Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Brand Envy (2026)

Episode Date: April 25, 2026

This week, it’s our annual Brand Envy episode, where I tip my hat to great ideas that have lasted for years.We’ll talk about a very funny character who has made the world laugh without uttering a single word.An idea that was born on the side of highways.And we’ll talk about a movie that has had the longest run in cinema history.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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What love doesn't conquer. Al-Caseltzer will. What a relief. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Radio 4. We present The Archers. Back in 1950, England, a man named Godfrey Basley produced the pilot episode of a new radio show. At that time, the BBC was airing a very popular radio show called Dick Barton

Special Agent that followed the exploits of ex-commando Richard Barton, who solved crimes and saved the nation from disaster every week. This new radio series created by Basley had nothing to do with secret agents. It was produced along with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. The purpose of the show was to relay modern agricultural information to post-war British farmers to help maximize the production of food for the nation. Basley believed that the dangers and risks in farming were just as great as the cliffhangers in the Dick Barton show. A farmer's entire livelihood could disappear in a thunderstorm.

So instead of communicating dry information to farmers, Basley chose to create a fictional world inhabited by interesting, and quirky characters. At that time, Dick Barton's special agent was just finishing its run, and this new show for farmers titled, The Archers, took its place. Like the Dick Barton series,

it would run Monday to Friday. And like Dick Barton, each episode would only be 15 minutes long. As the archers found its footing, the writers hit on a formula. 10% farming information, 30% general information about the countryside, and 60% entertainment. The radio series revolved around the lives of three farmers

who live in the fictional village of Ambridge. First and foremost was Dan Archer and his family, who farmed efficiently with little money, there was Walter Gabriel who farmed inefficiently with little money, and there was wealthy businessman George Fairbrother, who intentionally farmed at a loss for tax reasons. Well, small garages are up against it, I can tell you. You're right.

They've been going out of business steadily this year. We just can't compete with the big combines who can lower their prices when they feel like it. Survival of the fittest. Very much so. In an era where radio numbers declined due to the introduction of television, the show did remarkably well on the BBC. Soon, the archers began to attract millions of listeners.

In 1954 and again in 1955, the Archers won the National Radio Awards' Most Entertaining Program of the Year. It was now attracting a peak of 20 million listeners weekly. Throughout the 1960s, the show was still very popular with 11 million listeners per week. But by the mid-70s, the Archers began to struggle. The BBC seriously considered canceling the show. In 1975, female writers were brought in for the first time, and the show found a second wind.

The episodes became better than ever and began tackling contemporary themes like rural drug addiction, family breakups, and the decimation of foot and mouth disease. But now on Radio 4, it's time for the 12th episode of The Archers. It's Friday morning, and John's called in at Grange Farm. The Archers is still running on BBC to this day, with six new shows every week. It has produced over 20,850 episodes as of this writing.

And each installment is now just 13 minutes long. What began as a radio show dedicated to farmers is now a contemporary drama in a rural setting. It is so revered in Britain, there was a nod to. to it in the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympic Games when the theme song was played at the beginning of the segment about British culture. The Archer's radio show, now available as a podcast, is the world's longest running drama. It is a brand that has lasted 76 years and counting. Welcome to our annual brand envy episode. This is the show where I tip my hat to unique brands, that have lasted for years.

Today, we'll talk about a very funny character who has made the world laugh without uttering a single word, an idea that was born on the side of highways, and we'll talk about a movie that has had the longest run in cinema history. You're under the influence. Ladies and gentlemen,

please welcome Sir Simon Rattle. Tonight, as a tribute to the British film industry, he is conducting the... London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of chariots of fire. Do you remember this other moment during the opening ceremony at the London 2012 Olympic Games? The London Symphony Orchestra begins to play. And when the camera reveals the person playing the repetitive note on the synthesizer, it's none other than Mr. Bean.

