The Rest Is Entertainment - The Hardest Job In TV

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Who has the hardest job in TV? Can stars tell when they're in a flop? What happens on quiz shows when contestants object to getting a wrong answer? Join Richard and Marina for The Rest Is Entertainment questions (and answers) edition. Twitter: @restisents Instagram: @restisentertainment YouTube: @therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy 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

Hello and welcome to another edition of the rest is entertainment questions show. Questions and answers show and you remind me who you are. I'm sorry I genuinely didn't mean to do that and I also nearly said the rest is politics. I told you Zander once said hello my name is Alexander Armstrong welcome to Countdown. He's done that so many times. Right, okay, thank you. I feel I'm in rather more professional company. What, with Zander?

Yeah, no, no, okay. No, he's very professional. Sorry, who are you again? Richard Osmond, hello. Welcome to the Questions and Answers edition of The Rest Is Entertainment. We left everyone on the world's worst cliffhanger after Tuesday's show.

Luckily Google was shut down between now and Tuesday so no one was able to work out how tall the rock actually is. And also by the way if you did Google it there's not an immediate answer. Like to most people they'll be like how tall are you? 5'6", how tall are you? 6'7". Well that tells its own story. With the rock you have to go to a number of different sources correct? Yeah many of them are unreliable. Most notably the Rock himself who builds himself as I believe, what is it, six foot four? Six five. Six five. I'm so sorry. Six five the Rock says he is, which a lot of people will be told to me is... His wrestling height was supposedly six two, again,

challenge. From pictures of who he's been pictured next to, Obama, people like that, people who actually doesn't need to lie to, Obama, people like that, people who actually doesn't need to lie about his height, people are placing him, I think, around the six foot mark. There's a very funny photo actually, which you should look up online. Supposedly a still from The Fast and Furious with The Rock, almost chest bumping Vin Diesel, although the way they're standing is very odd. And this of course during their their feud when Vin Diesel effectively called the rock a candy ass. Whoa, he went there? Yeah he went there.

Oh Vin Diesel, real name Mark Sinclair. Mark Sinclair. Mark Sinclair. He knows that the rock is sensitive about this candy ass. Yeah and potentially his height because I tell you what no one's ever billed Vin Diesel as six foot five. And so they're the same height. I think part of the funny thing about this photo is just the way they're standing there. Vin Diesel is about six foot to the left, to the left, to the right of the rock.

And the rock is kind of looking into what appears to be some sort of patio door. I don't know what's happening in the shot. It's a huge movie, do go and see it. Anyway, we must get on to the business of the questions and answers. Six one we reckon. If he's six foot he's lucky. We have to keep mentioning the rock until he gets in touch. Did you know that the only thing that Boris Johnson corrected in the entire referendum campaign, the only untruth he corrected was the one that said he dyed his hair?

Really? Yes, during it. So if anything's gonna get the Rock to ring in it will be a matter of personal vanity. Anyway we must have a question. Let's have a question. Okay I have a question from you. Okay. This is from Lee Madrick. I don't know if that's the artist, the wonderful artist Lee Madrick, but maybe it is. Have a look at his pictures if it is by the way because he paints these really eerie pictures of kind of fantasy abandoned buildings among houses yeah they're really that it's such a mood have a look and by the way if it isn't that Lee Madrick then Lee Madrick the painters just got some amazing publicity from someone having

the same name as him but maybe it is Lee asks would you like to buy one of my paintings no sorry it is not him Lee asked I'm curious to know when and which shows real-life news readers were first used in dramas, the bits of a thriller where suddenly Clive Myrie would pop up on the TV in a show talking about events that connect with the story. How do they go about this? Okay, I think the first instance of this famously is in the US, but it's not in the way that you're talking about. Walter Cronkite went on the Mary Tyler Moore show. Five foot 11.

