The Chaser Report - When Good Neighbours Become Axed

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

After years of controversy and weeks of public outcry Spotify have finally removed *some* of Joe Rogan's podcast episodes from their platform - in an attempt to cover up Joe from even more controversies. Meanwhile Dom takes a page from Barnaby Joyce's book and leaks his own texts. Plus Australian TV icon 'Neighbours' is being cancelled!?! What are we going to watch now??? 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 is Tuesday the 8th of February 2022. I'm Dom Knight. Gabby Bolt is here, and so is Alex of Volovich. Hello. Hello. And the biggest story in the country, look, we'll get to Barnaby in the text.

But even bigger than this globally, Joe Rogan, I mean, it was only this time almost last week. We had a whole episode about him. And now he's been. semi-canceled. They've pulled, what, 70 episodes for using the N-word? We did it. Job done. That was all us. So you think the chase was the straw that broke the racist camel's back? That's it. We always are. It's still pretty unacceptable, right? Like, using that word once is a genuine disaster and you'd be so apologetic. I think you'd basically cancel yourself if you used it once. Yeah, but the thing is as well, I feel like a lot of the

time the defence that white people seem to take is, oh, I was quoting. I was quoting someone. And to That I say, I did To Kill a Mockingbird as a unit of English in year eight. And even then, everyone was a bit, let's skip this sentence. I will never, ever paraphrase. That is a line I trouble. Yeah, look, he's all about misinformation until it comes to accurate quoting. And then all of a sudden it's like, I am a stickler for the truth. Well, didn't he also say, this is what they always say, oh, look, it was taken out of context.

I'm very sorry. And that's not a real apology. No. And what is the context that makes that word acceptable for anyone other than an African-American to use? There isn't one. This is what I don't understand about the whole thing. I don't even think we should be discussing it. On the show today, we are also talking about Barnaby Joyce and the text that just keep giving.

And Lachlan's going to join us for some very sad news from the world of Australian TV. Neighbors, apparently it's still on, but it's going to be cancelled. That's the sad news. It's still on. All of that coming up after this with Rebecca Dayonamuno in The Chaser News. Room. Prime Minister and Dead Man Walking, Scott Morrison, is cooked after a number of his colleagues have come out and stated he has their full confidence in the surest sign they reckon

he's hopeless. Morrison believes there is still hope, but fears it's only a matter of time before Peter Dutton puts his arms around him at a press conference and says this is my leader, which would officially seal his fate. Long-running television airtime polluter neighbours is rumoured to be on the verge of being axed, upsetting almost tens of fans around the globe. Showrunners are pulling out all stops

and ending the show with a climactic airplane slash car slash boat slash bike crash, cross-house fire, cross-breakup and wedding pregnancy announcement featuring Kylie Minogue. Julian Assange has announced he will be joining Australian politics in a bid to more effectively leak political information to the public. The WikiLeaks founder stated he believes the next step in hacking is to just give his number to his targets and let them do all the work. Those are the latest chaser headlines we published yesterday.

I'm Rebecca Dayunamuno. Alexa and Gabby, let's go on to text message gate and those embarrassing text messages from Barnaby Joyce and others. And I really have to start this segment by apologising. To you both. I don't want to be a hypocrite and condemn people when I myself have done the same thing. I knew it. Let me just get my phone.

Gabby, I referred to you as, let's see, Tim Minchin with Worst Hair and Makeup. Oh, my God. Illich, Rational Fear, Mole, trying to ruin our podcast under deep cover. That one's true, though. That hurts. That hits me in the sternum dom. I felt that. I don't know if I can read this one.

I've got to read it. I've got to read it. Okay. Yeah, your grievances. It's all for it. And Adele, except less interesting because all of her heart aches about leaving Bathurst. I'm so sorry, Gabby. Oh, and Alexa. Oh, no, no, no, no. That's fine. Gabby's a fine. I've got to bring this.

I want to be honest, okay? I called you a broken penis circus freak. I said, why would we want to hire another deep voice skinny weirdo when we already have Charles? I think that's a lovely thing to say. I mean, I've got to say, you would be a great finale in puppetry of the feet of something. Oh, this one, I'm sorry. I think, actually, I'm not sure I do apologise for this one. Typical communist who just wants to appropriate his boss's Christmas ham to himself.

That's just a thing that happened. I mean, look, I'll wear this one because I know how much that ham meant to you. So, hold on a second. Let's get to Barnaby. So hang on, before I have to... I've got off on my resignation at this point. But I think you should resign too, Gabby, for that. So I'll see you on your own.

I've resigned, and then tomorrow morning I will be applying for a job again. Actually, I've got to say, the texts I've said about Charles over the years, I genuinely can't mention those ones on the show. No, come on. We may as well. He's not here. Let's get on to Barnaby, because isn't it bizarre? He went in so hard on the other mysterious texter,

knowing that he'd done the same thing, although I suppose Barnaby's memory is as reliable as the rest of him, right? I do a lot of drunk texting that I regret. I feel like his whole life is one on drunk text. We are aware or where. I mean, he called Skimo a hypocrite and a liar, and this is massively hypocritical. Maybe that's not a bad thing in Barnaby, but maybe it's like a positive thing. I don't know.

