The Chaser Report - Unfiltered J | Sammy J

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Dom Knight catches up with an unleashed Sammy J, fresh from his ABC Breakfast Melbourne job and on his first full tour in five years. Together they chat about how Sammy has found diving back into freelance comedy, and what it was like to be the voice of a city during lockdown. Find tickets to Sammy's show here:https://linktr.ee/sammyjcomedianWatch OPTICS on ABC iview here:https://iview.abc.net.au/show/opticsCheck out more Chaser headlines here:https://www.instagram.com/chaserwar/?hl=enGive us money:https://chaser.com.au/support/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. Dom here with none other than Mr. Sammy J, formerly of Breakfast Radio in Melbourne, now unleashed across Australia with a news show called The Kangaroo Effect. Then I can see the promotional material here. Has Sammy looking very confused in a kangaroo suit. We'll find out why in a few moments and also figure out.

if he is still haunting Kyle Sanderlans's dreams. I certainly hope he is. Sammy, hello. Hey, Dom. An Unleashed is such a diplomatic way of saying unemployed. I adore it. Yeah, it starts with the same un. You think I'm going to say unemployed, and then it's here Unleashed.

Formal employment, I think, was holding you back, sir. Well, look, now that I've had three months of not being employed, I do feel that way, actually. Not holding me back in any way. Breakfast Radio was a beautiful, unexpected journey, but it went for five years and five years of those hours. was enough for me. So call it quits and now, um, back doing what I, what I used to do? So some people have been a bit, you know, my mum's friends were the only ones who were, they were particularly

concerned. What are you going to do without your job and your salary? Because they sort of had a view that radio, that I made it, you know, and now I could just... You made it. Yeah, you gain full ongoing employment. Yeah. But, um, you know, I, uh, I have adored being able to focus on writing, well, this, this live show in particular, because there's a certain liberation in, in just writing whatever I want for my for my own sense of humor without any compromise whatsoever for better or worse I'm not saying it'll mean a bigger audience but certainly that there's a purity to it and I'm enjoying that particular little process you just reminded me that getting paid is a thing we need to do so I'm just going to take a moment for some delightful ads okay thanks to whoever

that was I never know who the ads are going to be from yeah is it something like gambling pro gambling lobby or something it shouldn't be the gambling lobby I think we've blocked those I think we also blocked ads for Sammy Jay. That's the only thing. The only two businesses we won't have. Can't trust either. None of that promo stuff. We want the unfiltered Jay on the show.

Yeah, it must have been quite a strange transition, but also not having to worry about, I guess, the editorial side of things, because there are rules about what you can say, wherever you are, kind of 24-7. And you know, particularly when you're in a job like that, when you're on live radio, you know that your smartphone, if you send a message at the wrong time and day

without thinking it through, it could be all over within second big time and as we as we well know um like i've always practiced quite self-defensive social media use and i've often said this but despite my years are doing political comedy for example um i i maintain i don't believe i've ever actually uttered up a political opinion ever like in public i stand ready to be corrected people can read what they want into sketches and things but i'm not someone to get in a line and get angry and make actual comments it's always through the prism of art as lowbrow as it may be but so in that since I felt quite protected going into radio because I sort of, I don't think anyone

cares what I think about anything. But yeah, now that I've been a few months out of it, I think it's taken me by surprise how liberated I feel. Not that I've got anything to say. I'm still not. I'm still, I'm the same person. I don't want to have this freedom. You can give whatever political opinions. If you had a political opinion at all, you'd be able to share it. Exactly. If I wasn't just a simpering little fence. But no, it's what you just said before is it's the fact that any job, obviously ABC is inclusive, means you're part of a team. best part of that. I love working a team, you know, but you also have to, you know, you're representing an organisation or a business or whatever it is. And I took that

quite seriously like I was a proper, you know, ABC nerd. I still am as an audience member now, but there is something beautiful about the fact that I can, I can have a chat like this or go about my day and there's no one looking over my shoulder, there's no one checking what I'm saying, there's no one I have to report to other than my wife to sort of explain what I've been doing all day at home. So it's... And you can do, you can do gigs such as your Melbourne Comedy Festival run, which starts on the 26th of March, all the way through to the... 6th of April, you can do gigs in the evening without having to worry about the early alarm. What a wonderful thing that must be.

