The Rest Is Entertainment - How panel shows really work and is WWE high drama?

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

We asked, you answered... and then we answered. Its a first Q&A episode. Richard and Marina work through some of your burning questions on the world of entertainment from why do people go on property shows and not buy anything? Has Marina come face to face with anyone she's taken to task in an article? And Richard fills us in on how much of shows such as Have I Got News For You are scripted plus other more Boxing Day tasty entertainment secrets.  Twitter: @restisents Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access memberships separate. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Fidelity Investments Canada. Make investing simple. Fidelity's all-in-one ETFs are designed to do

just that. In fact, Fidelity does the heavy lifting, including rebalancing these ETFs to help navigate changing market conditions. Visit fidelity.ca slash all in one. Getting closer to your goals could start today. Commissions, fees, and expenses may apply. Read the funds or ETFs prospectus before investing. Funds and ETFs are not guaranteed. Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Good night, kids. Good night, Mama. Life's a trip make the most of it at best western hello and welcome to another episode of the rest is entertainment with me marina hyde and me richard osmond happy boxing day everyone have you survived it i hope hope you have. People are savvy enough, aren't they,

to know that we're not actually recording this on Boxing Day. People know enough about the business. We recorded it a day before, didn't we? So we recorded it on Christmas Day. Yes, we're sitting here with our mulled wine, realising, though, that Boxing Day is the best day of Christmas. Of course it is. And therefore, it's perfect that the show should drop on that day.

Now, what we're doing on this occasion is the first ever edition where the questions have come from you. And I have to say that the questions that came in were so good. It's been very difficult to pick the ones we're going to answer, but please keep them coming. The rest is entertainment at gmail.com

or on any of the socials because we might do a bit more of this as time goes on. Yeah, I think so. Because some of the questions are great. And if we don't cover yours today, we might cover yours in another episode. But we will be doing more of this.

Well, listen, we might be terrible. We might be monosyllabic and the answers are a bit, you know. We know nothing. Nobody knows anything and we know even less. So we will try to answer them, but, you know, bear with us.

But essentially we're sitting here with a bottle of Baileys and some pigs in blankets and here we go. Here is one a number of people have asked, which is what is your favourite celebrity story of the year? For me, there is no contest. It is the Gwyneth Paltrow ski massacre trial. Oh, yeah. This was the situation where either Gwyneth Paltrow skied into a retired ophthalmologist in Utah or a retired ophthalmologist skied into Gwyneth Paltrow.

You've heard of sort of low stakes drama. This I like because it was a no stakes drama. I mean, I don't know quite why the ophthalmologist bought the case, but it was essentially you couldn't really care about either of the parties. case but it was essentially you couldn't really care about either of the parties it happened in this I mean aesthetically hideous orange Utah courtroom into which Gwyneth wafted in incredible outfits every day and gave a sort of hilarious performance on the witness stand her majesty herself saying things like um when they said to you know what was you really lost and she said well I lost half a day skiing so it ended up up, I'm afraid, with the ophthalmologist, in my view, quite rightly losing the case. And the $300,000 claim he'd bought against her, as far as I understand it from the American legal system,

any claim should just automatically be $300 million. So I'm not quite sure why he lowballed her so completely. But she lowballed him even further by seeking a $1 in exemplary damages, which I think she got. Did she? That's classy. But did you enjoy that story? Because it was, I mean, I think Sky actually televised the court case. I kind of loved it.

I assume someone's doing a drama. No, that's the annoying thing, is that someone has already done a documentary, which I think is coming out now. It's called Gwyneth versus whatever his name is. I'm afraid we've forgotten. That would be a great title. Gwyneth versus whatever his name is. I'm afraid we've forgotten. That would be a great title, Gwyneth versus whatever his name is. I'm afraid we've forgotten.

That's a strand, Richard. You could come back how many times with that one? Yeah, couldn't you just? Did I like that story? I'm not sure I care all that much about what Gwyneth Paltrow gets up to. It's funny, of course, that it was a court case where nothing bad had happened to anybody. I quite like that.

