The Chaser Report - WAR STORIES: Chas vs America

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

This Summer The Chaser Report presents... WAR STORIES! Chas returns again for our Summer Stunt Series to talk about his favourite place to film stunts: America. Chas takes a look at why America is both the greatest and the worst country in the world to do pranks, and one of the last times he ever wore his Osama costume. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Welcome to another summer series of The Chaser Report, looking back on some of the old television days, and Chaz is here once again. Chaz, filming in America is our subject today. It is indeed. It's a place that I'm a little bit obsessed with, and partly because of the great times I had spent talking to the Secret Service, which we're about to cover. That's in a moment.

a report less news more often was this your first trip to america to film was that your honeymoon when was your first time there it was my first trip to my my honeymoon was my first trip to america and then this was my second trip to america i remember your honeymoon because you came back and you said oh i went to all the best restaurants in new york i went to arby's i went to white castle i went to burger king you can't believe burger king charles it's so good it's very different in America. Yeah, yeah. It's very high class.

What did Justin think, like what was going through your mind? Well, it's the most patient woman. You know, Charles, you've actually missed the essential element of this story. And I don't know why I'm telling it to you, because then you'll remember it. But the essential element of the stories while I was going to all these fine restaurants. And let me emphasize, I was going to a lot of them every day. I basically was wake up in the morning, like at like 5 a.m., because I had so jet lags. I'd wake up at 5 a.m.

I'd hit the gym for two hours, just try to work. work off all I'd eaten the day before and then I'd spend the entire day walking around Manhattan going from fast food place to fast food place. I'd eat seriously like eight or nine burgers a day and the rest and the other ice creams and the chips and all the rest of it. The essential detail you've missed out is that my wife had food poisoning during that entire period and this was our honeymoon. So our honeymoon, my wife spent in bed while her husband was out eating fast food.

Is that happening? I remember the other thing you told me when you came back, which is that your favorite thing to do, on a romantic trip with your new wife to America, was to walk at high speed through pedestrians very aggressively. Because you'd never met a place that met your level of pedestrian aggression until you got to NYC. I was expecting New York to be, yeah,

for them to be faster walkers than they were, but they were disappointments. No, no, I can tell you, no, because I lived in New York, and you pick up speed once you live in New York. And then if you go into Manhattan, especially around Midtown, you know, you notice the slowdown amongst the tourists

and you just get angry. Like that's the whole... That might be it. I was angry all right. If you stayed to the Outer Boroughs, you would have been fine. Oh, okay. Well, I did not know that.

Did not realize next time, next time when my wife, when I have a honeymoon, my wife has food poisoning, I will do exactly that. Yeah, unfortunately, in the Outer Barrow's, there's really interesting restaurants,

so you probably don't want to go. I'll just walk to Manhattan. Can I just say, as always, when I talk about my wife, and I talk about our early days together. I always end with the same line. She knew what she was getting into. She can't complain now.

So that was Trip 1 to America. Basically menacing. The place you've been obsessed with your entire life. That was time one. Time 2 was making television. And the theory was for the third series of war and everything. We're going to go global. We're going to take the stunts on the road and set new boundaries and all this kind of stuff.

It ended up disastrously. But so great stuff was filmed. Let's be honest about this, because it is actually important in the context of the stories. Let's be honest about this. It wasn't that we just thought to ourselves, well, this would be nice. At the end of 2007, we had had enough. Like, as a group, we had had enough of the war and everything. It was constant hype.

It was, we're in the press all the time. We knew that we were about to get smashed because it was only a matter of time. And we were right about that. Increasing little mobile phone cameras everywhere. We were finding it impossible to film in Australia because we were getting recognised. That was the biggest problem, wasn't it? Everyone was like, oh, you guys. Totally.

And we found we just have to keep on escalating things further and further in Australia because we're getting recognised so often. And we were just getting hurt or arrested or whatever. It was just a bad, bad scenario to be in. We're in a hiding to nothing. And so we thought, we took a year off to do a different show. And we couldn't come up with a show we all wanted to make because we're all so different from each other.

Our strength was our weakness. And so in the end we said, you know what? Either we just need to just call it quits or just make another series of war and everything. And we said, okay, we'll do that, but how can we extend it in some capacity? We said, well, why don't we use the budget that the ABC was going to give us to get us to come back and get them to spend that on plane tickets and film around the world? That's an extension. And then you can do crazy stuff in America.

