The Unbelievable Truth - 17x02 Tom Cruise, Basketball, Wood, McDonald's

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

17x02 10 October 2016 Holly Walsh, Henning Wehn, Rich Hall, Lloyd Langford Tom Cruise, Basketball, Wood, McDonald's

We present The Unbelievable Truth, the panel game built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth. Built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth, the panel show about incredible truths and barely credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. Sun Myung Moon once said, if you tell a lie to make a person feel better,

then that is not a sin. So please welcome four of the funniest, most talented comedians on the planet, Henning Vane, Lloyd Langford, Holly Walsh and Rich Hall. The rules are as follows. Each panelist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false, save for five hidden truths which their opponent should try to identify.

Points are scored by truths that go unnoticed, while other panellists can win points if they spot a truth or lose points if they mistake a lie for a truth. First up is Holly Walsh. Holly, your subject is Tom Cruise, a Hollywood actor, producer and Scientologist whose best-known films include Risky Business, Top Gun, Jerry Maguire and the Mission Impossible franchise.

Off you go, Holly. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Few people have had the power to trademark their own name apart from maybe Ronald McDonald and Granny Smith. But then again, who's as famous as Tom Cruise, trademark? Henning. Can you trademark Tom Cruise? You can certainly trademark names,

but Tom Cruise has not been trademarked, and even if someone has trademarked a name, that doesn't stop you naming someone after him. People might have called their children Henning Ven after you. I'm not sure I like that idea, but essentially they would need to change their name by deed or their surname anyway, because there's very few veins. It's like a heroin addict

desperately trying to find a vein. Holly. There literally isn't a country in the world where he's not revered as a godlike superstar. In Japan, October the 6th is National Tom Cruise Day, where children dress in nothing but shirts and socks and do the risky business dance on the paper floors of their traditional

Japanese dwellings. Henning. Have they got Tom Cruise Day? They do have a Tom Cruise Day. The Japan Memorial Day Association, which designated October the 6th as Tom Cruise Day, said the star's close association with and love

for Japan was behind the move. Tom Cruise has even had a missile named after him. It's impossible to speak of Tom Cruise without mentioning the word Scientology. That's not to say Tom's not excellent fun to hang out with. Cruise once asked guests, including Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, to come over and play hide-and-seek in his mansion. They found him in the first place they looked. The closet.

Well done for finding him, is what the audience is saying there. Lloyd. I imagine he invited Will Smith and his wife round for a game of hide and seek. Yes, he did indeed. Yeah. Yeah. Yes uh the american actress and former scientologist leah ramini claimed in her autobiography that cruise asked his guests including will smith

and jada pickett smith to partake in a game of hide and seek in his mansion she writes at first i thought he was joking but no he literally wanted toand-seek with a bunch of grown-ups in what was probably close to a 7,000-square-foot house on almost three full acres of secluded land. I can't play, I'm wearing Jimmy Chews, I said. Well, good, Tom said with his signature

grin. So you're it, then. And with that, he tagged me and ran to hide. He's also got an advantage because it's his house, so he knows all the best places. Yeah. And he's very small. Yeah.

He could probably get in one of her shoes. Tom Cruise is a terrific romantic and loves marrying ladies so much that he's done it no fewer than four times. During his first dance with the actress Nicole Kidman, Tom insisted on breaking into his risky business dance in just his shirt and socks, while his wedding kiss with Katie Holmes

lasted a whopping three minutes again in just his shirt and socks. Lloyd. I think his wedding kiss with Katie Holmes lasted three minutes. You're absolutely right. Well done. Yes, Holmes and Cruise had supposedly planned to carry on kissing until the congregation began to yell at them to stop, but his guests were too respectful of him and no-one said anything. You'd never imagine that Tom Cruise, or Top Cat, as his security call him,

might be just a little bit paranoid about his height. When he's standing up, Tom Cruise is as tall as the wingspan of a fruit bat or the world's largest gherkin, or the average North American male lying down. His first wife cited his refusal to let her wear heels, stilts or stand on tiptoe in her divorce proceedings. Henny. That sounds the sort of thing that might be in the court papers.