And that the guy himself was such an obvious dad of one of your friends' character who was clearly not telling the truth. And Gwyneth Paltrow, just like Prince Harry, was not going to give up. And she went in there and brought justice to the world. And a lumber of luxurious knits. See, that's the thing I can't get involved with. What people are wearing.

You don't like the witness box being used as a catwalk? I don't like the catwalk being used as a catwalk. You know, if I'm watching Strictly or something and people are going, oh my god, look at those dresses. I'm not, what? I just want to see the scores. Just give me the numbers. That's all I care about.

So yeah, I'm not interested in what Gwyneth is wearing. I'm not sure what she'd have to do in 2024 to really pique my interest. Oh, she'll find something. There'll be a product. There's always a product. Maybe she'll sue Ronnie O'Sullivan or something. Then I'm interested.

She might do. You know she might bump into him at theivan or something. Then I'm interested. She might do. Okay. You know, she might bump into him. She might do. At the Crucible. She's in a play. He's training for the old World Championships. They bump into each other.

She trips. Wow. Injures her elbow. Hold that movie pitch before you let go of all the gold, because I think you should roll that one out to certainly one of the streamers. My favourite celebrity story of the year just happened. It's the fact that they finally done a celebrity escape to the country where they took like big ins round to try and find a house. They're taking Jenny Ryan from the chase round to find a house. It's lovely watching

celebrities not buying houses in exactly the same way that normal human beings don't buy houses on those shows. How have I not seen this? I need to get onto this immediately. There you go. That's a perfect Boxing Day fare, isn't it? Well, and in fact, it relates to one of our other questions. This one comes from Shane Rooney, and he says, I've always wondered why people go on shows like Location, Location, Location, Escape to the Country, etc. Surely they could just pop down to an estate agent and get their help. Well, I mean, they could do, but they wouldn't be on television that's the

point isn't it it's like you can do a pub quiz but you know it's it's kind of more exciting to go and point this or something isn't it and go to a studio and have makeup and have cameras around i think it's just the fun of it there's no real advantage other than i think there's a thing you see on bargain hunt you see all sorts of, where people are slightly more willing to give you a deal because there's a camera pointing at them. So on Bargain Hunt, you know, you can get a plate, you know, worth £50 and they give it to you for £40 because there's a camera in their face. And it's possible that, you know, a homeowner from Wiltshire will give you a £350,000 cottage for £330,000 because they've got a camera in their face.

That's bizarre. So I would have thought that people would, you think the sport being a good sport overrides being sort of seen to be canny. I would have thought that people would want to drive an even harder bargain because the camera's on them. But that's really interesting. That's quite heartwarming, really. They're outside of their comfort zone. You see, that's the point.

And they don't know how they're expected to behave. We've watched so much television in our life. So we sort of feel like we know what it is. And suddenly there's a camera pointed at you and someone's offering you some money for something. It's like a policeman talking to you. That's brilliant. So you adopt the mores and the conventions of the medium rather than the world you know very well, which is, I don't know, being an auctioneer or selling houses. How fascinating. the world you know very well,

which is, I go to be an auctioneer or selling houses. How fascinating. Exactly. I did, I mean, we did Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and yeah,

we got some, we got a lot of bargains until the auction, which they held in Staffordshire and the auctioneer was like, oh, what have we got now? Here's a plate.

Okay, £10, anyone, I don't mind. Oh my God, we were fuming because we brought some nice things. But again,

every time you say to somebody, they'll say £90, and you go, how about £70? Come on. And there's a camera pointing at them. There's two things they can do. They can say no, which everyone in Britain knows is bad television. They've seen that show.