Tasked with carrying the steady electronic pulse of that great Vangelis theme, Mr. Bean starts to get bored. He checks his watch, he yawns, he takes a selfie, then starts to daydream about being in the actual Chariots of Fire movie, and while daydreaming, he keeps playing well after the orchestra has finished the piece, much to the mock horror of the conductor. Then Mr. Bean scrambles to play a big flourish. It was hilarious, and the crowd in the crowd in the world,

the stadium loved it. So did millions of television viewers around the world. Actor Rowan Atkinson has played Mr. Bean for over 40 years. Actually, the character has slowly evolved over time. A version of Mr. Bean debuted on a British TV show called Canned Laughter in 1979. He was called Mr. Box then. The character was similar to Mr. Bean, only with dialogue. Then in the mid-80s, Atkinson first performed his character as Mr. Bean at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival,

a famous trial ground for comedians and actors. It went over well. Then in 1987, Atkinson did an interesting experiment at the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal. Because Canada is bilingual, Atkinson asked if he could perform his Mr. Bean character on the French stage.

even though he spoke no French. He wanted to know if his bumbling, wordless character worked in front of a non-English audience. And it did. It was a huge hit. That proved Mr. Bean's physical comedy just might work around the world. Rowan Atkinson began his performing life

as a choir boy at the Durham Cathedral in the northeast of England, where one of his fellow choir members was the future Prime Minister, Tony Blair. While Atkinson was studying engineering, he was always doing humorous impersonations to amuse his school friends, and he acted in school plays. When he later went to Oxford to do an engineering PhD,

he got involved with the Oxford University Dramatic Society. There, he met comedy writer Richard Curtis, who would go on to write and direct movies like Four Weddings in a Funeral, Notting Hill, love actually. Atkinson and Curtis became lifelong friends and collaborators. The first official TV appearance of Mr. Bean was on January 1, 1990. It was a half-hour special for Thames Television.

Subsequent episodes of Mr. Bean appeared sporadically between one and four times a year. The shows were co-written by Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis, and Robin Driscoll. Hard to believe, but there were only 15 episodes of the Mr. Bean TV show in total. Despite that tiny archive, Mr. Bean captivated the world. The show was broadcast in 190 countries, and it has spawned two major motion pictures that have each grossed over $250 million, plus a popular animated series, and multiple Mr. Bean commercials. The Mr. Bean show is the most watched in full.

program in the world and is carried by 50 airlines at any one time. Mr. Bean is a fascinating character. He is bumbling and petulant. Rowan Atkinson describes Mr. Bean as a child in a man's body. He certainly has the curiosity of a child and a complete inability for any adult social interaction. He is also without scruples, is quick to cheat, and often destroys property without a second thought. His facial expressions and rubber physicality are hilarious. Mr. Bean is gifted at creating chaos and has an absurd way of solving problems.

One of my favorite scenes is when Mr. Bean decides to change out of his clothes and into his swimsuit while standing on a public beach. He begins with putting his swimming trunks on over his pants, then somehow manages to take off his pants while threading them through his trunks. It is a virtuoso piece of physical comedy. Search Mr. Bean at the Beach on YouTube. You won't regret it.

How popular is Mr. Bean? Well, he has more YouTube subscribers than Adele and almost twice as many Facebook followers as Taylor Swift. That should tell you everything you need to know. Mr. Bean's constant misfortune is our never-ending joy and how lucky we are. Mr. Bean is a brand I envy. When we come back, the word motel first appears in the dictionary. If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like last season's brand envy episode,

season 14, episode 24 in the 2024 archives, where we take, talk about how the popular coffee-crisp chocolate bar was only sold in Canada. You'll find the episode on your favorite podcast app. When my wife and I drive up Highway 11 from Toronto to cottage country in Ontario, I am struck by the number of motels still in business. The word motel is short for motor hotels. While the word hotel first appeared in the English language around 1687, the word motel didn't appear until 1925 when automobile travel was becoming more and more popular. As a matter of fact, the very first motel popped up in California in

2025. It was called the milestone Moe-Tel and was owned by brothers Arthur and Alfred Heineman. They reportedly came up with the word Moe-Tel because they couldn't fit the words, Milestone Motor Hotel on their sign, so they shortened it. Before motels, motorists used auto camps when traveling, which were usually separate cabins on highways that offered no private facilities. Eventually, those separate cabins morphed into long blocks of rooms under one roof. In those early days, hotels were mostly built in the middle of towns and cities near railway stations.

