#210 The Untold Stories of The Footy Show: Behind the Scenes with Glenn Pallister

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dam pallast well to say to me, it's about fucking time.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
But it's great to be here at last.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh my god, I can't make them believe it, but
I actually can't believe you're actually sitting there in front
of me. And I was just saying early on that
I've gone from a left brain conversation to a right
brain conversation. I've gone from an airline pilot captain who
was full of so much logic and talks about resilience

(00:26):
and things like that and being able to rescue. You're
playing q F thirty two from crashing to talking to
Glenn Pallas, you know, who's like probably one of the
fastest right brain people I've ever known in my life.
It's pretty amazing and responsible for the full show. And
it's a good time to talk because we're going to
release this, you know, in a couple of days time.
Grand Finals on the weekend startup. Yep. Any predictions for

(00:49):
the Grand Final? Oh?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Look, you know, I'm massively disappointed that there's not a
Sydney team in the Grand Finale and that was always
a wishing list thing for.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Us, because we do our line.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, yeah, because we do our massive Thursday night footy
show at the entertainment center or wherever with ten thousand people.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
I remember those shows. They were great.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
They were huge events, mate, And there's a lot of
tickets to sell to make your money back on what
you're spending. Yeah, and if there wasn't a Sydney team, innute,
we're going are we going to sell this? But they travel,
you know, and the Storm fans travel on the Broncos
fans travel. So look, I think, you know, i'd probably
I think I caught up with Madge a couple of
weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yep, he's a ripper of a bloke killing it.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'd love to see him win it. But mate, I've
still got a deep seated hatred for Queensland, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
I mean too brought up as a Blue were together.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
We were there mate, back in the Wizard day.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah we were there. Yeah, first time we first met.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
You know, it's you know, and it's Melbourne, New South
Wales and well no it's not so mate. I'm very
much on the fence and I probably couldn't give a
fat rat too wins.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah. And for me, well, what's good about is a
two totally different style of plays. So I'm actually very
curious to see which style of play wins is the
Melomie sort of give him, not give him an inch,
kick him into a corner, bash him until they make
a mistake and then relai my spine put it away
or is it going to be razl Dazelris?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
And I've got a huge amount of respect for Melbourne.
I went down there with bellom me one day. He
got me down there when I was doing the Footy Shower,
just to show me around. And it's one of the
most professional organizations you'll ever meet, you know, you'll ever see. Yeah,
And I'm a massive Billy Slater fan. You know. I
signed Billy at the Footage Show and spent a lot
of time with him, developing him and working with him.

(02:31):
And he's one of the best rugby league brains on
television now.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
And improving it through through the State of Origin as
he does.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
He's a beauty.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
So let's let's talk about college. We get a long time.
So may I think I sponsored the State of Origins
as how far back we go? Was in two thousand
and No, it was nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I was going to say it would have been it'd
be before two thousand.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Nineteen ninety eight or ninety nine, Yeah, because I team
it was ninety eight because we took over the sponsorships
during the Super League War tours had dropped out. There
was no sponsor for New South Wales. I got hit
word of that and I jumped in literally the week
before the game started, and I got it for cheap basically,
so anyway I was ever going to be able to
get it in those days. And then later on Kerry

(03:15):
bought in, Channel nine brought in and then of course
the Footage Show exposure became one of our biggest The
way that most responsibly built our brand was being exposed
at the Footage Show through you being the producer of
the Fullty Show. In fact, you've been the ideas behind
the original Footy Show. So I want to go back
for those people who don't know everyone knows who was

(03:36):
on the Footy Show, but they don't know who's the
dude behind the camera sort of thing, and you know,
pulling all the strings. Then you were the pubmaster. How
did you come about coming up with an idea and
calling it the footag Show? Was starting the foota Show?
What was the deal?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Okay? So in nineteen ninety four. We were all over it,
atter sports, we'd all been through.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
I was.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
I'd started at nine in eighty four, was a cameraman
on the midday show for eight or nine years with
Ray Martin, and wanted to get into producing. So I
was hanging around the MTV cottage and getting little shifts
in the afternoon and became a producer down there.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
And then you should explain what the cottage means.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Okay, the great cottage culture. At the old Channel nine
site at Willoughby, there was the main studio building and
offices upstairs and the lot, and surrounded by it was
probably fifteen cottages houses little houses, yeah, and Kerry owned
Kerry Packer owned them all bar two. And there was

(04:34):
a bloke over here sixty minutes on the other side
that wouldn't sell. And there was a bloke next door
to us who wouldn't sell. And he was an old
trot's caller and he had used he used his cottage
for storage of tapes, so he had all these old
tapes of trotters. But he was also a complete lunatic

(04:55):
and had been crosby speaking to him. And one day
I'd gone out in the front of the cot gin
he painted it yellow, and because Being had come to
him in a dream and.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Told him you being both stages, Dad, of course, oh, Mate.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Long gone gone, And so he then I start talking
and I've just got engaged, and I'm telling him that
my he's so much. Your wife's made a name. Don't
know why, I asked me, and I said, oh Lillis,
And He's like jolted because Bing's real name was Harry Lillis.
So Mate, I'd been sent by Being. So this lunatic
was out the front waiting just about every other day

(05:27):
to see what else I was going to tell him
another info I was going to give him. But yeah,
this cottage culture was there was these houses around, and
the shows were housed in the cottages.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, like Current Off had its own Current had its.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Own Today show? Why what a sports footy show sixty minutes?
You know the Sunday Show when that was around, and
we all had these cottages and it was just it
was a fantastic, fantastic culture.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
It was. It was an amazing culture. And this is
pre Ginge. It was gingj with them was like in
his thirty so we're talking about ninety four through. David
never took over it to about probably early mid two thousand.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, yeah, would have been.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
So I'd been down at MTV hanging around there, got
a gig as a producer and MTV folded because cable
satellite television, subscription television came to Australia. So MTV used
to be on Channel nine late Friday and Saturday nights
with Richard Wilkins and it was fantastic, great grounding for
a young rock and roller, you know, it was fantastic.

(06:24):
So we all then got moved across to where other
areas and I ended up over at Wildbold of Sports. And
at that stage Gary Burns was the head of Sport
Melbourne had had a footy show going banging around and
it was Burnsy's idea to who was our old EP
of Melbourne show AFL Footy Show and Burns he was
the old EP of the midday show and he was

(06:44):
now hit a sport at nine and it was his
idea to have a Rugby League footy show. So they
cobbled together everyone out of the Wild World of Sports
cottage and said, look, let's do four shows. In the
final series of nineteen ninety four, it was Fatty Stirling
I think from memory Singo was block, Ray Hadley was.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
There, was there was a mix.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Bob Fulton was on the panel, so it was a
mix of these guys over these four shows, and literally
at the end of it, Fatty particularly in Sterlow, just
went well, there's no way in the world that'll ever
come back. That was just red hot disaster.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Was Fatty like the lead.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, yeah, So Fatty was there, Sterlough was off to
his left, and then you had Singo, you know, and
the other guys over there. I think Singer I did.
I heard Adley speaking recently. I think Singo did like
one show and said, fuck, that's not for me.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
And then bizarrely the network loved it.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
People loved it. They just went, wow, this is real.
You know, like these guys aren't you know, actors, They're
not polished. No, no, it's like exactly you know what
you're seeing is what you're getting.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Well, what was your role producer?

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Oh no, I was just an associate producer on it,
just JR. Junior just pulling stuff together. So we had
a bit of a chat over the over the summer
break and they said, look, we're going to go to
air with this thing. Is a primetime show. Everyone's like,
fucking what.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, well you should explain the points of prime.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Time, trimetimes, big time, you know, that's anywhere between, like
you know, six thirty and ten thirty on a week
night and a Sunday night, Saturday nights out quiet night,
which is bizarrely in the UK is there May night.
But that's there. They're the nights and you can get
a slot in there. Big advertising, big numbers, lots of eyeballs.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
You know, it's especially during the winter period because it's darker.
Everybody has watched TV earlier and for longer. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah. So they talked about the idea of this footy show,
and so I went to Burnsy and said, mate, this
is this is me. I love it, I'm all over
and I love Rugby leg It's you know, we got
some crazy ideas. He said, make go away and come
up with a few things. So we came back in
the start of the new year. I started as an
associate producer on it, and I'd come up with the
ideas of the anti ads, sixty seconds with Stirlow, those

(08:51):
sort of things. So I went out and produced those
and directed those on site with the guys and those
first couple of years, which was just actually outtakes of
you know, like the Yo Play ad and those things. Mate.
We were just having the best time, you know, and
these guys were you know, they one take wonders and
if we fucked it up in one take and didn't
do it, we wouldn't do another one. That was the

(09:12):
one that had go to air.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, and it didn't matter because that's because the audience
want that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
And so over three years or so, the executive producers
changed and I ended up taking it over. I just
came up through the ranks in three years and was
running it by about probably the year that you guys ran.
I think I took about ninety eight. I took it
over as an executive producer and David Lecky got me
up there in his office and said, you're the youngest
DP we've ever done. He's throwing a cricket ball either

(09:37):
side of my head, bouncing off the wall, So what
do you think your fucking worth?