They know that in that show, I suggest some money, and they go, yeah, all right, go on then. Or they say, how about £75? They know that's what happens. And so that's what everybody did so we thought we were going to make money we both lost a lot of money

my short answer is I think it's fun to be on TV you get someone to do your negotiating for you I love that if you're selling your house and you've got two people making an offer and one of them is just a couple from Daventry and one of them's got a TV a couple from daventry and one of them's

got a tv crew with them you go oh it might be a bit of fun mightn't it just to set it to the tv people i mean not that anyone ever makes an offer on those shows really do they not and if they do it's always to the mystery house the mystery house always wins yeah it might as well be called and finally the good house and finally we haven't put it all in at one. Exactly. But by and large, no one's going on that show really to buy a house. They're going on that show to be on television because it's really, really good fun. Well, I think that was a very good answer. It's a really good question as well. None of it came from me.

Thank you, Shane. And Shane Rooney is a great name. It's like a League Two footballer. Yes, I love it. This is a question from John Johnston. Merry Christmas, John. Who is genuinely the loveliest person in showbiz? Some of the most popular presenters, someone like Claudia Winkleman, who's absolutely lovely and people love.

She's completely authentic and it works. She works as a presenter because she's just like that in real life. There's absolutely no difference between what you see on the screen and how she'll be when she's with you. And there's a degree, I think you probably could in light entertainment back in the 70s, as we can see, but now it's quite hard to fake those kind of really good connections with audiences. Yeah, I think so. It's hard, isn't it?

Because I've worked with so many millions of people and they'll all be furious. So I try and pick a name out of left field. I would say, I'll tell you who's lovely. Clive Myrie is a very, very lovely man and very talented. The next one is from Simon Donnell and he says I'm curious to know to what extent if at all panel shows such as have I got news for you mock the week league of their own etc are scripted beyond the presenter and what the panelists know

in advance of filming that's such a good question well I tell you I mean have I got news for you is an interesting sort of that's sort of in the middle somewhere, which is obviously the chairperson's script is written. So everything that's done down the camera is written. There's a team of really great joke writers, Sean Pye, Christine Rose, other people who write great jokes. And that week's host does those jokes. There's also, of course, a lot of other business that the host does, which is not scripted. It's just, you know, questions on cards and, you know, they can be off the cuff. In terms of panellists, if I go on, have I got news for you?

So I was on a couple of weeks ago, and I knew the Boris and the Covid inquiry would come up, and I knew Rwanda would come up. So you can have a little think. And in the old days, I would make sure I had a couple of jokes just so I felt safe, and now I'll just go in with one thing. So you can predict roughly what's going to happen in the first round. Second round, third round, you don't know what's going to happen.

And having produced those shows as well, the key thing is you don't want someone to come in with jokes written down because they try and crowbar them in and it breaks up the show. So Have I Got News For You is a lovely show. If I know I've got one thing under my belt, so I'm not going to panic in front of an audience all the funny stuff is the off-the-cuff stuff all the funny stuff is the running jokes from the start of the show you know reacting to the other players so have i got news for you is quite unscripted one thing they give you is that final round you know the missing words yeah when you turn up about an hour before

recording over dinner they give you that just so you can have a little think about it. And pictures, anything like that, might you see that in advance? You might see that, exactly. But not very long in advance. No. But by and large, in a kind of 27-minute show, other than the host, almost all of it is made up on the spot.

And how long does the show take to record? God, a long time. Two hours, probably. Wow. It's a fun show to see because there's no recording breaks or anything like that. So it's literally like a two hour version of Have I Got News For You? And Paul and Ian

don't prep, if you know what I mean. They read the news but they haven't got jokes worked out. So it's a fun show to watch. A show like Mock the Week is very, very written because that's the format of the thing. You're asked certain questions and however witty you are, there are certain

things you can't all immediately think of a clever answer to lines you'd never hear in a tv advert but equally dar on that show isn't really scripted and in the later uh series of it he's very good with some of the younger comics and they you know they chat and again running jokes so the really funny stuff people know when something's not scripted so when someone says something they couldn't have possibly prepared the show where there's no prep, there's no script, there's no nothing, and it's the most fun show to do, is Would I Lie to You? So Would I Lie to You, which is just a dream, I think it's the best show on TV. So in that show you'll do an interview with a researcher a few weeks before where you'll tell stories

from your life. But after that you know nothing until you sit there you turn over a card and it's either one of the stories you've told them or it's a lie that's just completely been made up and you have you have not seen it no one's seen it rob hasn't seen it uh you know lee hasn't seen it david no one's seen it and so that's completely unscripted which i think is why people love that because i worked worked with the team behind that, the producers, that might be the funniest man in the world, Peter Holmes. Whenever I go on it, they give me the worst. They just give me...

