oh. Have you across this? I didn't realize it. No, gosh, how embarrassing. No, quite recently, the singer-and-a-together. Natasha Ramos hopped on TikTok and said that she sang at least some or possibly all of Jenny from the block, the J-Lo hit. That I feel let down by that because, sure, I can understand that Jennifer Lopez might need a little bit of help with augmentation, but that was the one where she promised she was still Jenny from the block, Andrew. Well, she's even called Jenny.

I mean, her name is Jennifer. Oh, right. So that was a different Jennifer from a different block. Okay. Well, it was. I mean, you know, now it's Natasha from the block. Okay. Natasha Ramos.

Right. From the block. Yeah, well, we need to ask more questions about which block they were talking about. It wasn't. But no, but the song, the song whose entire point was to say, I'm still the same person, even though I'm very rich and famous, if you don't sing it yourself, you don't bother to actually perform it yourself, it seems to undermine the central thesis a little bit, Andrew.

It does. Imagine if some of those, you know, really self-obsessed vain rappers who sing constantly about themselves and how great they are, imagine if it wasn't them, they got Natasha Ramos in. She's very good. She should do the podcast, really, instead of Charles. Yeah, it'd probably be a lot more coherent. Let's continuing on the theme of musical cheats, in 2015, Sam Smith cancelled his Australian tour.

Oh. Do you know why he did that? No, no, I can't say I recall that one. Jennifer Lopez, I'm all over, but I know Sam Smith, but I can't remember the reasons for the tour cancel. Well, he had a small hemorrhage on his vocal cords, he said. A small hemorrhage. Yeah, he said it was only. small.

So I feel like, you know, a big hemorrhage, sure, cancel the tour. I mean, how small are we talking? I think we need more details to judge that one. Well, I think, I look, I mean, he said small. I reckon it's, I reckon he meant tiny. It doesn't sound good. I mean, you're a vocalist. I'd imagine if you had a vocal called hemorrhage, you probably wouldn't be happy.

Yeah, but I wouldn't cancel the time. I just get on there and perform in a raspy voice. So the only way that I guess Australians could listen to stay with me was by putting on, I won't back down by Tom Petty at half speed and that was how they could get it. No hemorrhage is there. Next question is about Justin Bieber. Now he had a tour which was

ironically called purpose and halfway through he cancelled cancelled the rest of the tour. The rest of the tour? Yes he was sort of part way into it. Now there's a multiple choice one dummy. For what purpose did Bieber say he was canceling purpose?

Was it for a resting B, getting some relaxation Or C, riding bikes I want to say riding bikes Because it just seems so specific And also, I mean, he didn't really have much of a youth So I could imagine maybe you learnt to ride a bike on the tour And he's like, this is much better than being a pop star

I'm going to go and do this Riding bikes is my guess, Andrew You are correct, Dominic Knight It was not only riding bikes But it was actually all of the above Oh, okay The quote he gave was he said And this is one of the best excuses I've heard for cancelling an entire tour

and letting down all your fans. He said, quote, I'm looking forward to just resting, getting some relaxation, and we're going to ride some bikes. Unquote. Wow. I mean, you'd think that that will be important before you booked all the venues and the concert and told tickets to your fans. If you wanted to do some bike riding, maybe fit that into the schedule.

Okay, here's one for you, Dommy. Why did Rapper Kanye West cancel 21 gigs of his St. Pablo tour? Oh, I vaguely remembered that album, The Life of Pablo. I seem to recall he kept changing the cover about a hundred times. So I'm imagining he just had to do more cover designs. Or was it just, I mean, given late Kanye, was it just basically some sort of psychosis, Andrew? Well, the answer, as far as I've come up with, is no one knows.

Probably not even him I think including perhaps himself Yeah as far as I'm look I mean you can contact the Contact the show Contact the Chaser report if you happen to know I could be wrong about this Podcast at chaser.comcom

If you please Fact checks What I could find out really from my research Was nobody really could work out Why he cancelled 21 gigs He just did And he told the press they had to deal with it Adrian, thank you, as always, for your exhaustive research, very impressive.

Why, it was, yes, it was practically a PhD stuffed into that one episode of The Chaser Report. It was, I feel much smarter, having listened to that. Are you doing any musical gigs later in the year, or have you just realized that the whole art forms dead now? Look, if you want to come along on this coming Monday, I'm going to be, I'm doing a spot, or it might actually be a headline. I think it's a headline. Goodness. A local laughs at the local tap house in St. Kilda East, if you happen to be in Melbourne this this coming Monday 9 to 22nd you can come see me there with uh it's not just me there's

actually a great great bill there's a great you know slate of comedy there's always a good fun night at that that uh that comedy scene isn't it yeah well we yeah we got a comedy scene here in melbourne and i will under the new rules of shows i am planning to um devote most of the set to praising donald trump and wishing him a long and healthy life Very wise. Our gear is from Road. We're part of the Icona class network. See you next time. See you.

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 FIS.ca.