The Chaser Report - Wonka Behind Bars | Big Big Big

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Ella Lawry, Madi Savage and Millie Holten, also known as comedy trio Big Big Big, join the show today to talk about their nominated podcast "The Candyman" for Best Comedy in the upcoming awards. Gabbi and Lachlan pry into the inside of their podcast to find out what it's about, in order to understand and better defeat their competition. Who will win the Poddie? Find out this week! 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, afternoon edition. Should we make a little sting for that one day? Maybe we should. Afternoon edition. For Monday the 29th of November, I'm Gabby Bolt. I'm Lachlan Hodson. And this week, we thought we'd start our preparations for the Australian podcast awards that are coming up this Thursday evening.

The most prestigious of the award shows. Well, it's certainly the most prestigious night of my life so far. And we thought we'd prepare for this by actually interviewing our competition. So for those of who aren't aware, the Chase Report is up for Best Australian Comedy Podcast, 2021. We're up against a few other big names. And we thought we'd interview those names to try and unpack what their podcasts are about and also figure out how to try and improve the Chaser report. So we spoke to Millie Holton, Maddie Savage and Ella Lorry, who are the

incredible creative minds behind big big big sketch comedy group and their podcast the candy man it's a it's like a true crime spin off of the willie wonka movie is that right yeah it kind of feels like a fever dream playing out in real time but the difference is you can't curate where it's going it's truly a wild wild ride so hopefully you guys enjoyed the interview we absolutely loved having big big big on the show and I hope that we can get their approval at the potty's on Thursday. All right. Listen in right after this.

The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. We're here with Big Big Who are going to the Australian podcast Awards with us. They're actually our competitors. We've got Maddie, Millie and Ella. Hi guys, how you going? Hello, Lachlan. Hello, Gabby. Hello.

You guys are up for best comedy. What's your nominated podcast called? It's called the 10. Could you guys tell us and tell our audience who haven't listened yet? What is the Candyman about? Well, it's a very serious expeze, very serious journalism. I'm looking into the very troubling story of Charlie and the chocolate factory and looking at the atrocities that occurred within that factory.

It's pretty unsettling that we were put into the comedy category, to be honest. A bit disrespectful. I don't find it funny at all. Would you have preferred the investigative journalism, like, with all the Walkley people? Absolutely. That's what we put ourselves up for. It was quite disturbing, to be honest. It's actually, it's sort of insulting by the Australian industry to not recognise the hard work that we did as investigative journalists.

And to just lump us with comedy, it's the biggest neg that we've received professionally. But nonetheless, we will take you down. Look, we're bringing on all sorts of challenge because I think we'd all agree here at the Chaser Report that it was sort of an accident that we were nominated for comedy as well, but that's for a very different reason. Look, your podcast is absolutely fantastic. It is chaotic. It is absurd.

It is surreal. It's this hilarious parody of the true crime form. And we're just wondering, when you were parodying that form, did you listen to many true crime podcasts before or did you just sort of look at the rundown and go yeah we'll have a crack that sounds all right yeah i think i think we had i won't speak to you go i'd listen to a couple um we we did a live show about jack the ripper so in in a bit of reconnaissance for that there was a lot of uh jack the ripper true crime podcasts and i think that i think that that particular subject matter it was it was okay to laugh at the sort of silliness of the um of the setup of the podcast

because it's just taken so seriously. So it was fun to get into the nitty-gritty of that. Yeah, I think Serial was our North Star in terms of the charity. But obviously it goes off the rails very quickly. So I've got to say it's so interesting seeing you guys so cool, calm and reserved after listening to The Candy Man. That is Chaos on Hot Wheels, that podcast. It's absolutely brilliant. And I thought I'd just kick this off by asking you,

do you have any plans of any true crime retellings of other beloved children's tales? Or is it just the Willy Wonka situation? Nothing concrete, but we have been floating Stuart Little lately, looking into his backstory and all of that, but no, very, very loose plan. I was just thinking, like, Roldahl is probably, like, an absolute cesspit of all sorts of things. Like, the Twits is always one that reaches out to me about, like,

you could do so much about the abusive family household of the tweets. It's so... Absolutely. Absolutely chaotic. And because I feel like as you listen to the podcast, you sort of get this overwhelming feeling of not really knowing whether it's completely scripted or whether it's just you just let chaos run free in an improvised way. What's the writing process like when you're creating,

like you're sort of cultivating this sort of sense of absolute improv. When I have a feeling you guys have actually been a lot more intention. than we think. You would never believe how scripted it was. Definitely, we really scripted it for a long time over Zoom during sort of our longest lockdown last year. And then definitely, once we got into the room, we improvised a lot. But for people who have listened and know how chaotic it is,

it is quite disturbing how long we spent meticulously crafting each sketch. It's so brilliant. Like, as I was listening, I just sort of thought, I can't believe how much you thought out every possible way of retelling that story. The part, though, that I will say that had me in absolute stitches from the get-go. And I think just, even though it was the first episode, just I was weep crying, was the Aunt Josephine impression. I literally was just like, what is happening? Millie managed to secure an interview with none other than Grandma Josephine.

