Speaker 1: Welcome back to TV Reload.
Speaker 2: My name's Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I'll be
Speaker 2: going behind the scenes with the biggest players in television.
Speaker 2: I want to thank everyone for your support of this podcast.
Speaker 2: I do read all of the reviews and it is
Speaker 2: quite amazing how supportive everyone has been. Leaving reviews does
Speaker 2: play a huge part in the podcast distribution ability. I
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Speaker 2: For those of you who are new to the podcast today,
Speaker 2: welcome and please do me a favor and press subscribe
Speaker 2: so you don't miss the weekly juicy stories from behind
Speaker 2: the scenes of television. If you could also share this
Speaker 2: episode with friends and family, I would love to expand
Speaker 2: our little community of lifelind at TV enthusiasts. On today's episode,
Speaker 2: I have someone very special to me. He was the
Speaker 2: other executive producer on my series of Big Brother. Yes,
Speaker 2: it is Chris Blackburn, a very accomplished series producer. We
Speaker 2: do discuss a lot of Big Brother today on the podcast,
Speaker 2: and I try not to be too introspective about that,
Speaker 2: but to be fair, Chris worked on Big Brother a
Speaker 2: lot and to not discuss his knowledge on casting in
Speaker 2: process and to not dig away at some of the
Speaker 2: stories from behind the scenes would have been a huge mistake.
Speaker 2: Chris has decades of experience that includes reality shows like
Speaker 2: Beauty in the Geek, My Kitchen Rules and Temptation Island,
Speaker 2: which I believe was the first reality show in Australia
Speaker 2: even before Big Brother. I could name so many more shows,
Speaker 2: but I think we need to get into this episode
Speaker 2: because it is a long one. However, it will be
Speaker 2: worth every second because Chris is warm, funny and brutally honest.
Speaker 2: My head is still spinning from what he really thought
Speaker 2: of the former host of Big Brother, and also fascinated
Speaker 2: with his opinions on cancel culture, amongst other things. Let's
Speaker 2: get started with today's episode. I'd like to welcome Chris
Speaker 2: Blackburn to TV reloading.
Speaker 3: This whole You know they edited me to look something
Speaker 3: like different. That's bullshit. Previously on Temptation Island. Have a
Speaker 3: lot of first shows that I do. I did the
Speaker 3: first Big Brother.
Speaker 1: Yes he's a Big Brother.
Speaker 3: The best real scenes are better than anything in a movie. Gentlemen,
Speaker 3: let's take this to the kitchen. I detest cancel culture.
Speaker 1: Previously on Beauty and the Geek Australia.
Speaker 3: The thing we always used to say to people and
Speaker 3: they always used to ignore, was was b yourself.
Speaker 1: How are you mate? Are you well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, very well, living in Freemantle at the moment, doing
Speaker 3: another show? Or life is good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're working on a show in Perth at the moment.
Speaker 2: What's what's the show that you're working on.
Speaker 3: Well, it's attached to a hospital, that's all I can say.
Speaker 3: It's one of those medical dramas. So it'll be out
Speaker 3: later in the year on Channel nine and Discovery Channel
Speaker 3: in the UK.
Speaker 1: Is it a fun show to work on?
Speaker 3: I have, unfortunately, have a lot of first shows that
Speaker 3: I do. I did the first Big Brother in twenty
Speaker 3: but it's twenty years ago. Do you know?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 3: Did you realize that twenty years ago? I did the
Speaker 3: very first Big Brother, which is involved all these I
Speaker 3: don't know, two hundred staff and we had no idea
Speaker 3: how to make it apart from we'd watched the show's
Speaker 3: overseas and it was this monster and I did so
Speaker 3: I did the first series of that. So the first
Speaker 3: series of any show has all sorts of things that
Speaker 3: have to get ironed out and the format, and not
Speaker 3: so much Big Brother the format was clear, but new
Speaker 3: shows you've got to iron out the format. You've got
Speaker 3: to get the broadcaster happy, the people you're filming happy.
Speaker 3: So they're always more work and more problems. But you
Speaker 3: know that's the gig, as they say, as the young
Speaker 3: people say, well, you've worked.
Speaker 2: In television for decades now. You know, we won't say
Speaker 2: how old you are, but what is it that you,
Speaker 2: as an executive producer bring to the shows? I mean,
Speaker 2: what would you say is the Blackburn brand.
Speaker 3: I'm only a serious producer now, so I'm going down
Speaker 3: the other side of the career mountain. I'm slipping, slipping,
Speaker 3: slipping down, slipping backwards. But you know what, I don't
Speaker 3: actually mind. It's much easier slipping backwards than trying to
Speaker 3: climb forward. It requires a lot less energyeah. I mean,
Speaker 3: I've done a lot of the same kinds of shows.
Speaker 3: So this medical one I did it. It's where I
Speaker 3: met my coep on Big Brother, Alex Mavrodykis. We met
Speaker 3: on a hospital show in Southampton. I think he was,
Speaker 3: if you could believe, at twenty one when I met him.
Speaker 3: So we did this show for the BBC, which was
Speaker 3: just medical reality, you know, accident emergencies up on the
Speaker 3: wards and stuff anyway, So I guess they get it.
Speaker 3: They get someone who's done a lot of different kinds
Speaker 3: of shows. And I always say to people, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not that you're any good, it's that you've made
Speaker 3: all the mistakes there are to make, and so you
Speaker 3: know not to make them. So I guess that's It's
Speaker 3: like a mechanic. It's like anyone is that you just
Speaker 3: know what not to do more than what to do.
Speaker 2: You know, you've mentioned Alex Meverdykas and I remember, you know,
Speaker 2: being on a show with the two of you and
Speaker 2: thinking and still remembering now that your two of you
Speaker 2: got along like brothers from memory, What do you think
Speaker 2: made you to such a powerful duo?
Speaker 3: Well, they said we were a bit like the odd couple,
Speaker 3: because he's a bit more, you know, out there and social,
Speaker 3: and I'm sort of the opposite. But I think we've
Speaker 3: get on well because we don't really go for the
Speaker 3: bullshit behind the scenes. We just call it as it is,
Speaker 3: so we neither of us pretends to.
Speaker 1: Be something you're not.
Speaker 3: Well, I suppose we do pretend. That's stretching it a
Speaker 3: bit far, but we take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 3: You know, TV is no different to you know, driving
Speaker 3: the truck or any other thing that you do for
Speaker 3: a living. You just you get attracted to it, you
Speaker 3: do it, you learn it, and you know, you do
Speaker 3: it for forty years, and then you go to the
Speaker 3: nursing home.
Speaker 2: Well, I thank you too, might end up in the
Speaker 2: nursing home together. I just remember being at the Logis
Speaker 2: one year, and you know, most people who work together,
Speaker 2: they go and sit at the Logis together, but then
Speaker 2: at the after party they separate, you know, and you
Speaker 2: can tell that they're not genuine friends. They go off
Speaker 2: and mingle with other people. Where I remember that logis,
Speaker 2: the two of you were inseparable, you know, you still
Speaker 2: you were talking at the start of the Logis and
Speaker 2: I think it was like three and you both were
Speaker 2: still talking together, and I thought that was amazing that
Speaker 2: you had that friendship, you know, behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have been we've been friends for well, we've
Speaker 3: been friends since Southampton, so we've been friends for toward
Speaker 3: too many years, twenty five years or something. I remember
Speaker 3: that logis. There were two logos that I went to
Speaker 3: and there was one where who was it that.