Yeah, we can't do them all now. Walter Cronkite went on the Mary Tyler Moore show. 5 foot 11. Yeah, we can't do them all now. Walter Cronkite went on the Mary Tyler Moore show, but that was a sitcom. I've actually seen the episode and he's meeting Mary Tyler Moore's great friend who kind of completely goes to pieces because he can't believe he's meeting Walter Cronkite. So he's not doing that thing which I think you're talking about, Lee, when you're... News flash, yeah. Now I've got an issue with this. It's become much, much more prevalent. You can see why they do it because first of all, it takes care of a lot of exposition.

The newsreader can tell you what's happening because that's their job. Yeah, because normally with exposition, you've got one of the characters that have to go, yes, but the thing is the nuclear bunker is in Russia. And don't forget Russia used to be part of Ukraine, was part of Russia. Whereas the newsreader can tell you all that stuff. And if it's a Guy Ritchie show, it will be Kyle's got a Lario who which you did that throughout every single episode of the gentleman just actually your favorite show yeah my favorite guy Richie five six pushing any hey also it gives it a sort of instant gravitas because oh my god Clive Murray's all

about something news this this alien invasion must be quite important I don't like it from a journalist point of view at all. But it's funny how even people who are on TV really want to be on TV. So like you're on the TV every night, you read the news. Oh, I don't know, it's not the same thing in Doctor Who, though, is it? So it's really interesting that that happens. But I'm trying to think back, absolute sort of first instance of sort of people pretending, and in 1938 when Orson Wells does the War of the Worlds thing, they made that seem so like a news broadcast. Popular Folklore says that everyone lost their minds and lots of people thought it was real,

which I don't think was the case. But what did happen was that the press were very angry about this because they felt that kind of fake version of news and what have you, yeah. Wow. about this because they felt that kind of fake version of news and what have you, yeah. Well. Way back in the year 1938 and Wells had to sort of give a press conference, honestly the next day where he said, sorry, he did very well out of it of course. He started well on the way to becoming awesome Wells. But the press were already angry because they felt that it kind of, as I've said before in this podcast, that American journalism takes itself particularly seriously. So that's probably why even when Walter Cronkite goes on Mary Tyler Moore's show,

people are saying, I don't think this should have happened. You don't hear that so much in our country. I like that during 1938 that you'd have to go on the radio and go, listen guys, don't panic, nothing bad is happening. Don't worry, don't worry, really, no invasions for the foreseeable future. We are living in peace. Again, it's not exactly the least question, but the 70s when Malcolm and Wife started putting all the news readers, started making them dance and stuff like that, and people like Angela Rippon coming on and dancing, because news readers were this sort of incredible breed of very sort of distant patrician kind of... They hand you the stone tablets and then they're on their way.

And then suddenly you go, wait a minute, they're dancing? And that was the beginning of the end as far as I'm concerned. That's when television lost it. I mean, by and large, if you're in the BBC newsroom and a BBC-owned drama come and talk to you, you might do it. There'll be all sorts of issues about what the program is. But if it's a kids' TV thing and it's Clive Myer saying someone's lost a ball, then that's absolutely fine.

There'll be certain things they wouldn't do and ITM would obviously do stuff for channels that they've got deals with as well but yeah every single newsreader says yes I mean there's no way you don't see yes to being on any show it's like it's like a dream if ever Pointless is playing in the background on something I'm like oh my god this is the best thing that's ever happened could be always get asked permission yeah so they'll they'll always, you know, someone will always say, oh, they want to have something in the background of this. Your TV shows on TV.

Yeah, I know it is. It's a TV show. But you're so excited. But of course I'm excited. That's like if I if ever I walk past like a news crew in the street or something, I'm like, oh my god, I might be on. I might be on TV. I'm going to have to watch the news. I actually think that you can see why often you need a news reader because there's so many things that happen in dramas where you think, yeah, sorry, this would be on the news. I actually think that you can see why often you need a news reader

because there's so many things that happen in dramas where you think yeah sorry this would be on the TV this would be on the TV news so you have to have it whether or not you have to have the real people doing it is an issue that I have but you do have to have it. The one thing I think is interesting when they do have news readers on quite often they don't give the scripts to the news editors to write which is what I would do. Yeah, I want headlines and newspaper headlines on TV. By the way, that's a whole different thing. But how are they just like the fonts?

