The Chaser Report - The Australian Hamilton Musical

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

John takes a deep dive into the musical poetry taking the world by storm, fighting wokeness with some good old hip rap, daddy-oh. Meanwhile Aleksa is reminiscent of another ex-leader of a country, and it's the one you least expect. 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. It is Wednesday the 9th of March 22. Dom Knight here with John Delmenico. Hello, John. Hello. And Alex Avulovic. Hi.

Hi. Gabby and Charles last seen somewhere in the vicinity of Adelaide. Who knows if they're even alive, really, given the reputation of that city? I think our working hypothesis is that you're stuck with us from now on. I think we're getting them back from Adelaide. I don't think Gabby's ever going to be not doing cellar shows from this point. Oh, my God, yeah. Well, it's true.

Look, after we all came out of her show, we saw the first night of her ever doing a solo show. We all sat there and watched her, and the eye-warming mood in the room afterwards is, well, she's not going to be working with us for much than she was given her general excellence. So go and see her live and you can say that, you know, you listen to her podcast before she was famous. I think we can keep her on the podcast,

as long as we can somehow make the claim that we've got a sold-out podcast. So we have a bunch of listeners and then we pull the podcast from the streaming platforms. We say, sorry, all the listens have been done, right? Yeah. And then if we have Gabby on the podcast, then the podcast will actually become popular.

Yeah, that too. And we can then use that to convince her that the podcast is popular. That's great. Self-fulfilling prophecy. That's perfect. Brilliant thoughts. Now, look, speaking of Gabby,

a very fine musical comedian we've got someone on the show John look not so great at the musical comedy business reporter Ticky Fullerton is going to wrap on this episode is that really true is that sentence that I just said John is that actually a true thing that really happened in the world

yeah the Australian has taken inspiration from everyone's favourite musical about a slave owner Hamilton and they've gotten ready to talk about what people who should do with employees sounds very well judged And, Alexa, you've taken a look at the State of the Union. Yeah, yeah, a bit of a depressing watch.

It brings up some very, very uncomfortable thoughts that you'll have to share soon. So really, the reasons for keeping listening to this episode are just several. They're shit-wrapping. What else of an incentive do you need? That all starts after we check in with Rebecca Dana-Muno in the Chaser Newsroom. A naive man scared senseless by the looming threat of World War. and a deadly pandemic has jinxed the entire planet today by stupidly claiming that things can't get any worse. The local idiot remains blissfully unaware that the current days of

pandemic and war will soon be looked back upon fondly when the imminent zombie apocalypse takes hold in the next fortnight. There were reports of smoke and flames billowing from the Sydney Harbour Bridge yesterday morning in what witnesses are describing as a pretty standard day in 2022. Upon the three-car pile-up causing a vehicle to catch fire on the iconic bridge, the government cheered thankfully that finally something had caught on fire that wasn't directly a result of climate change. Finally, a once-in-a-lifetime event has occurred today as a media journalist has labelled something a once-in-a-lifetime event that actually was an incident that would happen every 70 to 80 years. Both statisticians and exaggerators alike,

have been astounded by the instance, saying that the odds of this happening again in our lifetime was literally one in a million. Those are the latest headlines from The Chaser Report. I'm the one in a million, Rebecca de Junamuno. You know, John and Alexa, I'm so devastated that Hamilton has finished in Sydney now. It's moved to Melbourne.

I just, I barely got, I saw it like one time. I wanted to see it like a lot of times. I really miss Hamilton. Where do I get my fix now That it's left our city Well Dom luckily The musical geniuses Over at the Australian's editorial team

For the business reporting Has come through with a Hamilton song Oh that sounds promising Wow Yeah Their business editor Ticky Fullerton Has released a hot new track Hey you

You stuck at home Take a good look in the mirror It's time to wake up and deliver You're going to throw away your shot You're going to throw away your shot if you're going to sit at home and rot. Yeah, so that's the Hamilton rap. Wow, I've met Tickey once upon a time.

I think I might have interviewed it. I had no idea. She had that kind of ability to just drop rhymes. Yeah, she can really flow. I also want to clarify for our audience because those sound effects are ones that we use. I have specifically told Loughlin not to add any sound effects to these. So the whoosh and the dramatic d-dum in the song.

What? Well, wait, so look, I've watched Hamilton once. It was a long time ago. they usually have music accompanying this. Yeah, they usually have music and they usually like have flow. Yeah, and there's rhymes too. That's the thing that maybe Tiki's not across that aspect of rap that rhythms and beats and rhymes and also a point is often part of hip-hop song.