Well, that's been incredible. And, like, I stubbornly kept on performing throughout my time on radio, but I could feel the quality dropping, you know, like, and I'm someone who loves attention to detail. That's sort of my thing. Like, I love crafting a song or a joke or a piece of writing. But it got to the end where, after five years of radio, I was performing on stage with lyrics stuck on my keyboard to remember my words. And I just thought, that's not why I got into this business.

I got in because I love, you know, being really specific. and honing in on little moments. So, yeah, this show, the kangaroo effect, which I'm doing, not just Melbourne, but the whole bloody country is so fun because it is 100%, you know, it's cream of J. It's concentrated J.

It's, it's, it's as pure as it could be. I feel like I'm getting back in touch with little bastard who started comedy 20 years ago and the same reasons why I got into it, which is just to have fun with really specific and fun ideas and try and find my audience through that. So yeah, it's been a pretty cool time. I remember how fully formed your sort of persona was, even in the early days.

It may not be a persona. It may actually be your inner nerdy self before you had any immediate experience. I'm not sure. And became the consummate professional you are nowadays who we heard on Melbourne Radio for so long. But, yeah, I still remember a very, very young skinny man with the juice box and dreams. And it's good to see you getting back to those days. Occasionally with Randy, the puppet, who is your Bet Noir slash sidekick for so long. I do hope that partnership will be rekindled at some point.

But I want to ask you about this show because I think I'd recall the initial events behind this playing out in real time. And I was kind of going, is this a bit or is this just someone, A, with no idea at all, or B, whose social instincts have been so scrambled by doing years and years of terrible hours that he's forgotten how humans human. Well, Don, you've sort of nailed it in that second part because so, so for listeners to explain. the concept the show is called the kangaroo effect because on the 6th of april last year 24 my mate rod was having his 40th birthday party and and dom you know this as to some people because i posted all this the next day because there was no artifice this was real it happened in real time uh the invitation said rod's turning 40 6 o'clock here's a dress up dress up and without even questioning it like i didn't i don't there was no thought stop i was just

oh it's a dress up party as i was dress up you know turning 40 everyone's a bit dead inside we're having some fun i'd think i'd been to a dress up party recently as well where it was dress-up. Sure. So I put on a kangaroo, full-body kangaroo onesie, complete with a little Joey in the pouch that I happened to have available. And I just, again, not a...

And I parked the car, and I'm remembering now, like I walked... It was like a good, like, three-minute walk up this suburban road on the Mornington Peninsula. At any point, I might have seen another guest, but I didn't. And so I got to the door. For those who don't know, Melbourne,

it's a long way to go, too, for the event. You put serious time into getting... And presumably you can't just duck home for a change of clothes. You've committed to this outfit for the duration. Just walked in the door, let myself in through the door, walked down the corridor, looked out and saw the party happening out the back and I saw all these linen shirts and

these floral dresses and it was like the proper, as I say in the show, but it was the first moment in my life where I felt actual humiliation. Because I'm so used to being an idiot in public. That's my whole life. I don't care about being the butt of the joke. But in this moment I was like, God, I just wanted to come and have a drink at a park. I don't want, oh, God. And I just freaked and I ran to his bedroom and the rest of this tale unfolds in the show.

but in the show, I basically try and unpack all the moments in my life, butterfly effect style, hence kangaroo effect, that led to that moment. Like, why didn't I question that invitation? Why did I own a kangaroo onesie? Why was I so embarrassed in that moment? And without spoiling anything, I have, so far, the causation trail takes us back to 1858 when my ancestor arrived from Ireland due to the potato famine. So I go pretty deep in this show.

Wow, that is truly excellent. Because it's the sort of thing you see it on social media, and there are so many questions. And I'm glad that you've, if anything, taken too exhaustive an approach to answering them in the course of this show. I should mention, you know, I mentioned the Melbourne dates. You're doing Adelaide next week, 20th to the 23rd of March. You come to Sydney in Merrickville, May the 1st, Chatswood, May the 2nd. Cameron, May the 3rd, and you're busy three days for you there. Perth, May 9, Brisbane, May, 15, 16, and then randomly, bring back to Newcastle on the 18th of July.