You just think I mean that that what's all this? Why is it? Yeah, but also the headline will always be much more complicated than these be local man drives to the okay, listen, it's just that's not going to be what the headline is. But yeah, just just get the news editors to write because

they're also they'll do that. They say, do you want to write this? Here's the script as it is, this is the exposition we need. Can you write that as if it was actually on the news, rather than Clive Myrie having to do a really long convoluted thing that would have been subbed down by somebody? I agree. Yes, they often don't talk like actual news presenters. Oh, I've got one made for you Richard.

Rap beef. Ben Allen says, how real is the ire between Drake and Kendrick Lamar and how much is just for commercial purposes? So Kendrick Lamar and Drake are in the middle of an enormous rap beef where they keep releasing diss tracks against each other like really quickly and really good tracks as well. Three in one weekend. One of them did three in a weekend. Yeah it's pretty impressive and by the way sort, some of the biggest tracks in the world, like Not Like Us, which is Kendrick's new one, is the biggest song in the world. New Foria

as well. It's all over everywhere. Do you think their managers are thinking, oh, now you can work at this pace, can you? Oh, that's good. Yeah, it turns out you can write songs. Yeah, this one started, J Cole and Drake did a song together and J Cole essentially said that J Cole, Drake and Kendrick Lamar were the three biggest names in rap, okay, which you think would be a nice thing by and large, but these things, you know... Underestimated the community, yeah.

And Kendrick Lamar did a song where he said, you know, it's not the three of us, it's just me, the only name. And then Drake came back at him and Kendrick Lamar's come back. And the beef that the two of them are having, incredibly personal, talking about, you know, sort of love children, talking about, you know, abuse, talking about all sorts of things. I mean, really. And yes, I think it is real. I don't think they like each other. Is it commercially successful for both of them? Yes. And Kendrick Lamar is very much getting the better of it. Yes.

And Drake has many, many, many qualities, but Kendrick Lamar is musically the genius really there. He's one to put it surprise. I know that doesn't make you a genius, but you know, that's where he operates and Drake is far more commercial based. So I do think it's real, but there's also an element where it's sort of not real because rap has always had this.

It's been such a big part of rap forever and ever and ever. It's sort of, it's got an element of WWF. Yeah, stage fighting, I agree. The famous one that of course elevates everything is Tupac and Biggie and they both ended up getting killed and that was beef and so that sort of elevates every single rap battle because every time you sort of think there are very, very, very high stakes here. But the first massive rap beef was and it is was was the Roxanne Wars which was sort of 84 85 in New York and that started very

slowly there's a band called UTOF who had a song called Roxanne Roxanne which quite a big hit and they were supposed to turn up on Marley Marl another of the the hip-hop greats they were supposed to turn up on his radio show and didn't go then Marley Marl released a song with Roxanne Shontay, which is essentially, slugging off UTOF. UTOF then came back and employed someone who they called the real Roxanne. By the way, neither of these people called Roxanne. So neither of the Roxannes are called Roxanne. Roxanne Shontay and the real Roxanne. The real Roxanne was then replaced by somebody else. So the real Roxanne became a slightly different Roxanne.

But across the year in New York, there's like 100 tracks going back and forth between different people weighing into the Roxanne rap beef. No injuries. But it's, you know, that thing of reply tracks and diss tracks and stuff like that is incredibly huge. Jay-Z and Nas had a huge rap beef, which ended because Jay-Z released a reply to a reply track from Nas called Super Ugly, and Jay-Z's mum said, no, you have gone too far. And so Jay-Z apologized to his mum and apologized to Nas. They later reunited. That's special.

Fiddison and Jarroll are still at it with each other. Cardi B and Nicki Minaj. That's a big one. And that sort of show how times change that really came to head in New York Fashion Week the two of them Confrontation I think that's different to 84 when it was in in the projects of the Bronx Stormzy and Wiley in the UK as well. So it's it's a big deal. It's good for business It's the truth, but it is part of the business and it's just a sort of innate part It's part of the business, but there just a sort of innate part. It's part of the business,

but there's truth behind it and that's why it works. That's why it always works because it comes from somewhere. But it feels more immediate now because of the internet. You're releasing a track, but it can go straight out. That's what the weirdness is, is it's like there's three over a weekend. What's this, it's like a game of tennis. It's so quick.