We can go as crazy as possible, way crazier than you can go in Australia. And so that's the idea. So we're going to America to do crazy stuff. Yeah, exactly that way. And Charles's clips also, back in the day, it also done very well, by the way. absolutely stuff as Joel did too so there you go

and look it is and Charles I'm sure you're about to add something to this because you were filming in America for a long time it's a very different place to film in a lot of ways

and in some very good ways absolutely a lot of liberty so people know that you're allowed to speak and things like that which cops here don't necessarily know

that's right that's right I'll tell you another way which I discovered first hand I don't have a clip for this but there was a a psychologist, or no, I shouldn't call him a psychologist. That suggests he has a qualification.

It was a hypnotist charlatan who had this series of tapes that I wanted to do a hit piece on, essentially. And he lived in Savannah, Georgia. And so I thought, why I go Savannah, Georgia, before I going to America? And I can actually use his techniques on him to try and hit on him. And I won't go into all the details, but essentially, he had these ridiculous techniques involving licking your lips to be sexy. Oh, this is the game, that pick-up art of us and all that. This guy called Steve G. Jones, his name was. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and you lick your lips and you say, you emphasize words that you want to, you want to subliminally suggest. So, for instance, you might say, I had a succulent, my lanter, my lanter last night when I had spatch cock, for instance. Yeah, and then he immediately wants to suck your cock. Exactly, exactly. That's the idea. Sack my cock.

I suppose he didn't suck my cock just right then, Charles. Anyway, so... How are you single for so long? So I was doing that kind of stuff to this guy while licking my lips like a maniac. Basically, we set up with this guy that we're going to have an interview, not me, someone else.

And I intercepted him on the way to his legitimate interview. Right. Acting like a crazy person doing his techniques to him in this shadowy park, licking my lips, telling him to suck my cock, like demanding him too, basically sexually harassing him, demanding that they have sex with me right there and there,

with these weird techniques. In America, they expect crazy people. Not in Australia they don't. But in America, he not only just rolled with it and didn't think that was strange at all. He then kept on going to the interview as if he didn't connect thinking this might have been a setup that this person with cameras acting like a weirdo

might be tied into the interview that I'm going to. He just kept on going. Because in America, everyone expects crazy people that come up with you camera. With multi-camera shoots? Yes, they expect it, which is wonderful. Yeah, yeah. And they don't think it's a TV show necessarily.

They just think you're just a random crazy, which is beautiful, because then they get angry, and they roll with it, and you get TV. And it is actually true also that everyone is a TV star in America. You can just go up to anyone on the street, and they'll give you this articulate sound bite that cuts perfectly and at the beginning and the end, yeah. Absolutely, and everyone wants to talk as well. In Australia, when you approach people on the street, they try and get away from you. In America, they want to talk to you.

Because they've all done public speaking in high school and all that, and there's going, yeah. And also, they're friendly. Like, Americans generally are friendlier than Australians are. So did you end up cracking onto this guy? I want to know the end. I literally, I waylaid him on the way, in a park on the way to the supposed location in this interview that he was going to. And I dropped all his techniques on him, and he was very, very pleasant, but he didn't suck my cock, no. Did you get a piece?

I got pieces on. I would have played it except for it makes no sense unless you have the full set up. And it's all visual as well. I can't even remember that. If you look up Steve G. Jones on YouTube with Chaser, you'll probably find it. Yeah. Anyway, it was an interesting.

It was a segment called Nut Job of the Week. Rightly so. Anyway, that's the positive side which is great. But there's also negative size, Charles, as well. Like, for instance, in Australia, if you want to get a famous person or a business person, you can just wait outside their house and they'll walk out at some point in time

probably about 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. and then you get them. We discovered that over and over and over again. In America, they live in a village. They have their own village. They have this huge fence and the intercom and the only time they come out is when they're in a convoy of range rovers.

Yes. And you never get anywhere near them. They never do events that you can get anywhere near. You can't get into buildings, in corporate buildings. No chance of getting inside to do stunts like we did in Australia. So that was the downside of filming in America.

But I want to play a few clips to show you some of the other elements, which are interesting. I mean, some of them are predictable, but you don't realize how much. The first one, this is a great one, is that Americans are very gullible. Very, very gullible. So, for instance, I had a stunt where, and in the Rimein, which Dom was in, I'm sure you will remember this Dom, or maybe you won't. Everyone said, it's not going to work.