It was an honour. Unfortunately, Grandma Josephine's larynx had betrayed her. Her speech is unintelligible, so I had to lay a translator over the top. Forgive her. In the twilight of my youth, I met a man, a man of dance, a man of romance, a man of lies. Was somebody making those noises? Or did you get them off the internet? That was Maddie Savage.

into the microphone and yeah Ella and I both found it so upsetting and funny that we had to leave the room she recorded it because we would keep ruining her awful tape which which can I just say made that so much worse as a as a performing artist to go we're just going to leave you to it just sit in here as long as you want and just scream and so it's just this like curdling kind of gross croak on my own and then I kind of had to self-judge that that was a nice and we've got all we need it. It was pretty horrific. I was laying in bed crying.

I was weeping at how funny it was. And then the added layer of like the AI American voice coming over the top, we were a song of ice and fire. Fucking ended me. I just had to let you know. And I can't believe that was actually one of you. That was just incredible. It is such a confronting pilot for people to expect an audience.

to enjoy. The Chaser Report, less news, less often. Did anybody, I mean, I don't know why they would, but did anyone ever try and get you on copyright? Because you do use a lot of audio from that original 70s film. Did anyone ever try and stop you? Honestly, we didn't think about it until about a week before we released. And then we were like, oh, oh, no, are we going to get taken down for whatever reason?

But we honestly thought that 10 people would listen to this, Hence, including Maddie's real bank details and phone number throughout the whole thing as a bit. And so we thought that, yeah, who would possibly listen, let alone Warner Brothers? So it didn't really cross our minds until the last minute, no. We crossed my mind. I researched. I researched. And it looked like fair use would be an okay, would be an okay excuse.

Particularly because it's currently because we didn't look at it. We don't know. We don't research. You were saying that you weren't sure anyone was going to listen to this podcast. But Candyman was actually just shouted out on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. So did you find that your listenership shot to the moon after that? You know how we found out about it? I don't know if you guys track your analytics.

I think you're just a little bit bigger than us, maybe. But we like to look at our analytics sometimes. And Maddie had a look. And we just had the biggest spike just exponentially higher than anything. ever seen and we thought it was a glitch. Yeah, honestly, had happened. Yeah. And then Millie actually, because Millie really listens to Popgot to happy hour all the time,

thought that someone had tweeted one of the hosts and found it. It was so exciting. Wow. We did think technical error at the start, though. Honestly, the group turned was like, what's happened? Buzz sprouts let us down. What's going on here? But, yeah, following the trail, we got to see that.

Yeah, Glenn Weldon had shouted us out. Oh, wow. Yeah, very, very chuffed over the moon. No, that's fantastic. And it's 100% well deserved because the hours and the love that you guys are putting into to this product are what make it something that is at least deserving of a nomination for the Australian podcast awards. So, yeah, congratulations on that. But we will take you down. Yeah, I'm a little bit skeptical of all this nice comments.

I just don't understand what your angle is. trying to lull us into a whole sense of security. I think the main plan is just to sort of like lull everyone up. You're like, oh, welcome to the Australian comedy industry. Oh, we're all so happy. And then when we all get there on Thursday night, it's just you, us, Dan Illich and Hamish and Andy, just strangling each other at the throat for this plaque

that we've all worked hard for over the last 12 months. It's a real red wedding, game of friends. You're very hospitable. Our red wedding would be like, instead of the red wedding song, though, would it just be like Mr. Brightside or something to start playing and we'd all just know instinctively to start fighting. We are on edge.

How many times have you guys watched Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? A lot. Ella probably had to do the most because Ella edited the whole thing herself. Fucking hell. Remarkable. Are your eyes okay? They are not okay. I'm so damaged.

How long did that take? I think I chose not to count. I reckon it was like 30 hours an episode because I did the music as well, which I think maybe took just as long. It was a stupid undertaking, I think, because we were in lockdown at the time that we started.

It seemed like a good thing to take on. And then, you know, it snowballed as a labour of love, I think, because I was, like, loving it. So, you know, it's a project that we were all so passionate about, so excited about. So I really sunk some time in. It was great. We actually put 40 hours of editing into every one of our episodes.

Do you? Oh, well, that's really impressive. I stand corrected. In the crats. So do you ever want to see a chocolate bar ever again? Honestly, there's parts of that film that I'm done now. For the rest of my life, I think I'm probably okay. And, you know, all the excitement about the new Wonka and everything,

I was sort of just like, oh, who cares? I'm bitter about this. Also then it is like a part of us now. So I guess we'll always love it. A shared trauma. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have a favourite? Like out of the kids, out of all of their horrific maimings and deaths and torches,

do you have like a favourite or a soft spot for a particular character? That's great. We spoke a lot about how Mike was so wronged for being just a boy that love TV. But he's very violent. That's, I mean, that's the big red flag. But he's painted as a big villain just for watching TV and playing PlayStation. God forbid. Yeah, I've got a new appreciation for Varuka since we've undertaken this project.

I think Varuka is my favourite, absolutely. She's a bit off, isn't she? Yeah. It's also really haunting to look into the specifics of what happened to the kids as their punishment. and you go, yeah, a child was blown up like a blueberry. That's horrific. Like, of course, poor thing. You just want to give him a hug.

