The Chaser Report - WAR STORIES: Citizen's Infringement Officer | Julian

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

This Summer The Chaser Report presents... WAR STORIES!The legendary Julian Morrow joins our Summer Stunt Series this week to talk all his favourite and least favourite moments from the glory days. Jules takes a look at a character who became one of The War's most reoccurring stunts: The Citizen's Infringement Officer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chase of Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Tuesday, the 25th of January, 2022. I'm Dom Knight and Charles Berth. We've actually got a new episode. Yay! We've dropped the ball for two days. We promised that every single day of summer, well, January, we'd have a new episode of war stories.

Yes. Chewing the fat with old colleagues, the yarns, and bar. We fucked up, didn't we? On Friday, we just didn't do an episode. You were down the coast. You didn't have a microphone. Yeah, I just forgot my microphone. That's the reason.

I couldn't be bothered. But also, a couple of the team caught COVID. Yes, that's right, which I admitted on Friday that that wasn't the reason. Yeah, that's right. But we have a new episode. It is Julian Week on the Chats to Report this week. Julian Morrow, hello. Hello, it is great to be with you and to know that things have not got better since I last spoke to you,

still as professional as ever. Good to hear. Yeah, we had this whole program. of recording this whole, we were quite organised. And then, we can't really blame. Can we blame Omicron? No, Omicron is definitely to blame. Okay.

The Chase a variant. I'm going to be claiming this on our pandemic insurance. We've got pandemic insurance, don't me, Julian? Oh, I'm sure we do. Yes. We have three of the original founders of the Chaser here, actually. So we're all liable for all that happened from 1999. It's amazing that any of us is solvent, really.

I'm not really, but we'll get into the whole story in just a second. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.ca.

None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser Report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. Julian, I think I should say welcome, because I think this is the first time you've ever been on the Chaseer Report. to report, isn't it? It may well be. Yeah.

There goes my New Year's resolutions for the last three years. Oh, 3.22, you've made it this far. No, well, welcome. It's great to be here. It's lovely to see you. I like what you're done with the studio. Yeah, well, we're recording outdoors, what with Omicron and everything, and me being paranoid, etc.

But, no, it's nice sort of, given that we started the whole Shindig a million years ago, I can't believe, how many years is it? It was 1999, so it was that 23 years. this year in May. You would think it had got better over the years. Yeah, certainly more organised. No, I think it is getting better. It's much better than back when you were running it, Julian.

Jesus. Running is putting it a bit higher, but yeah, sure. The fact that it survived at all is somewhat miraculous. But the whole point of this is to look back at, I mean, the term glory days gets padded about, but certainly the time when we were out when it was possible to make kind of stunt-based TV, which these days, I think, even before COVID,

which is just done, yeah. There's no way you could do most of the stuff that we did these days, and you probably shouldn't have done most of the stuff that we did back in those days. So, yeah, nice to be talking about it. And it was sort of often up to you to sort of argue with the ABC lawyers and Edpoll people and all those sorts of things. I think the word you're looking for is always. It was always to manage all those complicated relationships with the bosses.

Which was sort of ridiculous in a way. And we've touched on it. it in earlier episodes of this season, where you're just going, it is extraordinary when you look back to think about all the sort of slightly illegal things that, you know, our national broadcaster allowed us to do. Well, again, allowed is an interesting word, isn't it? Because, yeah, I mean, often the things that end up being most celebrated behind the scenes. They desperately didn't want us to do.

But, yeah, it was a different time. You could get away with more stuff then. suppose over the years, we just tried many things and we've slowly got a bit better at it and kind of chose some of the right risks to take and made some stupid mistakes that didn't explode too badly. And that kind of prevented us from being killed, which was nice. Yeah, certainly looking back, there were quite a few genuinely dangerous things that we did. And at some point during this week, I want to talk about the time that you went to a CIA black site to film television. Let's do that. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure.

I don't think I've ever been as scared as that day. So, yeah, let's do the post-traumatic stress. Yeah, we'll do that in a short while. But there was a segment, Jules, that I think really let you sort of vent your, all of your bug bears. Because you're a person, for those who know, you do have bug bears, things get stuck in your craw. And you came up with a segment that was just a perfect way of getting revenge on, on really ordinary citizens. Yes. The Citizens Infringement Officer.

Yes, the Citizens' Infringement Officer was basically, yeah, it was cheaper. therapy. It was a way of channeling, being, you know, enraged at getting things like parking tickets. And it was basically just trying to come up with a comedy angle on that. But it was one of the few things that I did that ended up being able to turn into a segment. And so we did a few versions of it. And it was really good fun to do. And as you say, I channeled my inner authoritarian fuckwit. Yeah, which just sort of fits perfectly. Like, being a tall person, To me fair, yeah. Being sort of tall and quite imposing, quite stern, people often just didn't want to take you on.

Yeah, it was really funny doing those stunts because you also sort of see people drifting in and out of thinking that it might be a joke. And it was always funny to see people who would start to not believe you and you think, oh, well, this is all over now. But then they'd sort of get back into the mode. And Chaz made a point of encouraging me to try and get people. people really angry. Well, that was always his style. Yeah, yeah. The radio days, he just always wanted anger as the outro.