The point is obviously that the biggest issue right now in Australia is that the people in white-collar jobs are working from home. Like, I work from home, maybe a bit of a mixture of working from home and working at work. Luckily, there is more to the intro. It's because emotional well-being is weaponised. CEO gets a doctor's note. Hey, Daddy-O, it's too much stress to work in the office. Yeah, so that's still part of the first minute of the song, which is still setting up the...

It's still not rhyming, ticky. Yeah, it's not rhyming, but she said Daddy-O. Oh, yeah. The classic rap line that every young person knows is... Yeah, at their milk bar in the 1950s, that's right. Yeah, at that point, because this is about 50 seconds into the song, I realized I made a terrible mistake when I said, I'd review this song. And this is also the point where I realized that the Australian website,

for some reason, does not give you the ability to rewind or fast forward any of their videos. So you were going from the start multiple times. Yeah, well, luckily the song is only seven minutes long. Seven minutes of that. That's longer than the actual song in the Hamilton musical. My Shot, which is a brilliant song, incident that has a whole narrative in a through line. Yeah, it took me a while to actually figure out what song they're trying to do

because my first assumption was My Shot when I realized it's nowhere even close to the way the song's done in the songs. I thought maybe they're trying to do one of the longer ones. So the only thing it has in common with the brilliant Lin-Manuel Miranda song, My Shot, is the notion of throwing away your shot. Yeah, but they didn't even say throwing away your shot. They said, like, missing your shot or something. So they didn't even quite get the point.

Oh, God. What else happens in the song? I'm still confused. Obviously, it's the Australian and News Corp. So what needs to come up in every single thing they make? The culture wars. Oh, no. So they make the point that it's anti-feminist to work from home

because women, the genuine reason that they give is that women will go get their hair done. Meanwhile, men are probably more likely to go to the office because they're smarter and we'll do it. What do you? Can we hear that? No, they make that point over about. Like, so obviously, despite the amazing lyricism we've heard so far, none of the points they make us distinct and none of them, like that, like the point about feminism, I think it takes a,

like they randomly, like, sporadically put it throughout the song. Then the other point that they make before, um, before we get to the next clip is that the other issue, of course, their business are facing, uh, CEOs kneeling for Black Lives Matter. What? Yeah, they fully, like, so she doesn't directly say Black Lives Matter, but she talks about woke CEOs, Neil, um, taking one knee to show how they are,

which is clearly a reference at Black Lives Matter. But then she pulls it all together with this amazing bar. And if that's too blunt for 2022, then woking from home is the new true blue. Woking from home is the new true blue. I mean, tiki, tiki boom, to be honest. So the entire point of this exercise is to convince people to get back to the office. This is the...

Yeah. So... The major of all the issues in the world right now. now with a war and a pandemic, flooding going on. Their major concern is that not enough people are working from the office. I mean, if I work with Tickey Fullerton, this video would be enough to convince me to basically work from home for the rest of the other. Well, the good thing about this.

Like the risk of coming into the office at Holt Street and seeing that, I think you could never go in again. Well, Dom, you say going into the office, some people have pointed out that the actual music video is her sitting in front of a green screen with an office, like they've gotten from a stock website behind her instead of just filming it at an office. So there's no actual evidence that she was even in the office. She could have been working from home.

But of course, there is also some good journalistic integrity here. I have sped up this clip because it takes about a full minute in the actual song where she talks about how there's a whole extra conspiracy behind why people are working from home and who's really to blame for it. But who calls out the vested interests with other motivation to build this hybrid world. Here's a clue. You see, it makes not one but two workplaces for every working boy and girl. New computer, desk and chair. You need help from everywhere. You need the tech giants and the telcos. You worry about cyber. You should connect

to their fiber. Be a subscriber. You want daytime, water, gas, electricity. How happy the utilities. They service two offices at work and home. That's right. Working from home. I take it back. I don't want any rhymes. Without the rhymes were better. Hey, so that's how the entire song goes, but about 1.5 times slower. So I put that to 1.5 speed. So imagine that, but much slower. And she talks about how obviously working from home to avoid COVID

is just a conspiracy by the utility companies to squeeze more money out of everyone. Obviously, they have vested interests, and NewsCorp would never, ever do something kind of vested interest. Lockdown did weird things to human beings, people staying in their gym jams, eating lots of tits. Tim dams, people making lots of filos, stacking on the kilos, people getting fatter, binging on Emily and Paris in Succession.

Yeah, idiots. Of course, she doesn't like Succession, the thing that makes fun of Rupert Murdoch. Idiot. Yeah, who would, there's no vested interests in any of this song at all, like there is with people avoiding COVID. Wait, was Succession even, like, was that part of a separate line or is that how she ended it? That is how she ended that section, but Alexa is right in terms of, of actual, like, beat structure.

