The Chaser Report - Welcome To The Future: REBOOTED

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

Andrew, Charles, and Dom enjoy a dose of nostalgia in this episode of The Chaser Report as Charles revives a classic segment from the vault, and Dom asks which 80's movies need to be rebooted. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It's Thursday the 2nd of June 2022, Domite, Charles Firth and Andrew Hanson with you once again. How are you? Yes. Are you having a good morning, an afternoon, whenever it may be? What are you cooking? Are you enjoying podcasting as a genre?

You're listening to lots of great podcasts on this app? I'm suffering from a massive hangover. Are you? What's wrong with you? What were you up to? What were you doing? Well, I went to these drinks last night. I did this thing with ATYP, which is the Australian theatre for young people.

They put on a drink to sort of thank everyone who was involved. And I turned up, and the philanthropists who give money to ATYP are there. And so they're incredibly rich people. There's all these unbelievably rich people. And they're buying the absolutely most expensive wine possible at this. fancy place in the rocks, right? And so you saw your chance. And I'm not drinking in the moment.

Like, I haven't drunk for weeks, right? And I can't afford to. I can't afford to. But it's like, you gotta, like, it was my responsibility as a person. Well, so, as a person who lives in the gig economy, it didn't come up, isn't it? I mean, if you get to drink an expensive drink is bought for you, it's almost like having a reliable salary, but it isn't. And it was sort of, it was a different form of drink.

So it was red wine. This guy was buying all these different pinnoirs, like top, top-range pinnoirs. And they're just better. Like, it's just better to be rich, I reckon. They're actually better. Yeah, right. Because it would be a bit of a scam if you discovered that the $1,000 red

was no better than the $5 cleats. No, I've always thought that with wine, it generally is that, though. It's all just Empress clothes and, you know, They all actually just taste the same. Well, actually, you were the one who was the fool, not the rich people. I'm not massively surprised to learn that. But the other thing was they were getting French champagne, like proper champagne for all the, you know, little ATYP people who wanted to drink champagne. And you're just going, that's great.

Presumably it's like two or three hundred bucks a bottle type champagne. Apparently it's amazing stuff. But you're also going, isn't it a bit of a waste to spend that money on 20? somethings. I remember you when you were a 20-something wine snob. I'm sure you were. No, I just thought it was all the same. Oh, well, yeah.

You do back then. You don't go, oh, this is amazing stuff. In fact, even now the wine is completely wasted on you, a 40-something person who thinks it's all the same. It's worth noting that the ATYP is lucky that there's a Labour government in. Because if not, this entire segment would immediately make it into the Daily Telegraph. Daily Telegraph and they'd have all

their funding cancelled. We'd be cancelled. Yes. Fancy champagne given to kids. Yes. Because I used to go

to the ATYP when I was in school. I actually started there. Did you go there for the booze? They didn't do anything to improve my shit house acting unfortunately. But it was literally,

the first place we went to was a condemned building. Like bits of the wall kept falling off, the ceiling. It was dust on every surface. It was absolutely disgusting. It had so much integrity.

There was no, there was no booze. There wasn't even snacks. You couldn't even get a drink of water because the taps were turned off. So no, we had duck spring rolls last night. That was superb. Have you ever had a duck spring roll?

That's changed a bit, isn't it? That's changed. I just thought spring rolls was spring rolls. But apparently there's duck. You can put duck in a spring roll. Well, you know what's funding the ATYP? What? Rebel Wilson's defamation payout.

Oh, yes, huge. The main theatre is now called the Rebel Theatre at their new, because Rebel Wilson got all that money and donated it to TYP. That's why Duck Spring Rolls and bloody French Champagne. It's all from... Well, you know what we need. Well, I think we need to... We need to be defamed.

So if any powerful media organisations are listening to this, can you please just say untrue things about us so we can sue you? Yes. Not for the ATYP, just for ourselves. You know, like something like we fuck dogs or something like that. Something that's guaranteed to get you a payout. I don't know what you're referring to. I can't wait.

Coming up on the show, I am taking you on a journey into the future. Future. And I'm going to take a look at which shithouse 80s movies need sequels because it seems like almost all of them had them already. Future, future, future. Can you lose your voice again, please, Charles? The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. And now the moment you've all been waiting for.

Welcome to the future. Charles has resurrected an idea from the past. That's right. This is the segment where I really. of you essentially Kickstarter projects and Indiegogo projects and, you know, pieces of technology that usually involve Bluetooth that are paving the way in terms of products that we can expect in the future. And today I want to look at a very special product, which is sort of an attempt to improve AirPods. Oh, right? So, you know, AirPods? They're the sort of wireless earphones that Apple

make what is the main problem that needs to be solved with airports what's the one thing that you would do to improve the airport i think you would you would attach wires back onto them so that they don't bloody get lost yes bloody time getting lost but also battery life you might have a battery that didn't require to plug it in every i don't know hour i think is what might are up to at this point wrong no that is that is not that neither of those things never That's not the answer to the question. The answer is that air pods don't stand out enough when you wear them. Oh, they're too unobtrusive.