Speaker 1: Might have been?
Speaker 3: Was it Tully? I don't know. Someone was trying to
Speaker 3: get into the after party, and I remember I was
Speaker 3: at this one and she was trying to get it
Speaker 3: out anyway. Alex had gone to the doorman and tried
Speaker 3: to work his magic, and then he came back to
Speaker 3: me and said, oh, she's in tears and she can't
Speaker 3: get in. And the logis after parties, it's not sort
Speaker 3: of it's hard to get into. You can't just you
Speaker 3: can't gate crash it, which she just found. I hope
Speaker 3: I'm talking about the right person.
Speaker 1: No spell, you're missing. It was a stell that from it.
Speaker 3: Was well, she was crying her eyes out and trying.
Speaker 3: I think she was crying around just just as a
Speaker 3: tactic to get in. And Alex told me what was happening.
Speaker 3: So I said, look, I'll go to the I'll go
Speaker 3: and you know, I'll reason with these people. I'll get
Speaker 3: her in, you know. And I went to the door
Speaker 3: and I did no good at all. I was like,
Speaker 3: she's a star of one of your show. And it
Speaker 3: was the nine party, wasn't it was a Channel nine party? Yeah,
Speaker 3: she's one of our stars, and she's done so much
Speaker 3: for the show, and you know, what the hell does
Speaker 3: it matter. It's just one more person. There's one hundred
Speaker 3: in there. And it was just like, if we say
Speaker 3: yes to her, we opened the floodgates. But I remember
Speaker 3: that one from the logis that was fun.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Alex came over to me and he'd had a lot
Speaker 2: to drink by that point, and he said, you're the
Speaker 2: winner of this show and you've got some star power.
Speaker 2: You need to go over and get her in. And
Speaker 2: Layla said to me, it was like, why would we
Speaker 2: let her in?
Speaker 1: She's a bitch.
Speaker 2: And I went over and spoke to Vicky, who was
Speaker 2: the head of publicity.
Speaker 1: I spoke to.
Speaker 2: Everyone I could to try and get her in, and
Speaker 2: she was never nice to me. Actually, I don't know
Speaker 2: why I was trying to help her, but I just
Speaker 2: remember thinking she had a lot of guts though to
Speaker 2: still be standing there hours later trying to get in,
Speaker 2: Like I just thought, why would you bother?
Speaker 3: I know it was I went to I did the
Speaker 3: same thing. I went to the Channel Line publicity person.
Speaker 3: But by the time I was, you know, on her
Speaker 3: case trying to get her in. She should have seen
Speaker 3: the riding on the wall like that. You know, I
Speaker 3: was the last, you know, the last guy in to
Speaker 3: try and get her in there, and I had no
Speaker 3: luck at all.
Speaker 2: So I begged, I reckon. I was there for half
Speaker 2: an hour trying to beg for her to get in.
Speaker 2: And I remember Alex said to me, she could throw
Speaker 2: herself off the west Gate Bridge over this.
Speaker 1: You know, she's so upset. You know, we don't want
Speaker 1: her to die.
Speaker 2: And I'm such an EmPATH, but I knew that she
Speaker 2: didn't like me and I but yet I heard that,
Speaker 2: and I remembered being like, I've got I've got to
Speaker 2: get this girl in, you know.
Speaker 1: But they never let her in.
Speaker 2: And the weird thing was she was still standing there
Speaker 2: when I left, and I sort of dodged around her.
Speaker 2: And then for years she's told people that I was
Speaker 2: nasty in wouldn't help her get into the logis, but
Speaker 2: she never knew that.
Speaker 1: She never knew the truth. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I've never explained it to her that, you know, we all
Speaker 2: wasted so much time trying to get the stupid go
Speaker 2: into the logies. Anyway, I still can't believe that you
Speaker 2: got the cast right for Big brother in twenty twelve
Speaker 2: and twenty thirteen, But then that twenty fourteen series was
Speaker 2: a bit of a shocker. Really, was there a different
Speaker 2: process with the selection for that series.
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure that it wor well, you're probably right.
Speaker 3: It probably was the cast, but we also had a
Speaker 3: problem that suddenly they wanted like ninety minutes a night,
Speaker 3: four nights a week or I can't remember exactly, but
Speaker 3: I remember that ninety minute shows and ninety minute shows
Speaker 3: are really hard to fill, you know, even from twenty
Speaker 3: four hours in the house. Sometimes it was a stretch
Speaker 3: making a half hour show and then it went to
Speaker 3: an hour, and then it went to ninety minutes. And
Speaker 3: Channel nine seemed to have bought it for to fill
Speaker 3: a large, you know, part of their schedule. They needed
Speaker 3: a lot of television for their money. It's like not
Speaker 3: having enough meat to go into stew, you know, you're
Speaker 3: just like, you can only stretch it so far. So
Speaker 3: I don't think the cast was I'd have a lot
Speaker 3: of trouble, well they it says it all. I'd have
Speaker 3: a lot of trouble remembering the cast. So twenty fourteen
Speaker 3: was just I don't know, It's just like we were.
Speaker 3: We were just struggling all the time, and those you
Speaker 3: know that intruder thing is like, ah, to go back
Speaker 3: to the stew analogy. It's like, oh, you know, this
Speaker 3: Stew's not working, Let's just throw a whole lot more
Speaker 3: people into it and see if it, you know, anything happens.
Speaker 3: And I kept saying, well, I didn't keep saying, but
Speaker 3: you know, if you put too many new people in,
Speaker 3: you just dilute it. You dilute what you have, rather
Speaker 3: than you're not enhancing it, you're diluting it. It's like
Speaker 3: in a movie, you don't have you know, ten main
Speaker 3: characters in the movie because no one can remember them,
Speaker 3: or you want three or four that people lock onto
Speaker 3: and all the rest are just acting, you know, support actors.
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, Alex actually to me when I was in Lockdown,
Speaker 2: he said a few bits in peace about what the
Speaker 2: series was going to be like. He said, oh, look,
Speaker 2: there might be a few intruders, he said, but if
Speaker 2: there's a lot of it, if you start seeing lots
Speaker 2: of intruders turning up, it means the show's not working.
Speaker 2: And I remember being so scared the whole time in
Speaker 2: that series that it was going to end up on
Speaker 2: go you know, the secondary channel.
Speaker 3: That was the joke. It was like, but that was
Speaker 3: always the fear. It's like, oh, you know.
Speaker 1: Go away, it's what we used to go with the channel.
Speaker 3: The doghouse, like sleeping in the spare room. You're going
Speaker 3: to go.
Speaker 2: It's time to go the whole show. Yeah, you worked
Speaker 2: on so many series, I mean over the years, right
Speaker 2: from series one. Not to say that you did them all,
Speaker 2: but were there any housemates that you watched through the
Speaker 2: show and then you became friends with afterwards.
Speaker 3: No, I'm terrible at remembering people. I can't remember half
Speaker 3: the staff who worked on the show. And I was
Speaker 3: never Look, it's the two way street. I don't think
Speaker 3: I think you know, I'm the old the old man,
Speaker 3: and I don't think any of the young grubies that
Speaker 3: went on Big Brother particularly were interested in the old
Speaker 3: guy in the casting room.