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Son? One of those great negotiations.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
The CEO of Channel Channel one, who went over to
Channel seven is unfortunately no longer with us, but was
a great mentor to me.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Well, bastard that's what we got on.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
We a Friday afternoon, mate.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
You would go into that. He had a bar that
ran off the side of his office, and I was
so ninety ninety eight, ye mate, I probably would have been,
you know twenty early mid twenties, mid twenties if that
like around there. And you know these guys is like
Peter Meakin Lecky, like these legends of television, and in

(10:15):
those days, to earn your stripes as an executive producer
was a big deal. Like you know, I used to like,
you know, star gaze when they go up for the
EU EP's lunch up in the boardroom and go, fuck,
one day, I want to be one of those guys,
you know. So I had that aspiration and that drive
that I wanted to be in that crew. And then
you know, you get wheeled out, you know, from Lecky's

(10:36):
office into the bar and there's like I remember going.
I was doing a renewal of one deal and he
put me went to Peacock.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Gardens, so trained an advertising deal.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
No, no, as in my deal, as in my contract now.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Pickock Guns is.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Legendary Chinese restaurant in Crows Yes, where he's still is
still still there. Matthew isn't there anymore. He's passed it
on to his daughter or someone, his niece. But yeah,
this was like the play. It was Channel nine boardroom
in one corner. You had Lecky over there, you had
Peter Mekh and the current Affair guys there. We were
doing sport deals at another table. It was just fantastic.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
And in those days you drank too, I mean heavily.
You could drink as much as you want to. Absolutely
halfway expected.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Mate, absolutely, And Lecky takes me up to Peak or
Gardens to do to do him a new deal. So
we're sitting there and there's three or four bottles of
wine and a couple of numbers pushed across across the table,
and he's going, you know, son, you'll be a fucking
fool if you don't take this deal. All of those
great soft soft edition, Yeah, very soft you negotiation negotiating tactics.
And you know, I went back to the cottage half

(11:37):
slugged and rang my wife and said, wow, this is
a pretty good deal. And she said, Okay, what do
you think that's that's pretty good. Yeah, So you know
he's pa at the time, rings me in, said, David
just wanted to let you know you've got to a
five o'clock to accept that deal. No problems a lot,
it's about help us. Four right cars full of drink,
full of drink, cup of coffee, a couple bit of water,
so rap a bit. And so I wander up at

(11:58):
about five to five and opened the door and there's
Lecky's sitting there with the then general manager and a
bottle of Jack Daniels on the table, and he goes,
are we fucking drinking? Are we not? I said, we're drinking,
So sit down and congratulations, sign your deal.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Opens the door up.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
And there's like twenty you know, these execs who I've
just looked up to for years, and he's pushed me
and he.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Goes glad he's just resigned for three years.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
And it was the theater of it all. You know,
it was wonderful, but it was heady days.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
You know. Do they give you intellectual room to do
what you wanted?

Speaker 2 (12:35):
I very rarely had a CEO or an owner. And
we can talk about Kerry in any shape or form,
telling me what we should be doing or shouldn't be doing.
We've got our wings clipped a few times, and a
few things that we probably shouldn't have done, and things
that went awry on air, but that's life television. And
if there's something that had come off tape that I'd

(12:56):
made a decision and I stood by that, and if
I wore a bit of shit on it, well that's
what we we wore on it. But it was made
in the best interests of being real and making the show.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
So maybe you could have just quickly explained the format
of the show and one and two what was the objective?
So like, what were the values you were trying to
appeal to in terms of your audience. What are you
trying to get out of the talent yep, make a
good call, Matt, while you're trying to get out of fatty,
et cetera. The talent that sort of spoke to your audience.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
I always described the show, particularly when I was running it,
as an entertainment show with a spine.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Of rugby league. It always had to go back to
rugby league.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
And whether they're dressing up, whether they're taking the piss,
whether they're out on motorbikes or bungee jumping.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
It was footballers doing it.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
And then we'd come back and we'd have a segment
on a player behind the scenes, or a charity feature
story or something that always brought the show back to
the game. So that was important and women getting women
to watch, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
That's true, you know, by the way, Glenda, because women
loved the show totally.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
We had a fifty to fifty split on the audience.
And you know, I remember sitting down with some of
the sales guys at one stage and saying, stop pitching
the show to bourbon and ute companies, like, you know,
there are fifty percent women watching this show.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
It was like a voyeurism, I mean, into into the
men's world of rugby league for women, like it was
like them getting into the locker room somehow. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
And we had segments like Ryan Girdlers their house, you know,
and girds would go and visit Fletch or whoever, and
it'd be a fun segment. But they'd see how these
guys lived, you know, they'd see the other side of them.
They weren't the thugby league players that they thought they were.
You know, they were good blokes. And that was a
big thing too. It was building the trust with the players,
like you know, we sat on a lot of stuff.

(14:47):
You know, we sat on a lot of stuff. We
weren't we weren't you know, you know, we weren't.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
A gossip column.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
We weren't a Rugby league news column trying.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
To break you were trying to pull people's pens. Never never,
you know, it was more supporting them one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
If the game was good, we were good, you know.
So I never never quite understood why stakeholders in the
game would lead with front pages or stories trying to
destroy what was their bread and butter.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Well, that's probably good for you, because I think people
get a little bit over all the shitty stories and
they actually just want to go to something back to
that is entertainment, because a lot of the journalist who
do those sorts of stories are take in the view
that they're breaking news type journalists, investigative. Your whole thing
was I'm not investigating anything. I'm going to entertain you
with Rugby League and Raby League talent.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
And we'd get plenty of good stories. We had some
beautiful feature stories, you know, and you know that they
were brought to us to our attention. Whether it was
as I mentioned before, whether it was a charity or
whether it was a player who was going through a
rough trut or you know, interesting human interest stories as well.
So that was really important. And then I guess getting
back to your question on the talent, just keeping them real, Mark,

(15:51):
just making sure that that bloke at the bar could
look across and go ship. But for the grace of God,
that could be you or me sitting up there. Yeah,
and if I was a good footy player, that could
be me. You know, we played all right, and just
keeping them real, you know, And we never had auto Q.
We never had you know, we didn't really have script.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Was a script probably no.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Mate, you know, it was loose like you know, I
had a rundown and you know I always wanted.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
To you in there. He did. They have bugs in
there later.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
On, not early on. And that was a fucking nightmare
because I had to go through port old Tony Charmers,
former Paramatta and Balmain winger who was our floor manager,
and he'd just tell him to walk in and he
stopped the fox. Yeah yeah, great, Blake. And I'd just
tell Tony to walk in, just go and stop Fatty
for fox sake, stopping you walk in. I don't care
walk in.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
So did you. Did you work on the base too,
though when you did the footy show, leg Fatty was
like the main host. Yep, was it a bit he
was a bit of like the not so funny guy.
We laughed at him, but he wasn't naturally funny. Was
he more like a straight guy than you had to
put someone next to him who was funny or funnier?

Speaker 2 (16:51):
No, no, I found that his humor was his natural
human was a big appeal and in the early years
Stlow was his rudder.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
If you like him more than the straight guy.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, yeah, it was just the guy that could get
things back on track. Yeah, you know Sam had Eddie
in Melbourne. Yeah, but that show was different totally.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
It was so straight laced, sort of other than Sam
going off yeah yeah, but other than that, yeah, it
wasn't sort of like the Sydney Footy Show was.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Sort of more crazy, completely two different beasts. Like if
they put up the team cards and people tuned in
to see that on Melbourne who was in and who
was out mate, if we did that, we'd hear crickets.
But that was the last thing that we would do,
you know, like we'd be having to you know, I'd
be sending them off to bungee jump in New Zealand
or something.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Can we tell about the Vomitron? Because to me, where
did that ildady come from? Because, like I reckon, that's
one of the funniest things I've ever seen of My
kids still love it and they're all in their forties now,
but like, it was one of the funniest things I've
ever seen, the Vomitron. It was particularly Fatty sort of
like dry reaching where that idea come from? Mate?