It does, but that's because it's brilliant invention. It's not true. Very good, Holly. But it was Nicole Kidman, his second wife, said after they'd split up, well, I can wear heels now on the late show with David Letterman. So that's essentially, that whole marriage was just a set-up for a half-decent gag she could make on a chat show. It's also why he has a stunt plane on standby

wherever he goes on location, so he can, for once, look down on everyone from up high in just his shirt and socks, obviously. Thank you, Holly. And at the end of that round, Holly, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that Tom Cruise is as tall as the wingspan of a fruit bat. The wingspan of the golden-capped fruit bat,

which is native to Indonesia, is as wide as Tom Cruise's high, five foot and seven inches. And the second truth is that Cruise has a stunt plane on standby whenever he's on location. He owns his own stunt plane and insists on having it when he's on location filming in order to relax. I mean, what? And that means you've scored two points.

Next up is Henning Vane. Henning recently made a television show which found that the more successful immigrants to Britain were, the more likely they were to be considered British. And may I say how refreshing it is to have a German guest on the show. Henning, your subject is

basketball, a game played between two teams of five players, the object being to throw a ball through an elevated basket on the opponent's side of a rectangular court. Off you go, Henning. Basketball is a no-contact sport. Since my cousin Helmut got into basketball, I've had no contact with him.

But seriously, you're not allowed to touch your opponents in basketball even though it was originally referred to as indoor rugby Basketball, along with football, cricket, rugby league and union Formula One, water polo, synchronised diving and all other sports, was invented by Jesus As a job lot, when he realised it was the sixth day of creation and he only created three sports. And those were crazy golf, stock car racing with caravans and wolf's ball.

Lloyd. Was basketball originally called indoor rugby? Yes, it was. Yes. Canadian Dr James Naismith actually invented basketball as an alternative to the rough and tumble of indoor rugby. However, in the early days of the sport, there were few rules, especially the no contact and no running with the ball ones.

And so despite the inventor's best efforts, the game was widely viewed as a form of indoor rugby until more rules were added later basketball is a bunch of sweaty men squabbling around a couple of 12 foot poles much as you'll find in one of britain's rougher lap dancing clubs which is also no contact sport or so i've heard. Anyway, anyway, back to Jesus. Despite being only three foot tall, as was the norm at the time, he was really good at basketball. Jesus was the king of the last gasp win, and used to get really fed up of sports writers saying he had come back from the dead in the final quarter. In the Inter-Galilee final in 25 AD,

his team, the Bethlehem Baskets, literally smashed the opposition, the Levant Lepers. However, his tendency to turn all the players' electrolyte drinks into wine... ..eventually took its toll on his teammates. But their local rivals, Maccabi Tel Aviv, are still going strong, having won six European titles without even being in Europe. Rich. That's true. Maccabi Tel Aviv has won a lot of titles in the European League.

You're absolutely right. Yes. Yes, Maccabee Tel Aviv, an Israeli basketball team, as well as their six European titles, has also been runner-up nine times in the EuroLeague. It took almost 2,000 years for the game to reach the shores of America. In fact, it took 28 years of playing the game before anyone suggested cutting the bottom out of the basket

so everyone could get their ball back. Up until then, all games ended in a 1-0 win. Lloyd. I'm thinking maybe it took them a while to cut the bottoms out of the baskets and they used some sort of stick to pop the ball out.

You're absolutely right, yes. Originally, basketball was played with peach baskets mounted on top of a wooden pole and someone had to climb a ladder to retrieve the ball after every successful shot. After a while, people began to cut small holes in the bottom of the basket so a stick could be used to pop the ball out from underneath.

The idea to mount the basket on a backboard only came about as a means of preventing supporters watching the game on a balcony from swatting away potential scores by the opposition. And yes, it took 28 years before they fully cut the bottom out of the basket. What makes basketball different from any other sport is that absolutely nothing happens in the middle of the court.