I thought they were really obviously shouting to everyone. I've got AirPods. I've got a little weird little tampon sticking out of my ear. No. The problem is they don't look ridiculous enough. I see. And in particular, the problem with AirPods is that they don't have light bulbs attached to them. Don't you think?

Right. So the lack of flashing lights. Yeah, I'd certainly feel, I'd feel like more of an idiot at night. So are you telling us the good news is somebody has solved? Someone has solved this very, very big, important pressing problem, announcing G-pods. The digital light control is the main function, and now I'm going to show you how to use it. So whereas with every other sort of AirPod type copy, The main function is being able to hear music.

It's the audio. This one is about the light that you can't actually see because it's attached to your ear. And if you think, oh, no, this is a stupid idea. No one's going to fund this. This is not true. Like, it is, so they had a goal of $120,000. They reached that goal on indigogo.com in one minute. In one minute.

Yep. One minute. It took them for everyone to go, yes. That is what I want. Is this people who have very poor lighting in their home? I mean, perhaps they thought, look, if my ears are lit up, then at least I can sort of find my way around the room or a bit better. No, no, no.

Because the... I'm just trying to work at the logic. I don't understand why you would want lit up ears. It's not very bright. It's supposed to be, I think, a sort of fashion accessory. But in their ad, they tout it as... It's innovative, Iber. They offer a personalised light-up experience unique to your own mood and music preferences and style.

Well, look, Charles, vivid's on in Sydney. This is the thing that we've been missing is the ability to make yourself a vivid light display. For years, we've gone to see them, whereas we could just light up our ears in different colours. And so the way it works, it's quite complicated. Oh, no. Well, how can it be complicated? They're ear lights. Yeah, no.

So, but you've got to customize them. them to be the color that you want because they're little LED sort of lights, right? So you've got to select what type of thing. And to sort of learn how to operate the lights and customize them, you should watch a video on the G-POD's website. It's entitled My Frist Experience with G-Pods. Did they not have a light in the room with our writing of the description?

You've got to be very careful when you've, Search for that, don't you? Google auto-corrects your typos, so you make sure you misspell. Definitely don't put my fist experience. That's not going to give you some good content. Anyway, so you've got to download this app from the App Store, and it's got, look, I'll let them explain how to do it. This is the main page for the airports.

Here you can light off and light on. hear the noise concentration, so you will listen only music, you will not hear anything, and hear the transparency, so you can listen the music while you can listen the people talking around you. On this page, you can choose the color for your earbuds. So basically, the point is that instead of just, you know, with the AirPods, go through this laborious process of putting them in your ears and then listening to music. Do they work?

Yeah. Instead, you put them in the ears, download them, choose your colour. Who has enough time to do this before you listen to the song? And then decide whether you were... I love the transparency mode, which is if you want to be listening to music while you're talking to people.

I've got them in now. I've been enjoying some pearl jam. I've been listening to some... I've been listening. to some Creighton's Clearwater revival through this whole podcast. But actually, to be fair, Charles, these products do have an inadvertently brilliant use. I am. Which is that what happens at the moment is that you've got people with looking at their phones as they walk along,

listening to AirPods and not being able to hear anything. And so the way to not run them over is they've got flashing lights in there he is. It's like a warning beacon. Oh, I see. Yeah. And also, you know, not to go up to anyone who has flashing lights. know that they're a wanker. There might be a problem with that, though.

If they've got a green light, you'd be thinking, go. It'd be speeding up. The Chaser Report, now with extra whispers. Now, I've been noticing, Charles Nandere, a strange phenomenon at the movies, which is that every single movie, from when we were young, every single movie that was even slightly popular, gets a reboot with the same actors playing the same role, but now really, really old.

the one thing in the history of Hollywood that's actually providing roles for, you know, older actors, particularly female actors. So I suppose it's positive in that sense. But did we really need a sequel to Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, for instance, which we've had it the past few years? Star Wars did it. Indiana Jones is doing it. Jurassic World's bringing them. Every single person who's ever been in a movie before, it's coming back. Even bloody Top Gun, the movie that least needed a sequel in the history of movies now has this Top Gun Maverick movie

they've brought back. Is it because they've just run out of ideas? Or is it that actually there are no more ideas left? Well, it's the same thing isn't it? Running... Well, no, no. One is they just can't be bothered thinking

of new ideas. The other one is there is no new ideas ever. Just aren't it. New ideas. Yeah, look, I think that we might have run out of ideas. We got to the end of ideas. We got to the end of ideas. We're just going back and using the old ones again. I mean, I don't mind the concept of that.

You know, Shakespeare's plays were always based on very old stories, and that's okay. Maybe he was tapping into nostalgia. Maybe that's the reason Shakespeare was doing it, was there were all these hot young actors the many years before. Hamlet was a reboot. Yes, yes. Hamlet was just a reboot, perhaps, you know, a star vehicle for some, you know,

some kid actor, I don't know. Well, because they don't green light a movie now, unless it's got existing IP attached to it, do that? So it's like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or some shitty video game from the 80s. You can get a movie made like that if it's got some link to people knowing what it is. See, I reckon these whole streams of IP that they haven't tapped into yet. Well, this is what I'm bringing it to the table. I want to know what else we can pitch and monetize.