It doesn't fit. Like, it was clearly written to end on Emily and Paris, based on the beat structure of the rest of the part that she's doing. And then they snuck in and succession. Amazing. What was she saying we're making filo? Is she talking about the pastry? I think so.

No one was making filo pastry. Absolutely. That was not a locked-out activity. That's the early part. I feel really bad, John, that we've required you to spend more time analyzing this song than they clearly put into making it. Yeah, that was also the only part where they actually had any sort of like rhyming structure or beat structure. The rest is essentially like a really bad spoken word rant about pretty much anything that News Corp would come up with to fill out a rant instead of just not doing it.

I mean, that said, I do welcome NewsCorp moving into performance poetry. Yeah. I mean, I would love to see, you know, Piers Morgan dropping some beats. you know, Andrew Bolt just trying to smash some rhymes. My fear, though, is that I think News Corp, if you let like Andrew Bolt or Pierce Morgan do some rapping,

they're going to get really excited to start trying to sneak in as much like racial slurs as they can. Oh, yeah, this is their ticket to use the N-word. Yeah, that's... Finally. Yeah, yeah. Originally, my thought was that maybe it was going to be, like, because they're launching the Australian youth soon,

what they're calling the Oz, which is they put their social media person as the editor of a newspaper and it's going to be aimed at Gen Z. That will last for no more than one month. You heard it here first. They never do. Yeah, and that announcement also came with talking about how the editor has gone

success on TikTok, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And that's how they're going to get the young people in. But, yeah, now I'm concerned they're just going to be really excited to drop the N-word much. That's horrible. I mean, Tiki Fullerton used to present late-line business at the ABC. Like, she used to be a very respected... What do they do to you at News Corp?

Maybe she just really thought that she had flow. Oh, this was all entirely her choice. Yeah, well, I'll play the ending now because there is also obviously a big call-to-action and wrap up at the end of the song like all good rap songs have. Do you really think you earn your wage? I say WTF to WF.

Earth to Chief Executives, shout it from the rooftop. Come back to work white collar, the masks are off. You want to rise up, it's time to take your shot. Hang on, is that a vaccine thing? It's like maybe, I think again, they're just trying to force, like, they're just trying to force Hamilton stuff into it randomly. Rise up, yeah. But again, I want to reiterate to the audience.

Those sound effects were not me. They put in a sound effect to clearly end the song and then had more songs. I mean, there's a cautionary tale in this for me, which is that I was on Twitter. and I saw this drop and I clicked on it for about 10 seconds and then it tried to take me to the Australian website and I couldn't watch any more of it

because I'm not a subscriber. I've never been happier not to subscribe to the Australian so the lesson in this is never subscribed to the Australian or you've got to watch things like this. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser Report should legally be considered medical advice.

The Chaser Report. Okay, so last week we had a bit of a depressing comment conversation. War started in Ukraine and suddenly we're all talking about how much we missed Tony Abbott. Just about how he threatened to shirt front Putin. It was kind of this idea that we needed that energy this time. But it's quite my kind of thing to talk about because it's like I never, ever, ever wanted to be in a position where I would say, I miss Tony Abbott. Well, he was even quoting Lenin last week.

Tony Abbott? Yeah. Oh my God, what was he saying? He had a whole rant about why awokeness is the reason that Ukraine. was invaded and then he was quoting lenin as a way to attack the work brigade saying that like while lenin said that we will give capitalism will use we'll give capitalism the line of which will hang itself he was like yeah but that's wrong and then that was his whole argument oh right right well everyone knows okay i don't miss tony of it anymore yeah um but the sad thing is it's passed on to another figure and suddenly i miss trump oh yes trump yeah it's disgusting. I don't know I'd ever say it. But I don't know, now that he's gone, you know,

the US president isn't in the news as much. It's a lot harder for us doing political satire because there aren't a lot of major fiascos to laugh at. And it could be a lot of things, right? Maybe Biden's a more professional public speaker and he doesn't have as many gaffes. Or maybe he's just less for diva or movie stars. So his team can tactfully keep him away from the cameras. Yeah, I don't see Joe Biden running a DJ set at his own. Of course. True, true. That requires quite a level of skill.

And if he did, it would just be Hall of Nights, let's face it. Oh, yeah. That's probably better than some of the songs I understand that Donald Trump likes. But I was hoping to use this State of the Union address to check in with Biden, see what's going on, see what he's talking about. So here's what I found. We should all agree. The answer is not to defund the police. It's to fund the police.