At the Milwaukee State University final in 1968, the middle of the court was double-booked with a jumble sale. It didn't even affect play. Basketball is the third most popular sport worldwide. It's not just popular with human beings either Scientists in Helsinki were lucky enough to witness a basketball match Between two teams of rats Fancy that

Unfortunately, because rats, like mice, urinate constantly They violate the no liquid on the playing surface rule And for this reason they are not allowed to play in the NBA rich I'm willing to believe that two teams of rats conducted a basketball game you're absolutely right they did yes in 1995 Finnish researchers demonstrated the success of their animal conditioning experiments by arranging a basketball match between two teams of rats at the Finnish Science Centre in Helsinki.

And they still host regular matches lasting approximately ten minutes each. Oh, I would love to have seen some gerbil cheerleaders. And they're not even really playing. I mean, I watched the footage. It's like they're not even using their hands. They haven't got any. So...

And they have absolutely no tactical awareness. There you go, Holly. It's really not worth seeing. Well, it's good to see once, but I wouldn't go every week. That's what the people here are thinking. And I tell you what, they're right.

Yeah, so the rats, they're not allowed to play in the NBA because of their constantly... That's true. Well, we already had that. I've just recap where we were. No, but rats aren't allowed to play in the NBA. No, to be fair on Henning, what he said was... Why be fair? Why be fair on Henning? Unfortunately... Why be fair on Henning?

Yeah. Because that's what we decided at the end of the war. We've just... You've got to... Two wrongs don't make a right. Europe had to rebuild. It was supposed to be about togetherness. But, no, what Henning said was, because rats like mice urinate constantly,

they violate the no liquid on the playing service rule, and that's why they're not allowed to play in the NBA. Well, that is one of the reasons. It is not. It is, because it violates the no liquid on the court. But rats don't urinate constantly. Henning. I'll give you another reason why they're not allowed,

because they're a bit too small anyway. Exactly, they're a bit too small. Another reason? You're playing into my hand. I don't hear a buzz. Holly. One of the reasons why rats can't play in the NBA is because they're too small.

Accepted. Thank you. Yes, you can have a point. That wasn't one of the truths Henning was given, but there is no doubt... There is no doubt, Henning, there is no doubt, Henning, there is no doubt that one of the reasons that rats are not permitted to play in the NBA

is that they're a bit too small. I think the NBA would open itself to court cases if they were discriminated on high grounds. Anyway, among American humans, and now it gets interesting, among American humans over seven foot tall, one in six is a professional basketball player. The other five are retired professional basketball players

or giraffe dentists. Thank you, Henning. And at the end of that round, Henning, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is, and you were so close to this, this Holly the truth

is that mice unlike rats urinate constantly and so would violate the no liquid on the playing so this the National Basketball Association of America and many other associations around the world require mop boys to be on hand to mop up players' sweat that's accumulated on the playing surface. And that means, Henning, that you've scored one point. Next up is Rich Hall.

In the 1980s, Rich appeared in a series of adverts for Pizza Hut. He even learned how to make an American hot Tell him his country needs more gun control Rich your subject is wood the hard fibrous material comprising most of the stem and branches of a tree or shrub off you go rich trees Are they really some of the world's largest organisms? No because a tree is 99% dead Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating the death of trees. In fact, by the time this sentence is finished,

another 100 square hectares of Brazilian rainforest will have disappeared, which is why it's probably best to leave this sentence un-fin. Lloyd. I think 99% of a tree is dead. Correct. Yes, only 1% of a typical mature tree is actually alive. The rest is composed of non-living structural wood cells. China has destroyed so many of its trees

it now imports millions of chopsticks from America. Henny. Do they import chopsticks? That's a nice sort of thing they would do themselves, wouldn't they? This is a process you should have gone through with your own mind silently. It's just the adrenaline rush. So they import them sticks from America.