Speaker 2: That's so not true because Imber, like I said, I remember,
Speaker 2: I was working for Scoopla, so I was doing these
Speaker 2: weird interviews, you know, for the next two years, and
Speaker 2: I'd always seek you out and I always appreciate you
Speaker 2: because I always thought you were the truth teller. You know,
Speaker 2: you see so many people in the industry that will just,
Speaker 2: you know, pump your tires and tell you rubbish. But
Speaker 2: you always were so honest, and I gravitated towards that.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 3: I like that you've always been a hard working person
Speaker 3: and you're you're not you know, you're You're real And
Speaker 3: I always talk about how nice your mum is, and
Speaker 3: I know where that realness comes from. I was thinking
Speaker 3: of a scene that I remembered, and I remember thinking,
Speaker 3: I hope I can do justice to it. But there
Speaker 3: was remember Ben and not Ben, a lot of Bradley
Speaker 3: Bradley Yes. And I came in one morning and one
Speaker 3: of the producers, Jarla, came up and she said, oh,
Speaker 3: we've got this great scene. Anyway, I went and looked
Speaker 3: at the thing full.
Speaker 1: Did you not think I would be up to that
Speaker 1: when you said that at the table was a joke. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it's a joke.
Speaker 2: But how am I going to How not my job
Speaker 2: to be able to teach you this, But how are
Speaker 2: you supposed to work out what the difference between a
Speaker 2: joke is with someone and what actually hurting someone's feelings.
Speaker 3: The emotion and the tension between the two of you
Speaker 3: was something I've never forget. It's one of those pure
Speaker 3: real Big Brother scenes, which is why you love the
Speaker 3: show when they happen. I mean, you know, in latter
Speaker 3: years and in the early years, you get scenes that
Speaker 3: you know are not that real. You know, you know,
Speaker 3: people know they're on TV and they're sort of real,
Speaker 3: but occasionally you get a real moment between two people.
Speaker 3: Never forgotten that scene. It was like wonderfully honest. And
Speaker 3: I always say that the good thing about Big Brother
Speaker 3: was the best real scenes on Big Brother are better
Speaker 3: than anything in a movie because they're actually true. They're
Speaker 3: not actors making it up. And when two people really
Speaker 3: go at it with real honesty and you were both
Speaker 3: trying to understand each other's position anyway, I just remember
Speaker 3: that and I said to the producer Jallo, I said,
Speaker 3: that's one of the best scenes I've ever seen, and
Speaker 3: she said, yep, it is. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: You know, you've worked across so many incarnations of shows
Speaker 2: in reality, what process is the best to getting a
Speaker 2: cast right? You know, cattle calls, video submission, you know,
Speaker 2: there's so many different ways you can cast these shows,
Speaker 2: But which one do you think is the best. To
Speaker 2: getting the cast, right, I.
Speaker 3: Think it's casting calls. You've got to throw out a
Speaker 3: big net and you've got to go through the process.
Speaker 3: The thing is, people come into the casting thing, and
Speaker 3: you know, they want to get on television. They're not stupid.
Speaker 3: They think up who they're going to be, and they
Speaker 3: come in and it's almost like a trick to producers
Speaker 3: kind of thing. So, you know, and some fail miserably,
Speaker 3: you can see it in my life. But there's been
Speaker 3: plenty of housemates who they've shown great promise, you go,
Speaker 3: let's right that they're going to be gold, and they're not.
Speaker 3: They're awful. They just basically they passed the audition, that's
Speaker 3: what they did. They almost cheated and they so they
Speaker 3: come in all full of promise with you know, uncontroversial
Speaker 3: or I'm this or I'm that or whatever they've decided
Speaker 3: that they're going to be, and they sell that product
Speaker 3: to the producers. Then when they get in the house,
Speaker 3: they go, right, oh, there's a quarter of a million
Speaker 3: dollars up for grabs here. I'm not going to be
Speaker 3: that person because that person gets thrown out of the house.
Speaker 3: So what I'm going to do is now I'm going
Speaker 3: to go retreat into my shell. Good on them, you know,
Speaker 3: if you can, if you can blag your way into
Speaker 3: the Big Brother House, all good on you. You know,
Speaker 3: that's great, and bad on the producers for getting it wrong.
Speaker 3: But it's a fraud process. You can easily then, Look
Speaker 3: when someone's a star. When someone breaks out as a star,
Speaker 3: it's it's like, you know, typical TV producers, you know,
Speaker 3: grab the glory. It's like, yes, I always knew they
Speaker 3: were going to be a star, you know, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: and what about the one that you pushed for that
Speaker 3: was hopeless? You know. Yeah, it's like I knew that
Speaker 3: horse was going to win the race at Flemington, but
Speaker 3: I didn't know beforehand, but I know now, you know
Speaker 3: now that the races won't be run anyway. So yeah,
Speaker 3: casting is a it's an expensive and fraught problem. And
Speaker 3: then you also get you know, talk about too many chefs.
Speaker 3: There's like everyone that there's network, there's production company, there's
Speaker 3: all these people who all think they know who who
Speaker 3: the people are. And so you know, to use another metaphor,
Speaker 3: it's you know, it's a horse is a no, A
Speaker 3: camel is a horse designed by a committee. You know,
Speaker 3: so once you get you know, ten people all saying
Speaker 3: I think this, and I think that sometimes it works
Speaker 3: well and sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Is it harder to cast people on reality TV these
Speaker 2: days than it was twenty years ago? Because you know,
Speaker 2: people these days do have an idea of who they
Speaker 2: want to be on shows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I mean I was. I wasn't involved in
Speaker 3: the casting for the first, very first series, but but
Speaker 3: I saw them in the house and they were clean skins.
Speaker 3: They were I mean, they knew what they knew. They've
Speaker 3: watched A Big Brother from England, so they knew about
Speaker 3: the show. But they were clean skins. And by the
Speaker 3: time he got round to you know, twenty fourteen, and
Speaker 3: everyone on there almost had an agent, you know. They
Speaker 3: were all the sort of semi entertainers. They all had
Speaker 3: an eye on the prize. I think Reggie was one
Speaker 3: of the few. I mean, that's where that was right
Speaker 3: back in two thousand and three, wasn't it. Reggie. Reggie
Speaker 3: was one of the last sort of innocence, you know,
Speaker 3: the genuine sort of all though Bradley wasn't. Bradley was
Speaker 3: pretty naive and untainted. So yeah, I mean, if you
Speaker 3: look at the Block and Maths and all those shows.
Speaker 3: Now they are you know those people are They're not
Speaker 3: everyday bods, They're people. It's a pathway, it's a professional pathway.
Speaker 3: You can still discover undiscovered talent, but it's most of
Speaker 3: what you've presented is not undiscovered talent. It's people who
Speaker 3: want to be discovered. You know.
Speaker 2: The weird thing for me is that people often come
Speaker 2: up to me on the street and or write to
Speaker 2: me on social media about wanting to apply for these shows.
Speaker 2: And I get so annoyed because they'll say, I want
Speaker 2: to be on the show so badly because I want
Speaker 2: to be the next Chrissy Swan. Oh, they want to
Speaker 2: be Insta famous, you know, they want to have all
Speaker 2: these following, And it really bothers me. I'm like, because
Speaker 2: the reality is there's only like zo point zero zero
Speaker 2: percent of these reality TV contestants actually go on to
Speaker 2: become like a Christy Swan.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I always say, well, if you're going on the show
Speaker 2: for that, you're going to be let down because the
Speaker 2: truth behind that isn't worth it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true, but I mean, you know, it's the
Speaker 3: same as you know, wanting to be a movie actor,
Speaker 3: or wanting to be a footballer or whatever you want
Speaker 3: to be, and you want to be the top one.