Was that fund or fun, as in have a great time? I think it's both. People with more money are more fun. So I think it's two birds of one stone. Well, did he at least, like, support the idea of fun? Because I know when he ran for presidency, he said that he wasn't going to run on defunding it, but he's also not going to run on giving it more money

and instead giving a lot more money to like social programs. Right, right. Did he at least keep that part right? That he's going to put a lot more money towards social programs? Well, I mean, he tried. He had this climb in an economic bill, I guess, but that got killed. So now it's just police funding, which is a bit sad, I mean, considering how much of that dissatisfaction was probably channeled into the Democratic Party at the time. But yeah, the US police budget is currently the fourth largest army in the world, so hopefully we can get to number three. And like, there was some depressing stuff. He didn't talk about climate change very much, which,

is another sad thing because that was a big part of his earlier mandate. It turns out our friend Biden's been issuing more oil and gas permits and faster than Trump was. Yeah. But to be fair, there's a war going on, right? In Ukraine, we've got a big war and it's focused on national security. It's a bit easier to play faster loose with your mandates. But it's hard to focus on international security because sometimes it's tricky to know where the wars are happening. Putin may circle Kiev with tanks, but he'll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people. He'll never, he'll never extinguish their love of freedom. So this is Kiev in Iran and Putin's trying to, try to win the heart.

He's right. I don't think Russia ever will win over the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I think it's true. Also, he didn't say that Putin is circling around. He said that he can circle around. Oh, yeah. So, like, he's not, maybe he's not talking about Ukraine. Maybe he just genuinely is worried that, like America, when you see a war, you're thinking, we need to invade Iraq and Iran, get their oil.

Maybe he's worried that Putin's just going down that route. Oh, yeah. I mean, to be fair to Joe Biden, I think he would be able to tell Iran and Ukraine a part on a map. So he's doing better than the last bloke. Oh, that's fair. Yeah. but the deterioration continued a bit and some parts I just I couldn't understand it all

maybe you guys can help with this one because you can't build a wall high enough to keep out a vaccine the vaccine can stop the spread of these diseases you can't build a wall high enough to keep out the vaccine being someone with a stutter

oh yeah I do think that what he was probably going to say, which is also not the best point and probably was a stupid trying to dunk on Trump, is that he can't build a wall high enough to stop COVID. Yes. And then transition to vaccines when he couldn't get the word out. Yes, yes.

But in saying that, though, it's still a really dumb metaphor. Well, I'm glad someone got to understand it here. That makes it feel a bit better. Well, a lot of it is stutter, but even when you decode what he was

trying to say, A lot of it was pretty uninspiring, wasn't it? I mean, this was his big chance to try and reset and win back the public and try and get his agenda kickstarted again. I don't think he, I mean, did he manage to do it, Alexa? No, I mean, that's the worst part. You're just watching it, and it's so depressing, but it's simultaneously a bit boring.

Like, the one thing that Trump was offering me was a depressing thing that was entertaining and easy to use for our job, right? I don't know if you remember at his State of the Union. He had those great lines. He was talking about how chairman, in quotes, chairman King Jong-un was his good friend. That was a zinger from the State of the Union. He also did the most amazing, one of the most entertaining spectacles.

He paused his address and surprised a member of the crowd, a woman, by bringing their husband back from war to see her for the first time. It's like beautiful TV magic. I am thrilled to a moment. inform you that your husband is back from deployment. He is here with us tonight, and we couldn't keep him waiting any longer. I mean, that's what you get with the reality TV president. I'd like that.

It's beautiful. It's completely pointless and arguably even slightly cruel, but definitely a good television moment. Well, Alexa, I know that you miss Trump because of the, but you miss him for the entertainment value, but you're not the only one who missed Trump during the state of the union. Because the one part that I saw of the State of the Union was when, so if anyone else know, currently in America they're preparing for their midterm elections. And the entire Republican base of advertising has been on hitting at certain economic

policies saying that they are complete failures and then they're hemorrhaging lots of money. And during Biden's speech on some of those exact policies, he showed this, he talked about the massive growth that it's seen in the last few months where two years investment have started to see return. Right. And the reason why I know that's making people sad is because during the actual feat of the speech on TV, the camera's cut to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from the Republican Party.

And he was tearing up and looked genuinely depressed, which we'll point out, would have been him at that moment realizing his entire plan for the midterm elections has just been broken on TV. Everything they've been advertising already has all. all just been proven wrong on the biggest speech of the year and he was crying about it on the camera. Wait, so if this is an acknowledgement that he's out, does that mean I'll get my wish Trump 2024? He's got no competitors now. Yeah, Mitch McConnell's going to have to, like, if he can't win based on lying out policies, the one person who can is Trump. Well, I mean,

now that it's an actual reality, I don't miss him anymore. Our gears from road microphones, we're part of the ACUS CRADA Network. And John and Alexer, do you think, It's just us three from now on. Do you think we really won't see Charles and Gabby again? I mean, I've been trying to lose Charles for, I guess, since I was about 13. Look, I think losing Gabby is sad, but it's a small price to pay for losing Charles.