The Chaser Report - The Man with 8880 Toilet Rolls

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

This week, Charles accidentally hoards toilet paper, Dom reminisces about strange COVID fads and Craig explores the baffling history of Chaser merchandise. Plus Rebecca De Unamuno with lots of Chaser news headlines, and disdain for Charles.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. My name's Dom Knight. Craig Rucastell here and Charles Firth in a week where another lockdown began in Adelaide. And Craig, of course, your heart really is in Adelaide. You've lived there for not most of your life, but at least some of your life. And that makes you more of a local than any of us. How do you feel with the news of the six-day lockdown? Look, I feel for people in Adelaide. It's tough. I feel really relieved I moved out 40 years ago. just, you know, given this, it's really made it worthwhile. I'm glad we've got the local angle on this. Yeah.

We talked to the guy who moved out of Adelaide 40 years ago for his opinion on what. How is Adelaide feeling, right? It's really a baking headloat. I mean, half the 40 years changed Adelaide. Well, you know, some people have moved out over that time, it was my understanding. Not many have moved in.

I have been back a lot. I had a, I've actually, fixed my, I had a, as a child, I had a pathological fear of Rundle Mall. Oh. Because I dropped some lollies down a grate there and it scarred me so much so that I could never go back to the main shopping area of Adelaide. And presumably the big silver balls just reminded you if the lollies rolling down the grate. And they reminded me my giant silver balls. I, I hate this lockdown. But the reason I hate it is because we had written a whole lot of of articles taking the piece out of Adelaide for getting coronavirus and everything like that.

But now that they've locked down, we've got to sort of back off on them. You've got soft. Yeah, it's terrible that it's affected you, Charles. It's really horrible. Yeah, you're really the victim of all of this. My question, though, is how on earth does a six-day lockdown possibly work? Like, surely, it's going to be six days and then before they know it'll be 60. I don't want to have to break it to you, Adelaide, but there's no way it's going to be six days.

no no it makes sense it's just because they're just trying to catch up on their kind of chasing the people who have actually got it and once they find them and you know put them in barrels they can open up for everyone else that was literally one of the jokes that we didn't publish today which is that you know the coronavirus is still not in the top 40th top serial killers in adelaide sorry adelaide we do feel for you just apparently not very much I do feel, I particularly feel for them because I don't if this is true, but I heard on the radio today that they're closing down, and this has not happened as far as I know for any other lockdown of Australia,

but they're closing the alcohol shops, like the lick stores. What? That's true. No, I don't think that's true. No, no, no. That's quite. No, no, that wouldn't be true. You sure?

They're definitely, they're closing takeaway. They're closing takeaway shops. So you can't go out and get food, which is pretty, bad. Yeah, that's tough. But I heard the press conference and they said essential services remain open. So it's, I mean, liquor stores surely. Top of the list.

Is it bad and electricity that you need? There's two different headlines. Our bottle shops open in Adelaide. Government keeps bottoloes open. And our bottle shops open in Adelaide, bottolo's closed from Thursday as COVID restrictions here. They are both from

seven news. This is ridiculous. Well, Craig, you've got to figure out which one's half an hour behind. South Australian government is forced to backflip on the decision to close bottle shops. So that's clear. It's quite funny. You can actually time it based on the stories.

So one, the one about them are going to close bottle shops is five hours old. Right. The one about them opening them is three hours old. So it took two hours that they were to go, what the fuck? It's actually the closest Australia's ever come to revolution. Alexander Downers got on the phone

He said, no way, you're taking my charades. I noticed that not as many people protested to no exercise. It's like, no food, that's fine, no exercise, fine, no alcohol. We're going to talk more about booze and COVID, actually, in my segment. Charting the fashions of COVID, the things that we won't be able to believe we were doing earlier in the year. Charles, as has now become part of the format of the show, you've got a disaster from your life to share with us. Yep, definitely.

It's convenient how you have them on a weekly basis for the show. And Craig, I think you're looking back at some other disasters in the history of the chase-up. Yeah, indeed. I'm wearing one of them now. I'm wearing a shirt that we clearly put out at some point that says, I've hated the chaser ever since they started selling t-shirts. Which is very early in our career, so that seems accurate.