It's been not, but yeah, well, you know. But I mean, what it tells you, I mean, especially Kendrick Lamar, some of these tracks are unbelievable. They're so good. And you think, well, you know, but I mean what it tells you I mean some especially Kendrick Lamar some of these tracks are unbelievable. They're so good Yeah, and you think well you just knock that up in a couple of days. Yeah, it goes to show what you can do I was this I'm assuming sort of using, you know a kit of parts from some other stuff But this this some really good stuff going on Drake one of the mornings He tweeted the local news station saying can you not fly news helicopters over my house?

I'm trying to sleep at this time in the morning which I quite like the idea of him being so big he's effectively organising a no fly zone over his own house. He's like Russia. Yeah. So at the moment it's enormous sort of a lot of social media and tabloid fun. Hopefully it doesn't end badly but it's been long part of the tradition of rap and hip hop. Here's a question for you Marina from James Gander.

This is a good one because I don't know the answer to this, but I've always wanted to know because people always ask. Listening to a previous episode about the BBC and funding, I was wondering if there would likely be any scope for overseas viewers to be able to purchase a subscription to iPlayer and a similar model to Netflix etc. Do you think that would work and help fill Auntie Beebe's coffers? As a viewer from New Zealand, I know I would have to pay. Ah, this is a good one. I was able, fortunately, to ask an expert on this, which is my husband, who works at the BBC, and he said he actually remembered once an episode of something like Dragon's

Den where somebody said something like, oh, you know, why don't they just, if they wanted to plough the national grid, why don't they hook up generators to all the gyms in this country? And the guy just went, yeah, 80% of the questions I'm asked at all is this. Why don't we do this? I won't believe it, other than that the conversion equipment is quite expensive and the amount of energy that you produce is actually very little. But anyway. Yeah, but think about it, why don't they? Yeah, but why don't they? But this is one of the biggest questions ever asked the people who work at the BBC, like, why don't you do it? And the answer is because it works much better to sell the programs individually overseas.

We've talked previously on the show about Doctor Who and that's now a co-production with Disney Plus, so you can't do that. But there's lots and lots of BBC shows that you can sell around the world and you make far, far more money from that than you would do from just putting on the schedule that we have and hoping that some people in America want to buy it. It's a much better thing is to divide it into chunks and sell it around the world, which they do do, but people are always asking this question. So I think because people in foreign countries who watch the BBC, they're sort of in a minority, is the truth, so people absolutely love it, but there's not enough of them that you know them paying kind of £9.99 a month would make a significant... Yeah and they may not be in a minority. The shows once they're sold to their

local broadcast, their local networks, their local broadcasters or whatever it is or onto streamers, they won't be in a minority and lots of people might watch them but it's much better to sell things individually than just to put the whole of iPlayer on a thing and then you can't sell any of it. But they have done lots of studies into this at the BBC and concluded always that this would be a not a good commercial decision remotely. That's good to get a definitive answer to that because I've always wondered. It makes complete sense because the same with independent production companies, you're not going to take your entire basket of programmes and sell them as one thing to an entity. You know,

what you do is you maximise it by selling a couple of things to territory X, a couple of things to territory Y. And we should say that because of what you've, also because of what you've just said, the production companies, the BBC doesn't own the rights, exclusive rights to a surprising amount

of its own content. And it might be, it owns the rights to put it on iPlayer for whatever, but the surprising amount of it is not actually wholly owned by them and able to be sort of parceled off and sent to completely other territories. Do you know what the answer to that is so obvious that I should have known? I've never really thought it through. It's a funny one, yeah.