But it did, it did help, particularly with the first one, the Citizens Infringement Officer, about number plates, wanker plates. We'd done some shooting and it was, it looked like a pretty good segment, but I remember Chaz saying to me, you know what we need is, we need someone to get really angry and that will be the out. And so I went out from down the ABC, Ultimo officers one evening, basically on a mission to find some poor unsuspecting person and really piss them off. found someone and that became like the the punchline so we should listen to this

there's actually three beats in this clip so listen to it the first one is you actually taking on a parking officer that's the how it all starts and then you you pick on a fairly common target for the chase so let's have a listen to how it all goes down now uh Andrew you might recall a few weeks ago I decided to start issuing some random fines and tickets to people that I don't like. What do I do wrong? This is for being a parking inspector. Yeah, and since they went to air, we've had quite a few letters from people who say

it's unfair to pick on people who are just doing their job, except when they're parking inspectors. Yes, yeah. You know, I've been thinking about this, though. I actually think it was a bit unfair to single out parking inspectors. I mean, there are plenty of other people who piss me off and who also deserve an on-the-spot fine, even down in the ABC car park. not having the guts to publish Jonestown and sucking up to your Liberal Party mates.

It's a 90-dorfime. ABC Board Directories. And I still haven't paid it. I still haven't paid it. But you know, I've got into the spirit of this issuing tickets things. I really enjoy it. In fact, when I think about it, there's another class of people on our roads

who annoy me even more than parking inspectors. I'm the citizen's infringement officer. I'm giving you a ticket for being an obnoxious tool. Alright? What's that? Ice plates. Yeah, what's the say?

NSX GT. What's the car is this? 100 NSX. That means you're a wanker, mate. That's $100. We're just booking a wanker number plates. You've got BMW 025. Sorry, that's a try hard number plate, mate.

We didn't need to be told it was a BMW. That is a $100 fine. Personalised number plate and an extra $50 for a daggy name. It's worth this. That's what I've got on the car. Playboy. Hey boy. All right.

Try hard spelling, 150 bucks. Okay, mate. Pulp 1. Both pretentious and confusing. That, my friend, is a hundred dollar fine. I'm giving you a ticket for driving a Volvo. I'm the citizen's infringement officer. I'm giving you a ticket for being a wanker.

What does that say? DRIF-7N. Is that trying to say Drift-in? Is that what it's trying to say? Are you serious, man? Yeah, absolutely. That's a wanker number plate, my friend. It's $100.

Are you fucking serious, man? Yeah. What the fuck? Don't be a dick, yeah. Well, you know, you take that good advice yourself. I mean, drifting. What are you going to do, man? I'm going to book you.

Huh? You don't even have any tickets. You don't even have any power. Hey, come on. You don't even have any fucking hair, man. Man, I'm just doing my job, alright? Can't do that, my friend. That's another fine.

Ripping up my ticket, that's $200. Ripping up my ticket, that's $200. Oh, Christ. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month.

Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.ca. The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. into the guy who drove Drifton at a pub some years later and we had a good chat he was he was one of those people who went from being like he sort of thought it was a joke and then he got really angry at the end and i was a bit you know when he said he was going to smash my face in i mean you know like like all of us i'm a complete coward except maybe chas and um so i was a bit

worried but he's one of those people who went and then i said oh this was just for uh the chases war and everything for a tv show he's like oh i love that show fantastic great no worries yeah and he was perfectly happy, he was just keen to be on it. Well, this is part of the thing, we actually haven't touched on this yet, is that in many cases when you film something like that, you've then got to get their consent to wear it, right? So every person you piss off, you have to sort of then charm, and some of the producers were quite good at that. Yeah, one of our producers, Nathan, was a legend at that, and he went from, with a stunt

that Chris Taylor had done, he went from intervening with a restaurant owner who picked up a plastic chair and was about to hit Chris with it. He stopped him from hitting him with the chair, much to my disappointment, and then managed to argue him down and get him to sign a release. Now, that is a pretty major achievement. We all had writers meetings like that with Chris, didn't we? Yeah, was that for the stocking heads? We've talked about that.

No, that was, that was, I had something to do with. Was it crack pepper? It was one of Chris's very extensive jokes you can do at fine dining restaurants, which was sort of autobiographical. but I think it was about instead of having it was having different types of musician as the live music at restaurants and so he started off with a kazoo

and then he had like a whole bunch of stupid instruments basically and he basically was trying to drive a hold of patrons out of some restaurant this was back obviously before the pandemic when people went to restaurants and sort of left its context for younger listeners there was a time when you could go to places

and sit down and eat indoors It's still like an inconvenient version of Uber Eats. Yeah, there was a time when musicians actually supplemented their income from performing by going and busking in restaurants. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you did that. You must have done the infringement officer, what, half a dozen times? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was, we got a lot of suggestions from people because it was quite a, you know, borderline popular character. But the number of suggestions that people gave us for things they'd like to see the citizens' infringement officer do was quite a lot. It was actually pretty hard to turn one of those ideas into a segment that worked. But we definitely did, we did baby names. So we went around, yeah, finding the names of kids and insulting the doting parents. That was fun.