But first let's check in on the Chasing Newsroom with Rebecca Day in Amuno. The coronavirus has reportedly exhausted its options in Adelaide just hours after arriving there. COVID-19 has done Rundle Mall and the whole of central market and he's wondering what else there is to do. Just two days into its outbreak, the virus is now thinking of going to the Barrossa Valley, even though it had originally planned to stay in Adelaide. Pete Evans has unveiled a new cookbook just days after he's. He posted a neo-Nazi symbol on his Instagram account. The new book, Mind Comfort Food,

includes chapters about his new KKKeto diet, three-minute rikapes, and TEM's simple paleo dishes that Hitler would have loved. Meanwhile, Channel 10 have unveiled a new show where they drop Pete Evans in the jungle and just leave him there. Dubbed He's a Nazi, get him out of here. Ten says it expects the show to be a ratings bonanza.

That's the latest Chaser news. Check outchaser.com.com for more updates. Thanks, Beck. Hey, Beck, it's a real pity about Adelaide, isn't it? Yeah, I'm devastated. Me too. I was actually planning to go over there for Christmas and I've had to cancel. I know, I know. That's why I'm devastated. Were you going to? No, I'm just sad that you'll be around over Christmas.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chase of Report. The Chaser Report is brought to you by Crown Casino, Sydney, which is, well, it was going to open in December, but they just yanked the license. But you can now bet on when it's going to open. Oh, yeah, it's great. It's great idea. The Chaser Report, news you know you can't trust. So it's been about six hours.

As of this recording, it's been about six hours since they announced that Adelaide was going back into lockdown as of tomorrow. and already there are reports coming in from supermarkets across Adelaide that toilet paper has run out. Charles, this is your moment. We talked a few weeks ago on this podcast about how you had 8,000 rolls of toilet paper coming to Australia. It's going to be a huge question as to how you're going to get rid of them.

But now the answer is this, ship them all to Adelaide. You'll make a million dollars. Exactly. And when they arrive on the 17th of January, I'll be able to ship them. A bit of a stuff up on the whole merch thing. So you ordered, what, just normal toilet paper? Has it got anything on it? Yeah, no, no, it's novelty toilet paper.

It's got all the chaser headlines from the year written on it. It's brilliant. And Peter Dutton, I believe. And they've got to Petter Dutton's face. It's perfect for Christmas in July. Anyway, point is, that's not the disaster. That was a disaster from weeks ago. Yeah, yeah, go back in the feed to listen to that story.

But this is another toilet paper-related disaster, but this happened in Sydney, right? So we're doing this sort of sketch series for the website and for social channels in December called The War on 2020, right? It's all about how terrible 2020 is. And as part of this series, Mark Humphrey, so you might know from the 730 report and his co-writer Evan Williams, has written a very funny sketch called Dickhead 19. It's all about how everyone turned into a dickhead at the beginning of the lockdown and started hoarding everything, including toilet paper, right? Okay, so that's the premise of the sketch, right?

And so they wrote in the script, you know, a doctor comes in and he's also been hoarding toilet paper. Very funny, very funny situation. Anyway, so our runner reads the script and, goes, oh, okay, I need to go and get a whole lot of toilet paper for this sketch, right? And so he goes out and he buys 800 rolls of toilet paper, right? And as he's doing it, and so 800 rolls of toilet paper is a lot of toilet paper, right? So he keeps on coming back to the office with toilet paper and then goes off again and he goes off again and he goes, oh, okay, he's obviously doing something else, whatever.

no he's just buying toilet paper and all the while he's saying everyone is just yelling at him because he's cleaning like all the supermarkets are in here have now run out of toilet paper and they're all going you're a disgrace you're selfish things like that anyway so then he finally brings in the last roll and we go so what are you doing why have we got so much toilet paper and see look in the script it says 800 rolls of toilet paper it actually said 80 rolls of toilet paper. Oh my God. And so while partying and sort of making fun of people who are selfish and hoard toilet paper

and criticising them, you've actually done that very thing. We've actually been the digger. But the kicker is that he didn't have to get any toilet paper at all because Sam Asher, who's the production designer, the proper sky, had already bought the toilet paper. So you know, I have 880 rolls of toilet paper. We have 880 rolls of toilet paper. And not only that, but... Not only that.

You could have done it in graphics. We could have bought one roll of toilet paper, just multiply it. But every news service in the country has countless hours of 40-year from earlier in the year when it was the top story in the entire world. But you're not allowed to return toilet paper anymore. No, that's true. came in is we can't get rid of it like we've blown our props much so if you're in adelaide and you want to you want to corner the market on toilet paper email charles at chaser dot com today you're right we'll ship it over to you we're toilet paper rich that's right we might be cash poor but we're toilet paper rich

no but the but the other thing is that so we said to the the dop is shooting all the sketches like the camera person well why don't we just make this the most mega shot in the world we're just you know, like use all the toilet paper. And she turns around and says, no, no, you can't possibly get it in shot. There's no point in this. It's not even useful just for establishing wide shot or something like that. It's just pointless.