Because if it is like the kind of classic drunk text, then it's like, how much of that can we believe, you know? I mean, my personal dream is that everything Scott Morrison has promised as a policy has been a lie. That would be great. I'd love for less cuts. I'd love for all these things. Well, what if all the policies of the government were basically just drunk. texts, everything I've ever suggested. But the thing that gets me, because this

thing's been screencapped, right, is you know he sent it to another person to pass on to Britney Higgins. He didn't have her number. And I mean, I'm astonished that Barnaby Joy texted a young woman and the contents weren't offensive. Or offensive to someone else. Hey, people can change.

That's true. He's learned. He's learned. That's very impressive. So let's just summarize. We've got Gladys saying he's a horrible, horrible person, Scott Morrison. An unnamed cabinet minister saying he's a psycho. Classic. And now Barnaby,

should there be a silent ballot in the coalition party room about who actually likes Scott Morrison? They should make like, yeah, like, you know, I feel like if we're going to treat this like a drunk text or like, you know, passing notes around a classroom, we should deliberate this the way only a year six class would by punching yes on one side of an eraser and no on the other side of an eraser

and asking the question to the group and then throwing it in the air and whatever it says, that's the truth. Like that's gospel truth for at least the. next week. That is a great idea. Yeah, do that. Is Scott Morrison a dickhead? Throw it in the air if it lands on yes.

Oh, I can't argue with the magic eraser, can you? Did you see what he did on Instagram on the weekend? He actually brought one of his daughters into the curry-making photo. He didn't cook his daughter into a curry. That was Sammy Sharpe on last week's show, picking people. He listened back to that. That was a funny episode. But no, and can you imagine what the daughter's feeling?

Like, Dad, don't wheel me out in your curry photos. It's like imagine what she's going to get from her classmate. Because, I mean, I imagine that successful people's, well, bald of me to call Scott Morrison a successful person, but I imagine that rich people's children go to, like, rich people children's schools. And, like, I wonder what the level that you'd have to be embarrassing to be bullied. Because, like, I was bullied in school for having bad shoes. Like, my shoes were poor shoes. And, like, that was enough of a reason to throw an insult around.

But at a rich school, where everyone's quite well off and has very, you know, successful parents, What is the threshold for bullying? Do you think a curry photo would do it? I was just hairy before everyone else was and I got completely monstered for years. Maybe there needs to be a special school where children of awful people are all going together.

No one can pick on anyone because everyone's parents are embarrassing. Everyone's... Is that not Sydney boys? I was just going to say that school exists. Yeah, it's King's College. I wonder what's going to happen next. Personally, I'm hoping for like

a really sick, very competitive game of handball to just settle this whole thing out. Hash it out like real men, you know? But the really awkward thing about all this to me is that it's not so many people are calling him a liar. Like Macaron called him a lie. His colleagues are calling him a liar. Barnaby Joyce calls him.

But like, everyone who works with the guy seems to think that he doesn't tell the truth. Yeah. I don't know why that is. They're all lying. Yeah, they're all lying. May he who is without sin not cast a single stone. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens.

Loughlin is in the building to come and talk about a matter that is the most serious thing on everyone's mind right now. Lachlan, what have you found today? I think we're all grieving. I think we're all in a period right now where our hearts are low. And I just thought, like, let's just bring it out. This is a safe space for us all. What happened? Did someone die?

It's just bad news for all of Australia. the street we all grew up on Ramsey Street has finally evicted all of its tenants. Oh my God. Property developers are going too far. I tell you what. Neighbors, long-running Australian TV. Soap, sure. TV show was probably a bit generous.

Neighbors has been cancelled or looks like it's going to be cancelled this year. Is this because boomers have bought out the whole street and just kick them all out? All of the houses on Ramsey Street are suddenly negative geared and they can't keep introducing. It's just all Airbnbs now. I actually think it's because of a culture shift. Like, I don't know any of my fucking neighbours. Like, there's no reason to watch a show.

It's unrealistic at this point. Like, oh, these people talk to their fucking neighbours. The only neighbour I know is Charles and, I mean, he's a monster. Yeah. Terrible. If I remember correctly, isn't it true that no one's watched this show really in Australia for many years? Like, it was only being made because in the UK, Like in the UK they had this idyllic notion of Australia

And so they were paying for it And we were like, 10 didn't even put it on their main channel, right? Except for the fact that now Not even the Brits want an idealic Australia. So the reason that it's getting cancelled Is because it turns out that Neighbours was losing £5 million in the Brit every year, 5 million pounds in Britain

Because they didn't like it. So it was losing money here. It was losing money overseas. they just stopped being any reason to make it. Brexit has gone too far. I'm a bit confused though. 500 million pounds. No, no, no, no, five million.

Five million. Okay, but even then five million pounds, like what are the overheads for neighbours? They have a street. They have a street. They don't spend much money or just get right. They have a very big special effects budget. They have like 16 plane crashes a day.