That's right, you know, these cities decide to have comedy festivals, and we are but the humble servants. We must spring to action. Indeed. So that's when you can go and see it and find out what on earth was going on. But I'm going to, it seemed to me as though the fault was all yours, right? It said dress up and you just went, yeah, it's dressing up, you know, it's playing dress-ups, right? Yeah, it's a costume party. Wacky dress-ups.

But I now think, on reflection, that the fault is with the invite. That is an ambiguous invite to anyone who has young children and has a dress-up box. has, I'm actually now on your side. I wasn't before. And you haven't even seen the show, because the audience might... Idiot in this? I split the audience at the start. I say, you know, random applause, who would have interpreted this way? And it's always 50-50, but I have suspects in the show. I have evidence. Rod's wife is the one who wrote the invitation,

so she comes in for a hardcore grilling. Somebody controversially in the audience in Darwin suggested it was the absence of a hyphen that made all the difference, because if it had said dress up with a hyphen, that implies costumes, but without it implies dress nicely. my argument is that if the party was dressed nicely which it was they should have written dressed nicely because that's two good words to do a good job of explaining what you want dress up you're right dom it is ambiguous and i'm getting angry even just talking about it now i'm not even doing the show but it's uh it's i've got the security footage that's what i posted and it's in the

show i've got the security footage of me walking which is the three saddest seconds of my life where i'm just and you can tell it's not fake because i'm not i'm not performing i just have this tiny little grin on my face as i walk in i'm holding this bottle of wine and i'm walking into his door and I just look like it's like I'm saying step aside you suburban hacks there's a professional in town like I've got a good suit I'm going to wipe the floor with you and I have no idea what's about to happen in the whole dress-up box that's great yeah so it's um but man it's just been it's so it's so it's so horrifically sentimental but I sort of had that experience of finishing up on radio where I was talking to however many

thousand people every morning yeah but in the end what I really want is to be talking to you know one or two or three hundred people in a room and and that's the that's the that's the audience I now want without any apologies, without any outside sort of interference. It's just me and humans again in a room having some fun, and that's been genuinely refreshing. And getting the audience reacting in real time, talking to in real time, and sort of taking them on this journey. And I guess as well, in a career like radio, you produce so much abundance.

You're doing hours of content today. A lot of it's very straight news. I've just tuned in and heard you talking about state politics and various, you know, parliamentary inquiries into serious things. And you did it with great aplomb and intelligence, but the ability to actually craft these sorts of shows, if people don't know the hour-long comedy format, it's so different from a regular stand-up gig at a pub or something.

You're actually telling a story. And it must be so much fun to just take the time to work out the nuances of the entire hour in a way that just isn't possible. Either your very short comedy sketches you were doing on TV or the straight radio you were doing. Yeah, completely. And I sort of view it just as effectively.

Every job is a job and every audience is its own audience. And so TV, that's one thing. Exactly, that's a brief and let's make something fun about the news in five minutes. Radio is, as you well know, like it's hosting a party. Like that's the whole, it's not about the specific words you're using, it's the vibe. And I babble away for two and a half hours every day, you know, and it's about the sum total of the vibe you're setting. And that's a beautiful separate skill and job.

But as you just said, yeah, this show, like I've spent half an hour slaving over one sentence, Like even just the other day coming back from Darwin, there's one line that wasn't working. I was like, is it a problem with the verb or is it the adjective or is it where it's placed? And it's sort of like in my head, it's playing the role of a conductor and the audience of my instruments. And I want to make them feel something at this moment. I need them to remember this bit of information for this call back later. And it's a massive little jigsaw puzzle. Totally different world to the broadcasting world.