Speaker 2 (17:56):
We were just looking around for things to push the
boundaries with. You know, what can we do to hurt
him without killing them? Because it makes great Telly Like,
we went down to Perisher and you know, we put
Fatty on skis and he'd never been on skis before
in his life and here standing there doing the opening
stand up and he's skiing backwards. He can't stop himself
and gold we're on, you know, and Kerry sent us

(18:18):
down there. Kerry Packer rang me and he said, you know,
and that's when he bought Ginging. He brought David gingelinto
be his head of synergy. That's how Ginge came into nine.
And because Kerry said I need all my businesses. We're
talking to each other, they're not talking to each other.
And I think at that stage Threadbow was the go
to and he said to me, I need you blokes
to do something in Perisher and because they.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Perish.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, and he goes, I need you blokes to go
down there and do something. And you know, because get
people you know into it, because.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
You talk to Kerry. Would he sort of ring up
and say Alan on those.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Stages that would come through David, But yeah, I had
some great.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Yeah that was about Ginge time.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, didn't have much to do with Kerry when Lecky
was there, but when Ginge was there, absolutely, And so
I'll tear great story in the second on.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
How we really got together with Kerry.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
But yeah, we went down and did the Snow Show
and you know, I remember Michael Hilly. They had a
television reading me. Yeah, well he's now had to tell
it TV out of there. But yeah, I had a
program rang me the next morning and was reading me
the ratings out and I was standing in the car
park at Perisher. I thought he was reading me the
fucking Melbourneooty Show ratings who normally did like those huge
numbers on a Thursday night and they just tuned into

(19:30):
CEUs in the Snow and they loved it so tick
that worked. So yeah, it was sort of like, you know,
we'd find stuff to put him out of their comfort zone.
And you know, God love him, particularly Fatty, who I
loved dearly and I caught up with him a couple
of weekends ago. He and Stlow. You know, they would
just you know, they eat bitch and moan, you know,
but he do it, and he would do it with

(19:52):
great gusto and made he had a bit of Benny
Hill about him.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
The fact, actually there's a good point. It is a
bit of Beny Hill, a little bit like the Beny
Hill Show.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, well mate, I grew up as a student of
Hoague's Strap John and Singer. I loved all the ship
they did in an Australian way of irreverence. I loved that.
And I was also a massive Benny Hill fan, Kenny
Everett a bit, but Benny Hill. And so there's a
lot of that from me. That's where that was coming from.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
When you talk Bennie. Actually I got the tune in
and when I was a kid, when I was given
I was a teenager That was a show my mum
and dad watched on I think it was Thursday night
at o'clock and I was like, I was let to
stay at nine o'clock watch the Beny Hill Show because
but it was full of ridiculous shit hundred percent just ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, ridiculous lots of today.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Oh mate.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
We wouldn't get away with doing the footy show today, really,
no no way in the world, not the way we
did it and the way we'd want to do it.
No way, no way.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Not because they disrespected women, but more just.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Too many snowflakes, mate. Yeah, you know, we're just offend everybody. Yeah,
we're offending people back then, you know. And they were
a bit thicker skinned, but mate, way too crape skin. Now,
we'd burst it on the first night and it wouldn't
it would come back, not in its.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
True self, you know. So so yeah, so that was
that was sort of the what's the Kerry Street? Oh? Mate?

Speaker 2 (21:10):
So I just must have taken over the Shark. It
was around that sort of late nineties or so, and
I had pretty long hair, and I had earrings, and
I dressed a bit like a cowboy and Peter meekin
Call his head of current affairs calls me and he goes.
Kerry's asked to have a meeting at Park Street with

(21:31):
half a dozen of the young guns. And for some
unknown reason you're on the list. Great and you go.
So get yourself down to fucking wardrobe, make yourself look decent.
If you need a haircut, get one. We're leaving in
an hour. I was going to meet Kerry. Wow, this
is gonna be great.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
And just for context, Park Street is where the head
office of publishing broadcasting. It was where people have been
hung out window. Yes, not where, but it's not where
you operated from, which is where the operations were. But
part getting called in a Park Street.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Was a big deal, was a big deal. And usually
you weren't going in there for a good reason.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Usually was a problem.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, so this was so I rang Burnsy and told
Burnsy and he's got Jesus and he said, all right, okay,
here's a few tips. So he said, when you get
in there, you're going to be in a waiting room.
And he said you're going to look up and you
would know this. He said, you're going to look up
and he said there's lots of paintings and he said,
there's paintings of big animals killing little animals.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
And he said, just remember, by the way, that is
one hundred percent of the truth.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
And he goes, just remember Kerry's the big animal and
you're the little a.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
And he will piss on your leg just to prove
that he's the boss. That's Jesus, and let it happen. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Great, And then he said, and then Meecan's giving us
a bit of advice on the way over, and he goes, look,
there are long pauses sometimes. Don't jump in and fill
the pause. Just let Kerry have his money.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
You're producing the show.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yep, he goes, He likes to just you know, have
his moment of pausing and thinking and where he's going next. Great, okay,
so we've got all these writing instructions. We get in there,
see the paintings, right, so the sphinx is tightened up
a bit. Right, there's the paintings. So we go into
the end of the office and there's the big man
right with his feet up on the desk cigarette, no shoes, cigarette,
trying to work out changing the batteries in his hearing aid.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Right.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
And I think it was Carrol at the time. Either,
so they're over there. This has gone on for five minutes.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
One most people really is he had a buzz runder
his desk who used to buzz on her desk and
the vibration would knew because she couldn't hear. Probably then
she come running into his office.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
It's so good, so good, I mean, this is this
is TV. And I'm just like, this is living the dream.
And I'd been a cameraman way back in the day
with Graham Kennedy and spend a lot of time with Graham.
And I would go around after doing funny eest home
videos and sit with Graham and have a bottle of
red and just ask him questions and let him tell
me stories about in Melbourne tonight and that, and it

(23:50):
was wonderful. So this was like the next level of
you know, television royalty. This is the deal. So there's
about half a dozen of us in there, and Meeken's
down this end, and next to me was Rory Callahan,
and Rory was the executive producer of the Footy Show
before me, and he just moved up to head of Entertainment.
And there's a couple of other lizards down the other end, right,
So Kerry finally decides he's going to welcome us after

(24:12):
getting the hearing age, reading on a couple of darts
and all of that, and starts talking. He's ripped one
of the young people from sixty minutes a new asshole
over something that he didn't like. Shit, it's not going
to go so well, right, And then.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
He does it for practice one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
And then he said to me. He goes, son, what
are you doing? And I said, I'm just taking over
the footy show. Son, your job to me is just
to make me fucking laugh on Thursday nights. That's your
one job done excellent, and he goes, get the wog back.
He goes, get the wog back, the funny one. I'm thinking, Mario,

(24:48):
it was Nick Giannopolis. He wanted me to get Nick
Gannopolis onto the footy show, right Melbourne? No, no chance? Right,
So Mario, I was going to the caravan. That was
my man, Mario, So for two years when I'd bump
into Kerry or see something them. So now you're going
with that guy. Have you got him yet? When still
in negotiations, Kerry's do you need me to come in?

Speaker 1 (25:08):
No?

Speaker 2 (25:09):
No, it would be all good. So this was out house.
I sort of backed off and be like you go.
So then he he says to he's talking to Rory
about new shows and Surprise Surprise had just started, which
was a celebrity candid camera style show where they did
pranks on celebs hidden camera style. So Kerry quite liked

(25:30):
the show, but he hated the name. And he goes, oh,
he's really right firing up fucking Surprise Lise stupid name,
stupid name who fucking walks into a room and says
Surprise Surprise, And he goes, what else could we call it?
And the gun turret's out like he's doing these ones right.
Everyone's heads it down and I look up and he
locks eyes with me. Mistake and I said, I don't know, Kerry,

(25:53):
what about fuck me? Him meking gagging down the end
and everyone's got their heads down, gets there and he
just leans across the table, bangs it and starts laughing
and goes, what about fuck you? Son? Back off, So
we all bail out. They've got let out by the
year by making over to the I think the windsor

(26:14):
bar across the corner there and downstairs for a couple
of stiff drinks. Now, he ging rings me that night, right,
and he goes, oh, he said, I heard what went
on today, because Kerry thinks you're very fucking funny. I said, great.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
So that was the start of my relationship with proper
relationship with Kerry. And so we're awfully wrong.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Could have gone horribly wrong, could have but again, you know, right,
brain play luck. Yeah, just you know, you shoot your shot.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
It's funny, you know, like when you met Dave Gindeln
and then you too him at two thousand and I
think two thousand might have been two thousand. Anyway, I
remember then because I had the Wizards in and I
was sponsoring your South Wales as you'd probably recall, and
David Gingel says to me, mate, because he was head
of coordinating all the asses, I had a synergy. So yeah, correct,
and one of the asses that Kerry owned was part

(27:00):
of percent of your wizard, which was so Gindury says, mate,
we're going to get you on the footy Shower and
uh and uh we're gonna we're going to pre record
it like you know, this week and be on next week.
So but what we want you to do is come
on with the twenty thousand dollars in cash in a suitcase.

(27:22):
But you know I couldn't get twenty thousand dollars, but
I just had shitty You guys did ship paper and
put some hundreds or fifties on the top make it
look like I had a big food suitcase for yeah, anyway,
and we're going to give it away. So you know
it's going to cost me twenty grand for a start anyway,
and you'll giveing away to a charity. Something happens, someone's
football club burned down or some of that, and I thought, okay, cool.