I said, I've got an idea, and they said, it's not. not going to work. The idea was that there was an elephant that lost a lot of weight in the zoo. We lost hundreds of kilos of weight in the zoo by eating hay. And so I was going to propose a new wonder diet to Americans called the Dumbo diet, where what they eat is hay sandwiches. I remember the day. Hay bolognais.

It just sounded so stupid. A hay sports drink, which was just a lump of, by the way, these were just really grass in sandwiches, grass in sauce, and grass in sauce, and grass in water that was the sports drink. But then this was the coup de gras. The elephant used a... The coot of grass, yes.

The elephant used a feeding apparatus, a special feeding apparatus to eat its food, which was a giant trunk. And so we got them to put on this giant trunk and to try and heave as hard as they can into the glass to drink in the sports water, the sports hay water. And oh yeah, and the people that chase us,

said no one's going to use that trunk. No one's use it. And let me tell you, the first 12 people I approached all went all the way and took it completely seriously. That's never happened my life. Normally with these gullible test stunts in Australia, to get 12 people for the edit, I will usually do it for two days.

I'll talk to 50 people, maybe 80 people. America, literally the first 12 people. We were done by 10 a.m. It was supposed to be a full day shoot. It was in Dallas, in case you're interested. Anyway, yeah, and all 12 of them were heaving through that trunk. I've got a little bit of a clip of when they were drinking the water, if you just play that. Sorry about that.

It looks like water with hate. It doesn't taste good. No. What do you think? I'm going to be honest, it looked a little frightening. Why is that, man? Well, because it looked like sludge. That was great.

We don't lose a lot of weight. That's enough, that's enough. Literally all of them were saying, this is great, this tastes wonderful. I'll go on the Dumbo die. And I was literally, I would have played this. You should actually go online and look at the Dumbo dot on YouTube to see, unfortunately they didn't speak, they nodded, so I couldn't play it.

But there were guys, literally there were four or five people who when I said, can you see yourself using this feeding apparatus every meal for the rest of your life? They'd nod. and I was trying so hard to not laugh it was so hard to stop from laughing they're so polite they're so polite yeah it is gullible slash polite

that's true but they give you so much yeah America's wonderful like that it's also their one chance at start don't you think that they you know like part of it is they're on TV they want to do right by your product

that's probably part of it but I'm willing to take advantage of that yeah the Chaser Report News You Can't Trust God bless America Every stunt I did Every gullible stunt I did was like that

Well this is that I mean all those tonight shows Like the J-Walking segment on the tonight show Like it's just an endless supply It's extraordinary Now that's the positive The negative And I don't know if you've had Got stories about this Charles

But the sense of violence Is palpable Especially in cities Like New York Chicago places like that The sense of violence And what I mean by that So I'll give you an example

we had the simplest, simplest idea. It was so innocuous, so harmless. It was that there were 160 Starbucks outlets in Manhattan. They have so many Starbucks outlets, they're opening Starbucks outlets inside Starbucks outlets. So I'd show up with a little booth with Starbucks of it and the little coffee maker and stuff inside the Starbucks. And here's what here, this was some of the interactions I had.

Is that in me? Yes. You are not allowed to come into my store. you even permitted to do this by Starbucks? Oh, Starbucks are very happy. They want us to be wherever we can. They're going to send another guy there and another guy there in a couple of hours. Like there's, what, 10 square meters here?

We could fit four or five more stores in easily. I don't understand what you're going, but you can't do this here. What's your point in number? Um, double seven. Yeah. It's like a secret. I'm a secret agent coffee selling. I'm sorry.

Do you want a drink while you want? No, it was actually a really fun stunt, but that a team where it became not fun. Oh. When one of them just shut the door, locked the door, and called the police. And I said, we're just a comedy show. We can go. We can't go. We've called the police.

We tried to talk our way out of it. They didn't let us go. Then the police came in. This is what I'm talking about. The police come in. They come in with their guns drawn. Right. Bearing mind what we're doing here.

I don't know what was called through to them. But what we were doing was just here, just try to sell coffee. Right. Yeah, you're in just like a Starbucks chain form. you've got like an urn and there are people filming you with big cameras. Yeah. Police burst in with their guns drawn, pointed at us, screaming, down, get down, get down!

And like, and like, we'll go down, so face down on the ground. Then they start, then they put my, one of them puts their foot on my neck while I'm on the ground with their gun pointed at my head while they scream, Jeff ID! And the, I was like, show us your ID. I don't have any ID. I'm filming a sketch. Show us your ID.