Apparently the Jims one is quite obvious too, but also it does sound good when you first hear it. Yeah. I love this one. Hard workers. Damien Boyd. You often hear the phrase, he, she is the hardest working person in television or similar from various entertainment people during conversations or interviews. Who in your opinion

is the hardest working person in television, Richard? That's such a euphemism though, isn't it? Someone who's on TV too much. Well, I mean, yeah, normally they're sort of talking about, you know, screen presence. And so you would have to say over the last 12 months, it's got to be maybe Ramesh Ranganathan is the top of the pile, does so much so brilliantly. I love Ramesh and I've never seen him do a show badly. So many of my subs have spoken to him like, oh, he's a really, really nice guy.

I think that what you have there is a sort of interface between somebody who everybody wants to work with, which is Ramesh, and somebody whose work ethic is so huge that they are happy to keep working. I could live without working, right? I like staying at home is what I like to do. So I do shows that I love doing. My shows are because of that, you know, you do four or five a day and they're on every day. It sort of feels like you're working more than you are. But someone like Ramesh is really, he's doing lots of stuff abroad, and then he's doing Weekest Link, then he's doing the radio show now,

he does all this Sky stuff. Then you see him pop up in B Master ceremonies at Corporates as well. So he's working his socks off. Ramesh also came to fame a little bit later. He was a teacher for many years. So I think he's got that mindset, quite rightly, of, I feel incredibly lucky to be doing what I'm doing. I feel incredibly lucky that I'm what I'm doing. I feel incredibly

lucky that I'm needed and wanted because I went through many years where I wasn't and so I'm going to do it. But I think he loves to work. But the real answer to the question, the hardest working person in television is always someone who's behind the scenes. It's not the talent. Yeah. I mean, it's really, really not. I mean, on recording days, sometimes it is. Sometimes if you're, you know, having done most jobs in TV, if I'm doing a day on House of Games, maybe I'm working the hardest, if anyone, in a sort of way, because I'm constantly talking, constantly thinking,

constantly, you know, keeping the show on the road, with an amazing team around me. But for the four months before that day and for the four months afterwards when the show has been prepped and the show has been edited, everyone else is working incredibly long hours to make me and make the show look good. The people who work the hardest, it's tricky as you go up the ranks. So runners work incredibly hard and then you become a researcher where all the hard jobs come to you. know you become a researcher where sort of all the kind of hard jobs come to you then you become an AP which might be the hardest job of all which is between researcher and producer so essentially

everything the researchers can't do they ask you and everything the producer doesn't have time to do he asks you as well so an AP is working incredibly For the benefit of people who don't know what an AP is? Associate producer or assistant producer depending on that depending on the industry you're in. And then you get up to executive producer and that's where it's easy again. Where your job only becomes difficult

when something goes wrong. And when something goes wrong, you're really, really called into action. But other than that, you just have to make sure the channel are happy, you make sure the talent are happy. It's a relationship job. Stuff goes wrong, it's really, really hard. But from the producer to the AP, it's hard.

But I would say maybe like a production manager or production secretary would be the hardest working people in TV. And they're the people who have got the budget in front of them, who are allocating that budget, who are making sure that the studios are booked and all those contracts are signed in, making sure that every single camera operator

has a contract, every single makeup artist has the dates of the next show, that every single bit of money has been allocated, the delivery to the BBC has been done on time and all the forms have been filled in. So literally every single thing you could think of in that show, every single person involved in that show, they go through the production manager and production secretary's desk and so I would say they're the hardest working people to show business. So either production managers or Ramesh is my answer to that question. It wouldn't surprise me if Ramesh did his own production management. Shall we now have a break Richard?

Come on then. Welcome back with the shock news that Alastair Campbell is six foot four. This is a question we will both have an opinion on Marina. Ian Scougal asks, with the recent releases of certified turkeys like Madame Web and Rebel Moon 1 and 2, it's made me wonder to what extent those involved with a big budget project can tell if it's going to bomb. Do actors realise the script they've presumably read before agreeing to is actually terrible? Or does everyone finish thinking they've made something great and it is a genuine shock when nearly everyone else hates it? That's a very nicely worded question.