(27:43):
So I get on there, you know, and Fatty comes
up and goes where you're going. I can has Mark
Boris here and he's from it looks across a block
and they fucking come oft by the wizards. Something rather
completely fucked it up, okay, and what happened it anyway?
I go all got pre recorded, and so I'm watching

(28:03):
it at home the following week and then I ring
Ginjol and say, mate, surely they could have fucking edited.
I said, like, I just paid twenty thousand dollars for
this this bullshit. So I said, mate, if I don't
I'm going to tell Kry's gonna ask you what happened.
I'm gonna tell Kerry that these guys fucked it up.
And he says, no, no, no worry. So he must have
wrung you because the next week they got up there

(28:25):
and corrected. And Fatty goes, you know, Mark Morris generously
gave to it from Wizard Home Loans generally gave twenty
thousand dollars. And then and one of the other I
think it was blockers. What do they do, Fatty goes,
They're one of those things, jiggits And your research wasn't

(28:48):
big fucking and I'm watching on TV again you fuck
out a second time. So I end up getting three
shots at it, which is good. Actually I end up
getting three cracks at it. And and but I just
remember the loosener of the show. And whilst I was
cranky because I gave twenty grand away, but whilst because
i'd be old, have been crave, had to give Trenty allsway,
but because you know, because Kerry school where you grew,

(29:09):
I won't say Greek something right, okay, yeah, And because
I was mean, probably I'm still mean with money, you know.
I don't throw money around. And he quite liked that
about me, but he used to bag the shit. Don't
mean about it. But whilst I was cranky, but I
was actually very happy with the style of the show.
It was authentic, it was correct, and I thought about
Fatty actually saying that actually, if you had to gone

(29:30):
really Chris ray Martin style said this is a home
line business doing mortgage origination, where the fuck was boring? Yeah,
Fatty saying what he said actually worked totally and in
reverse we launched Monster dot com on there.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
I remember nine MSN yep, and still I called it
nine MSN dot com and looks at fat In fact,
I don't know no one knew anying about the.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Internet was because because we're talking about ninety nine two
thousand and that period and no one knew what the
hell was all, especially those black Yeah, yeah, not a clue.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
No Vaddy was yet to discover the joys of the Internet.
He was still on old school magazines.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
That's but it was a pretty amazing ride for your mate.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, totally. And it's interesting you talk about Erry and business.
They're going to the great story there and you'll love
this as a businessman. So Ginge had like a Christmas
drinks sort of sunset drinks and dinner at his joint
for Christmas. And he said, mat, Kerry's coming, I'd love
you to come. Be about twenty people there, right, So
there was quite a few of the nine staffers in
that there, and he said, mate, you just sit with Kerry.

(30:33):
He loves you. Keep Kerry happy. Said yep, you won't
be here long, you know. So over I went and
he said, hello, son, how are you good? Family?

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Good?

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yep, great, fatty stirler? How are they still taking my money?
It was we had a stick and he said how
you been? I said, ah, I said, I thought he'd
be interested. I said, oh, you know, so I've actually
had a bit of an ordinary cholesterol result. And he
said have your son? And I said yeah. What are
you doing about it? And I said, well, I'm onto
the I've got a juicer, a bevil juicer. I got

(31:02):
one of those. He said where did you get that?
I said, well, and I said was actually. I said,
it's quite a story to it. He said, tell me
cross no, no, no, no, no no no. So he's
up there, mate, it's an Indonesian volcano. I mean, you know,
there's just like smoke. I mean smokes and it's Kerry
and I and a couple of people sort of sitting
on the outskirts trying to get involved, but it's just us.
And I'm telling him this story. And I said, well,

(31:24):
I actually I was. I live up at Warunga and
I said, I went to kmart at Hornsby and I said,
I went in there and I said, I got the juice.
Let's call it two hundred bucks and it was a juicer.
And I went up to David Jones for something like
David Jones said yeah, And I went up there and
I said, I saw it on special for one hundred
and seventy with.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
A jug and six glasses.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
What did you do, son? I said, well, I went
back down to kmart and I took it back down
and I said to the lady, look, you'll never believe
what's happened. My wife's actually wrung me and she's bought one.
I need to just send this back. So we did
in exchange. Then what did you do?

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Son?

Speaker 2 (32:02):
And He's like he's just invested, locked, locked, and this
is like I'm shortening up. This is a half an
hour and Ginger's flitting in and out, poking the bear
and always been a smart us always, and I said,
is what you do? So I said, while I went
back up to the David Jones late, I said, the
lady was loving all their lovely stuff on that. I said,

(32:22):
they're great stuff at David Jones, I said, and I
explained to her. I said, well I'd like to get that.
And so I took the juicer home with the jargon
the extra cups and it was David Jones. So yeah,
he's like drilling me about where I got it from. Oh,
very good son. Well let me know how all that goes.
See you later. Off he goes.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Right.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
So about seven thirty the next morning, my mobile rings
and it's Ginge and he goes, mate, I hope you're
fucking happy. I said, why, He goes, Kerry, He's got
about thirty people out on the streets to every David
Jones trying to find one hundred and seventy.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Dollars juicer, the with the six cups and the jug.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
And I was saying to Kerry, you can buy an
industrial one like they make the big ones.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
You can buy.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
He goes, I don't want that on, I want that one.
I want the one with the cups.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
And the jug. He loved a deal and you wouldn't
think so either, by the way. No, but he's it's
quite amazing when you said, when you get to sit
with him, like he's actually very interested in what you're doing. Totally,
he had very rarely had something to tell you. It's rare.
I mean if he was telling you something, usually something
you did wrong and you were fucked up and you're

(33:22):
in trouble. But generally speaking, he wanted to know what
you're doing. Yeah, he was a great learner that way. Yeah,
you just something interesting. Then a moment ago, Glenn where
you said that over a half hour period because nothing
was done quickly. No, No, you could if you went
there for fifteen minutes, you could be there for four hours.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Yeah, and you had to suck it up and just
and depending on the mood. And maybe you could explain
to people what it was like being inside his eyes
because he had your heart rate, oh, immediately goes up.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
That'd be the red shag pole carpet yep, it looked
like blood. Yeah, and the mass see if painting behind
him of the charging Indian.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Elephants and photographs of him with Bill Clinton. Bill Gates,
you know, Bruce Gindrick, David's father, like all these really
super important people. I remember once I walked into his
office and he had a white shirt on, no tie,
like a collar shirt, cotton shirt, no tie. He had
fucking blood all over him, blood bleeding. His shirt was

(34:24):
wet with blood. And I said, I went there like
I used to go to see HM once a month,
and I went there for a review, like a monthly review,
just to see where we're going, blah blah. I looked
at him a fucking shock. I looked like one of
him because he had six rot wheelers or something wheelers
in his house. I thought, look like you've been attacked
by his fucking dogs. And he said to me, I
said you're okay. He said, I'm just been to the

(34:47):
skin cancer clinic and said it comes. I said, I
come straight here, like because he's never get to work
till like one o'clock or he got in late. But
he had literally blood. I'm not It was the most
shocking thing like I've ever seen, Like, how's the other bloke? Jo?
I thought it was fucking lying to me. The something's
going on here, like he might have had a punch
up remember he had him famous punch up Warren Anderson

(35:09):
there and and legend goes that he had a gun
and he's safe and once they stole the balling out
of his saf I had this imagination something weird, totally
fucking with has gone on. But he was one of
the that experience for you, and the and the experience
of hanging out with David Lecky, Peter Meakin, David Ginjel.

(35:30):
Having experienced with all these people, what was it like
for you? Do you think in terms of like forming
your habits and forming the way you wanted to think
as a creator?

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Incredibly important? I remember like it was yesterday, Gary Burns.
I remember like it was yesterday, Gary Burns, you know,
drilling into me three letters A T, D at D.
What's an attention to detail? So get your fucking number
plates changed at D at D. And that was always
something that stuck with me. And as much as we

(36:06):
made that show look like it could come off the
rails at any stage, there was a hell of a
lot of work went into it to make sure it didn't.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
By you, by me and my team. Yeah, not necessarily
by the talent. No, I got no, they're flying by
the seat of the pan decent.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah, you know, and but that was the beauty of it.
And I had great faith in the content that we
had and the people that we had around us, whether
that was the crew on the floor, the director, whoever
that we would like, you know, we would be able
to you know, get at this show back on the
rails if it started to live.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Did it feel like that? Yeah, And that was part
of the edge of the show though, because that's what
you want to Yeah, totally. Yeah, live television, there's nothing
like it. By the way, I forgot about that. It
is live TV.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah, there's no there's no delay. Like what you're doing
is going out there straight away and you remember to
put things out in the car.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Oh mate, it was enormous. You're going to do kick
foot balls in the car, kick the cash.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Every week in the car park. We had the Nitro
Circus guys out there doing doing jumps and spinning and
motorbikes and fat crash the motorbike.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Darryl Browman ended up sideways.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
On DAR was on The Big Man, Great Man, Great Man,
his segment with the kids later on Small Talk with
the Big Man.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Yeah that was great, mate.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
We said that so We used to always do a
really really long first segment because let's say we're on
there at nine thirty, you're making that decision. Am I
going to go to bed? And I'm not going to
go to bed. So I would like do a thirty
thirty five minutes sometimes forty minute first segment, and I'd
have ginjuring me, you don't fucking work at the ABC, mate,
we need a commercial break. Trust me, just trust me,

(37:44):
and we get them up to that past that ten
o'clock mark, and I would put small Talk on at
the start of the second segment every week, and so
it would make them wait, you know, for the parents
and the kids, and stay up right right. I watched
small Talk. We want to watch small Talk? And you
got them, You got them by that stage and you know,
ten thirty sort of the cutoff of ratings read. I
got them, you know, by five past ten, ten plast ten.