Yeah, they import them sticks from America. Yes, you're absolutely right. Yes, a shortage of chopsticks in China has become so acute that a US company, Georgia Chopsticks, has begun exporting millions of pairs to China. Nowadays, the most collectible acoustic guitars are made of Guatemalan mesquite. Their value depends not on how they are decorated or who owned it before them, but by the age of the wood. owned it before them, but by the age of the wood. What makes a 1998 limited edition

Joan Baez 045 Martin guitar collectible is, if you look under the soundboard, you will see the inscription, too bad you're a communist scrawled on the wood. Lloyd. Maybe the wood for the guitars. The Guatemalan

even saying that out loud I realise it's wrong. Guatemalan mesquite. Yes. No, it doesn't exist. In truth, the sound quality of a guitar has nothing to do with its tone wood and everything to do with its ability to repel humidity. A guitar needs to be kept extremely dry or it will warp. The George Harrison song...

Henning. It would warp, wouldn't it? If you chuck it in the water? Well, I wouldn't say the only alternative to keeping something extremely dry is chucking it in the water. No, too much and too little humidity both affect the sound quality and tone of a guitar, but you don't have to keep it extremely dry. The George Harrison song, While My Guitar Gently Weeps,

is about an over-humidified guitar. However, since the implementation of the International Exotic Wood Trade Act of 1976, if you are caught transporting a Guatemalan mesquite guitar between, say, Guatemala and America, your guitar will be confiscated and eventually incinerated.

Henning. Well, there must be some sort of wood treaty that would forbid exporting certain trees so that thing from 1976 does that exist? I'm very grateful to you Henning for buzzing in on that because as Rich read it out I worried I'd rather spoil the chances of people believing that

fact by already telling you that Guatemalan mesquite didn't exist as a wood. No I didn't say that tree didn't exist. The fact that you're now willing to believe there's been some sort of. I'm saying that agreement exists. It's very unusual for there to be an agreement about the export of a fictional wood. No!

Of just, essentially, there is regulating what wood can be exported, what can't. Forget about that specific wood, but... No, well, that act doesn't exist either. But it should. In Victorian times, when most toilet seats were made of wood, the rich would sit on mahogany or walnut, while the poor put up

with untreated white pine. In the British Parliament, when a few rebel MPs split from the main party to defy the party line, they would have to meet in the servants' quarters and use the untreated pine toilets, which is where we get the phrase splinter group. Holly? Push people eat mahogany.

That's absolutely true. That is true, yes. In Victorian times, the rich would sit on mahogany or walnut while the poor put up with untreated white pine the use of wood in any furniture including loose seats in the Victorian era was class-based with dark woods being the preserve of the middle and upper classes and cheap untreated pale pine being used by the masses at one time in California before wooden coins were introduced as a national currency animal parts such as woodpecker scalps were used as money. One woodpecker scalp was equal to five skunk tails known as cents. A hundred cents made one deer head, or buck.

And this was later replaced by the less decorative duck's beak, or dollar bill. Thank you, Rich. And at the end of that round, Rich, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that what makes a 1998 limited edition Joan Byers 045 Martin guitar collectible is that if you look under the soundboard, you'll see the inscription,

Too bad you're a communist, scrawled on the wood. Joan Byers started her career when she purchased an original old Martin O-45 guitar back in 1959. In 1998, Martin Guitars decided to make 59 exact replicas of that original guitar, and when they began taking measurements, they noticed the

inscription too bad you're a communist under the soundboard and decided to duplicate that inscription which had probably been written by one of the company's guitar technicians when she'd taken the guitar in to be serviced so it's essentially they've replicated a little scribbled note of abuse that someone servicing her guitar put in. And the second truth is that animal parts such as woodpecker scalps were used as money. The Yurok people, who lived in what is now northwestern California, once used woodpecker scalps as currency. And that means, Rich, you've scored two points.