It's really nice, but I would just quickly take care of the actors bit first. I would say that the script that the actor reads when they sign on will not be the script that they shoot and that will always be the case and I certainly I think Dakota Johnson, who's in one of the bombs you mentioned in Madame Webb, was just like this became a completely different thing, whether she should have had Foresighted or not. I will tell you that in terms of being involved in a production and you're doing it and it is speaking of the hard work both on films and on sort of television you are so mad with tiredness you've gone on and it's not going down a mine and no one's claiming that but it's very physical for a lot of the kind of below the line crew lugging stuff about

and working incredibly long hours going home for just a few hours sleep and then coming straight back the next morning and doing this for months on end you are not in the position to realize mostly whether or not what's unfolding is good or bad you might be at the start and in fact you might have your best reactions at the start so if people think like your show is funny at the start or the show that they're basically filming and helping bring to life is funny, then that might be a good sign. But such bad movies have worked by the way, some of which have even won on like Best Picture crash, and you're just

thinking how on earth? So you've got that in your mind, you have to tell yourself this stuff to get you up in the morning when you've had four hours sleep and you've got to do it again all week. The second thing, that thing that we've talked about before, nobody knows anything, the William Goldman dictum about Hollywood, which applies just as well to television. If the script has gone through a million rewrites while you're in production, but then Marvel has done that and they've got away with that on loads of things, if you're not making your days, I would say that in a Hollywood movie on a TV.

And what do you mean by not making your days? Making your days is there is a very, very tight schedule of all the shots you're supposed to get in a day. And it might seem to normal people like, so where you've got to get two minutes of usable footage out of today, have you? Right, okay, wow, that really is going down a mine. But funny enough, it is very, very busy

and you've got to have so many takes and set ups and you have to move on ideally on the schedule. And if you're repeatedly getting to the end of the day, you're still going two hours over, to have so many takes and set ups and you have to move on ideally on the schedule and if you're repeatedly getting to the end of the day you're still going two hours over which you have to do in our country with agreement with the crew and everyone agrees and so you will do two hours and you still haven't made the day and that keeps happening then something is going wrong. Equally a friend of mine who was working on a show with a really sort of esteemed creator and said oh you know he'll thought at the time this is, this does

not feel right, thought oh he's a genius he'll get away with it, always does, but in that occasion I don't think the person did get away with it particularly, but it does, it does happen, but it is quite hard to tell when you're a couple of months in. Yeah it's fairly impossible and the interesting thing with any big movie or TV show is everyone's really just looking after their little bit of it. So, you know, wardrobe's looking after wardrobe, cameras are looking after cameras, you know, production design's looking after that. The director should really be across everything, but there's such a lot at the

director's door. Often the writers might have the best idea about whether something's going in the right direction because all they're concentrating on is The thing that's coming out of the camera what they're looking at how it sounds and their reactions to it But everyone is doing their bit There's the adage that you know if the crew are laughing then you've got a hit which has been disproved so many times Yeah, and I love the crew more than anyone. Yes, you know by and large the crew are laughing if they think we're getting home early the Worst thing that can happen is if you are doing like a weekly live show and you know that it's not a hit.

Because it's rating so badly. That's awful. I can't imagine what that must be like. And like if you've been working, working, say for talk TV for the last year, those people are working just as hard as anybody else is working in TV. They're still putting together hours of television. They're doing the work. They're making the calls, they're doing the producing, they're editing packages together, they're playing them in. And they're working harder because it's all

going wrong and everything, you're not getting any viewers, it's painful. They know nobody is watching. They know their bosses know nobody is watching but their bosses can't really admit it, so the bosses, it's pressurised for them. And you've got to go out there and I've got my happy face on. So when you do a live show and it's working well, it's fantastic. We had a show called 24 Hour Quiz which was semi-live, I can't really remember, I think it was live. But we knew as we were making it that it was not landing and you've still got to make it. You can work out how to fix it halfway through but you can't because it's live. That is the more demoralising version of it.