(38:06):
We got small Talk on two more segments. You know,
we're down to ten thirty, and then we'd motor through
that that Beckett back end up to about eleven o'clock.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
And that was that was that was a formula added
to go as a revenue stream.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Enormous enormous because you had great, big brand sponsors who
would sign on at the beginning of the year, and
we had some really really good ones through the year,
like sports Bet were amazing, they were fantastic sponsors. We
had Nissen, Jim Beam, like big brands, big names, you know,
they were major brand sponsors. So they'd sign on at

(38:43):
a premium at the start of the year, so that
money's in the bank, and then we'd look after them
internally through the year with segments and whatnot each week program. Yeah,
then you've got your ad revenue in the breaks, which
they sold for a premium, even though I was not
getting the first one to lafter ten o'clock. But that
was a good battle to have, you know. I enjoyed
having those battles with.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
The So you're saying that you would be sort of
arguing with, oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
The execs and the CEO's at the time. You know,
we want that first.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Commercial, but I don't want to commercial.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
I want to commercial break in early, and I would
fight the no.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
What was the thinking about that way?

Speaker 2 (39:16):
My thinking was that if we gave them the chance
to go to bed at quarter to ten, they'd go.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
So don't let them go.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
No, don't let them go.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Hold them, hold them.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
For that first fucking half an hour, get them to
ten o'clock. Then put an add in, put small talk
at the top of segment two, because you know they'll
come back and watch that, and then put something tease
and promote great shit, dare devil dudes coming up later
they're doing the vomitron, which you got to get back
to the controns, Stoya the vomitron. You know that that's
coming up later on, and just tease them and get
them hanging on, which you know probably wasn't the greatest

(39:44):
thing for the sales guys when they're selling those commercial brakes,
but there was enough coming in and revenue wise, and
then we do in in show promotions, so we always
had the opportunity on a second tier. So let's just say,
Yellow Brick Road want to come in and do we
I had fifty grand in the bank, so mate, let's
do a passing comp or a drop and comp.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Will you come in and talk about it? Yeah, you'll
just present the money or.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Something and you come in with a little yarm, you know,
and you will do something. Yeah, give you fifty grand's
worth of value. Yeah, you give me fifty grand cash
happy days, you know, and we do a segment based
around that.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Just people understand how that works. So like if you
did a twenty thirty second ad, we had a thirty
second ad might have cost you twenty five grand those
days through your sales goals. But if you got on
there and you did an in program segment and you
could go five minutes, well there, that's right me. So
you've got like ten thirty second ads. Yeah, but you've
got you see icic and take the view. I've got

(40:39):
much better value doing that. And people can say, well,
that's the bloke from the company, the Homeland company, and
then you've got endorsement by the celebrities who are like
you and everybody like that. What's the value of that
is crazy?

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, which is well and above it beyond a live
read or something.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
You know, pretty powerful though, absolutely mate.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
There's not a lot of shows that could do that.
And so that in program integration and sponsor integration was
a big part of what we did. And at one
stage Rico the Great Luke Rickinson was our head of sales.
He was doing our sales for the Footy show. So
it was wonderful working with him. I love Rico, and
you know we were able to come up with plenty
of stuff. I go, ricka, mate, I knew this, You

(41:16):
go great, get on it. And he goes to the
marketplace and you know it's hard to say no to Rico.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, and it was you that was great. There must
have been a lot of untold stories, a lot of stories,
or maybe one or two untold stories you might be
able to share with us today, maybe in relation to
the talent or something that went horribly wrong, or maybe
something relation to Kerry or James. Have you got anything
that's any untold stories somebody else? Couple? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
I used to get a regular call every show from Ginge.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Ginge would bring me relentlessly through the show to talk
to me. Mate, I'll get back to you. Hang on
a second. We're putting the show to where we're live.
And I remember we had.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Said to those days to just explained David this when
David was this, when David was the head of integration,
your CEO or not CEO, and Lad left. He's still
ring even if you agree, right, even with that, he
still rings me every day, told about the same stuff,
tells me how to run my business. But so we
should just explain. In the early days day live in
a little shitty apartment in Bondi each above the Surfboard place.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
So yes, i'd never met him and I've never met him.
And James Packer rang me and he said, mate, you
need to meet this maid of mine, David Ginjel goes,
you guys will get on like a fucking house on fire.
He goes, we'll go and have dinner, and so we
went and had dinner, the three of us, and we
ended up we've gone back down to Bondi and James
was living with Kate at that stage in the apartments

(42:37):
over near the water and Gings was above the surf shop,
and James had to stop on the way at Kerry's
to get something, so it's a bit wide eyed. Then
we go and I don't think Kerry was there at
the time, and we were just downstairs and he goes,
you Blake's wait here, went through the kitchen and it
was all of it, you know, And so Ginge and
I are sitting in Kerry's TV room right which was

(42:57):
pretty amazing, and I to go to the toilet and
in there was a pith helmet like a hunting helmet.
So I've come out with the hunting helmet on, and
Ginge and I are wrestling on the lounge. James is,
can we get the fucking heart off with you and
out of here? So we go down to Bondi and
we're having a drink there and around James's place and
he gets a call. I think Kate was coming home.

(43:19):
He goes, you guys got to get out. You got
to go like she's coming home. And James had wrung
my wife Caz earlier that night, and we're living on
the Central Coast at that stage, and it's a good
call to your wife from James Packer to say Glennie
mightn come home tonight. She was pretty okay, you know
all right James, no worries. So James has put the
thing in place. He goes, you likes, you got to go.

(43:42):
Fuck where am I going from Bondi to the Central Coast.
So Gings goes, mate, come over and stay at mine.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
He sort of lived across the road time, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Down the road met in three hours ago. So I
stay at Ginger's place.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
I borrow a shirt and have a shower and go
to work the next day and we're besties.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
I've got to get the shirt back to him. So
he become besties. And that's what I always loved tout
the Packers. You know, there was intent, they were always
there was always something you know, he didn't just what
you Blake's will be good mates.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Within a couple of years, David was head of Synergy
and we were talking and I was an important tool
in the toolbox to be able to do what he
was doing because Kerry had organized that. So yeah, they
did things with intent.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Which I thought was And David would call you all
the time, relentless. Caz used to call him about third child. Yeah,
third child.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
I had two young children at that stage, and he
would call it any time just to talk and shoot
the shit about anything.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
So who'd be the best communicator you ever met?

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, he's up there, He's up there.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
He's definitely the most consistent, Yes or persistent.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah, persistent like.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Like he lisen born as you know, and he would
literally get up this morning from the time he's got
I reckon, He's made thirty phone calls.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Ye, totally works the phones. Another one who I had
a great enormous amount of respect for who I worked
with was Dennis Handling at Sony MUSICNY. Yeah, Dennis was
the greatest mentor and motivator and networker, probably best networking mate.
He punched so above his weight and CEOs would say

(45:10):
that like he's spending that much and getting that much
value because he was just that. He was that guy networking.
I learned a lot of I was on his exec
team for three or four years at Sony Music and
learned a lot from him. I was. I got a
lot of respect for Dennis.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
At what point did you rememberon Milon joined the team?
You were still there then?

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Ye. Kenny Sutcliffe came down to my office, the great
male model from Mudgy and said, mate, you know to
have a look at this girl up in the newsroom Aaron, Mrlon,
She's great.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
You know you got c from Budgy. He does live
at Budge.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
He's the male model for Budget.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
He actually lives.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
He's gone back. Yeah, so and again another great night.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
I love Kenny, great white Water sports.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah unreal. So Kenny came down and told me about
this girl I should have a look at. At that stage,
you know, I think it was I'd gone back I've
gone back.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
She was a journalist.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Yes, So I left the show around two thousand and
five and then went off and did other things three
or four years at Sony Music, and then Ginge got
me back to do the Warning thing, right, Shame Warn thing, Yeah,
Shane Warn Show. And on the back of that he said, mate,
Footy shows in trouble, would you have another crack at it?
And I said, yeah, okay, so I did five years
five leggis kitchen right, five logis five luggis every year

(46:23):
in five years?

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Maybe did you used to get the logs events down
in Melbourne the Crown, so he maybe just give us
a bit of color around what they're like.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Oh mate, well, back in the day we used to
send a camera crew. I used to send Terry Hill
terryisassed by the late Great Terry Hill. Hit Yeah, so
I Sentry. I'd send Terry down Logis in his gold
lame Mate jacket that he would wear a dapdo with
the Great Jack El's good for as in the field
at Dapdo dogs, which Singo was a nod to Singer

(46:51):
because Singer used to do the live grounds on his
show back in the day with Rabbits calling it so
you know, mate, full circle. Yeah, and Terry would go
into the the bathroom. Remember we got Kerry O'Brien in
the in the bathroom one night at the Logis and
Kerry wonder from Yeah, and Kerry started like shaping up
and was going to throw them at great man, you're
not gonna take Terry.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Good luck, good luck.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
And I would love to have seen that go a
bit further.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
I one time when when I was when I Roginal
was up in Queens and they we won a lost coming.
But we were in some bar and Brisbane pretty late
at night. This is in the old days, and Terry
Hill and Spud started shaping up against each other. Good Terry, mate.