Like, there are, there is a huge budget. How dare you say you haven't watched it? Because I am a huge fan of neighbours. And this news absolutely devastates me. I have seen every single episode of all 37 seasons of neighbors. Are you fucking kidding me? What are you doing working with us? I know.

Go back to England, Lockland. You'd be perfect on Neighbors, actually, Lockland. You look exactly like the kind of guy that they hire at a young age. Well, I was going to say, without Neighbors, how are we going to gaslight Australians into thinking that all sexy people are good actors? I just love that there's been a 10-year lag or maybe 15-year lag between Australia. and concluding that Neighbors was shit and Britain catching up.

No, it's not shit. Neighbors is as important to the Australian media industry as Alan Jones. So what now? I mean, what are they going to watch now? Yeah, after 37 seasons, you know, that's more than The Simpsons. People complain about the Simpsons

losing its writing after like nine seasons. 37 seasons of consistently perfect, completely original writing. How do you finish a show like Neighbors? is my question because it looks like what they're going to do is they're going to try

and get some of the old cast members they're going to try and get one of the Minogue's to do a big finale. As if Kylie's going to come back at this point in her career just be like, yeah, although maybe she wants to kill Neighbors

maybe the thing she'd most like to do. She's waited to this way. How do we finish Neighbors? Well, what do you guys think? There was one other soap which you probably haven't heard of but when I was growing up it was on at the same time

as Neighbors and it was kind of a competitor. have any of you ever heard of a show called E Street? East Street. I've heard of both of those words. Yeah, I mean, in the 90s, a lot of us spent time on East Street, but that's another story. East Street was a, I think it was another Channel 10 sitcom,

and I can't remember anything about it except that the moment when it jumped the shark was when they brought in a serial killer, and I'm not making this up, known as Mr. Bad. So I'm just, wouldn't it be amazing if Neighbors ended with a serial killer just knocking them off one by one. Do you know what, actually,

I'm going to admit something about myself that's going to make you all think less of me, but from the years 2007 to 2009, I was kind of a huge neighbors fan. I was a massive Neighbors fan, and I seemed to remember there was an episode. The thing about Neighbors is it can't just be one disaster. It has to be like a sneaky misdirect, right?

So there was an episode where the cafe, whatever the fuck it's called, caught fire. And then while the cafe was on fire, someone stabbed someone while they were in a burning cafe. And so everyone was like, oh, they died in the fire. And then of course, like two weeks later, which is like five years in Neighborsland, they had to like uncover, there was a stab wound in the body. And it's like 6pm. I'm eating my fried rice waiting for the Simpsons to start. And here I am like, it was a double homicide. The fire was deliberate and there was a stabbing. Like, it's like, you've got to think bigger, Dom.

It can't just be one thing. So I think... That is such a diligent murderer. I won't leave it up the chance. I think because Neighbors' whole thing, right, is staying current, you know. So what I think is going to happen is they're going to make a statement about the climate and they're all going to say, the world's coming to an end. Global warming's coming to get Ramsey Street.

What are we going to do? They're all going to get in a cock rocket like Jeff Bezos. They're going to go to another planet and someone is going to start killing people on the rocket. And by the time the rocket lands, they're all going to be dead, except for Susan and Tody and they will leave and go on a new planet and repopulate Ramsey Planet. And it's going to be the best ending to any soap opera of all time. Sounds like a sequel. You've got to kill them.

Is Tody's still part of neighbours? I'm pretty sure Tody's still there. And I'm pretty sure Susan and Carl is still there. Tody and Harold, that's all I remember. either that or just like a giant bulldozer or monster maybe a monster truck just comes and just completely flattens all the houses on Ramsey Street and everyone's like who is this and then it's big reveal at the end it's Kylie Minogue

just fucking shit up I feel like it still needs to be relevant to the time that we're in right needs to responding to problems that neighbourhoods have at the moment and I'm thinking it does get bulldozed but the Liberals just build a car park over all of Ramsey Street and it's bidding end That's when good neighbours get really handy-barking. Now, I think you guys are all wrong.

What do you mean? I'm so sorry. As much as I love Gabby's idea where the Game of Thrones writers decide to write the final season of Neighbors. Oh yes, dragons. Dragons destroyed Redd has a giant fireball. But it's Australia, so they're bearded dragons. And Harold catches on fire.

I'm desperate to say it. I think that the perfect ending needs to be. Like, it's got to be, it's got to be with a death. It's got to be with a funeral, the main character. So I think that the perfect ending would be if Alf Stewart gets killed off in a flyer. Not that. A flaming way to go. Lucky?

It's a wrong show. Wrong show. Wrong show, Lucky. Alft Stewart from, yeah. From Nate, from when good neighbors become flaming best friends. No, but I think this accident, this accident brings about a good point is that you can't actually kill neighbors as soon as the show ends. all those actors are going to Summer Bay. Yeah, they are.

I've had the wrong show. Yeah, for the past 30 years by the sound six. You know what the most fitting end would be? If they just, if all the, um, the characters basically gotten like a, a lounge room. And they just all went to the camera and just went, actually, this shit. We're out. Why did we do this for so long? We're going to go get a real job.

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