Those hotels didn't foresee the popularity of the automobile and as a result didn't offer enough parking space. That's where the motel saw its opportunity. Entrepreneurs began buying land on the edge of towns and on highways. These motels offered motorists convenient lodgings as they could walk right into their rooms from the parking lot. And best of all, they featured indoor plumbing. The word,

Motel entered dictionaries in 1945. After World War II, when gas rationing stopped, there was a boom in automobile sales, and that fueled the construction of motels on the nation's highways. By 1960, there were over 65,000 motels across Canada and the U.S. You may remember that motels had unique key fobs. They doubled as postage-paid stamps. So, guests who forgot to return to the U.S. their keys at checkout could just pop them directly into mailboxes wherever they happen to be

in the world. While motels seem to be disappearing these days, due to air travel and the emergence of Airbnb, motels still offer a simple, convenient option. But there is one industry that still loves motels, Hollywood. Think of how many movies and TV shows you've seen with dramatic scenes occurring at motels. We got a call from this detective saying that he traced her to that motel out on the old highway. That must be the Bates Motel.

Like Psycho. No Country for Old Men, Thelma and Louise, and Pulp Fiction. And TV shows like Justified, Breaking Bad, and maybe Canada's favorite one of all, the Rosebud Motel in Schitts Creek. Today, there are about 1,500 motels in Canada and roughly 12,000 in the U.S. Hats off to the Mighty Motel, 100 years young and still offering an affordable stop for weary motorists. When we come back, a successful play flops as a movie, then breaks all cinema records. When I was in university in 1978, Friday nights were often spent at midnight showings at the Roxy Theater on the dance.

in the east end of Toronto. That was where the Rocky Horror Picture Show was screened every Friday at the bewitching hour. And what wild fun that was, I had never seen anything like it. The Rocky Horror Picture Show began life as a musical in London, England in 1973. Created by an out-of-work actor named Richard O'Brien, he wrote it to keep busy during long winter nights. He originally titled it The Rocky Horror Show. The play was part sci-fi and part horror

and featured an outrageous cast of misfits, including an unknown actor named Tim Curry who played the lead role of transvestite Dr. Frankenfurter. As the story unfolds, a car driven by an innocent couple named Brad and Janet suffers a flat tire in a storm one night. Spotting a castle on a nearby

hill, the couple knock on the door for help. The castle is occupied by strange people in costume having a party. Then, the owner of the castle, Dr. Frankenfurter, makes a memorable entrance. The mad doctor has a passion. He wants to create the perfect man in his lab, whom he christens, Rocky. It's a rock and roll take on the Frankenstein story. Along the way, craziness, happens, hilarity ensues, Brad and Janet lose their innocence, and there are a lot of really great rock songs. The stage play became an instant hit, got rave reviews, and won the Evening Standards Best Musical Award. Lou Adler, the famed music producer, saw Rocky Horror on stage in London. He loved it and immediately purchased the American theatrical rights. When it ran for

nine months in Los Angeles, it was just as popular as it had been in the UK. But when it moved to Broadway, it was a different story. New Yorkers didn't buy all the hype. For the first time, the reviews were terrible. However, an executive from 20th century Fox loved it and offered $1.4 million to adapt it to the big screen. Tim Curry reprised his role as Frankenfurter. Brad was played by Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon played Janet, singer Meatloaf was Eddie, and playwright slash screenwriter Richard O'Brien played the doctor's faithful handyman riffraff. Lou Adler screened the finished movie, now called the Rocky Horror Picture Show, for the 20th Century Fox marketing team. It didn't go well. And when the film was given a test screening with an audience,

half of them walked out. When the Rocky Horror Picture Show premiered in August of 1975, critics panned it and it completely flopped at the box office. After the dismal reviews, Adler sat on the curb outside the theater with Tim Deegan, who was in charge of the movie's advertising. The mood was glum. Then some college kids came up to them and said, we really liked your movie.