It's the worst of the worst demoralizing version of it. Yeah, you're right, that is. It's the worst of the worst. At least with a movie. And you have to kid yourself. It's a part of the human condition in order for you to be sacrificing your family life, certainly your sleep, all sorts of things,

you have to kid yourself that, oh my God, maybe I'm working on a monster hit. But also, you know, that thing of, this is really, really gonna come together in the edit, is that that's the absolute mantra of any show that you don't think it's going particularly well. Yeah. You just go no but actually you think if you think about it in the edit you know what maybe they can add a voiceover so people understand what's going on. That is one of the old clangers the alarm bell clanging if you have to add a voiceover to make it make sense

after you've spent an unbelievable fortune shooting it. I also think on the Thirsty Murder Club movie I want them to do a voiceover, they don't have one at the moment, but I love it because the book has a diary in it and I just want to hear Joyce doing a voiceover. So if that ends up with a voiceover that's not because we've admitted defeat, it's because I finally got my way. Funny enough The Fall Guy starts with a bit of VO, doesn't it? Absolutely kind of which we talked about on Tuesday show. And that felt like a kind of post-production VO. How do we find our way into this? Here's one definitely for you. Quiz arguments from Sally Ann Bergan. Do contestants ever argue on quiz shows that the correct answer is what they said?

Yes, they definitely do. So two different things. Firstly, they can dispute an answer. So they can go, no, I don't think that is an answer. I don't think it is in Hampshire. I think it's in Kent. And then by and large, the question setters will immediately go, no, it's absolutely fine. Very occasionally, you'll get like a delay from the gallery and someone will go, just give us one second on that. You're like, oh no. Does that feel like a very long one second? Yeah. Just about four years. My experience and experience, I would say,

actually every presenter and producer is that is the question setters double triple checking the questions that have got like a icy stab of fear. They will look through it. They got no, it's absolutely fine. Oh, it's like getting illegal. Yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, double going back over the sources that they've used.

Occasionally, people will say, no, that's what I said. They'll say, I said that. Like we had one like the pronunciation of a capital city. And I think between paramaribo and paranime bow. Right. So in it, Amazing. This is why I do when I've had a glass of wine and an argument about something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said that. I said it. And then you have to go, is that, is that actually close enough? It's like if you say Cliff Richards instead of Cliff Richard. Yeah

Do you give it do you not give it? There's lots of little Essentially, I wouldn't give that because he's so famous Yeah, someone's not that famous and you slightly get their name wrong I'll give it to you say Keith Richards and Keith Richard having him change his name then that's absolutely fine that one I think you can take both versions of the name that he's had at some point in his actual life. Or sometimes someone will say the name of a movie and actually it was called that in China or America. And then you know. I was talking about the Belgian release?

Yeah, exactly. And you go, okay, fine, you got it. But you know, the pronunciation thing is hard, but then everyone's microphone is isolated. And so, and that sort of situation, if it's like a words round or something, and so two words can sound similar, and then in the gallery, if it's like a words round or something, and so two words can sound similar, and then in the gallery they will literally play back, they will isolate

the microphone, they'll have the sound engineers, all of whom have the ears of bats, and they will say, this is the word that they said. This is what you said. Yeah. I'm so glad this doesn't happen in my arguments. I know. The microphone's been isolated, and we're playing back what you actually said, Marina. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Yeah, you said you would be back by eight. You actually said that you would be back by eight. And so I've talked before how brilliant question writers are, so they very, very really get things wrong. Sometimes it does happen. Sometimes there are questions which have different answers. There was recently on the 1% Club, there was a question, because they have quite a lot of logically things on that. So there was a question that was written in such a way that the answer could have been two different things. And on that occasion, I think question that was written in such a way that the answer could have been two different things and on that occasion I think people objected and the question writers will never go, oh no, because the

question writers go, do you know what, hands up, you could, there are two different ways that that could be answered. Lovely, clever and gracious. Yes, exactly. And I like that. But by and large questions get rid of that, but if you listen, if questions sometimes are quite long because they'll say which hit single of 1984 by this band in this country was X they'll put in all these different things so that there can only be one possible answer to the question a bad pub quiz sometimes there'll be a question that you just think yeah but because of the way you've worded that there could be three or four different answers. I've quite frequently had to have stewards inquire about