Anyway. Wow. There you go. So it's just, it is extraordinary that you've somehow managed to amass 880 rolls of toilet paper and also that how many rolls of toilet paper do you have coming in January? 8,000. I've got 8,80. Yeah, triple

8. It's not lucky after all. What I love about your disasters, too, Charles, is that somehow while being very funny to making you look like an idiot, they also cross-promote the project that you're working on. Isn't that? Well, what a coincidence.

I hadn't thought of that, Don. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. Now, Oh, Craig and Charles, speaking of the podcast to slowly turning into massive self-promotion, I've been researching a lot of the fads of this year 2020 for my book, the 2020 Dictionary, which is out now in a very small number of bookshops because you can't distribute anything at all in Australia. So I think it'll arrive everywhere by 2021.

But I thought it would be a good chance to just check in on the fads that we all embraced at the start of you. You know how everyone was bored out of their mind and just started doing these bizarre things? and I want to know how we feel about we kept going with any of them and how stupid do they seem now? So I want to start with baking. Remember how baking was just the thing that everybody did and people started talking about

the different kinds of flour you could get and there are all these articles writing them and then some people were going, no, no, you've got to go and get sourdough starter. Did any of you guys do that? And if you did, are you still doing it? So I was aware of this whole make your own sourdough thing

and people were just literally making sourdough in pots in their oven. I had a bread maker and I could still barely, barely make some bread with a bread maker. Like literally all I had to do was put the ingredients into the bread maker and I can barely do that. So no, I never got as far as sourdough. I certainly looked into sourdough starter. I can't say I actually got any, but I did a bit of, you know, research and... And thought about it. The other thing with that was that, as was pointed out, often at the time,

bread shops weren't closed. No. It was just cruel. Baker's delight was open throughout. It was more about the fact that you had time on your hand. And it's a process that takes hours and hours. And so... Yeah, I understand.

Yeah. But people on Instagram, I mean, a lot of people that I know absolutely embrace this and their Instagram feeds were full of beautifully baked things and none of them are doing it anymore. I absolutely guarantee. However, the thing that I didn't have in common with all the people who were baking is that I have a toddler. So having to mind a toddler 13 for hours a day,

I had less time than normal to do things like baking. I would have loved to have done some. So one thing I did discover about bake because we did bake some cakes early on. I do admit that. But we discovered this thing, because we ran out of eggs at one point and we were making a chocolate fudge

and we didn't have any eggs left and so I just decided well why don't we just substitute the eggs for an equivalent amount of butter because butter tastes really good and you know more butter you put into a fudge the better it is and it is true

that was the best fudge I've ever made like have you done that in your entire diet now like you you substitute eggs for butter for everything. Yeah. I'm just having a boiled butter for breakfast. I have butter and bacon on eggs, yep.

No, butter and baked. No, just butter and, there's bacon and butter. I just had bacon and butter. Yeah. On buttered bread. Now, we're having this chat via another of the trends of 2020 Zoom. So I can see that some of you have the ISO beard still going, which is quite impressive.

And I mean, everybody who could grow a beard, did earlier in the year. And I think almost everyone stayed them off, but Charles, yours is still going strong. But I had a beard for several years before that. Yeah. I mean, he saw it coming. You were very early. Well, no, I had the tip off. The world held. Bill Gates actually gave me the tip of that over five. But hang on, but your, your beard is looking kind of clipped and kept, and kept, whereas the ISO beard was just neglected, wasn't it? Mine certainly was for a few months. Yeah, no, that is true. And an actual. effect, I ended up buying one of those Phillips smart blades.

Have you got one of them? Yeah, I think I always get every single thing because I'm the hairiest map. What is it? What is it? It's really good. You don't need it. You can't grow a beard, Craig. I can't breathe.

This is why I need to be told what this is. Like, are you being paid for this advert? No, no. But so they're really good in that they're both like an electric blade in a way. But then also, it's got, it's on the single attachment, you can change the, you know how barbers always carry around 15 different things of sort of thing to do the trimming. It's just, you turn this dial and the trimmer goes up and down.

It's so much smarter to do it that way. I've got one that's sort of built in vacuum so that it sucks in all the, all the loose hairs that go all over the sink. But anyway, all right. So the beard's still going strong. That's impressive. What about House Party? Remember when House Party became the hottest app in the world?