I went on and they said, you turn over this card. So you're literally sitting there, Lee opposite you. I'm sitting next to Tom Courtney or something. You turn over this card and it just says, when I was a child, I invented a superhero called Snooker Table Boy who had three special powers and one arch enemy. Boom. And then leaves straight on you.

Okay, go on then. What were the powers? And you have zero time to prep. And that's why it's such a fun show because it is the fun, the panic of the thing and because the three of them are such good mates. League of Their Own, fairly scripted because there's people there who want comics and, you know, it's produced in such good mates. League of Their Own, fairly scripted because there's people there who want comics and it's produced in such a way. But most shows, they have a certain structure,

a certain spine, but every producer knows that the fun stuff, the good stuff, is the stuff that comes off the back of that. It's the stuff where people are just going to be rising. There's such an, the immediacy of it and people know that it's just been come up with and there's a real rush to that even as the audience watching where you think,

oh, there's no possible way they thought of that. So you're much better disposed to jokes that are off the cuff, I think, as an audience always. Much, much funnier. If you know for a fact it couldn't have been written because the circumstances that led to it were so unusual,

the fastest guy at that, the guy who can literally... So buying it quite often in an edit, if there's like a few second pause and someone does a line, you might take a bit of air out of that. It might take a second out of it. Lee Mack is so fast, occasionally you have to put in a breath of air in between the setup and him coming back with an answer

because you think there's absolutely no way he came up with that that quickly. So occasionally you genuinely have to put in an extra sort of just half second just so you believe that Lee came up with it but his brain is so super fast that's a good question yeah now you never go on those shows I presume I presume they ask you I have been asked very many times over the years I suppose for a long time I thought for many many years I thought it was sort of quite sexist and it was you sometimes there would be one woman but often there would be no women. And I always felt like, oh, it's just not necessarily my particular brand of humour. And also, you know, the chance to completely fuck your career in one night for a relatively small appearance fee never felt that appealing.

So I always thought, and I also do have a slight thing, which I'm really keeping a lid on this podcast, which I often want to say the least appropriate thing in the situation. Listen, you must. It's Christmas. You must. To see what will happen. Marina. And I was never sure that I could control it. Have another Bailey's. I really, I was never sure that I could control it.

When I was doing interviews for my book, actually, to some extent, you're doing so many of them in a row and it becomes quite repetitive as you know far better than me but I and I would always really have to stop myself from saying something just completely wild and inappropriate just to see what would happen and I always felt that there was that tendency within me but also um I but mainly I just felt like I just don't think I think it's sort of set up for the hosts and the resident panellists and not necessarily for guests. Yeah, that's interesting. I would say Would I Lie To You is not like that. Actually, Have I Got News is not particularly like that. They're quite generous, Paul and Ian.

Would you ever do Would I Lie To You, though? I suppose they could ask me. I don't feel I'm a front-of-camera person at all. I have no desire to do it. I'm a backstage person. I'm writing or chatting in front of a microphone like this. Yeah, so was I though. I know.

And look at me now. And look at you now. You love it. Exactly. Well, listen, I'm going to put a word in. Okay. You've got this hit podcast now. Listen, what I'll lie to you is going to come call it. It'll be Taskmaster next. Oh, my God. I mean, do you wish that's what I really wanted to ask you. Sorry, this isn't an audience question. Do you wish you had come up with Taskmaster next oh my god I mean do you wish that's what I really wanted to ask you sorry this isn't an audience question do you wish

you had come up with Taskmaster as a I know you've been on it and you are amazing on it do you wish that's very kind no I tell you what though

it was very helpful with House of Games so House of Games BBC once Pointless was going and I wanted to do something for BBC 2 I said I want to do a show

where it's the same contestants all week that's the thing I want to do I want to do like a sort of a quiz league and get a bit of the soap opera of the same contestants. And they went, oh, no, I think, yeah, I think with our shows, it needs to be different people. I think probably. And I was like, I sort of thought, I think it'd be great to do it.