And I like just screaming over and over again, show us your ID. I keep on going, look, the crew is just across the road. Look at the cameras there. We need to go back to my hotel to get my wallet, like if you want ID. And they just kept on screaming with their guns pointed at my head. It took probably about five minutes to sort of that. And then they were okay. And then they realized the TV showing, let's go.

But they spent that whole five minutes with their guns pointed at our heads. Like screaming, really, really scarily. for that stunt. And wherever we went, whenever we did something like that, there was that vibe. If it goes wrong, watch out.

Because things go really, really wrong when they go wrong in America. And presumably this is because there's a genuine chance that anyone that they come across like that is going to be heavily armed and stupid and shoot them. Totally, totally.

And so, like, I'm not saying that they'll be irrational. Yeah, I'm not defending the cops. I'm just saying, fucking hell. I just said scary.

I once got pulled out. We did the thing, we were trying to do a stunt again. Jerry Fall, do you remember at Liberty University? And he had this, you know, 8 a.m. Sunday prayers show, which had 11 million people tuned in live. And he'd said something about how intolerance was the best virtue in Christianity. Okay, sounds like Jerry Falop.

And it was against homosexuality. And so I got up in the middle of the sermon, you know, with the cameras rolling and went I'm with you, I believe in intolerance, you know, I love your intolerance, you know, I'm so intolerant, I'm intolerant of your intolerance, you know, something fairly lame. Anyway, point is got dragged out, and the guy who dragged me out, who's their head of security, was also the chief of police for the local town. And they, and it was with Brad Howard, the camera guy. One of our directors going on in the chase-in.

And this is one of those things where, you know, One of your golden rules is never hand over the footage. Yes. And he said, okay, give us the footage, to which I said, no. Yes. And because we had a secret other camera person who was actually Borat's old camera guy. He was an ex-BBC guy. And they'd managed to find him as well.

So they got us all bailed up. And they said, if you don't give us the footage, he said, put it this way. Like, either I can take you to the hospital. you know, in a few minutes' time, I'll have to take you to get a bit at the hospital, or you can give him the footage. What is it going to be? Wow.

And it was like, I'm going to be, I'm going to be really polite and civil about this, but do you want to go to the hospital today? Well, I mean, Charles, they did say that intolerance was a virtue. Wow, that's a great story. Yeah.

One of the great pieces of shit in the United States of America, Jerry Fall. Okay. Well, I look, like, I'm glad that... That's the sort of... Yeah, yeah. That's the vibe you get.

That is. I mean, I have so many times been told by the police, well, if you don't go across state border... Or just left town knowing we've got to cross straight borders before they catch up to us. I have a story. Right, okay. ...lines next, which is, which is that...

This is actually directly after that New York stunt, the Starbucks one. So I was shaken up already... Yes. About the police at this point in time. And so we then... We then went to Washington. DC as our next location and man I was not looking forward to this stunt because I was I was genuinely scared I'm being honest I was genuinely scared after that police incident with what I was

about to do which was what I was about to do was to walk around Washington DC dress as a son bin Laden trying to case the place for terrorism essentially I think this is one of the ideas that I had and thought it would be amusing in concept but I got to stay in Australia while the people had to make it essentially the stunt was meant to be testing whether they're ready for the next terrorist attack, right? So I had to be as obvious as I possibly could around public landmarks that I wanted to bomb them. That was what I had to do.

And I had to try and approach people who should be prepared. So authority figures, police, you know, like employees, tour guides, the people who should be alert to terror. And I had to be as obvious as I possibly could be. That's a joke. As obvious as I could be that I had nefarious intent. that was the joke okay and I was very very scared not the least of which because I don't have a convincing Middle Eastern accent and Osama never talked in the apex stunt for that

reason and so as I was thinking myself man not only I mean I've either I'm going to get killed or I'm going to get hauled up by by by by by people who feel that I'm being insensitive to Arabic people here with my horrible accent so anyway I was damned if I did damn but anyway so I went all the way and there were times when man I just had out-the-body experiences about what I was doing because I knew it was so so dangerous and because I like I'll give you an example of one of the examples I'll just play it right here do you know if there are lots of guards here are there a lot of guards here yeah do you know when they take their lunch breaks no just wondering thank you sir

he was writing a notebook what would you ask that oh just just curious I like I'm a security enthusiast that guy there was like park authority right that was at the Lincoln Memorial by the one just for context

yeah sorry yeah and like and then I was outside the White House I was saying I was saying to people um yeah would like can I can I go to the toilet and they said yeah just down there I said can I go to the toilet in the White House Yeah, like, and when do the security guards knock off