(47:35):
I jumped in between because I'm responsored. I think go
awfully wrong part of the fact I was there as well,
and I actually jumped in between the two of them,
like actually got something. I got in between the two
both giants. Terry was a big scary moment. Yeah, they
were both frothing like would have been. And by the way,
they're in the same thing, like just go show why
we don't let him out, so let's go back on. Sorry,

(47:58):
I just had a memory of that, but let's just
go back to luggies.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, they were they were just you know,
there's something in that room. You know, you go into
that room and it's like a Vegas casino. There's no
no windows, no not enough oxygen, and everyone's fucked up
within an hour.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
It's just something in that room, in that loggis and
those five legs. Where do they sit these days? I've
got a couple of them.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, yeah, I've got a couple of I think Fat's
got a couple. I know Matt Calendar, the late Matt Calendar,
who will talk a little bit about the Mark Hughes Foundation.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Yeah, you know Matt.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
I think Matt got one or two. So yeah, they're around.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Yeah, let's go back to the post between gigs though,
as at the footage show you did warning.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, so yeah, so I done?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Was that about?

Speaker 2 (48:42):
So I'd finished up at Sony and Gins Raimon, you know,
and he said, mate, he said, I've got a new
project on the bubble.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
He said it's at nine at nine.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yeah, he said, I can't remember the word hears, but
it was difficult, interesting talent to handle. And he said,
you're the guy to do that. He said, interested I said, mate,
you got me already, so he said right out. We
going to Melbourne a meeting. We went down to Melbourne
and it's warning, you know, the great chain Warmth, and
we had dinner down there and we discussed this idea
of a chat show that he'd wanted to do. He

(49:14):
wanted to do interviews like just like this one on ones,
which is a great lost art form of someone.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
You know you do it well.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
There are people who can do it, and it's a
great lost art form, just the one on one.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
I don't know why they don't have it on telling
me neither. We all got nine late.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Yeah, we all watched the podcastle while we're work, gone
through to Weir you know, smart Blake's running the last
minute totally. So you know, we had this idea. They
had this idea of this show that Shane was going
to open up his address book and we're going to get.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Some talent dress book. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Mate. We had like I'll tell you who we got,
but who we didn't get who were trying to get
on was Elton John Mick Jagger. I had their people
calling me going, mate, we're trying to move something around
so that they loved him.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
They just what what was your pill of him?

Speaker 2 (50:02):
They loved a lot of them were cricket fans. The
poems loved Yeah, so a lot of them were cricket fans,
like Mick Mix a cricket fan, and Elton. I think
I think Elton likes Creet. Belton just loved him because
he's a naughty bloke. But you know, there was that
appeal of again, the authenticity and what you saw was
what you got. It's a real bloke, you know. And
so we thought, okay, well this can work. So we

(50:23):
lined up interviews with Sting, with Chris Martin from Cole Play,
Susan Boyle.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Jar members, but she was the singer.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
She was the singer. I'll te you a little bit
about that moment. And then Jeremy Clarkson, you know, the
top Gear was the hottest show in the world at
that stage. So this is the sort of talent that
we're going over to get, you know. So they were
big names. Okay, well this is all going to work.
And Shane said, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Where was it? Where was it held? So we did.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
We did half in Sydney, half in Melbourne. It was
it was Scratch scheduled for five episodes over the Ashes
series of I think it was twenty eleven twelve around
that era, so whenever that Ashes series in Australia was
and at the time there was a great push to
forewarning to make a comeback. We're fucked and everyone's going warning,

(51:14):
he's got to come back. Warn, he's got to come back.
So we would land in the UK and be swamped
by the paps. It's like, literally like I've never seen
like car chases. We're getting really, we're getting He's dry.
He had a driver over there I think was Madonna's
driver as well, of course, and this guy was like
losing people and it was it was full on. But
little did they know that at the same time as

(51:37):
all this is happening under their nose is Shane is
having his moment with Elizabeth Hurley, which is all this
story is right there under their nose and they're all
coming up. Shane gonna make a comeback. He's gonna make comebacks. Boys,
look a little harder, just look.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
A little right. Story wrong, Jason, the wrong story here.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
So we went over there, we did two trips over there.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Did you meet it?

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we did. We did two trips
over there together. First trip where he said, mate, you
can't meet her on the first trip, So no problem
at all. That's fine. So they went out to dinner
with Hugh Grant and her and they're still mates apparently,
So they had their little night out and then we
went over to Turin to do Sting at a basketball
stadium in Turin, And so before Sting goes on, he's

(52:20):
given us like an hour downstairs just this, you know,
a couple of chairs, my camera's me, Shane him, that's it.
And I'm a massive police fan, so like I'm completely
fangirling with Sting, loving him. So we do the interview
and he goes you know, guys come up and enjoy
the show, right, So great, fantastic. So we go up
to the show and he's got these seats that you're
in that you know, we went to a show recently

(52:41):
of his out of Here CHASMI and my wife and
I and we were in literally the same seats, so
they're like Sting seats, I think. So he knows where
you are, right, So he's like singing to Shane and
I through Fuck, how good's this? We get to interval
and Shane's just everything. For Shane was a dart and
he measured things in darts, like you go, mate, how
far is it start? How far from terminal one to
terminal two? Darts? A right? Perfect? So I measured everything

(53:03):
in cigarettes. So he knew to go and have a
singer in the intervillees going, mate, let's go. We've seen
half the show.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
He was very on.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
It was like, let's go, next thing, next thing. We
can't go made. He's fucking singing Roxanne to us like
we're we're literally seven rows back, and his eyeballing us.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
We can't go.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
There's going to be two empty seats, and Sting walks past.
He goes, hey, we're enjoying the show guy, and she goes,
that's fucking great. They can't wait for part two. Great, fantastic.
So we do that and we go and so we
come back and so we knock over that interview, and
then we go back the second time and I'm going
to come back to Sting right at the end because
there's a great yarn. So we do the second trip
over there, and like the last day we're doing it.

(53:42):
So the second last day we go out to dinner,
so it's Elizabeth Shane me one of her minders, and
I think Shane's UK manager. That was it. We go
to this summer restaurant in Chelsea and we come upstairs
and there's a red light in a car across the
road and Shane goes, mate, mate, you got to go
and check that out. Fuck do I have to check

(54:02):
it out for mate? To Russian mafia and Chelsea where
you know there's a sight on me? May you got
to go and check it out, Go and check it out.
Not good, but it's aerhaps, it's a paps and I'm
coming out of airports with Shane and it's global like
the vision you know, Shane Warner is you're going to
make a comeback, and my missus is messaging me, can
you just stand up a bit.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Taller the world's smallest bodyguard?

Speaker 2 (54:23):
But you know, you're all over the news with Shane.
So it's like I'm saying, mate, I'm not your fucking minder.
I'm here as your producer. So I go out and
have a look and I can't see what's in the car,
but you know, I think it's probably perhaps you know,
so there's a whole clandestine operation to get them out
of their restaurant and the way we go, and so
we get back to the hotel. Next day in the morning,
we've got Elizabeth, we've got Susan Boyle in the hotel

(54:46):
for the interview, Jeremy Clarkson at the bebe in the
afternoon down at Shepherd's Bush Airport home. That's the day.
So I get a text very early in the morning
from Shane. Mate, it's your turn to get breakfast this morning,
a little joint around the raady like breakfast and this
morning it's for three of us. Okay, all right, So
I'm going up to the room and Elizabeth obviously stayed.

(55:06):
So Shane answers the door and a Donner looking very happy.
Mate come coming, come in and going to his suite
and he's got the mad sweet and we sit down
and get the breakfast out. Elizabeth Hurley walks out in
a long black cat suit, longside god, long legs black
catsuit and just stands in the London morning sun and says, what.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
A great night last night was talking about the dinner.
So there she is.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
So I said, look, we've just got to do some
work and I don't know, you go for it, go
for it. So we're writing questions and it's the two
of us. So she starts helping with the questions and
chime me in, which is great. And she's saying to Shane,
as Shane, when you're with Susan Boyle, you just flirt
with her a bit, flirt with her, Susan Boyle, just
anyone Google Google, there's no flirting, no flirting. So Shane,

(55:57):
we're getting down there, getting set up for the interview.
I look over and he got his hand on a
leg in he's mate, mate, got a second mate quickly.
It's not a quick word. What the fuck are you
doing it? I'm flirting, I said, mate.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
She said flirt, not don't touch.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Don't touch.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
So we do the interview with Susan and she's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
It was great interview and Shane was really good at
these chats, like he was good, you know, he'd do
his research, but he was engaging and they loved him,
you know. So we do the interview, we go, we
go back, we've got a couple of hours to kill
before we check out, and she's still at the hotel
Elizabeth right. So I said, I'm just going over to Camden.
I'll come back car's picking us up at two. I'll
see you then I'll be back about and help us

(56:38):
one but I get back and the whole hotel staff
are standing out the front. There's three fire engines right
and the staff there's a little boutique hotel is stay
out and they're like giving me the look like something's.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Going on here.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
So I'm sort of walking towards the hotel and there's
a little alley way this Glenn Glenn, and it's Shane
and Elizabeth up this little alley and she's pretty off
the charts at this stage.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
The peraps, the paps, they're smoking us out. They're smoking
us out.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
So they've somehow they've got onto it, the paps, and
they know she's in there, so someone's called in a
fake fire call to get her out evacuated. So they're
up in the side and there's a staff in me going,
you know, miss early, mister war we need to be
moving you out of here.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
They go. They're not moving anywhere, right, we know what's
going on.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
So we got Elizabeth or Shane got Elizabeth out somehow
at the back and we jump in the car and
we're going down.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Towards the BBC Shepherd's Bush.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
And we're in the back seat another Indonesian volcano moment.
He's in there on the.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
Darts and she rings and I can hear the phone call,
and she rings and she.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Goes they've got the photos. They've got the photos. News
of the World have got the photos. And someone had
got a photo of her and him having a kiss
in a hotel foyer. I think the night they went
out with Hugh Grant and they were going to publish it.
They've given her the nod that they're going to publish
this story. It's breaking, so the story in the next
twenty four hours will be out there that they're on.