And then Taskmaster came out and was a huge hit on Dave. And the next time I went in and said, I wonder if we could do this quiz where it's the same contestants, you know, every day. And they went, you mean like and said, I wonder if we could do this quiz where it's the same contestants every day. And they went, you mean like Taskmaster? And I went, yeah, like Taskmaster. They went, yeah, that sounds great. It's a shame how much TV commissioning is like that. But there we go. In the slipstream, you created something

absolutely brilliant. So, yeah, Taskmaster did House of Games a lot of favours. That's a terrifying show. I'll talk about my experiences on Taskmaster at some point. I absolutely love Taskmaster. We're going to take a little Boxing Day break now. But straight after this break, I have a question for you, Marina, from Bob Bright, that I want to hear the answer to as well. Bob, thanks for asking this. Have you, Marina, ever bumped into someone you have been less

than kind to in the past, reviews, etc., says Bob, and how do you deal with it? Have a little think over this break this episode is brought to you by fidelity investments canada make investing simple fidelity's all-in-one etfs are designed to do just that in fact fidelity does the heavy lifting including rebalancing these etfs to help navigate changing market conditions visit fidelity.ca slash all-in-one getting closer to your goals could start today. Commissions, fees, and expenses may apply. Read the funds or ETFs prospectus before investing.

Funds and ETFs are not guaranteed. Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. What day of the week do you look forward to most? Well, it should be Wednesday. Ahem, Wednesday. Why, you wonder? Whopper Wednesday, of course. When you can get a great deal on a whopper.

Flame grilled and made your way. And you won't want to miss it. So make every Wednesday a Whopper Wednesday. Only at Burger King, where you rule. Working at your local Tim's is more than serving coffee. It's building connections with a team in a great environment, connecting with your guests in the community, and participating in programs like Smile Cookie and Hockey Card Trade Nights. So join your local Tim's team today. Apply now at careers.timhortons.ca.

We are back. Shall I repeat the question from Bob Bright? Go on then. Marina, he asked, have you ever bumped into someone you've been less than kind to in the past? And how do you deal with it? OK, I should say that Steve Covington used to do a character called Paul Carff which is a brilliant character and in one of the earlier video diaries the actor John Hanna actually says to him do I know you from somewhere and he goes you threatened to hit me at the Cinetech a year ago and he says yeah I mean so many faces and obviously given my output in some

ways so many faces I often can't remember the things I almost certainly can't remember the things I've written and sometimes I mean there was one time I saw an actor and the look he gave me I thought yeah I mean I've obviously written something about you let me just google your name and mine and then I had I thought about ah yes okay now Boris Johnson used to do this all the time and I didn't feel bad about anything I'd written by him, but if he saw me, he would glower really sort of performatively and kind of stare at me, which I always found so odd. I mean, Prime Minister, you're being very uncool. Just pretend you haven't read it.

And I've told this story before, but I am going to tell it again because it's relevant to the material. Orson Welles, the great film director, actor, genius of Hollywood. Oh, what did you say about him? No, he had someone who used to write about him all the time, really nasty stuff in the sort of, you know, just a gossip columnist in the New York Daily News. And Orson Welles said, I always used to be,

every time I saw him, I greeted him like an old friend, just so he'd never think I'd read a single word that he'd written. And this is the way to do it. Now, I have got one other, which, do you remember Gok Wan? Gok Wan, who... Do I remember Gok Wan? Yeah, well, okay, fine. He's still around.

