The Chaser Report - WAR STORIES: When We Were Musical | Andrew Hansen

Episode Date: August 27, 2023

Andrew joins Dom and Charles in a classic WAR STORIES episode from the vault. 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, welcome to The Chaser Report with Charles and Dom. I'm Lachlan, the producer, sitting in briefly, before passing over to Charles Dom and Andrew for an episode of war stories. War, what war, Lachlan, the war on a lot of things, the war on just some small things? No, the war on everything. That's right.

We're going to take a look back at the TV shows that we used to make and some of the stories behind the scenes that never made it out. Now, if you want to listen to more of these episodes, you can always search for war stories in your podcast app, a chaser report, war stories to find those. Or you can ask us to make some more by leaving a review and saying, more war stories. Here's an ad, have fun with the episode right after this.

Welcome to another summer. series episode of the Chaser Report. Charles Firth is here. I'm Domney and Andrew Hanson steps up to the mic today. Hello Andrew. Yes, indeed. Hello there. Dommy and Charles. It's very nice to be back. We've hardly seen you all year, Andrew.

What have you been up to? It's been an absolute ass of a year, really. Look, I've been working on, you know, I've had to work on these other things and especially working on putting together a live tour. Look, I haven't written any jokes for it yet, but it is coming. I'm going to be, I'm going to be

taking a lot. show around Australia next year and it's going to have funny songs and sketches in it but I've spent all year trying to think of one haven't come up with one yet and this is of course being sent out in January which means by next year you actually meant this year oh sorry I mean oh yes yes yes we are actually in January

yeah you know how for the first few days is January you can't remember that it's this year and not next year that's what I don't know what bloody year it is all I want you to do is come to see my live show but also given the history of your live shows Andrew it probably will be next year year. Well, maybe, because everything goes wrong, doesn't it?

Well, I've got, I've got a premise for the show. I've got a premise. It's called everyone else is wrong, because that's what everyone thinks, right? You know, we all, we all just think that we're the only person who's right at the moment. That's the way the world has gone. But I'm the only one who is right, so I'm going to spend a whole live show explaining to you in song and sketch why you're wrong and I'm right. You sound like my wife.

Well, she'll love this show. Or every single member of the Chaser at any writer's meeting. They will all love, yes, they'll all love this. They'll all agree with me. But, Andrew, you also, you very modestly have omitted that I saw in the ABC Upfronts. You've got, you're starring in your own ABC TV show this year. Oh, yes. Yes, well, I wouldn't tour if I didn't have a TV show to cash in on.

Oh, yeah, of course. I wouldn't sell any tickets. So, yeah, yeah, there's a TV show coming called. Stories from Oz, which is where we re-tell true stories as musicals. And I've heard people who have seen it just say it's the most amazing thing in the world that's going to be the show of the year. Well, they do, this is what they say, but I don't know when it's coming. It could be coming any time.

Who knows? I don't know, but it is the most amazing show ever. The trailer, the trailer looked amazing. I mean, there were these incredible kind of triple threat, young dancers and singers and actors, and then two old guys who seemed awkwardly be jammed into things. things as well. But the young sort of stage performance seemed incredible. I can't wait to see them in action. They're talented. Chris Taylor and I, who run the show, yeah, admittedly, we just bumble and stumble through the dance routines, wheezing and puffing and tripping over.

I think I saw Chris Taylor singing in a clip. Yeah, he's singing, this is the hilarious thing about stories from Oz, which is the name of this show. It's, it's all comedy songs, right? And documentary stuff mixed together, right? So it's kind of like a history doco where all the reenactments a musicals and it comes from a it's a format it's a Norwegian show originally called stories from Norway that Chris and I loved and we arranged to sort of get hold of this format but but Chris he only sings one song

out of the whole series because there are 36 songs in the series more actually he only sings one because he's not a singer his terrible singer and but that's the song in the trailer for some reason that was the ideal it was the most trailer friendly song And so all these brilliant triple threat musical stars