Yes. Every single person was running that. Does anyone use that still? I still haven't used House Party. No, but it's the dumbest app in the world because you're only about seven people. That's why everyone started using, oh, no, so you wouldn't know that, Dom, because you don't have seven friends during that. Yeah.

I actually never used, I never managed to find people. Like, I logged out of House Party. No one invited me to join their party. Briefly, our friend Richard Cook, Richard Cook did it, but then it turned out it was the mistake. I pressed the wrong button. So I still haven't used it. So if anyone wants to try, I don't know what it is. But yeah, it was huge. And now no one does it anymore because you just actually see people. I think you've got to be sort of 19, don't you, to use House Bad. That's probably that too. Yeah. Now, KFC is the one that I found strangers. Do you remember

during the peak of the Melbourne lockdown, there were all these KFC related fines? And in fact, I was researching this. There were two separate incidents at Dandenong KFC restaurants. one where someone sat down to eat a meal despite takeaway only being allowed and just he absolutely refused to leave and then that hilarious one where the cops followed someone back after they got enough KFC for 20 people and they'll fine $26,000. Do you remember that one? Yes. AFC was huge during lockdown.

It is. And what was amazing about that is it's the first time there's been a fine at KFC which wasn't for the food by health authorities. elbow bumping though that still seems to be around Skomo did it with the Prime Minister of Japan just today

I have a theory about that whole Prime Minister of Japan thing because people said why is he going there and because apparently he has to do two weeks of lockdown when he gets back I reckon he just wanted an early holiday like what a genius

he goes to Japan he comes back and goes well sorry guys I've got to go he's going to be like making friggin what does he make chicken coops at the lodge yeah yeah yeah do you reckon he can do his locked out of bunnings do i can give him a special treatment or maybe he's in hawaii on the way i'm not sure where where do the like can the family be there too like has you also got away from his family as well as his job i mean oh my god yes he would be able to get ways from his family i'm going to go overseas yes i have i have some important trade deals i have to do with japan yeah for a day

Oh dear, that's worth the next two and a half weeks in my life. Now, one of the strangest things that was fashionable this year was tie-dying. And I couldn't believe it either, but there were all these articles about how tie-dying was the new fashion. Someone made a video, they got millions of views, which was tie-dying everything in my closet because I'm stuck at home. And I don't know whether you guys got into it, but tie-dying was massive. I couldn't quite believe that people were so bored that they bothered, tying up t-shirts with string and then dyeing. My assumption about that was that everyone who was alive last time died dying was in fashion, which is about 40 years ago, has now died out.

And that's why, like, it's the new generation who just never knew that it existed. It happens once every generation, I reckon. Yeah, but it's an amazing kind of thing, like a hobby. I don't know if you call it a hobbies, it's high-dashire, because, of course, It's a great way of spending an enormous amount of time and effort to ruin something you own. Yeah, like all the best sort of 2020 fads, it takes an incredible amount of time for a pretty shitty result. But my favourite fad, and this is something I again, future generations won't believe actually people did in their thousands this year. With the pillow dress.

Have you seen this? Haley Berry did it. All these celebrities did it on Instagram. And what you do is... Can you explain to me? Half the way. So you get a pillow, you put it in front of your body,

and then use a belt to tie it to you. So you're just wearing a pillow in front of you, and then you take lots of photos on Instagram. What do you put behind you? Nothing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I need it because it's just for Instagram. It's sort of sick.

So 30,000 people took photos themselves doing this during the heart of the lockdowns in about April. Oh, no, yeah, I did that. Yeah, totally. Oh, no. wait a minute, that was just my fat lockdown stomach. Yeah, exactly. I did it naturally. Wow, I mean, this is because I'm really missing a lot on Instagram.

Yeah, God. Wasting time on Instagram is probably the biggest fat of the entire lockdown. There's the most bizarre fat, I guess, of 2020, though, is starting a podcast. I mean, that's a terrible idea. Yes. Yeah, well, we've proved that. with this segment. The Chaser Report.

Less news. Less often. The Chaser Report is brought to you by Crown Casino City. Come and see our brand new roulette wheels. Can't actually pay them yet. But you can see them. They're very shiny. They're very new.

The Chaser Report. More news. Less often. So, unfortunately, we're all very old and have no memory left. But I was just thinking today because I literally had one shirt, So I'm currently wearing a shirt that was sold as a piece of Chaser merchandise. I think when we did the Chaser's Age of Terror variety our show. And I'm a mystify that anyone would have bought this.