Yes, I know he is, but it's perhaps not as dominant as it was. And he'd done something, I can't remember, he'd herded a lot of women into a disused swimming pool and sort of power hosed them. Was this for TV? Yes, it was. Yeah, okay. But does that entirely excuse it? I never quite got on board with the idea that he completely raised and uplifted women. Anyway, I wrote, I was really sarcastic,

but it was a sort of in praise of Got One. In my view, very, very Sledgehammer sarcastic all the way through. And sort of, you know, resist him, it is your peril, all this sort of thing. But I thought it was a real like clobbering you around the head with what I was actually saying. Anyway, afterwards, I got a card saying thank you from Gok Wan. And so I always thought, first of all, brilliant. Either he just totally didn't get it, in which case, well done, Marina. You've really cocked out the writing of that one. Or he did, but was pretending he didn't and had sent me a card.

Either way, well played, Gok Wan. You got me. I love the fact that everybody is now Googling Marina Hyde Gok Wan so they can read the article. Do you remember what you wrote about me? Oh, my God. The look of terror on your face. You never wrote about me.

Oh, my God. Merry Christmas, Marina. Can you imagine? I just say to people, look, I'm just a complete arsehole. Just ignore me, ignore me. But actually, often I have been right. God, that gave me an absolute whitey, Richard. I'm so sorry.

As I say, so many faces. The next is a question from George McMenemy, and it's slightly edited just for length. And he says, I wonder how much either of you have considered pro wrestling as a form of entertainment and your views on it. He mentions that people are quite snobbish about wrestling

and because the predetermined nature, but I mean, lots of stories are predetermined. And he says, you both seem more open in your philosophies of entertainment, even if it's not something you've considered before.

So I would like to say that, yes, I really think of wrestling as entertainment. I think it's totally fascinating. I've read a great book, actually um Vince McMahon the great impresario of the WWE called uh Sex, Lies and Headlocks which I recommend as a sort of brilliant not very long but really good fun sort of primer on the whole world of it all and I think that wrestling's taught us so much about how to look at the world and look at those types of stories um and actually things like Kay

Fabe, that kind of weird thing about what's artifice and what isn't. People wrote really interesting things about Donald Trump and how he was best viewed through the lens of wrestling. You saw Trump turn up at a lot of wrestling before he became the person who was running for president. What about you? What do you think, Richard? Yeah, I love it. I always have loved it.

And that snobbery is, yeah, but it's made up. You think, yeah, the people watching it know it's made up. Yeah. That's like me saying to you, you know that Succession is made up. Yes. You know that Jesse and they know what's going to happen in the end. But it's made up brilliantly, and that's the point. And, you know, you have these multi-generational storylines.

Yeah. By the way, talking about Vince McMahon book, there is an amazing book about 60s and 70s and 80s British wrestling. I've heard of this, but I haven't read it. What's it called? It's The Wrestling by Simon Garfield. And it's just a series of interviews with lots of the wrestlers from that era and the TV execs and all sorts of things.

It's so good. It's such a picture of a certain era in Britain. I really, really would recommend that as well. I think if you read The wrestling and the Vince McMahon book, we've pretty much got everything covered. It's extraordinary. They've built huge empires out of it. They've also built huge stars. I mean, The Rock is arguably

probably the biggest movie star in the world. They've got John Cena. Lots of people have come out of it. And it's kind of extraordinary that they've had such a pull on the whole world of entertainment, not just in this kind of siloed thing that lots of people think is silly. So we love wrestling. Yes.

I would say other than Tony Khan, who runs Fulham, also runs AEW Wrestling, which is becoming incredibly successful. And I worry he's taking his eye off the transfer market sometimes because he's dealing with... Listen, I love him being successful. Fair play to you, Tony, but we do need a striker. Shall I read this one out? Yeah, sure. Okay, this one's from Mrs M. When did series efficiently become season and why?

I stubbornly refuse to refer to anything as, e.g., the second season of a TV show. Now, actually, the series is the overall thing, is the technical answer to this question. Not particularly fascinating. And the season is the individual, what we sometimes in the UK used to call series within it. So this year we saw the final season of Succession and therefore the series finale. So that is quite a boring technical answer, but that's a question.