Speaker 3: You know, there's only a handful of chosen, but so
Speaker 3: but you know, you decide you want to give it
Speaker 3: a go, and you give it a go and you
Speaker 3: see how you go. You've done very well. FITZI. He's
Speaker 3: probably the I don't know, would be fair to call
Speaker 3: him the most successful big brother problems probably if you
Speaker 3: looked at his bank balance, if he's in Sydney radio,
Speaker 3: it would be. And I'm happy to say I had
Speaker 3: met him a couple of times because I wasn't on
Speaker 3: his series, but just a really nice guy who deserves it,
Speaker 3: you know. And Chrissy Swan I did her series. I
Speaker 3: tell you there was a scene that she was involved in.
Speaker 3: There was a you might know this, but there was
Speaker 3: a policeman in to Ben another bend. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of bends, wasn't it the Winner Bend? You Ben the policeman? Now,
Speaker 3: he was a terrific character because he didn't he just
Speaker 3: he got on there and he didn't have a gender
Speaker 3: that I could see, except to have a bit of fun.
Speaker 1: One night they had this.
Speaker 3: I can't remember what the argument was over, but they
Speaker 3: just they just tore into each other and it was
Speaker 3: exactly like I described the e and Bradley moment. It was.
Speaker 3: It was just completely real, quite a new address of
Speaker 3: pride and now.
Speaker 2: Dishiding it to know I'm not too famous, Ben is
Speaker 2: quite clear. I've said maybe.
Speaker 1: Five words to you all week.
Speaker 2: It's been a good week from them.
Speaker 3: It's been a better week for me. Exactly right, it was.
Speaker 3: And how often do you have like all especially when
Speaker 3: something like that goes off in the house, it's like
Speaker 3: all cameras to the dining room to get all the
Speaker 3: other rooms, let's get great coverage on this. Ben and
Speaker 3: Chrissy are going out it hammer and tong and man,
Speaker 3: it was just when you honestly, when you get seen,
Speaker 3: like three months is a long time as the TV
Speaker 3: produced it, and there's some terrible days when you go
Speaker 3: in there and there's just like nothing, and you know
Speaker 3: there's nothing. You're going to have to make something out
Speaker 3: of nothing. And then you go in Sundays and that
Speaker 3: says like enough in one scene to fill a whole show.
Speaker 3: And there were producers who used to, you know, three
Speaker 3: in the morning, come and go, oh, how's the show
Speaker 3: going and they go. One guy said to me, oh, look,
Speaker 3: I've I nearly threw up. I've got nothing, like I've
Speaker 3: got nothing for the show. It's all terrible. And he said,
Speaker 3: but there is this there's this thing happening at the moment.
Speaker 3: It's like three in the morning. There's this scene happening
Speaker 3: in the moment in the bedroom. Not not a sex scene,
Speaker 3: just an argument. I forget what it was, Yeah, because
Speaker 3: it could be promising. And it turns out that we
Speaker 3: basically made the whole show out of that. You know,
Speaker 3: from three am to four am, this big blazing rouid
Speaker 3: blown up, and all of a sudden we went from
Speaker 3: having nothing genuinely nothing worth watching, to any just filled
Speaker 3: a show at the last moment.
Speaker 2: Anyway, what advice do you have for people applying for
Speaker 2: these shows when they're going in to meet people like yourself?
Speaker 3: So the thing we always used to say to people
Speaker 3: and they always used to ignore, was be yourself. But
Speaker 3: there's no point in being yourself or how do you
Speaker 3: be yourself in five minutes and show that you're interesting
Speaker 3: in whatever? How do you do that? So, I mean
Speaker 3: appearance is a part of it. Yeah, I mean, look,
Speaker 3: let's be sexist and say that if you're a pretty girl,
Speaker 3: there's a quota of pretty girls that have to go
Speaker 3: in the house. So that so if you're a pretty girl,
Speaker 3: you've got your chances are reduced somewhat. But I've said
Speaker 3: this before. You call it the talk test. Basically, Yes,
Speaker 3: it's like you meet someone at a party and in
Speaker 3: the first you know, can they interest you in the
Speaker 3: three minutes that you have talking to them? I don't
Speaker 3: know how you do that. I think your best chance
Speaker 3: is if you are interesting to actually be who you are,
Speaker 3: but like a hyped up version of who you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always say to people, pick three stories about your
Speaker 2: life that summarize you. So said, when you're going to
Speaker 2: get that opportunity to be in front of a producer,
Speaker 2: tell those stories because you're the most passionate when you're
Speaker 2: talking about something that you believe in about yourself or
Speaker 2: something significant that's happened in your life. Explain that moment
Speaker 2: and then you can see those key things. You can
Speaker 2: see the nuances in people, you know when they're telling
Speaker 2: their most three significant things that have happened in their life.
Speaker 3: You know how people sort of like dumb reality TV
Speaker 3: stars and that you know, why would you watch them,
Speaker 3: why would you listen to them? But actually, the interesting
Speaker 3: thing is I always used to say, you need intelligent people,
Speaker 3: and intelligence doesn't mean, you know, university professor intelligence, but
Speaker 3: you need sharp, smart people who can talk. And you know,
Speaker 3: you can get people who are in inverted commas, vogans
Speaker 3: or people at the other end of the scale who
Speaker 3: they're thinkers and they've got an opinion and they talk
Speaker 3: and they have a take on life and what's happening
Speaker 3: around them, and they've got to be able to articulate it.
Speaker 3: And so really, if you look at Big Brother contestants
Speaker 3: through the years, they are generally smart people who can talk.
Speaker 3: They're not dumb people, that's the truth they you know,
Speaker 3: look at Ben, the first winner. He didn't, you know,
Speaker 3: like he went on to be a successful businessman. I think, hmm, true,
Speaker 3: I can't think.
Speaker 2: He's a sports agent, so you know, he lives in
Speaker 2: Adelaide with his wife, and but it's very successful, you know,
Speaker 2: And I think, but then I love that about those
Speaker 2: reality shows in early twos was that we had so
Speaker 2: many amazing people on these shows that were real. It
Speaker 2: felt like you plucked people out of the real world
Speaker 2: and put them into the show where you're watching maths
Speaker 2: and you're watching these shows now, and it's so these
Speaker 2: archetypes are the same. You know, we keep seeing the
Speaker 2: same people, and we're missing that authenticity of having someone
Speaker 2: in there that's a mother that you know, is a
Speaker 2: stay at home mum, like that's a great story. Grab that,
Speaker 2: you know, or you're a businessman, grab that. But then
Speaker 2: we get these people who fall into a particular mold.
Speaker 2: And I think overall that's where reality TV is failing
Speaker 2: at the moment, is not having real people from the
Speaker 2: real world just plucked out and put into these shows.
Speaker 3: Oh, here's the story about Blair. So in the very
Speaker 3: first series, we were looking at some of the casting
Speaker 3: tapes and Blair was in the shortlist, and these there's
Speaker 3: terrible shortlists. You die. If you were one of the
Speaker 3: cars who missed out. We'd have a board there, right,
Speaker 3: and they'd be like twelve people on the board, and
Speaker 3: there'd be a meeting in the boardroom and someone go,
Speaker 3: you know what what if we talk Ben from Melbourne
Speaker 3: out and put Simon from Sydney in, And so Simon
Speaker 3: and Sydney would stay there for a couple of weeks
Speaker 3: and then there'd be another conflab and someone would go,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm not sure that Simon works. Why
Speaker 3: don't we take Simon out and put Ben back in again?