Okay. To make some money for us. I've got something that I think would be a fucking winner. Oh, yeah. Sale of the Century, The Movie. Oh, my God. How would that even work? But I'm there.

I don't know. I'm not as you know, exactly, I've great lit it. It's because I've heard of sale of the century. Yes. That's the only bar that exists anymore. It's a nostalgia piece. I'm buying a ticket to that. I don't care how it works.

You ask how it works, it doesn't have to work. And he's just going, come on down to your memories. Oh, yes. And we allow Tony Barber. Yeah. Well, he would make a cameo in it. That's what he'd come back and it would be his son. It's always the child.

The son. You know, Jim Barber, or little Jimmy Barber wants to become a game show host and he's been told, no, you can't, and then he shows them wrong. You do realize that anyone under about the age of 35

is not going to understand any of this. But who's seen Top Gun? I mean, when did it come out in 1983 or something? Why is that the biggest film in the country? I mean, it was a sort of slightly popular movie at the time, I guess. But it does beg the question, if there was going to be a Top Gun sequel, why wasn't the Top Gun sequel released, you know,

a year after TopGun? This is 30, I just checked, 36 years. Yeah, if it was all that good, that people were that excited about it. But, yeah, I guess it's the power of nostalgia, isn't it? But also, maybe it was being, maybe it was being produced in Australia because it takes about 36 years to get any idea up in Australia. Well, yes, they were dealing with Screen Australia's funding people. It just took 30 years.

That's right. Yeah, they did. Like, the day after it was released, Top Gunn, they, they said, they did. a sequel. Yeah, it's very high-grossing because it's the world's biggest star in it.

It's a dead set success and Screen Australia went, yeah, I think you might just need to build a little bit more scaffolding around this pitch. I've actually heard

from inside Screen Australia that they're surprised how quickly the process to get funding. Yeah, well they rushed it through. They rushed it through. It's probably it's unusual for the degree

like something before everyone involved has died, yes. Yeah, no, no, because it somehow got ahead of the the sequel to the silent

Australian movie Ned Kelly life yeah Gallipoli too the reckoning so what can we what pieces of IP

that lie lying around can we exume from the 80s I mean my idea because you want to sort of

contemporary twist you don't just want to do the same thing you can put you to the modernly so my theory was to do a new police academy

but where we defund the police yes because what better argument is there for defunding the police than the entire cast and indeed movie history of police academy.

And the whole premise would allow you to then remove all the policemen's uniforms, which as I remember it was the main point of those movies. Yeah, yeah, they get the close off. Sorry, we're going to have to take away your uniforms, ladies. Is Michael Winslow still around? I think it's some amazing sound effect of what police defunding would be like. Absolutely. I mean, they save a fortune on the San Francisco.

Folly by having Michael Winslow in a film. He should be in more movies. He should be in all the films. I think you guys are making the mistake of being too innovative here. I mean, you know, you know, Hollywood here, but you don't need new ideas. All people want to do is just see the nostalgic thing and just see it again, you know. So I feel that it would be better to just bring back the same movie with the same plot, but the character is just 35 years older than they were.

So, you know, so like Home Alone, for example. Now, like a 45-year-old McCauley Culkin, is alarmed to just find himself at home alone. And he's not sure what to do. He's just bored. He's having a bored day. I had a similar idea, which is Ferris Bueller's day off parenting, or he just wanders around the city.

His kids have left him. His wife's left him. He's just a bit depressed. It wouldn't be very jolly or jovial or iconic. That's a great idea. Well, he could actually take a day off too, Domney, because I reckon he'd be working at Walmart, right? He was not a good student.

No. We know he was a truant. to Skype off class. So he's probably not made a success of himself. You could work in the idea that he's just a sad middle-aged man who, you know, is taking a day off his retail job. You know what he'd be? He'd be a teacher at the same school that he went to,

and he'd be telling all the kids about the time he took a day off, and then they'd try and take a day off, and he wouldn't let them. He'd think he's qualified to be a teacher? He never attended a class, Domney. Exactly. The only thing he's qualified to be. Sorry, teachers. But, look,

Frankly, I think it seems that this whole process of remaking movies is getting quicker and quicker and quicker. Yeah. Like, you know, they're running out of things to remake, which is why I think the world desperately needs a remake of Dr. Strange and the multiverse of madness. Oh, yes. That was on these last week.

Yes. Yes. Because people are nostalgic for the last week's movie. Yes. And you could see the same actors. It would be really fun to see them a week older. That's true. And you can have exactly the same script with it with slightly different things.

Just like change the odd word here and then say, oh, it's a different universe. It's the multiverse. It all fits in. Our gears from road microphones, we're part of the ACUSCrader Network. We'll catch you tomorrow.