They are different things. We can also do that stuff, can't we? Yes, we can. It's not different things. We can also do that stuff, can't we? Yes, we can. It's not just opinion. We've also got facts. Coming to you live from the series finale of the UK, we are just talking about how to use the words correctly. We have a lovely question here from John Selleck,

who thus far has the name that's closest to Tom Selleck of any of our listeners. Thank you, John. And he says, how can kids' Saturday morning TV be reborn? Brackets, please say it can. As a father of three, it would be a very appreciated addition to our weekly family routine. Is there an inkling of a chance it could ever happen again? Oh, the third parent. The third parent.

So useful. I think it's, I mean, I grew up watching this sort of thing. And it was like a form of, it was much better than having Sunday school. It was Saturday morning television. Swap shop. Yeah, tis was. My mum, because she was a bit of a social climber, preferred us to watch the BBC.

Yes, there was a big thing about that. People didn't like ITV and regarded it as sort of de classe. Now she literally watches nothing but ITV4, so how the worm has turned. But yeah, so swap shop was my first and then it was going live live and kicking here's the news, it's not coming back

any shows really that are live so you can only do one at a time they really have to pull their weight in the ratings or they have to pull their weight in being repeated or sellable and those shows just don't do that and there's so much content now for children

there's channels which content now for children. There's channels which are completely dedicated to it. There is not the money to make those types of programs anymore. Yeah, linear appointment to view. I mean, it's really, it's hard to imagine that now, but it was, Saturday morning was appointment to view for the nation's children. Oh, it was crazy. Yeah, we would watch someone being rude to Five Star.

You know, watch Cheggers up to something or other. It was such a zoo. You just never knew what was going to happen. You'd be having lots of adults and often quite, I think, like extremely hungover or not having gone to bed since the night before in the children's environment. But children love that. They know what's coming and they know how anarchic it is.

And a lot of those people went on to produce the most anarchic shows for adults. I mean, obviously before it was people like Noel Edmmunds but now it's anton deck and they've graduated from that they did smtv yes smtv with cat um i've got such a great story about noel and chiggers which i can't tell it's such a good it's a swap shop story that i was told many years ago that it's um i mean it would break your heart it's not for boxing day i'm afraid we'll have a password protected version of this podcast coming up soon and you will be able to get all the libelous and just really kind of toxic and unsuitable material yes and just click on subscribe and indemnify if you want to follow that um i have a question for you i think this is

more for you marina from emily lightities paying off the press slash journalists to prevent scandalous or private information being released. Does this happen much? Oh, it's interesting. I don't think it happens at all, actually. I don't think that's how it works. I don't think that's how you create, how you keep scandalous stuff out of the news. You might have a publicist whose job it is to keep stuff out of the press for you and many people have had this over the years and that publicist will work essentially by having power maybe they've got lots of other clients maybe they can give the newspapers kind of other stories to say keep we'll

keep this one out of the press as long as you run this I mean Max Clifford who was a sort of legendary publisher so I should say ended up going to prison for sex offenses against women and girls and died inside. He used to do this all the time. And he had a whole array of people he was looking after. And he'd say, no, you can't have that, but you can have this. And it was a constant business of horse trading. Sometimes what people would say is if a newspaper had exposed someone for, I don't know, drug taking and visiting sex workers, there would be like sort of deals saying, could you keep the drug taking off the front page?

Which always seemed to me such an academic distinction since it would be in the actual story itself. Or they would find some guy who had been having gay affairs and then they might say, oh, we'll do it. You can have an interview with him, the publicist might say, as long as you say the affairs were with women and not with men. I mean, these are sort of horrible stories, but this is how it worked. I think there's a lot even now, obviously, with publicists saying you won't have any of my clients for the cover of your magazine. Next time you're coming to ask if you run this or you can't have any of my clients for the cover of your magazine next time you're coming to ask if you run this. Or you can't, as I said earlier, you can't have that story. But here's something that's also really good that I'm going to leak to you so that we keep that one out of the way.