One that aged, which is on here, is ringtones. Yes. Annoying ringtones. Yeah. You never hear a mobile phone ring anymore. No, that's right. Yeah. I'd forgotten that we'd done that.

But yeah, we did quite a few. And it was fun. And we did a sort of a spin-off, which was also one of my favorites, which was not writing a ticket for sort of, like, pre-existing things like that, but we did a, like a speed trap in a car park. So I had a little golf buggy, and I would book people for going like six in a five zone and 12 in a 10 zone. And that was a lot of fun.

And that was another example of, as is often, the case with these stunts that they are not just the result of the like the chaser writer's room there it's a broader group of people the producers and the and the directors who were contributing to it and i'm pretty sure that that idea was one of craig melville's ideas he was a director and he came up with the idea so we did a sort of parody of um cops but but with me pulling people over so i had a golf buggy with a siren and i would come out of nowhere and wave people over and then booked them in the car park and um that was that was a lot of fun Wasn't there a movie Paul Blatt Moore cop that came a sort of a similar idea of the pittiest cop in the world?

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's one of the few things that was even more lame than the citizen infringement officer, I think. But so to get one of these things off the line, the amount of negotiating you had to do some of the time just seemed so intense. Just watching the process of your endless emails and you just sort of wore them down a lot of the time. I mean, these ones maybe might have not been quite as risky, but some of the riskiest stuff. Yeah, well, I mean, the secret of all the... chaser stunts is that we had the footage and it was a time when no one else was filming people weren't filming with camera phones or anything like that so we had the luxury of being able to

film a lot of stuff and then condense it down and you know the old rule was if i do something stupid we edit it out and if you do something stupid it's in and so that was you know we were able to make things look sharper and condense things pretty well but a lot of the time yeah you had to work people up quite a lot and then um and then try and stop them from hitting you afterwards. And I think Chaz got a knife pulled on him once. Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, but that was about as bad as it got.

The weird thing about the twist on that was that the person recognized him. Yeah. Because he said, oh, I'm from Candid Camera. And the guy went, no, you're from, you're from, you're from, you're going to kill you. Well, I remember from series three when we were doing Vox Pops. I don't think it was his infringement officer, but doing Vox Pops in Texas. And we had sold the war on. everything like an international edition overseas and I was trying to vox pop this guy and the guy said

no mate I don't want to be on the chase side I was like what in Texas yeah in Texas so you know it was um yeah that was fun oh because the weird thing is and I mentioned this before but when you see people interacting with the officer who's that and you look like a real parking like you've got the proper outfit on but then there's a camera crew so people are believing somehow that there is a particular type of petty suburban official that has a full camera crew and there's like a sound recordist and a boom when they're going and get out fine. Well, I mean, when did Border Force start? Because maybe that existed at the time.

Like these days people sort of would not be surprised if there was a reality TV show about that sort of thing. I can't remember whether that had started at the time. But yeah, that's suspension of disbelief of like why is there a bunch of cameras there. and one of our producers and directors Brad Howard always used to have to deal with that and he hated it but yeah yeah but he would always just say it's a road safety video

that's what he would answer when anyone asks why are you filming because it sounds like the most boring thing ever yeah there's never a follow-up question he would like oh really can I be part of it no I definitely don't want to know anything about that citizens infringement officer probably is the closest thing we did to a road safety video come to think of it but did it get it because I know you've

both filmed stunts more recently, I mean, with the checkout a while back, but Charles is still doing it? Is it easier with modern gear? I mean, the fact that everyone can pretty much do almost television quality stuff with a phone, is it, is it a bit more low key to film stunts now and also with the wireless mics and stuff? I'd imagine it'd be, or even drones, if you're really going to town. I haven't done it for years, so I don't really know. I think it's probably easier to film, but I think the audiences are more savvy and the average punters is probably more savvy, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I've filmed some stunts in the last month or so, and the fact that you

can just take a phone anywhere is just, like, we book tickets to this bankers conference. It was like $1,200 a head. And we just walked in with all the equipment we needed through all the security, because all we needed was a couple of iPhones. Yeah, yeah, that's certainly made things a whole lot better. And the lean cameras are really, are really tricky as well. but the fact that you don't have to hide your camera and no one bats an eye with at it is pretty good

all right Jules well thanks for doing this we're gonna let's convince everyone that we're definitely doing this on four separate days rather than having one long series of conversation you wouldn't believe it but the same birds that were to hear two days ago have just flown over us but by the way also if you hear people playing in the pool that's because we're right next to a pool we're not in a pool yeah we're not just ruining your day we're ruining the day of the people in the pool as well yeah all right we'll catch you

tomorrow i guess from road microphones a part of the a cast creator network catch you then thank you for your patience your call is important to what to what to watch can't take being on hold anymore fizz is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes mobile plans start at 15 dollars a month certain conditions apply details at fizz.ca