Speaker 3: You know? And I remember Blair. There was something with
Speaker 3: Blair where he was sort of substituted out and then
Speaker 3: substituted back in again. If my recollection is correct, there
Speaker 3: was anyway suffice to say, he was nearly one of
Speaker 3: those people who got bumped out at the very last minute.
Speaker 3: But he will I don't know, maybe he does know,
Speaker 3: maybe someone told him, but he was that close to
Speaker 3: not being in the series, and you know, I just
Speaker 3: you just wonder how different life would be. And I
Speaker 3: saw people just they were on that board for two
Speaker 3: or three weeks, and then at the last minute someone
Speaker 3: left field channel executive from Channel nine or ten or whatever.
Speaker 3: They go, h, I'm not sure about Mary. Let's take
Speaker 3: Mary out. Let's put Jill in from Adelaide.
Speaker 2: And it's like, Wow, it's so stressful because you have
Speaker 2: so much power, you know, of people's lives, and never
Speaker 2: the same after doing these shows, you know, so the
Speaker 2: sliding doors moment, you know that changes. These people's lives
Speaker 2: are in the hands of people like yourself.
Speaker 3: But it's also a lottery because okay, so like let's
Speaker 3: say you got I can't remember you going in and
Speaker 3: on and off the board. You'd be happy to so
Speaker 3: I can't remember that as an example, but definitely people
Speaker 3: would have in that year. But you know, you you
Speaker 3: get in the house, you then have to survive in
Speaker 3: the House of twelve weeks, and you then have to
Speaker 3: be voted by Australia as the most popular pit you know,
Speaker 3: and then you win a quarter of a million bucks
Speaker 3: and you've got a bit of fame that you can
Speaker 3: parlay and hopefully get some money out of. So it
Speaker 3: changes It does obviously change lives, and yet it's just
Speaker 3: you know, five TV execs in a room taking a punt.
Speaker 3: You know, you may as well just you know, throw
Speaker 3: darts at the board.
Speaker 2: I always say, though that it's true to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: but whoever you are before reality television is exactly who
Speaker 2: you will go back to being. It might some people,
Speaker 2: it might take a little bit more time. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: even though I went on the show, and even though
Speaker 2: I won, I'm still the same weirdo like as in,
Speaker 2: I reset to who I was so I always say
Speaker 2: to people, if you're a hairdresser, you know you'll go
Speaker 2: back to being a hairdresser.
Speaker 1: You might get a bit of fame, and you might
Speaker 1: have a following and all the rest of it, but
Speaker 1: you will end up being a hairdresser again.
Speaker 3: One thing I used to observe and it's not the case. Well,
Speaker 3: I weren't going to your circumstance. But a lot of
Speaker 3: people who wanted to be on reality TV came from
Speaker 3: broken homes. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I don't have to.
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't get attention, I didn't get love.
Speaker 3: I don't know what I want. But if I could
Speaker 3: be a celebrity, I mean, celebrity is quite intoxicating. You know,
Speaker 3: if I could be a celebrity, then my life would
Speaker 3: be completed. And a lot of people had backgrounds that
Speaker 3: you think you could see almost like they wanted to
Speaker 3: do something and be validated, and you know, they wanted
Speaker 3: people to like them. They wanted life to be easier
Speaker 3: that rather than difficult.
Speaker 2: It's the validation and redemption. And I think that that's
Speaker 2: ninety percent of people that apply for these shows. They're
Speaker 2: looking to say to the people at school, look, I've
Speaker 2: become a success or to say to their family and
Speaker 2: look at me now. You know they're looking for this
Speaker 2: validation of redemption. It's the one thing they want, and
Speaker 2: it's the one thing they're not going to get because
Speaker 2: it doesn't change your life like that. You will always
Speaker 2: have the same issues. You might win a million dollars,
Speaker 2: but I still think people have the same You will
Speaker 2: still be the same person.
Speaker 1: It's not going to give you that validation and redemption
Speaker 1: you're looking for.
Speaker 3: I never liked I mean, I like the fact that
Speaker 3: casting meant that you didn't have to sit in an
Speaker 3: office for about four weeks and flew around the country
Speaker 3: and you know, you could get pissed in your hotel room.
Speaker 3: But I didn't particularly like the idea that I was
Speaker 3: sitting there rejecting the majority of people. People don't need
Speaker 3: to be rejected in life. They will be rejected naturally.
Speaker 3: But but you know, we all have been all the time.
Speaker 3: But people don't need They put their heads up and
Speaker 3: they get them shot off. You know, it's just like, nah,
Speaker 3: we don't want you, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 3: it's I don't like that process. I don't I don't
Speaker 3: like the feeling of it. I don't like judging someone
Speaker 3: on being, you know, being the king maker, so that
Speaker 3: was always a bit yuck. But you know, all these
Speaker 3: hundreds of people turning up and it's like, Nahna, no,
Speaker 3: you're not good enough. And it wasn't we used to
Speaker 3: say that. It's not that you're that anyone's better or whatever.
Speaker 3: We're looking for a weird thing and if you're not
Speaker 3: part of it doesn't mean that, you know, but you
Speaker 3: can say that till the cows come home, but people
Speaker 3: will still. I tried to get on A Big Brother
Speaker 3: and I didn't get on, and it's like, it means
Speaker 3: absolutely nothing that you didn't get on. Honestly, it means
Speaker 3: nothing that you didn't get on it. There's no reflection
Speaker 3: on you, you know what I mean. It's just but
Speaker 3: but you can't get to you know, a thousand people
Speaker 3: and tell him that individually.
Speaker 2: So who do you think worked as the best host
Speaker 2: on that show? Because I mean we had Gretel, Colleen, Sonya, Kroger,
Speaker 2: Kyle and Jackie Oh, Like, you know, who do you
Speaker 2: think was?
Speaker 1: Who do you think nailed that gig?
Speaker 3: Let me tell you I shouldn't say this, No I
Speaker 3: could say this I of all those people, Sonya Krueger
Speaker 3: is the most is one of the nicest TV presenters
Speaker 3: I've ever worked with. I just like, she's just nice.
Speaker 3: I'd put her as my favorite. She's good at what
Speaker 3: she does, but you know, when the lights go out,
Speaker 3: she's a very attentive, pleasant person to be around. Kyle
Speaker 3: was interesting. I don't think he's just I mean, look,
Speaker 3: I don't like his who he is in the media,
Speaker 3: but when you actually met him, not in the media.
Speaker 3: I wasn't his type and he wasn't mine. But there's
Speaker 3: a certain realness to him. He's not as big a
Speaker 3: dickhead as he as he makes out. I would say
Speaker 3: he should be an inspiration to all all young children
Speaker 3: you can have. You know, you could be ugly and
Speaker 3: have no talent and you can still make it in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: You're calling Kyle Sandy Lands ugly.
Speaker 3: I'm calling him ugly and talentless and he could still
Speaker 3: make it in the world. And good on him, Good
Speaker 3: on him on him. Oh I wish I wish I'd
Speaker 3: had some of his No. I mean, he look, there's
Speaker 3: an example of how far you get, you know, Kyle.
Speaker 3: Kyle is like, you know, I'm warts and all. I
Speaker 3: just say the truth and it works for him. Gretel's
Speaker 3: a lovely person. She was maybe a little bit more intense.