They're not singing in the trailer And Chris Taylor is One of the absolute highlights of the Chaser TV shows Were the songs that you and Chris wrote together Performed exclusively by you I think every time anyone from The Chaser Was ever seen singing It was just Andrew multi-tracking

Not exclusively, Donnie Not exclusive Not If Life were a musical Oh no they often were you multi-track, wouldn't they? Yeah I mean well look I did write a song for if life were a musical where Craig Roocastle was cast as the lead singer

Oh no That doesn't sound like a thorough creative process, Hanson, I don't remember Were there open auditions for that? There were no auditions, no, I can't I had this idea that the biggest irony in the work because Craig is incredibly

musically untalented He's an even worse singer than actor and that's saying something and like he's shockingly bad and so I thought it would be funny, if we burst into an actual talent agency and Craig performed an audition

for them, you know, just in their office. Oh, I see, yes. And so, so that's why, you know, because the premise of this piece was that we perform musicals in real places. How did the ABC, because surely you had to do risk assessments for all the sketches.

Not back then, this was a long time ago, Charles. There was no risk assessments back then. No, the risk is, I remember what that was. The risk assessment always said, trespass, if asked to leave, you leave. Generally, about 10 minutes of utter bewilderment before people realise they could ask the chase to leave, so we've got a piece.

But surely the risk assessment on that would have been people will hear Craig singing. Yes, it was risky. It was, well, we should have a trigger warning right now. We should have a trigger warning for this show right now because I think we're going to assault your ears pretty soon with Craig singing, aren't we? What is the opposite of a triple threat?

Is it a zero threat or is there some sort of negative number? It's a Roocastle, zero threat. He's a zero threat. Should we brace ourselves and have a listen to Craig Roocastle diving into this talent? You did do trigger warnings on our radio show, actually. A trigger warning, trigger warning. Can you just come up with the trigger warning perhaps for this? Yes, trigger warning.

If you are offended by complete lack of musicality and talent, then block your ears in preparation for Craig Ruccastle, who is going to take lead vocal in. this very upsetting piece. How are you going? Just as a talent agency, isn't it? Because I just want to show you something. Can you sign me up?

Is that a right? There's a few things where we can sort them out. I promise you. I promise you. All that I want is to be a popster. Shooting up the charts with hit after hit. Leave in a mansion and drive a fast car, but the problem I've got is I can't sing for she Yes, the problem I've got is I can sing for she

Don't sing for shit You'll chase the guys can sing like birds But when I open my mouth I sound like a tweet What matters to you can't remember the words But you can't sing for she He sings in an ensemble. He gets in a tears. I don't even know what a harmony is.

So put me on your books. Teach me how to sing so the viewers at home can stop vomiting. He's how bad they just have to speak. Well done, Andrew. That was tough to teach him Even to that level To try and teach him that song was really But was he trying to sound shit

Like was that actually No No he was trying to do his bet I didn't tell him the idea I said look you'll go in and he's Craig He's very confident He thought he was going to be cast Yeah he thought he was going to be cast in the lead

Of the boy from Oz or something There was yeah I mean the great thing about that was He quite often hit the note But it was really random as to whether he did or not So clearly he wasn't trying to sound terrible. Mind you, I think he's almost as good a singer as Hugh Jackman. So maybe he does have a long career in musical.

What are you saying here? What are you saying? Hugh Jackman's a terrible singer. I remember once for a stage show, there was an argument over whether he or I should appear in a duet with Andrew Hansen, which was mercifully cussed because it was appalling. But his argument was that you didn't actually need to sing in pitch. What you needed was Hootspah on the stage, confidence.

Yeah. I argued that you needed to hit the note but, you know, we never resolved that one. Well, we should have put it to the test and put him on stage, really, because the audience would have decided, you know, I would have liked to see them all walk out on him, and he would have finally,

he would have still blamed someone else. If you do a series two of stories from ours, you should definitely have a Craig Rookastle singing karaoke. I think that would be a great way to end the series, possibly forever. Yeah, yeah, I'd prefer the show to rate, actually, Dommy. I really would. The Chaser Report, news you know you can't trust.

