The Little Dum Dum Club with Tommy & Karl - Episode 83 - Rove McManus

Episode Date: April 25, 2012

One Direction Menstrual Cycles, Jamiroquai Interviews and The Camperdown Play Festival. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey mates, this is a quick message that I'm recording in my bedroom to let you know that the Little Dum Dum Club is sponsored by Punchline. Head to punchline.com.au for all your comedy DVD needs. And also big news, our live episodes from the Melbourne Comedy Festival are going to be uploaded next week onto Bandcamp. You'll be able to download all three episodes and you just pay us whatever you feel like paying. So if you want to pay nothing, then you can pay nothing. But if you feel like throwing us a couple of bucks, you'll be helping to support this little show, and we'd really love you for it. So next week, head to thelittledumbdumbclub.bandcamp.com

to download our live episodes with people like Kamau Nanjiani, John Safran, Tony Martin, Andrew O'Keefe, and heaps of our old mates. And finally, I will be doing my new show, Pipsqueak, in Sydney from May 4 till 6 at the Factory Theatre. Head to sydneycomedyfest.com.au for tickets. See you there, mates. Hey, mates. Welcome once again into the Little Dumb Dumb Club for another week.

My name is Tommy Dasolo and sitting opposite me, the other half of the show, Carl Chandler. G'day dickhead. How you going over there, buddy? Yeah, I'm good. We're nearly at the end of festivals. I think the listeners can tell by the sound of your voice. I'm slowly turning into a real life boy. Yeah, I've gotten really sick overnight.

And that's like, I've had like no voice for the whole festival. Like it starts to get better and then I have a big night and, you know, it goes downhill again. But I actually, I like it at this level. Yeah, you sound like the most like a man you've ever sounded. I know. I'm considering taking up smoking just to try and get it to this register the whole time.

Just get hammered every night. Yeah. Just to prove that you're a man, literally. Yeah, the other morning I got up and I thought, oh, my voice is a bit shot. And then I was doing my show and was listening to myself through the speakers and going, this sounds so good. This is great. I just want this all the time.

I'd be so happy if this was like, I'm not asking for much. I'm not asking to suddenly have a George Clooney-esque voice. Just this, just a couple of notches back from what it is normally. You're just asking for someone to ring you up and then to go, oh, sir, what are you doing? Instead of ma'am. Exactly. Yeah, where's your husband? Yeah, which happens frequently.

Yeah, that's sweet. I had a nice little moment, sort of a little bit humiliating, I guess, the other night. I had a nice little moment that was sort of humiliating. Yeah, yeah. We're talking about festival you know you get stuck at festival you get stuck at after parties and like you know drinking with other comedians or whatever and i had a nice little moment of someone saying to me thinking that they were doing the right thing and they were like really drunk and they were going you know what look oh look maybe it's just because i've drunk so much and look don't Look, I'm not trying to be overly emotional or whatever like this,

but I just want you to know that I personally think, and I've always thought that you are one of the better one-liner comics in Melbourne. And I'm like, I think there's about three. So it's not really an emotion. It's not like a confession. It's just a fact. That's sensational. That's so good. I'm one confession. It's just a fact. That's sensational. That's so good.

I'm one of three. That's a fact. That's awesome. I was in the Hi-Fi Bar the other night. It was my girlfriend's birthday, and we were in there until quite late, getting pretty drunk. And then I went to go to the bathroom, and a comic that I know, I can't remember who it was, but grabs me and goes, hey, man, how's it going with that girl in the corner? It's looking pretty good.

How's things going there? I'm like, that's my girlfriend. And he goes, yeah, no, it just looks like it's really on because it's like you're just with her and you're like whispering in her ear. I'm like, yeah, because it's my girlfriend. Like, I don't know. It's a weird thing that. You've done well though.