Speaker 3: So so she had this penthouse on the Gold Coast
Speaker 3: penthouse apartment, it's like twenty one floors up and there
Speaker 3: was a lift that opened out. The main lift opened
Speaker 3: straight into the apartment because the guy had modified it
Speaker 3: so normally there's a corral door. Then he taken the
Speaker 3: corridor and anyway, one day Gretel's wandering wandering around her
Speaker 3: Gold Coast apartment and that that's supposed to be like
Speaker 3: no one can get to her floor. Only she with
Speaker 3: a code or whatever it was, could get to her floor.
Speaker 3: So there's Gretel Colleen, you know, National TV star, and
Speaker 3: she's wandering around. I'm going to say in her underpants,
Speaker 3: but she probably wasn't. But she's just in sim's and
Speaker 3: she's wandering around and the lift door opens and this
Speaker 3: random guy sort of goes, ah, I must be on
Speaker 3: the wrong floor. He's like in her large room. So
Speaker 3: she's gone. She said, I'm not staying there. I can't
Speaker 3: stay there. You know what if he was a what
Speaker 3: if he was a madman and you know which is
Speaker 3: all fair enough, but anyway, so she demanded to be
Speaker 3: moved to the versace and I said, hey, what's you know.
Speaker 3: Do we have a lease on that apartment because it's
Speaker 3: quite a nice apartment. They said, yeah, we do. I said,
Speaker 3: what are we going to do with it? I said,
Speaker 3: They said, do you want to move in? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll move in. So I had this luxurious apartment sub
Speaker 3: Pa House, twenty first floor.
Speaker 1: I love it when you're wondering around naked, hoping that
Speaker 1: someone opens the door.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm calling people up.
Speaker 1: Here's my address, here's where I live.
Speaker 2: You know, how often do you try and affect the
Speaker 2: footage after it's finished? You know, we talk about frank
Speaker 2: and grabs. How often do you do that on your shows?
Speaker 2: Or is it something you don't like doing?
Speaker 3: Look this whole you know they edited me to look
Speaker 3: something like different that that's that's bullshit. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: there's only so much you could do with editing. But
Speaker 3: it does happen. But generally, you know, who you are
Speaker 3: is what what comes out on the screen. Of course
Speaker 3: you're clipping out the Dulberts, that's what you know what
Speaker 3: it is. But I will confess I won't say what
Speaker 3: show it was, but we had a long grab with
Speaker 3: this person declaring their love for this other person. And
Speaker 3: this person was was changing who they you know, they
Speaker 3: were playing up for the for the show, and they
Speaker 3: were changing who they actually he liked. And anyway, they'd
Speaker 3: moved on to this person. I don't know if I
Speaker 3: don't want you to guess who it is, but they'd
Speaker 3: moved on to the next lover, and we're going we
Speaker 3: don't have any good grab of her saying her feelings
Speaker 3: for this person. And the editor said, look, he said,
Speaker 3: I can fix that for you. So she had talked
Speaker 3: about her previous guy in glowing terms, So he should
Speaker 3: just go out, have a cigarette, come back in again
Speaker 3: and see what you think. And I came back in again,
Speaker 3: and he'd just taken the name. He just switched the names.
Speaker 3: He cut the name out and cut the name in
Speaker 3: and it didn't matter. Like she was playing the game.
Speaker 3: She would have said that about him anyway. But that's
Speaker 3: that's probably the worst thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1: Do you feel bad when you do that sort of stuff?
Speaker 3: He was completely harmless. No, look, no one, there's not
Speaker 3: in my world. There's never been any bad but I
Speaker 3: mean the original Big Brother executive producer, Peter Abbott, the
Speaker 3: original Big Brother voice. He's a lovely guy. He was
Speaker 3: very very conscious of not taking people out of context
Speaker 3: or you know, doing playing funny buggers was. He set
Speaker 3: quite an old fashioned standard there. We don't really have
Speaker 3: time or the inclination to try and make something into
Speaker 3: somebody into something they're not.
Speaker 1: We can't. You can't.
Speaker 3: People can believe that or not believe it, but it's true.
Speaker 3: You can't. You can highlight something or play something down,
Speaker 3: but you can't change who they are and what they
Speaker 3: said and what they did.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 2: What do you think is better pre recorded reality TV
Speaker 2: or live reality TV? I mean, you'll work on something
Speaker 2: at the moment that's obviously being recorded and will be
Speaker 2: then edited and put on television.
Speaker 1: And we're kind of heading in that direction. What do
Speaker 1: you think works better for the viewer?
Speaker 3: What is what is live reality TV?
Speaker 1: I guess you know happening in a twenty four hour turnaround?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, right? Not yeah, I mean, because they're all
Speaker 3: everything's edited like the Daily Show. You would understandhen it
Speaker 3: was half an hour. We come in at one in
Speaker 3: the morning and we basically work till four in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: getting that down to whatever an hour or half an
Speaker 3: hour or whatever it was. So you know, that's how
Speaker 3: it would work, and so that that kind of limited
Speaker 3: how much you could muck around with. I actually prefer
Speaker 3: that kind of turnaround, because when you have weeks and
Speaker 3: weeks and weeks in post production, you end up with,
Speaker 3: you know, oh, let's try this, No, let's try that. No,
Speaker 3: let's let's cut down. There's just too many. It's it's
Speaker 3: too long to think about, you know.
Speaker 2: Looking at the New Big Brother, it so it looks
Speaker 2: so stylized, like it's so quite it's quite amazing. I
Speaker 2: mean it's a different show in my mind to what
Speaker 2: it was. It's very different. I mean it's in its
Speaker 2: third iteration, but it's so it's a beautiful show. I think,
Speaker 2: and them makes very good visual shows these days.
Speaker 3: I haven't watched The New Big Brother.
Speaker 2: I just haven't.
Speaker 3: I have to say that when you spend all day
Speaker 3: looking at a TV screen, looking at people and characters
Speaker 3: and cutting, and when you come home at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, you don't. I don't even I don't
Speaker 3: watch anything at the moment. I just I just like
Speaker 3: it's like work. I just don't do it. So, you know,
Speaker 3: they obviously Big Brother has evolved and there are different
Speaker 3: ways of doing it. Overseas. We used to go to
Speaker 3: a big conference in Amsterdam which was about various people
Speaker 3: from all the people who from all the countries doing
Speaker 3: Big Brother, and so the current one would be you
Speaker 3: would imagine well tested overseas. They would have gone to
Speaker 3: that same thing and they would have said, well, this
Speaker 3: is how you do it. If it's you know, we
Speaker 3: do ours pre recorded, you know, two months ahead or whatever,
Speaker 3: and this is how it works, and we've concentrated on this.
Speaker 3: I personally, I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to.
Speaker 3: I'd prefer to do it one in the morning till
Speaker 3: four in the afternoon because it felt it was more exciting.