I used to hate to do it. I mean, those musical things were very stressful because you had to carry in, not only did you have to burst into the place and sing, but we had to have a very loud and large speaker that you would wheel in to the office or whatever so that we could hear the music, because you had to sing along to it. So most of the difficulty was lugging this enormous speaker around.

And, you know, it's not fast. You can't burst in somewhere really fast with a huge speaker. So it was really awkward and embarrassing because you'd sort of slowly trundle this giant speaker into somewhere. And the people in there would be going, what the fuck you're doing? What is this big speaker that you're bringing? Do you need a hand with that?

Can we help you carry this in? I love the ones in Martin Place and place, you know, at-door ones where people were kind of like, what's going on? And now, people, passers by are actually caught up in it. And then a lot of them ended up actually joining the fray. in the course of the thing and dancing along, particularly when they knew who you were.

It just became almost like a performance art thing. It was great. Well, yeah, if people were drunk enough, they'd come and dance along. Did you ever not succeed? Like, did it ever go wrong? Because I imagine having the large speaker means that you sort of can't be made to leave quickly anyway.

You can get the whole thing out. No, you couldn't. That was the, oh yeah, that was extremely awkward. Like, you know, when they got angry at us, which was sometimes. Oh, really? Then you have to slowly leave with this, enormous speaker. That was horrible.

When did they get angry? There was a medical centre. There's another reply for a musical, which is about a waiting room. And there was another one I wrote, I think, that Chris and I sat in a doctor's waiting room and sang, waiting. I'm just waiting. Like this. And it was a funny idea. And actually, most of the medical rooms we did it in were fine about it.

But there was one that they got very, very pissed off indeed. and yeah, just leaving with that big speaker. Well, you probably shouldn't have done it in like a hearing problems clinic. Yeah. We should have taken Craig to that. They wouldn't have understood the gag. I kind of love the extent that we played with just the practicalities of these things. Like whenever there was a big prop,

even kicking you out took so long that we got a piece from it many times. And he just kind of kept going. It's kind of hard to evict people without it, you know, taking a few minutes. and getting some more lines in. That's true, and it kind of gives you an ending to the piece. It was disappointing if you didn't get kicked out, really, because then you sort of didn't necessarily have much of an ending to the piece. I think that's another reason we started doing musical numbers, though,

because the song ends. So even if you don't get kicked out, there's a sense that it's finished. You know, because the music ends. With a big grand finale, and then you can cut. Yeah, yeah. And I think other people, I mean, I think doing musicals in real life, places. I noticed shortly after we

did it on TV, people on YouTube started to do it. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. It's very TikToky now. I think it's quite common now. I remember a few years later, yeah, like there was that comedy group called the Janoskians.

I remember they started doing it a few years after we did it. So I presume you collect royalties on there. I'm so rich from all the Janoskians performing music numbers in food courts. So, Andrew, I've actually seen a few of the episodes of the Norwegian format that you're... Yeah, stories from Norway.

It's brilliant. It's a great show. There is one thing that I really didn't like about the show, so I'm just wondering whether... What's what you're beef with? Which is that it was in Norwegian. Well, look, we've slavishly adhered to that. I'm very respectful of the original format, so my new TV show is entirely in Norwegian. And so I advise you to brush up now if you want to enjoy it.