But yeah, it's a whole different, it's a different joy in a different way. More with Sammy J. in just a moment. The Chaser Report. News more often. Sammy, I have to fact-check one thing. I'm at Sammy-J.com, the hub for all things J. It says up the top,

there's a wonderful image of you looking befuddled in a kangaroo suit next to all the dates I've just been reading out. It says Sammy J in very large letters, the kangaroo effect, 2025 Australian tour. At the top of the post, I don't want to cast aspersions,

but it says an endlessly creative talent, which I'd agree with, five stars and not wanting to suck up. I've seen some. five star shows of yours. But that source is not given. There's no little text saying who called you an endlessly creative talent and gave you five stars. There's a two-part answer to this question and it's well picked up. I'll have words to my graphic designer about this afterwards because that was Time Out London. Now, the fact that... Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, it's good. I mean,

it was like 2007 so I'm sure I've been writing that quote pretty hard for a while. But that could quite untappable really. That quote originally, in fact, only three or four weeks ago, Dom, was actually what a deluded flog, Kyle Santelands, but... Oh, that's true. I love to, when it was that. I'm now looking at the link on the Comedy Festival website where you do, you do quote, timeout. Oh, good, there you go.

It has you as this country's finest and most astute satirist, five stars, the age. Deluded flog, though, I think, I mean, that's a great review. If diluted flog's troubling, but when you see it's Kyle Sanderland speaking, that's better than five stars. Well, look, I thought so, and it was a...

We had some fun. But, you know, the fun does stop when someone gets a brain aneurysm, doesn't it? That's what I decided. So I removed his name from my poster, and I wish him all the best in his health and recovery. I'm fascinated to someday after he's all better. I'm assuming he makes a full and wonderful recovery. That's another hour show, I think, the Jay Sanderland's tale for another day. Well, I did write, there was a five-minute song, which I did in this show at the first trial,

three days before his news came out, and the audience really enjoyed it. It was a good song, very, very, included audio of him ripping into me on his radio show. But as I say, that's, you know, I'm happy to part that there. And I've got bigger stories to tell now. Indeed, indeed. So, well, I'm sure you'll get back to that in due course. But Sammy, just reflecting on, I don't know, the five years that you've had with Melbourne, you were there not as the voice of a satire or a comedy,

but I guess as the voice of a city, really, without one in other state. That's what Breakfast Radio is. And you were there during the worst years, Melbourne has had. had in living memory trying to make sense of it all every morning with no sleep how the hell did you get through it yeah it's it's a weird one man like the first part of the answer is just like i was living it like everyone else like i started in january 2020 i'm like oh he's a radio job i'm gonna you know get invited to free stuff and i get to you know be on the radio that's cool and then i had six weeks or so of normal radio life and then it all changed so i was just like everyone else

six weeks yeah it was like i remember it was mid-fed when things started turning weird so it was a very my goodness um so like my first thing was i feeling feeling incredibly grateful because I cancelled my comedy festival tour like everyone else and so I was canceling work as well but I had this staple job going on on top of the TV sketches I was doing so I felt like the luckiest comic in the country you know like thanks to ABC who were employing me

so in that sense I sort of took it really seriously as far as just okay I'm going to give my everything to this job and take it treated seriously but I had callers in tears you know like not knowing everyone's freaking out about the borders and the lockdowns it was yeah but I was able to leave the house like a little permit so I sort of felt very fortunate honestly

oh you had the special essential You're an essential worker Sammy Jay. I never had the experience of being locked down, is the truth. Because for the entire two years in Melbourne, I got to go to work. And I remained very grateful for that. And I tried to treat it seriously because it was a, my job really oscillated between a serious broadcaster and bringing people information. And then along the way, pretty rapidly we realized, well, there's a whole day of that. So breakfast can still be a bit of fun.

And I think one of my happiest moments, I created Brecky Fest, which was a daily little festival. And we, for about two months, would cross to a different artist every day in their home. This was back in, like, the national lockdown. the start of it all. Yeah, yeah. So I had people like Marina Price singing in their shower and, you know, Josh Pike playing in his bedroom, like all these people just singing down the phones. It was a really human experience because everyone was going through the same thing.

Thank you for making today different from the other days this week. There's a, like, you know what? They must have been so grateful. Because I'm able to leave the house again now and not feel tired all the time. Like I'm meeting more of my listeners than I ever had before because I'm sort of out there. Oh, nice. And people actually, the COVID years, both the TV work and the radio, people really still want to bring that up with me, which is really lovely.