Speaker 3: So I'd much rather do that than have programs there that,
Speaker 3: you know, people could sit around and pick out for
Speaker 3: weeks on end and find us around in the edit
Speaker 3: SUITET think the good thing about Big Brother in your
Speaker 3: day and in my day was there wasn't too much
Speaker 3: time to analyze it or whatever. You had a four
Speaker 3: o'clock deadline and that was it. It had to go out,
Speaker 3: So and that made it more exciting, I think. And
Speaker 3: then the other thing is I've worked on a couple
Speaker 3: I've worked on one cooking show which I won't name,
Speaker 3: where the producers aren't happy with what they get back,
Speaker 3: you know, lie or you know, what they got back
Speaker 3: from from the shoot whatever it is, you know, the
Speaker 3: dinner party or whatever it is. And then there's this
Speaker 3: endless we need Johnny to talk about. You know, why Mary,
Speaker 3: you know, decided to put too much salt in the steward.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I've used the same use as analogy,
Speaker 3: but you know, we need and so they go back
Speaker 3: and they reinvent the story, and they go back to
Speaker 3: the characters, and they virtually you may all have a
Speaker 3: Hollywood script writer. They just go and now say this,
Speaker 3: and now say that, And when you watch those shows,
Speaker 3: you can just like you just hear it. When I
Speaker 3: saw Mary had cut the steak into three pieces, I said,
Speaker 3: oh my god, she's cut the steak into three pieces.
Speaker 3: What are we going to do? Now? You know, it's
Speaker 3: like you can just like I sit there and think, yeah.
Speaker 3: And when the producer came into the edit suite and said,
Speaker 3: we need Mary talking about cutting the steak into three pieces.
Speaker 3: Someone fly to Brisbane and get it to say that
Speaker 3: she cut it? Why she cut it into three pieces?
Speaker 3: It's like it's just to me, it's like it is
Speaker 3: all the fun. It's just like, that's not documentary, it's
Speaker 3: not nothing. What is It's just just script it from
Speaker 3: the start.
Speaker 2: But don't you think that that's probably why free to
Speaker 2: wear television doesn't attract the numbers that are used to anymore,
Speaker 2: because there's a lack of authenticity with the shows that
Speaker 2: are being made these days, that it is too convoluted.
Speaker 3: Well, i'd like to believe that, but I don't think
Speaker 3: it's true. I think the TV of free to wear
Speaker 3: viewing numbers just you know, they're just a victim of
Speaker 3: the digital age. So I don't think that's true. And
Speaker 3: also if you look at something like Maths, which is
Speaker 3: once again it's not reality, it's essentially it's all but scripted,
Speaker 3: but it's doing really well. So you know, there's there's
Speaker 3: your answer, and you know, they are the savior of
Speaker 3: freedom a TV at the moment, those big, those shows
Speaker 3: that you can tune in and find out what happened,
Speaker 3: they're the savior. They like the you know, the reality
Speaker 3: version of sport. You know what you're going to get
Speaker 3: in the game, and you sit down to see who's
Speaker 3: going to win or lose, and you tune in the
Speaker 3: next night to see the next game.
Speaker 2: You know, well, I think Maths is what you'd call
Speaker 2: event TV. Now people put it in their diaries. You know,
Speaker 2: people are tuning into Maths because of that.
Speaker 3: I remember being at Southern Star when they had to
Speaker 3: when it was just on the drawing board. Obviously it
Speaker 3: was an overseas format, but they were trying to get
Speaker 3: it up, and it's like, well, you know, can we
Speaker 3: legally have people getting married? How's it going to work?
Speaker 3: And I remember thinking, I've worked on a lot of
Speaker 3: TV trash and that's what I'd like that. And cooking shows,
Speaker 3: oh man, they are the pits to work on those
Speaker 3: those dinners. They look so spontaneous and they go for
Speaker 3: hours and hours and hours, like you get there at
Speaker 3: about I don't know, four in the afternoon, and this
Speaker 3: is no kidding. I remember we did one. We arrived
Speaker 3: at about eight in the morning, and I remember leaving
Speaker 3: in a taxi the next morning at five o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning, and the whole dinner goes, the dinner is
Speaker 3: all recreated, all the food's cold because it's been cooked. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's ours. Is the worst dinner party you'll ever go to.
Speaker 3: It is the worst. They are the worst shows to
Speaker 3: work on. Never work on a cooking show. They are
Speaker 3: the pits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they're still very popular. So can you survive
Speaker 2: cancel culture? Because you know, at the moment, there's been
Speaker 2: a bit of a backlash with Darryl Summers being you know, hey, hey,
Speaker 2: back in the day that humor has really dated and
Speaker 2: it's really quite offensive these days. And then Dancing with
Speaker 2: the Stars is going to come out. You know, do
Speaker 2: you think that's going to affect the numbers with Dan
Speaker 2: with the Stars? And do you think that these personality
Speaker 2: types can survive Cancel culture.
Speaker 3: I detest cancel culture. I really I've detested. I think
Speaker 3: it's the worst thing that's ever happened to the world.
Speaker 3: It's just this bullshit that everyone gets offended by everything,
Speaker 3: and they go out to be offended by it. They
Speaker 3: don't have a they don't care what the person's trying
Speaker 3: to say. They just want to mishear it and they
Speaker 3: want to go with it anyway. And don't get me
Speaker 3: started but on the Darrel Summrsin. So when I read,
Speaker 3: I started reading the story and I thought, I here
Speaker 3: we go. You know, let's let's let's let's cancel someone,
Speaker 3: let's let's bag them for you know, what used to
Speaker 3: happen in another era. And that's how I felt. And
Speaker 3: then I actually they had the clips of what happened
Speaker 3: on Hey, Hey, It's Saturday, and I have to say
Speaker 3: I had to do a complete reverse when I was
Speaker 3: watching it, thinking, nah, like you know, and I'm not
Speaker 3: one thing. I'm not squeamish at all in that area, lutie.
Speaker 3: You know, we're all grown ups. Sure, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: racing is terrible, but sometimes there are gray areas or whatever.
Speaker 3: But I watched that Hey Hate Saturday stuff and I thought, man,
Speaker 3: this really is is way over the line. It's just
Speaker 3: and you know, was Camal part of it or was
Speaker 3: he being bullied? Well, he's you know, he's like everybody
Speaker 3: in this world. He's trying to make a living. He's
Speaker 3: trying to sell records. So he goes on their show
Speaker 3: because that's how you do it, you know. So he
Speaker 3: didn't really have a choice. He could he could have
Speaker 3: chosen anonymity in poverty, I suppose. I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: know how. I can't remember how big he was at
Speaker 3: the time, but certainly that's why he would have been
Speaker 3: on the show. And I mean, like it was really
Speaker 3: I don't believe in cancel culture, but I don't believe
Speaker 3: we should look at hay Hat Saturday and go, you know,
Speaker 3: there was nothing wrong with that. It was it was
Speaker 3: really awful.
Speaker 1: Do you think I can respect the ratings though?
Speaker 3: For Dancing with the Stars, Well, I thought about that
Speaker 3: and I thought, you know what, they may or may
Speaker 3: not have anticipated this. It's part it's the old All
Speaker 3: publicity is good publicity. You know. I didn't I didn't
Speaker 3: know Daryl Summers was coming back. I didn't know Dancing
Speaker 3: with the Stars was coming back. I'm just a punter,
Speaker 3: now this is true. I didn't know any of that,
Speaker 3: and now I do. And I might even want to
Speaker 3: watch him to see if he's you know, cleaned up
Speaker 3: as that, do you know what I mean? So it
Speaker 3: works on the publicity eleven people. You know, it's a
Speaker 3: cynical old world.
Speaker 2: I mean interestingly enough, you know, look at the stunt
Speaker 2: casting like chappelle Korby or Pete Evans, these people on
Speaker 2: these shows these days. I mean, people will say online
Speaker 2: I hate those people. Chappelle doesn't have a place on TV.