It's literally an ugly brown shirt with yellow writing on it and says, I've hated the Chaser ever since they started selling t-shirts. And that's, can you imagine that we try to sell that to people? Well, I mean, you've got to remember, Craig, there was a time when people actually like to chase it before the entire country don't hate it's the following year. Sure, but no one's ever liked a brown t-shirt with yellow writing on it.

You know, the thing I found most amazing about this is that I just presume that Charles had designed because of the colours. And then I went, oh, no, Charles was away at that point. Well, Charles was responsible for the, um, the, the t-shirt that was orange text on a green t-shirt, which is a colour scheme that I think was designed to look good because he's a ginger, yet didn't.

But I think we sold at least like a dozen of those, didn't we? No, no, we sold hundreds of those. I think we got 200 printed. Didn't? Were you the person Charles that always ended up with, if we had a bad idea and we made it up and didn't sell it, you were the one that ended up with everything in your just like bedroom? Yeah, yeah, and I'd just end up wearing them.

I'd just wear them for years. going back before the jaces started I remember Shalza I've got a made of us to decide a t-shirt no we're not to I know it's a t-shirt

I survived Sydney bushfires 1994 and it was it was a picture of a fireman with a fire hat we had little houses on the top and it was very artsy

but unfortunately no one wanted to remember the Sydney bushfires of 1994 because they're fairly horrible. So hang on a second. Charles, you were ahead of your time here. That would have meant you were like,

what, first year union? No, no, it was the end of high school. It was before I went to uni. At the end of high school, you decided to become a t-shirt baron.

Yeah. Yeah. And that began the fat of huge numbers of unsold t-shirts. But I found these emails from the people who came around and sold merchandise at our tour. saying what a failure it had been

and saying do we want to buy all the old remanded merchandise to sell on the website which we tried to do. I remember though the one thing the best thing we did make was that we just got literally I'm trying to think of something to sign so we literally just got a block of two by four wood

and cut it into blocks and we just sold blocks of wood we literally just saw wood with the chase the logo on it and we were to sign it's an official merchandise block or something yeah official merchandise and it literally just blocks of wood and that's people paid for that and it was the most popular thing. And I guess at least in some way it's useful for people.

Now, I don't, like, presumably somebody who left with all those has built a house out of them. We had hundreds of them left over as well. So I think we built an office out of them at one point. Yeah, and I guess it's that karma that you're trying to address with the war on waste, right? Like, there's untold numbers of pop shit out there. So everyone's going, why the hell did I like those people that buy this? You could block.

But there were stubby holders at one point. there was a there was also post-Apec that there was a lanyard that we made that um i think we actually made it there was certainly plan to make them they had like a little chases worn everything logo on them and like a fake sort of apex lanyard so this is a huge amount of crap that we sold i did i did try and find the on the terrible shirts we had and i searched in the chases age of terror variety our t-shirt and it came up i was like oh wow and you link through and it's just a clickbait to get you to other really nerdy products.

Should we make some merchandise for the Jace Report podcast? You should. I presume that we would print it probably on what toilet paper, I would say? But where would we get toilet paper from, Craig? I have no idea, Charles. But I'll tell you, I've learned from my mistakes because I reckon I've got the best piece of merch.

Just literally every time I put it up on the website, It just sells out at the moment. So, you know, you can all get fucked. I've learned, which is the Scott Morrison Beach Tower. It's his greetings from Hawaii. It's got him bare lying on the beach in Hawaii. So you're saying that in actual fact, you finally, after all of those years,

you finally got a bushfire-related thing that's sold. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser Report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. The Chaser Report is brought to you by Crown Casino, Sydney. We're looking forward to helping your problem gambling habit just as soon as they'll let us open. The Chaser Report, more news, less often.

Well, look, that's about all we have time for this week. Charles, do we need to do the thing where we pretend that there's late-breaking news that's suddenly come in? Oh my God, you're right, there is. I hadn't realised. Let's go to Rebecca Danamuno in the Chaser Newsroom. Scientists have announced that the coronavirus in Adelaide poses a deadly threat to South Australians.

Experts said the pathogen could kill anyone at any time, but noted that it is still yet to make the top 40 Adelaide serial killers. Big thanks to Michael Liberale for pulling all of this together, as always, our very patient producer. Don't forget to keep up with the Chaser on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and at chaser.com. You leave us a five-star review and use the special code word I hate

chase a merchandise. Catch you next week.