quizzes myself. People just feel stupid if they said the wrong answer and they're like no that's actually that's what I said and it's not but it very rarely gets out of hand. But yeah all sorts of shows, you know, mastermind has stopped sometimes because you just go, those people really know their special subjects and they'll say no I think that's wrong because of X, Y, and Z, and sometimes they're proved right. But I can always spot University Challenge mastermind at anything where someone does an answer, and then Amol Rajan will say, yeah, I can give you that because that is actually what they're called in parts of the world. There has been a 20-minute gap in between that answer and Amol Rajan saying that. If you ever see Clive Murray or a mole Rajan saying

yes, can accept that because then there is literally the whole studio has shut down for such a long time as they've tried to look through what can or can't be an answer. It happens, it happens very very rarely and if someone tries to get away with something they never get away with it because they're completely, the mic is isolated and if they have a good argument the question setters and writers will go into it and then go do you know what that is a possible correct answer to this and then the poor presenter has to come up with a form of words that kind of go well yeah I guess. We ended Tuesday's show with a cliffhanger so let's end this one with an explosion shall we we? This is a question from James, not the band, I'm assuming, although you never know. No, could have all dialled in together.

They're on tour, they're going, do you know what we should do a question for the rest of this entertainment? They go, what should it be? And Tim Booth is like, I've got one, and the rest are going, oh maybe, like the drummer is like, oh actually I've got one about explosions. Tim Booth's going, no, this is my band, we do my question, which is about mighty morph and power rangers. Yeah. And but then the rest of the band go, actually, Tim, maybe you have a vote. Anyway, James, let's assume a person. But if it is the band, that's what happens. Certainly using the first person singular here.

Yes, exactly. Listen, I know I said we're going to end with an exposure now. Listen, what nonsense. But James asked a question about when cars or vans are blown up on television programs, which happens an awful lot, and he's asking whether that causes a lot of pollution, whether that pollution has to be offset every time you explode a van, or whether there's some sort of special effects trick involved in these scenes which means no pollution at all, and that's the drummer from James. Right. Okay, in general, there's a sort of golden rule about this, which is

that it is much cheaper to torch a car than it is to create the impression that a car has been torched using VFX. That is very, very expensive. That was my teenage years. Yeah. So, really, it's cheaper to blow up a car than make it look like a car is blown up. Yes. And oh my God, yes, by a long way. Fire is an expensive post-production effect. They will often, depending on your budget, and it's just some sort of, you know, ordinary cop show, then probably not. But you might enhance fire in post and you might enhance when you will enhance and explosions in post, but you might have some level of practical

to start with. It's very very expensive to do it all from nothing but obviously in things like the big franchise and action movies where you see it some of that will have come from absolutely nothing. In terms of the environmental impact all of the engines and everything there's no engine in any of these things and a pyrotechnics expert has set it up and it's obviously less polluted than blowing up an actual car. It's actually good for the yes actually if anything put it puts something back. But the sustainability officers will come and tell you that you... I mean, you can't...

You'd have to argue if you needed to do lots and lots and lots, but in general people have found that they've done these things in post-production for various reasons because it's a lot of planning, those kind of big exposure stops. If you're just torching a van to destroy evidence as your question says James the band or the person, you will take all the inside parts of it out all the engine and all that sort of stuff and a pyrotechnics expert will wire it up and it will be a lot cheaper doing it that way than it will be asking some VFX house to do the whole thing for you.

It just becomes so expensive. That's a big problem. And it's often why many effects these days are looking so bad because it is so expensive. Either there hasn't been enough work or they had to do it all too late at the end in order to make one of those big release dates. But in terms of pollution, everything is stripped out you know everything is stripped out and yes listen vans catch fire. Well anything catching fire is not great for our environment but it's not that big compared to a lot of other things. James will know that from you know tour buses and stuff you know

anything anything that goes up you know must sit down. There you go and that's where they got that song from. Oh my god. Yeah it all comes together doesn't it. That's super. Do please keep sending in your questions the address is therestisentertainmentatgmail.com and we will get to as many of them as we can. We will indeed, and we'll be back on Tuesday. See you next Tuesday, which we're legally now allowed to say. Yes. See you next Tuesday. Bye bye, guys. The End