(58:07):
So warning's like fuck, you know, we're pull out of
the BBC in this interview to get with Jeremy Clarkson.
As I said before, at that stage, top Gear is
the hottest show in the world.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
I remember it, hottest show.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
In the world around twenty eleven, twenty twelve. So it's
a big interview and we get there and he's over
and Shane's gone over there in the car park on
his phone. He's texting, he's on his phone, he's smoking.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
He loves a text, loved a text.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Right, and he's by this stage completely off off chops.
He's like he's gone elsewhere mentally. And Clarkson arrives and
he's a prickly character, is he? Oh yeah, just you
know so you know. So I've gone up to him
and I've gone introduced myself and Jeremy. I don't know you,
you don't know me, I said, but I Reckon, we're
all on the same page as blokes here, mate, And

(58:52):
I said, I can't tell you what's going down right
now with our mate over there, but there's a bit
of shit about to hit the fan, and in about
twenty four hours it's all going to make sense. He
might be a bit off his game. I can just
ask you please, just be as giving as you can
be in this interview. We've all worked very hard to
get here. Leave it with me, he says, right, gives

(59:14):
the best interview ever. Clarkson, massive respect. He just turned
it on, helped warning through. It was great. So after
the airport we go, we fly to Abu Dhabi and
where of course we're in the smoking lounge, the first
last smoking lounge, and it's midnight. There's no one there.
It's just Shane and I he's sitting ten to fifteen
feet across from me on another lounge and there's no

(59:35):
one around, and he's going to Melbourne. I'm going to
Sydney from there. So we're splitting up there and through
the door like comes in this arrow head of Arab
blokes in the full rock the kasbar outfits right, and
they've got a bloke in the middle. So they've like
there's like six wine a wedge with this bloke in
the middle with the worry beads, the cigar, the lot

(59:58):
and they fan open and he's looking she's looking at Shane.
He's looking at me. He's looking at Shane. And he
comes over and he says to me, excuse me, sir.
He said, is that mister Sheene Warn over there?

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
And I said, yeah, yeah, yes it is, Yeah, it
is yeah, Please don't arrest me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
And he goes, I am the shake of Oman. Oh
my god, I would like to meet him. I said,
just a moment, shake, let me just see what I
can do, said Shane. Is what he's got the head
down the phone, What said, mate, said shake of Oman.
Cheek of tweak, sheak of tweak, shake of Oman. Shane goes, good, eh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Puts his head back down on his phone and I said,
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Mate, he's a little little preoccupied at the moment, and
the shake just shuffles off. My flight gets called and
that was it. I didn't see Warny again. We got
back and my wife was at the airport and just
wide eyes, wide open, and I might have mentioned to
her some of the stuff that have been going on,
and she just goes, it's out there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
I thought it might be.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
So in that's of flying back from Abi Dhabi to
release released, and it was everywhere. Mate, we all remember
what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
So how do you when you've got to million stories and,
by the way, one of the greatest storytellers I've ever met,
But you know that you are. But you've got a
million stories and you tell them perfectly. But do you
ever sort of sit down to yourself and say, fuck, well,
ever experience that type of life again? Yes, it was
a wonderful moment in time some of the thing, But

(01:01:28):
do you think you can never experience that type of
thing again? Do you think I think it's possible. I
don't mean I don't mean a gleam palace at your age,
but like a new version of lamp, Paris Palace a
young guy. Does that sort of stuff exist anymore?

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
I think in today's terms, it's a little different, you know.
I think that obviously mobile phones and internet and social
media have changed experiences out there for everybody. I mean,
sportsmen will tell you that from you know, what they
could do back thirty years ago without being detected, you know,

(01:02:02):
and you know, unless you had your Manolta or your Kodak,
you know, you didn't capture a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
You lived in that moment and you told the story
about that. You know, there was no one there to
record that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Moment, whereas I think now we're a little more obsessed with,
you know, capturing them the moment. And so look, you know,
television in my world has changed dramatically. I don't think
for the better.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
In Freeoware television, it's less entertaining one hundred.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Percent, mate, you know. And I also think that, you know,
the the attention to detail that we used to see
has just disappeared.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
And also cancel culture, you know, doesn't left right like
Jimmy Kimmel recently, but then the people on the other
side of the right, so they can get canceled too.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
I actually just recently. I did about six months with
the project. Yeah yeah, I was broadcast producer for them
here in Sydney. Made of Mine in Melbourne was Rove's
business partner and called me in and said, you know,
the DP flies up every Sunday to do the show.
Could you do it? I'd love to, so I didn't
have to do content. It was just purely looking after

(01:03:05):
the talent, getting the show to wear, getting it out
on time. You know what an incredibly talented bunch of
on camera and off camera people that team was. I
was so disappointed to see ten Paul that I really
didn't have any history with the show. I'd done six
months on it. But people like Sarah Harris, Hamish McDonald,
Wali and Ali you know talent, oh, sensational talent and

(01:03:30):
talent who cared, who would come in and do their
research and debate things about how.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
They should attack it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
And you know, that show got pillared a bit for
being a bit left wing, a bit woke at times,
but mate, it was a really good bunch of people.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
But doesn't appreciate this stuff anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
No, And That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
They don't appreciate talent and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
Very sad to see that go and again, you know,
then pops a cheaper version of a news show because
it's being counters running television, not creative.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
And it's also about the money. Yeah, we've got to
We're only earning this amount of income and that's all
we can afford to produce. You pay shit, you get monkeys.
That's I cannot leave a conversation with you without talking
about Maddie Johns and Joey Johns Johns and two brothers
and obviously Bege Reagan. Yes, tell me about Maddie Johns.

(01:04:23):
Let's start with Maddie.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Okay, I just did a gig with him about three
weeks ago. We both did the I got a phone
call from Craig Johnston, the Johnson so the Liverpool player
Ozzie who whenever and played.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
For Liverpool, who had famous for the boots.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Yes, May invented the Predator, and Craig and I became
mates back in the day. He was a wire old
of sports reporter for a little while really yeah, under
David Hill when Hilly was running Wild of Sports, and
so we sort of met back then. And I got
a call from him about three months ago saying I'm
going to do a live show in Newcastle telling my story.
Maddie John's is going to be in it with me.

(01:04:57):
We need someone to pull it all together. Interested am
I what Liverpool fan you know loved Maddie. So yeah,
we just did a gig together a couple of weeks ago.
It was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
And Matt, Maddie, most people don't realize, is one of
the smartest people ever meet. Absolutely and well researched. Yeah,
and with an incredible memory. Mate, he will do he
can remember stuff, yes, that he experienced in the ninety
nineties singer group, Yeah, words or.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Well doing this gig. He he came out and he
just did a little opening monologue and he said, I'm
just gonna win a Glenning. I said, they're great, fantastic
and he cited Craig as his hero, you know, and
he said, so he knew everything about Craig. Was one
of the first books. You know, he was the first book,
one of the early books he read as a sportsman
was Craig's book. You know, he knew everything about him

(01:05:44):
and he was just pulling things out and while Craig's
telling stories and that Matt's been that was able to
bring him back because he knew exactly where that story
was going, and yeah, he was It was fantastic with
But mate, yeah, I knew the boys back in the
day when they were playing and Matt was playing for Cronulla.

(01:06:07):
He's actually gone over to the UK, and Joey and
I were probably tighter at that stage than Matt and I.
But we're all all good mates, and you know, they'd
come on the show and they do stuff, but they'll
just our players, you know. But I'd really sort of
identified Matt as being something, you know, he was something
out of the box, and he went over to the
UK to play, and we all kept in touch while

(01:06:29):
he was over there, Joey and I with him and
me with Matt. And when he came back his playing
at the Sharks, and I said to him, I said, mate,
when you stopped playing, you've got a gig.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Was he doing skits then?