It's incredible to think, you know, that you're, were able to just give people a laugh or whatever, you know, back then during a hard time. So, yeah, it's a special and weird time. And I feel like it's something I'll still be, like all of us, processing for like some decades to come. And I did also love, I must say, because it wasn't necessarily easy to do COVID comedy. We started doing daily podcasts during that period. And they, many of those early episodes just descended into misery. And we were quite happy to just get as dark and as depressed.

I can't bear the thought of listening back to them. So I just remember sitting in the same place every day, essentially having the same. in conversation with Charles about how awful everything was and we'd try and do Gallo's humour and then it was too gallowsy and then we just didn't edit it but I remember with great fondness your Hook Turnistan days that was in terms of actually making humour out of it

but particularly living in a state that had some pretty strict rules at the time but also being very Melbourne about it it was a level of self-reflexivity that those of us outside Melbourne don't always expect from Melbourne but you know what brilliant I sort of saw that character and I think we end up calling him Soi Guevara. You know, he was just a proud...

He was so proud of President Dan Andrews for treating everyone, you know, basically he was a bit of a massacist. Like, he loved being hurt. He loved being locked down this guy. But it was a bit of a Swiss Army knife of a character because people genuinely started... They could impose whatever their political belief was onto him. So I had people going, oh, you're finally saying it.

Yeah, he's a dictator, you're right, you know. And other people... Oh, dictator, Dan. Yeah, people saw... And other people are going, oh, this is great. You're ripping... You're making fun of people who hate Dan. man or oh you're just making a lot of the situation there's no point there or whatever you know it was probably more on the latter like it was just finding something stupid but people were really um it became a very much a mirror for whatever people wanted to believe which is i think why they did so well those sketches that's great um i've just realized i just was googling hook turners uh while we're speaking and there are t-shirts still available i'm going to get one oh man i see a couple every time i do the show there's a couple out in the crowd so i give it a bit of hooky hooky hooky and uh true believers got to respond well it's so nice having you back uh

amongst the kind of full touring comedians doing what, you know, I won't say you do best because I think you did all the things well, but I guess getting back to the reason why the nation first fell in love with the J machine. After this finishes up, what's the second year? What's the second half of the year like? Have you got plans? That's no plans at all, honestly. And I mean, just on the thank you for your support, always, Dom.

You've always been, you know, going back, as you say, to those early juice box days. So I really appreciate that. And I feel like all I'm trying to do is create space now to see what comes because I feel like I ran out of energy to even have new ideas. So I'm doing this tour and then that'll hopefully buy me at least a couple of months of brainstorming space.

And who knows, I'll try and write my musical or I'll be desperate to get back on radio. I don't know what the second year will bring. But so long as you'll still have me, then at least I know I've got to get some of it. Of course. And I mean,

we don't have everyone. And like all comedians, we're genuinely jealous of people who are good. So it's always tinged with a hint of resentment at how well you, particularly the political satire. that you do. And I think that's the most flattering thing from anyone else in comedy is just um, yeah, but then you have to. Grudging admiration. You have to, you have to, you have our

begrudging admiration. That is delightful, but you also have to accept that, you know, you created this beast as well because, you know, like that's what I love about influences in Australia. We're a small enough world that people, you know, I grew up watching Landwin Woodley and now Frank and, you know, Frank's a good friend of mine and, you know, the Chaser was hugely influential for me in those early years. And so I feel like it's a self-feeding beast where even if you hate someone, you have to love them because they're part of you as well, you know what I And on that note, I've just checked the Instagram. And it seems as though Kyle Sandlands is a still making radio.

Certainly there's that new content today. Wow, okay. So let's hope he's doing right. Should get that quote back off the bench then, shouldn't it? Quite possibly. Sammy, lovely to have you with us. I know you've got school pick up. I do too.

It's such as a lot of middle-aged comedians. Yep, here we are. To yammer on all day. But we will see you on stage very soon and all the best with it. Thanks, man. Chat soon. Is there a dress code for your show? Yeah.

I was going to say free tickets for anyone who dresses up in a onesie, but no, just a shout out from the same. stage if you dress up in a onesie still go buy a ticket okay i'm unemployed we're part of the ocona class network see you next time