That convinced Adler there was an audience out there for the film. They just had to find it somehow. Then Tim Diggin had an idea. Why not try screening the movie at midnight? The Waverly Theater in New York was a venue known for showing

offbeat films when the clock struck 12. It had learned that a different kind of audience shows up at midnight. On April Fool's Day, 1976, the Rocky Horror Picture Show began its first midnight screening. It was an immediate success. The theater noticed that a group of 30 or 40 patrons would come every Friday night, go out to dinner, watch the movie, then party. It had become a ritual. So 20th Century Fox decided to screen it at midnight in Austin, Texas, Los Angeles, Seattle, and at the Roxy in Toronto.

Soon, midnight screenings were happening in a number of major cities. Five months later, something unexpected started to happen. The audience began shouting back at the screen. Sometimes they would shout out lines in unison with the on-screen characters. Sometimes they would shout out new lines, like, watch out for that rock, just before Brad and Janet's car got the flat. Soon, the audience started dressing up in costumes from the movie. and bringing props.

They threw toast at the screen when the characters proposed a toast. They threw toilet paper whenever a character said, Great Scott. They threw confetti in the wedding scene and squirted water pistols during the rain scenes. All of this and more happened in theaters across the U.S. and at the Roxy in Toronto. People weren't just at a movie.

They felt they were part of the movie. and because of that, they kept coming back. Then, something else started to happen. Audience members started acting out the scenes in front of the screen. Known as a shadow cast, people began dressing up as the movie's characters, delivering lines verbatim, and acting out the entire movie as it unfolded behind them. By switching the screenings to midnight, it turned the Rocky Horror Picture Show from a flop, into a cultural phenomenon.

Fan clubs began. There was a Rocky Horror newsletter, and LGBTQS plus folks rallied around the movie. Last year was the 50th anniversary of the film. There is a new documentary out about the making of the movie titled Strange Journey, The Story of Rocky Horror, directed by Linus O'Brien, who interviews the cast and, of course, his father Richard.

Hello, dear people. My name's Richard O'Brien, the author of that very odd musical The Rocky Horror Show. I'd just like to say a very big thank you to the many of you that have interacted with it on one or two occasions over the past five decades, especially the lovely shadow cast performers from all around the world. It's a terrific doc, highly, highly recommended. The Rocky Horror Pictures show that began in 1975 still runs in hundreds of theaters at midnight, and happens to boast the longest theatrical release in cinema history. For that and more, it is a brand I truly envy. Before Richard O'Brien was an out-of-work actor, he was a barber in New Zealand.

And where that barbershop once stood, there is now a statue of him as riffraff. The rise and fall and rise of the Rocky Horror Picture Show is a testament to the staying power of a great idea. Like Mr. Bean, who has made the world laugh out loud for 40 years without needing a single word of dialogue. Often, entrepreneurs see a gap in the market and instinctively know there is a market in the gap. Today, renovated motels are hot destinations.

To me, one of the best ways to measure success is when brands last. The ad industry is always chasing the new shiny thing and often overlooks what endures. Yet these brands have survived the onslaught of endless competitors, the ebbs and flows of an unreasonable economy, and bullying trends. Their utter uniqueness is their shield. In every story today, someone had an idea that didn't exist before, an idea that didn't even look like anything that existed before. Instead of taking aim right down the middle of the road,

they dared to take a creative detour, proving all it takes is a jump to the left when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the TareStream, Mobile Recording Studio. Producer Debbie O'Reilly, Chief Sound engineer Jeff Devine.

Theme music by Casey Pick, Jeremiah Pick, and James Aiton. Tunes provided by APM music. Follow me at Terry O. Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. Terry's top slogans of all time. Number nine. Clare-all. Does she? Or doesn't she?

See you next week.