Next up, it's the thinking man's Rod Gilbert, Lloyd Langford. Lloyd, your subject is McDonald's, the worldwide US fast-food chain established in 1955 by Ray Kroc. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Lloyd. McDonald's is a government-run public service for those instances when you cannot find either a toilet or a restaurant. McDonald's is the world's largest distributor of guilt, litter, heart attacks and toys.

No two countries with a McDonald's have ever gone to war with each other. Due to an ancient curse, the opposite is true of Gregg's. curse, the opposite is true of Greg's. Rich? I have heard that no two countries in McDonald's have ever gone to war. It has often been said. It's a theory called the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention.

It's from a 1999 book by Thomas L. Friedman. Shortly after it was published, NATO bombed Serbia. And on the first day of the bombing, McDonald's restaurants in Belgrade were demolished by angry protesters and they were only rebuilt after the bombing ended. So even if it was ever true, it's not true anymore. What was the fact about toys?

McDonald's is the world's largest distributor of guilt, litter, heart attacks and toys. But it does give away a lot of toys. Are you going for it, Holly? I mean, I've got nothing to lose. You're going for it? Yeah, I'm going for it. You're absolutely right. McDonald's is the largest distributor of toys in the world

through the toys they give away with Happy Meals. 20% of all sales at McDonald's include a toy. McDonald's calls people who eat a lot of their food heavy users. Though these people don't feel insulted, they just take it on the chins. Big Mac special sauce contains 60 ingredients, sometimes 61 if you've really annoyed the chef. McDonald's had a rare failure

with their healthy option feast, or slender bender, consisting of two triple-decker lettuce burgers, starch-free fatless fries, a sip of water, and a quick look at a donut. Company mascot Ronald Macdonald was inspired by the terrifying antagonist of Stephen King's It. As Chip McDonald said, if that doesn't scare the little bastards into the restaurants, nothing will.

In Indonesia, Ronald McDonald's name translates as the diabetes clown. Holly. Yes. No, sadly not. In Japan, Ronald McDonald is called Donald McDonald

because they have a problem with their arse. Henning. Undoubtedly. Donald McDonald. It is Donald McDonald. Yes, a local Japanese businessman who helped open the first McDonald's in Japan decided that Donald McDonald would be easier

for Japanese customers to pronounce. If you eat 24 chicken McNuggets and a supersized cork in one sitting, you'll have a problem with your arse too. Her Majesty the Queen owns a McDonald's near Windsor Castle with a drive-through modified to accommodate a horse-drawn carriage. Holly. She probably owns the land that a McDonald's is on

and therefore she sort of owns it. Yes, you've found the dry sliver of real estate truth in that fruity fact. Yes, it's a drive-through McDonald's and part of a retail park in Slough, which Crown Estates bought for £92 million. And she can even see it from her state apartments at Windsor Castle. A McDonald's branch in Medellin, Colombia,

has pioneered a drive-by delivery system where your order is shot through the window of your vehicle from a passing car with blacked-out windows. Norway has no McDonald's. However, Sweden has a ski-through McDonald's where you get ice in your soft drink whether you want it or not. Holly.

Ooh, one of those is true. Ski-through. Ski-through is right. Yes. Well done. Other unlikely locations for McDonald's restaurants include the Negev Desert and Guantanamo Bay. What?

Yeah, the more I hear about that place, the less I like it. Thank you, Lloyd. At the end of that round, Lloyd, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that McDonald's calls people who eat a lot of their food heavy users. And that means, Lloyd, you've scored one point. When the first McDonald's drive-through in Kuwait opened,

the queue was seven miles long. It was a record-breaking day for serving shakes. Which brings us to the final scores. In fourth place, with minus four points, we have Henning Vein. In third place, with zero points, it's Rich Hall. In second place, with two points, it's Lloyd Langford. And in first place, with an unassailable three points,

it's this week's winner, Holly Walsh. That's about it for this week. Goodbye. The Unbelievable Truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair, with panellists Lloyd Langford, Holly Walsh, Rich Hall, and Ian Vane. The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and Colin Squash, and the producer was John Naisley.

It was a random production of BBC Radio 4.