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Yes? Yes, So we started him. So he came back
and we started doing Reg and Reg had been a
character that he'd had at a mad Monday up there
at the Knights, and so we just we just polished
it a bit. And when I say polish, fucking you
polish Red Dragon. We just made it TV worthy and
relevant and let him go. You know, we had some
a great producer with him go called Simon Steele. They'd

(01:07:02):
sit down and they'd do a bit of stuff together.
They'd run it by me and I'd let them go
and away they'd go. So that was always fantastic. And
then he was going out to do a I had
Ryan Girdler going out to do a their house at
Jason Stevens Place from Cranella and Jason, a great man
lived at Brighton Le Sands overlooking the airport there, and

(01:07:25):
I just thought it needed something in that segment. And
matt was in the office hanging around doing something I
can't remember, and I said, mate, I said, why don't
we do a character like that Dave Grohl character in
Learned to Fly And he's got the mustache and he's
like a gay flight Steward and he goes, Mate, leave

(01:07:45):
it with me and Trent the flight Steward was born.
And there's a shot there of Girds and Jason sitting
on the lounge talking and the first time we ever
saw Trent on television. The cameradge just pans when Matthew
is lying at the other end of the lounge of
these pants around.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
His ankles, the Hijah and there was Trent.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Trent was born. So mate, he started doing these characters
while he was playing, and I'd said to him, mate,
there's a gig, you know, there's a gig. I could
see more in him than just a bit player. And
he did his neck and playing. He had an injury
playing I think it was his neck playing with the Sharks,
and I rang Ginge and I rang John Fordham, the

(01:08:29):
late Great John and who was his manager at the time,
and I said to him, went at a meeting pretty
quick to talk about Matthew's future, and ging said, mate,
we're going.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
To get him.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
And we got John in literally two days after the
injury and did a deal. And Matt Matt gave me
a handwritten note on my fortieth at Peacock Gardens when
he appeared underknownst to me that my wife and he
had organized him to come in as reg Reagan. He
was already there as a guest, and he slipped away
and came back in this redge. But he gave me

(01:08:58):
a little handwritten note and he said, mate, without you,
I would be a stop go man. At the Cessnock Council.
He'd be the best fucking stop go man you'd ever meet.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
What about and can I need to talk about bo
Ryan like Bowie was a card Yeah, but out there totally.
Yeah again, I mean my mind, I said, but he
could even be a bit neuro divergent if there is
anything that ends in d he's got. Yeah, he is
out there, yep, totally.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
And I inherited Bo when I went back. He'd been there,
so he'd been well sort of prepped and started. But mate,
he was he was good talent to grow. And I
saw him on a bigger stage, which is while we
put him in front of movie stars and you know,
the rock and the Rock loves him really mate, The
Rock and Kevin Hart did a video for me from

(01:09:47):
a fiftieth because bow organized it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Yeah, like that's they love him, you know, and we
only ever had What is it about him that that's
so sort of magnetic about.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Well, I think it might be what you mentioned, you know,
I think there's something quite disarmed about him.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
You know, it's almost his enthusiasm is almost child especially
when he talked to him. You don't not sure if
he's taking the piss or finding.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
Him, but maybe he's he's a hard worker. He does yeah, yeah,
like you know, there's never a problem.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
You send him out a a on a bonose and
they'd be out there for four hours shooting because he
didn't think we'd got enough good stuff, and he'd be
the guy going, we need to get we need to
do more, whereas you know, the Fat would do twenty minutes,
drop the mic and gone.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
Yeah, not a golf for another week.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
He'd be on the golf course.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
What is it like? When were you there when Fat
got moved on?

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Yeah? Yeah, so mate, that was like okay, so that
was the end for me too. That was a very difficult,
difficult period. We'd done the end of the twenty seventeen show,
we did that at the ic C, big crowd, great show.
Or went off for a couple of weeks break and
I got a phone call to come up here. So
at the end of the Grand Final, yeah grand file. Yes,
so we've done the Grand Final footy show at the

(01:10:59):
icy C. With season finished, we took a bit of
a break. I got a phone call to go and
see the then CEO and another senior management guy Gingja's
gone yeah, yeah, Ginge's gone and they wanted to. They
said to me, look, we're changing the footy show around. Okay,
we're putting it back under Wide World of Sports, and

(01:11:21):
you won't be running it. I went, right, And we'd
like to offer you something else if you're interested, but
you won't be doing the footy show and there will
be no role for Fatty and no role for Darryl Browman.
But you know, you're going to have a bit of
a think about what you want to do, and would
you mind calling them and letting them know. How's that
for an assyle act? So anyway, I went, okay, no

(01:11:43):
problem at all. So I had about a three minute
think about it and thought, my mate nine's not for
me anymore. And that was the end of twenty seventeen.
I had to ring fat the next day. He was
on holidays in the US with his beautiful wife Kim,
and I had to ring him and tell him that
the decision had been made that the Footing Show would
be continuing but without him, and his services were no

(01:12:05):
longer required on the show. And mate, he hit him like.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
A ton of bricks, and that was also the end
of your period.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Then, yeah, yeah, So I decided. Then I said, look,
this is not for me. I'll leave as well.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
So I exited and I remember having to be with
you and gidget by and Bay.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
No, that was two thousand and five.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
That was the first time. That was two thousand and
first time. Yeah, that was the first time I left. Yeah,
So it wasn't because I was trying to work out
which period it was.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
Yeah, that was two thousand and five, the first yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Yeah, So how did you feel?

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
I felt very disappointed, and I felt that when it
came back the next year for its final year, it
should not have been called the Footy Show because it
wasn't the footy Show and Fatty was the footy Show.
Whether you love him or hate him, Fatty was the
footy Show. And I felt it was really poor form
that after twenty four years, we as a collective, particularly Fatty,

(01:12:54):
weren't given the chance to firstly say thank you to
all those people who had been with us, whether they
were staff, whether they were fans, viewers for twenty five
twenty four years, and we had the chance. You know,
they knew what was happening. They could have told us
and said, you know, say goodbyes. On the Grand Final
show and do it with a bit of class, but
there was no class.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Well, now here's your chance, because we're getting a lot
of feedback on all sorts of channels about people saying
bring back the footage show. So what are you reading
about that? Do you reckon we should bring back the
footy show?

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
Look, I personally think there's and someone will steal this idea,
but I personally think there's a vehicle for it in
Grand Final week that we should still be doing the
Grand Final Footy Show on Thursday night and pay Fat
whatever he wants, just to do one show a year
and we bring out all the boys and we do
a Grand Final Footy show at wherever a venue that
creates that magnificent atmosphere and excitement for the Grand Final.

(01:13:50):
And I'm available to do that. But as I said,
I'm sure someone else ended up doing it for a
lot cheaper. But you know, I don't know if it
can come back as a weekly show. I just as
we mentioned before, I think there's too many people who
love to complain and get offended very easily these days,
and that's a real shame. And to do the show

(01:14:10):
the way it should be done, Fatty tells the story
when he does public speaking. Now it's finally hit him
what the show meant to people. And it took him
six months of retirement. I used to say to him, mate,
this show means so much to be like, oh mate,
it's just a show. And he says he'd drive home
after it and he'd forget about it. And the next
thing you think about it was when I rate to

(01:14:32):
annoy him to do an andiad or something the next week.
He didn't think about it. But since he's retired and
you're saying about this is it's genuine and tangible and
he now feels it where people are coming up to
him and saying I saw him in Sir La that
the night at one of their speaking gigs and they
talk about it, and Fatty says, people are coming up
to me and saying Thursday night was when I got

(01:14:53):
together with my dad and I'd go over to my
dad's place and watch the footy show, Or was when
our family got together to watch the footy show.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
As I moved with Benny Hill made my family and
I used to do it my kids for the foot show.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
Yeah, exactly, And it was a place I remember Lecky
David Lecky got me one week after the after the
show to come over on a Friday night and have
a beer and a bit of dinner and sit with
him and watch Friday night footy with him in his
TV room because he wanted me to know where he
sat on Thursday nights to watch my show, which was

(01:15:25):
pretty fucking cool, you know. I thought that was good,
but you know, it meant a lot to people, and
I think it's more the memory.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
I don't think he could sustain a weekly version of
it and do it justice.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
So one big event, I think, mate, can you imagine
the ratings on a huge, huge and bring back all
the old talent totally? Just bring them all back for
work one night.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
One night only you know, no one's asking for a
commitment which none of them want to give.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
You know, I still keep in touch with them all.
I was texting with the Great Chief yesterday, you know,
one of the world's greatest men and great leaders, and
I heard Maddie John was talking recently about one of
the quotes that when they went out for that ninety
seven Grand Final was Chief turned to the team and
he said, they don't send people off in Grand finals.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Follow me what about that. Doesn't that getting the going
im glam made so good finally gets you a near
mate And I'm just had of all listen all your stories.
Like I'm sure our audience are going to have a
great time listening to these stories. And by the way,
for me, it was an era in my life, as
you said, probably never be revisited, but an era in

(01:16:30):
my life which has a significant part of my life,
in a significant part of a lot of Australians lives,
and all of us have got great memories for memories.
Thanks for sharing his stories. Mate, You've been a legend.
Watch you brought to Australia. It was legendary, really seriously
and I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
Mate, Thank you, Matte. It's an absolute honor to sit
here and do this with you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
Thanks buddy,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#210 The Untold Stories of The Footy Show: Behind the Scenes with Glenn Pallister

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

All Episodes

#210 The Untold Stories of The Footy Show: Behind the Scenes with Glenn Pallister

Stuff You Should Know