And all the kind of stuff And I was doing that directly outside the White House And people are asking me where I came from If you watch a stunt, it's online People asking where I came from I said, I'm from Smithsville And where's that? Smithington

Like I was just being as dodgy So I could try to be funny But the whole time I was thinking Oh, please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me Anyway, so when I'm outside the White House I speak to a gardener or something And I say this kind of stuff And then the gardener turns out

had to be a secret service. Yes. I said yes, right. Yeah, so then they sit me down out in the gutter outside the White House and then there are so many police. There are so many police. There are like 20 police. And it is very, very scary, right?

And they, it seems like it's okay for a while because while it starts off scary, they ask me, remember, I've told you this a few times during these podcasts, the higher up they are the more competent they are and so they they ascertain I was from TV very very quickly right and then they looked up on YouTube the TV show and it's like straight away they looked up on YouTube

and then they looked at it and as soon as I realized that I was actually from a TV they relaxed everyone relaxed there was lots of laughs lots of back slapping and then they really friendly along the lines what you were just saying really friendly said so have you got your piece yet and I said yeah yeah I think we're pretty much

got our piece where we're going to be We're going to be hanging out of town but tomorrow anyway. So, oh, that's great. That's great. Hanging out of town tomorrow is an excellent idea. We heartily suggest you head out of town tomorrow. Thank you very much. Have a great. And they're really friendly about, really friendly.

And that's great. So we head on, we're having back to the hotel and we look at the footage and we're going, I could do it a bit more. Yeah, yeah. But I wasn't lying. We were playing the head out of town. But, yeah, that was at lunchtime. And we had the whole morning.

So we said, yeah, why we just film it just a couple of things? Just a couple of things before we head out of town. Yes. So we head back into Washington. No. And we start filming. And, well, I say we start filming. We're about to start filming.

Yes. We get out of the car and there is a guy about probably 20 meters away, just standing there, just looking at us when we get out with his finger on his ear, like he's talking, you know, earpiece. I don't know if they actually even have an earpiece, but it was so obvious that he's. was signaling to us, you know who I am, I'm watching you. And so then we got back in the car. We said, that's fine, we'll just drive somewhere else. We just drive, we drove for an hour in a completely different direction.

Got out, as soon as we get out, there's a guy standing 20 meters away. Wow. We got back in, drove another, drove another about half an hour this time, because we were running out of time and get out. Another guy standing 20 meters out. I don't know how they got there so fast. They're always there directly where we parked. There was traffic all over the place.

I don't know how they did this. Well, it's actually, no, I can tell you exactly how they do it, which is there's a place just out of D.C. called the farm. That's where they train all the CIA recruits. And a whole part of the training is to basically monitor D.C. That's how you get up your tailing training. Yeah, and I expect cameras.

But, I mean, it is sort of reassuring, isn't it? Because you would think that without that level of skill, like every president would be killed in America. Absolutely. Look, and again, and I should... Probably by chance. I should emphasize that the, that it was so well done because the menace was real. Yes.

But they were so friendly and they didn't say anything. There was no evidence of anything. Yes. It just, it was so well done. But just, man, when they want you to get out town, you've got to get out of town. Yes. The, I'm telling you, the threat is palpable in America. So that's the downside of filming in America.

You can go really far, but when you stopped being able to, when you stopped being able to go far, you really need to stop. One of the most interesting moments in the history of the chaser and the war and everything in particular was that there was one point, and it seems very strange to remember it now, but there was a point in time where the chase was offered an American TV series to do the war overseas, and we eventually kind of thought it wouldn't work, and one of the reasons was that they wanted us to do six series, and we just thought there's no way that's possible. But hearing these stories makes me think that turning that down was a brilliant idea. We would all have been shot within a week. I have no regrets. Or just chairs. Yes. I'm no regret to turning that show down.

Thank you very much, Chaz. It's been a delight. That's a pleasure. Back tomorrow with another one in our summer series of looking back at the Chases TV shows. Iguise fromode microphones with part of the ACAST, Creative Network. See ya. Catch you tomorrow.