And most Australians won't have much trouble following a Norwegian show, will they? I mean, we're all pretty fluent. Yeah, because you're telling stories like, you know, the Michelle Corby, you know, getting caught. Chappelle. Chappelle, got the Chappelle, well, that story's best told in Norwegian. In Norwegian, yes. I can imagine it's sort of, and then there's no subtitles, I assume. No, no, no. In the version I saw, there was no

That would cheapen it. That would cheapen it. No, no. And the story of Princess Mary from Tasmania. Norwegian. It needs to be in Norwegian, that story. As does the story, we're also doing the story of Stephen Bradbury, who won an Olympic gold medal when all the other skaters fell over. And I think that very much lends itself to a Norwegian saga sort of telling. Was there a temptation to choose really morbid?

stories that were very depressing. Oh, Lord, yeah, yeah. Well, funnily enough, I always wanted to choose fun, lighthearted stories. But it was a weird, there was a weird push, actually, from some of the executives to go and tell these really dark, grim stories. And actually, one of the stories is dark. You know, the last episode is about the Tampa affair. Oh. Which is, actually, partly to do with Norway, because the ship that rescued all those asylum seekers was in a Norway.

I presume you have all the Norwegians speaking English. Well, we had to try. It took a year. This is why the show takes so long to come out. This is why I can't tell you when it's going to air. We're still teaching them out as being English so they can tell the story. Now all the musical comedy stars, no Norwegian, they're not triple threats. They're quadruple threats.

They become very talented. And they're going to be, they're going to rake it in financially because they'll be able to, you know, do all these stage shows in Norway, which would be very lucrative for them. I've just realized, Andrew, the fact. that it's Norwegian, that must be Ilvis, is it? I love Elvis. Yeah, that's right, yeah. The original show is by these brilliant guys,

the Ilvis brothers. Yeah, what does the Fox say? That's right, yeah, yeah, that's one of their big hits. And yeah, Chris and I, you know, watch their show and thought, bloody hell, this is so good. We're dying to, we should abandon all our own concepts and just and we actually just rang up SBS who had the show

and asked if we could make an Australian version. of it and they said oh well they sort of let us do some development for it although it ended up being on ABC in the end because SBS had no money that feels awkward well it was actually okay it was

surprisingly friendly we were really amazed because we thought oh this is dead in the water now because you know yeah yeah SBS said oh well you know here we've done the you've done the development we love what you've done we like the songs you've written but we don't have enough money to make the show we've realised So goodbye.

That's everyone's experience of SBS. They're a really nice development. Oh, by the way, we don't have any money to make. We don't have any money. Great show. Yeah. Well, that's right. It sounds like it would be really good if we had any money.

Yeah, we had the classic SBS experience. Luckily, ABC took it. It was very slowly. I mean, it still took years. It really did, didn't it? Four years ago we started on this. Because all the stories actually contemporary stories and now they're historical stories. Yes, it was a fresh show.

It was a start. It was a topical show. about the Tampa Affair. It was this brand new. Well, I do hope it's going to wear in Norway. Well, I hope so too. I mean, I don't know how interested they'll be, but, you know, we'll find out, I guess. So that's Stories from Oz coming to the ABC at some point this year.

So along with looking back on some of the stuff from the Chaser TV shows, we've all given you a sneak preview of the next one from members of the team. I hope you enjoyed that sneaky preview. Let's have a little bit of the audio from Stories from Oz to go out on to give it a full preview. It was completely surreal. The world's view was just complete disbelieve. About this Ferris wheel, a very large, heavy bolt just fell and nearly hit one of our painters. Oh.

I told you I was down to where I've got us. It was a TV event. Only in Australia could you go to a pub on a Saturday night in Sydney, in Sydney and pick up the Prince. My name is Mary Donaldson. That night was perhaps the worst night of my life. She really did do the role of the innocent drug mule really well. This is what we tried to do.

Where Aussie soldiers? Yes, sir, we always follow orders. It was a bit of a circus. Just a brain fart. brain fart. Such an unlikely story. Everything that came after that well, it all just went nuts. It's the biggest story. It's the biggest story in Australia and I went the world.

Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. It was bloody great. Our gears from road microphones are part of the Acast, Creator Network, and we'll have another summer stunt series episode for you tomorrow. Catch you then. See ya.