That sort of horse trading happens all the time. And it happens quite often at a very senior level, like the editor of the tabloid will be the person who is doing that sort of a deal, because people are feeling that they are doing something kind of underhand and they only want to go to the very top of the organisation to have that conversation. But, I mean, someone was telling me about that happening only last week with a story, so it happens a lot all the time. Well, there was someone who recently left quite a high-profile agency and suddenly there were stories about her in the press

that weren't there before, you know, and it's because she'd sort of come out from under that protection. I always remember whenever there were love rat stories, you could always tell if the guy himself had sold the story because it would either say he was an incredible lover or he was a terrible lover. And if it's incredible lover, it's because he'd sold the story. And if it's a terrible lover, it's because they'd found the story from somewhere else. Yes. Listen, shall we end with a Christmas question? Yes, because we're still in our Boxing Day pyjamas. Our Christmas Day pyjamas, don't remember.

Come on, let's call back to the start of the show when it was Christmas. Do you remember? Still Christmas Day. It's been a long journey. I'm really looking forward to the King's speech. Yeah. What was I going to say?

This is from Zahid Fayyaz, who says, Weirdest and best Christmas episode of a TV show. I have got a particular favourite. This is the Star Wars holiday special. This genuinely existed. It came out in 1978, the year after Star Wars was released and between the release of Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back. and the Empire's right back. It is so bad that it was only shown once and it was regarded as this huge embarrassment, but it did happen. It was on CBS. You can now watch these things on YouTube, which has taken away some of the magic

because for a long time, there was sort of urban myths and people couldn't really exist. They believed they'd happened. And whenever I was in New York, I always used to go to this place called the Museum of TV and Radio, where you could call up anything

that actually had ever been broadcast on American television and look at these kind of esoteric gems that were now under lock and key. I think it's now called the Paley Centre. Anyway, now you can see this thing on YouTube. And I urge you to. It is the old driving home for Christmas plot line,

but it is Han Solo getting Chewbacca back to his planet for something called Life Day, because it's a galaxy far, far away, so he can't have Christmas. It involves Princess Leia singing some sort called Life Day because it's a galaxy far, far away so he can't have Christmas. It involves Princess Leia singing some sort of Life Day carol to the Star Wars theme music. Bea Arthur from the Golden Girls, she's like a bar woman in Mos Eisley

for some reason. There's various other things but what's so dreadful about it in terms of the actual Star Wars fans is that it has to be canon. It has to be official because they had a small animated section in it in which the character of Boba Fett was introduced.

It's the first introduction of the character, so it now has to be canon because it relates to multiple stories, timelines, all of these things. So I really, please take a look on. And everyone gets introduced at the start in this kind of ridiculous way, like, and Harrison Ford as Han Solo. And he kind of does a little wink at the camera.

It is so cheesy and it's so not in, I mean, it's absolutely, it's a real gem and have a look at it. But, you know, a poisonous gem. That's our little Christmas present to you. And I refer you to my previous answer about Celebrity Escape to the Country. That was fun. That's our little Christmas present to you. And I refer you to my previous answer about Celebrity Escape to the Country. That was fun. That was great.

We'll do more questions. I think we must do more questions because there were so many good ones. It was pretty hard to choose. Yeah, there's loads of good ones left over as well. Yes, so please keep writing them in because they're a great jumping off point. Merry Christmas, everybody.

We will see you, I guess, in the new year. The next one will be out. It will be just into the new year. And we'll be looking ahead into that new year, Richard. Oh, that's clever. That's some really good formatting. You notice that my links are actually starting to develop. Yeah.

Oh, that's really, really good. Honestly, really come on. I'm very excited to see what 2024 is going to bring you. We'll make me a talentless amateur yet. Merry Christmas, everybody going to bring you. We'll make me a talentless amateur yet. Merry Christmas, everybody. And to you.