And it extends past just like this true crime retelling that you guys have done. Because I don't know if you're aware, you probably are considering you are very much more well versed on Charlie in the Toll Factory than myself. But the musical, have you heard about the original, there was a scene in the original musical where I think it's Veruca. she's like dancing with all the squirrels and then they tear a dummy apart

limb from limb on stage and they had to remove it because kids in the crowd were like I don't remember this part of the book and they yeah I wish we knew that well this story is so dark and that's why as soon as we jumped onto it

we knew that it was right for comedy it's awful it's an awful awful story that just checks out Pearl Dale's dead now it's fine It's fine. We can say it. You really dived in deep and unpacked things. In that very first episode, you have a five-minute take-down of the idea of Grandpa Joe. And was he a villain or was he just a harmless old man?

And it's hilarious to listen to. I'm just wondering, are those takes just takes that you come up with on the cuff of coming up with new comedy? Or are they things that when you're watching the movie at some point, And you go, I cannot believe this man. Is it something that you actually believe? Well, funny enough, the Grandpa Joe argument was how this whole project began many, many years ago. No way. Ella and I had a disagreement one night about Grandpa Joe.

So it was very sincere. Some of those lines in the pot are just direct lifts from that disagreement. I would say fight. I would say fight. Yeah, I would too. but we both took a very, very staunch stance on Grandpa Joe. And he's a very divisive figure. But, yeah, I think actually with that specifically we'd written in

that we wanted to just let that be a bit more organic, particularly because that discussion, yeah, a lot of people have about Grandpa Joe. So I think we wanted people to feel like they could chime in with their own opinions on that one. Provide their own theories. A lot of the, yeah, opinions or sort of angeloved. on characters were definitely born out of us having a chat about what we genuinely thought about those characters and people and motives and we all often had different opinions on it so it sort of came yeah pretty naturally yeah we should have been going to work to support

his destitute family ah so you'd have him working would you have a 96 and a half-year-old man working maybe yeah maybe down a mine oh yeah go on joie going on oh you believe the place of a gentle Ninety-six and a half-year-old man is laboring down to mine. Oh, get down. Lovely sentiment for our podcast for the first episode of me. I can just tell that there's just so much love and thought put into it. So I just think massive congratulations on such a fantastic podcast. That's very fun, Gabby.

Thank you. So good. Look, all of the niceties aside, come Thursday, I have a proposition for an alliance to make to sort of wrap up. We've talked about this, Lucky. Well, and I figured we should talk to. to them about it. Okay, so should you guys win? When you're making your acceptance speech for the award, it'd be really, really cool if in your acceptance speech, you guys plugged the chaser report. Lucky. There's just no, I just want to cut you it. There's just no way that we're happy

to do that. And it's actually very rude of you to put us in a box right now on this, you know, we've come here in good faith. What are we getting from that? I can't telling him that this is working. I keep saying, Lachlan, you're not going to get the other interviewees to accept their award and then mention the other podcast that they've won against. I'll give you guys a lifetime supply of chocolate. Well, we all know how that ends. People do terrible things for that's a right deal. We've said it a million times, but you've put so much work into this

podcast. But what's next? What's the next plan for you guys on the Verizon. Well, we're taking our live show, catching Jack, the one about Jack the Ripper, three detectives, hunting, Jack the Ripper, to Adelaide Fringe. Oh, wow, excellent. Which is super exciting. And then bringing it back for a repeat season at Comedy Festival in Melbourne again. And then, yeah, like, I think we're going to look to, like, see where, you know, border restrictions pending, fingers crossed. That's all fine this year. Take it further as well. I think 22nd to the 27th of February. Is that correct?

Sure, fantastic. It might be wrong. It's around that time. Thank you so much for staying with us and doing an interview, big, big. That is Maddie, Ella, and Millie, who are the future of podcast sketch comedy. Oh, my goodness. Absolutely. Too much.

Thank you so much for having us, guys. It's been really fun. You're so much fun. Go listen to their podcast to The Candy Man, which is available on all podcasts. places and if you want to follow them online their socials are at big big big comedy that's awesome and you guys will both be at the potties uh yeah we'll both be at the potties right that's what we're going to call it now everyone will think we're really cool yeah we're trying to make it a thing by saying it enough because it's a potty we'll see you guys at the potty's amazing

it's like a wheel all right can't wait the chaser report news you know you Can't trust. Thank you so much to Maddie, Millie and Ella for coming on to The Chaser Report and talking to us all about the Candy Men. We had a really fun chat talk about all things podcasts, your podcast, and the podcast awards. How many times do you say podcast in that sentence? For podcast, podcast, podcast, p p p p p p p p p p p p pf pfodcast. How many podcasts could a podcast cast?

I think we'll find out on Thursday at the podcast awards. Make sure you're looking at listeners for the rest of the week as we continue. to interview our competitors for the awards. But for now... Our gear is from Road Microphones and we're a part of the ACAST creator network and we can guarantee that no more than six children were maimed or injured in the making of this episode.

Seven. Catch it tomorrow. Toodles.