Speaker 2: She's a criminal. But then you look at Sas and
Speaker 2: everyone turned up. The ratings are there, and I think
Speaker 2: people are interested in these people that a majority of
Speaker 2: people online want a d platform. But I think secretly,
Speaker 2: people sitting at home, I think Australians want to know
Speaker 2: about these I think they are more interested in these
Speaker 2: supposed not so nice people's.
Speaker 3: Here's an exclusive for your podcast on I think it was.
Speaker 3: It was twenty twelve, which sorry, which series were you again?
Speaker 3: I'm twelve Getting Men? Yeah, so we had this that
Speaker 3: was that the secret series that was wasn't the first
Speaker 3: Secrets right, So we we were getting these secrets together
Speaker 3: and we had this guy with a great secret, and
Speaker 3: the secret was I was an armed robber. They were
Speaker 3: called the Dumb and Dumber Bandits. They were two Australian
Speaker 3: guys who who robbed in Colorado, Colorado. Yeah, anyway, we
Speaker 3: basically had him. I went and interviewed him, we sat down,
Speaker 3: he'd kind of you know, he'd done this, done the crime,
Speaker 3: done the time, and he we we found him more
Speaker 3: than he found out. So we go, that's a great secret.
Speaker 3: He's a nice guy, you know, I can just you
Speaker 3: think someone robs a bank, they're a horrible person. It's
Speaker 3: like he just he it's just an act of stupidity. Anyway,
Speaker 3: So we had him all the way, we had him
Speaker 3: in the cast, we had him all the way to
Speaker 3: a to the Hope, the proverbial hotel room on the
Speaker 3: Gold Coast that you that you get put in lockdown.
Speaker 3: He was in lockdown. And then at the last moment,
Speaker 3: Channeline got cold feet and said, I don't think we
Speaker 3: want to I don't think we want an armed robber,
Speaker 3: and we're going but it's a great secret. He's a
Speaker 3: great talent. And they're like, Noah, we don't know. I
Speaker 3: don't think. We don't want the risk. It's a new
Speaker 3: it's a series coming back, and we don't want the headlines.
Speaker 3: And so at the last moment, someone had to be
Speaker 3: dispatched to tell him thanks for coming, but he wasn't in.
Speaker 3: He was actually.
Speaker 2: Imagine being in the hotel room, going ready to go
Speaker 2: into Big Brother and then being told no, Yeah. A
Speaker 2: few people in the industry who kept saying, get Chris
Speaker 2: on the show because you have some of the best
Speaker 2: stories working in television no pressure. But I ask everyone this,
Speaker 2: when you tell people that you're an executive, you know,
Speaker 2: you're a producer of TV. What's the go to story
Speaker 2: that you tell people?
Speaker 3: What my most memorable reality TV moments was. I was
Speaker 3: the series producer of Temptation Ireland in two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: I think it was, and we went over to Fiji
Speaker 3: and we had the four couples and then the ten tempters,
Speaker 3: ten blokes, ten girls. Anyway, well, you know, you've got
Speaker 3: a ten day shoot that's costing a couple of million
Speaker 3: dollars probably, and you can't really come back and say
Speaker 3: nothing happened, you know. So we were we had this
Speaker 3: meeting because nothing had happened so far. And we had
Speaker 3: this meeting and I said, does anyone have any intelligence?
Speaker 3: And someone said, I'm pretty sure something's going on in Hutbee,
Speaker 3: but they but they don't want us to know about it.
Speaker 3: So we said, okay, all right, well we'll leave it
Speaker 3: with us. So I got one of the sound guys
Speaker 3: and we went at this a Hutbee was these two
Speaker 3: girls from Melbourne were in Hutbee and we went in
Speaker 3: and we put a radio mike behind a FBI style
Speaker 3: behind a picture above the bed. And then that night
Speaker 3: we at about one o'clock, all the crews was like, okay,
Speaker 3: we're packing down now. We're all going see you later
Speaker 3: because you can't film around the clock anyway, So all
Speaker 3: the crews pulled out. Meanwhile, we're in one of the
Speaker 3: other bungalows or boo rays they're called in Fiji. So
Speaker 3: Sky's got the headphones on and we've got a camera
Speaker 3: crew there and I'm there and the sky looked up
Speaker 3: and she goes pretty sure something's happening. And everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 3: give me the headphones, give me the headphones, and they're
Speaker 3: listening and listening okay, And I'm like a commando. I'm going, okay, guys,
Speaker 3: we're going in. We need to creep around. Get your
Speaker 3: camera ready to roll. We're going in. So we crept
Speaker 3: over to this bouret up the stairs, opened the door,
Speaker 3: and then the guy put his son gone on on
Speaker 3: the on the camera. He just saw this bedroom door
Speaker 3: slightly open, and this girl jumps up and runs at
Speaker 3: the bedroom door, and the camera goes towards the bedroom door.
Speaker 3: You could just see her in underpants, and he slammed
Speaker 3: and the person inside the girl slams the door on
Speaker 3: the camera anyway, then the door, and then next door
Speaker 3: there's a couple in the next door too. These are
Speaker 3: these are people who shouldn't be with the with the
Speaker 3: people anyway. Then all hell breaks loose, like there's a
Speaker 3: wrestle over the door. There's swearing. They're shouting like, you
Speaker 3: guys can't be in here, and we go we can.
Speaker 3: We're doing a TV show. It's all part of the show.
Speaker 3: This is what you signed up for. Anyway. The the
Speaker 3: finally we kind of negotiated for them to come out,
Speaker 3: and then one of the big guys who was with
Speaker 3: one of the girls started having an argument with the
Speaker 3: sound guy. Bear in mind, this is three in the
Speaker 3: morning and there's like six people in this burray and
Speaker 3: tensions are really really high. And the big big guy,
Speaker 3: one of the singles said something to the sound guy
Speaker 3: who was a big guy and two dickheads basically and
Speaker 3: and and they're ready to fight, and I'm like holding
Speaker 3: them apart, and the girls are crying standing there in
Speaker 3: their underpants. The girls are crying. All hell is breaking
Speaker 3: loose anyway, So you think that's terrible. The next morning
Speaker 3: I spoke to the executive producer and I said, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of shit went down last time. We're going
Speaker 3: to have going to be repercussions. He said, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: You know, that's the show and that's what we've got. Anyway,
Speaker 3: it basically made the whole show. But you know that's
Speaker 3: I guess me listening to you know, hidden microphones of couples,
Speaker 3: a couple of coupling. That'd be one of my most
Speaker 3: vivid TV memories.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for that amazing story, and thank you
Speaker 2: for making such amazing television over the years. I look
Speaker 2: forward to watching more of your shows, looking forward to
Speaker 2: this hospital one, which we don't know the name of
Speaker 2: one channel channel nine, but I can't wait to watch it.
Speaker 1: I think you do a fantastic job, and thank you
Speaker 1: for being here on the podcast.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure. The hospital show is very wholesome
Speaker 3: and proper, so it's not a reality show. It's a
Speaker 3: feel good real show. I've seen the error of my ways.
Speaker 2: You don't want to deal with reality anymore? Is that
Speaker 2: saying you've hung up your reality shoes.
Speaker 3: I've made more trash TV than anyone should ever make
Speaker 3: in a lifetime. I'll go to hell for it.
Speaker 1: I'll see you there. Bye, amazing, thanks so much.
Speaker 3: All right,