Yeah, I've done pretty well. I did pick her up. Yeah. Nice one. Sweet. Today on the show, we've got a very, very special guest He's just in town for a very short time We're very lucky to have him on the show

Please welcome into the Little Dumb Dumb Club, Rove McMass Thank you I'm equally husky Yeah It's like, I don't know, it's almost drag queen Yeah It's almost Priscilla I like that now Carl kind of looks like the loser in this situation

I know Because he's the one person with a voice Yeah, like you pussy I'm very feminine I had, one of the first times I did Good News Week I had another comedian, whom I did not respect anyway Prior to this, come up to me and say Saw you on Good News Week the other night

Really, really enjoyed it And I said, oh thank you And he said, because the it. I said, oh, thank you. And he said, because the whole time I was watching it, I was going, this is great because if Rove could do this show, I could do this show. And I was thinking, I don't think you realised how fucking insulting you were just then. And did this person in question ever end up doing it? No.

Yay, victory. You were just saying. And did this person in question ever end up doing it? No. Yay! Victory. It is like the comedy festival is the natural habitat of the backhanded compliment. Yeah, yeah. People just don't think. They just don't think. Yeah. So who was the comic?

No. They are still around. Oh, really? I need to be careful. Oh, really? And no higher up the ladder, I think. It looked like you were pretty close to saying it. I nearly around. Oh, really? So I need to be careful. Oh, really? And no higher up the ladder, I think. It looked like you were pretty close to saying it. I nearly was.

Oh, damn it. So you don't want to... I saw the poster, this year's poster in my head as I was going, don't say the name. Oh, quick, get the guide out. Sign language it to me. I'm blinking it. I'm blinking it. You don't want to insult them in case they somehow get you knocked off the bill of an

open mic in Melbourne? Yeah, actually, that's probably true. It's one of those things that after all these years, I just went, oh, I've kind of moved on from you. And then something about being back for the festival and seeing people out and about, I just went, oh, no, I won't make it difficult for myself. I was out the other night at the festival club, and it was the first time in a long time I actually was just enjoying seeing people. Normally it feels like, oh, I don't know, do I want to talk to that person? Do I want to talk to that person? I was a little bit drunk, I'm going to admit it.

But I was just in a very loving mood. I was just pleased to see everybody. It felt like it had been so long. Because the Hi-Fi Bar can be a bit of a weird place during the comedy festival. And that night you were there, that's the night I was there with my girlfriend and we were sitting not far from- Well, I was the one who came up to you and said, it looks like you're doing well. But it was, it was like, you could just see all you guys, like, you know, it had that

real vibe of a group of mates who, you know, haven't gotten to hang out for a while. It was infectious. Like, I had a nice time just by contact high of like your enjoyment. Well, also because I had been out to see everybody's shows. So I'd seen Justin Hamilton, Peter Hellyer, Dave Callan, and Celia Paquola. I was off to see her. And so it was, yeah, it was just this really cool thing of doing

almost the opposite of what you would do most other festivals, which is the first people on the list to get struck off are your mates because you see them perform all the time or you're around them constantly. So you know what they're going to do or you've seen the material before and you're just so limited for time. The first people that normally have to go are those people that you can kind of see at other times. Yeah, for sure. And this was the complete opposite. I went in and I went, I want to see my friends' shows. I went and saw Gatesy and Bob Franklin's show, which was great. And Sam Simmons was, oh my God, it blew my mind.

I got moved into the second row by accident because I was by myself and there was one seat near the aisle. And I was in tears. It was like in a boxing fight or something and the jokes just did not let up. So it was kind of cool to kind of go in and see their shows and then hang out afterwards and catch up and talk about the shows. And because it has been so long, I could just see the evolution of everybody's craft and how good they are. Like, you know, it sounds almost condescending to say how well

everybody has improved it seems. Yeah. It's pretty nice of you to say that stuff about Sam, especially after he said that to you after you did Good News Week. It was very nice of him. Did he get you up on stage? Well, I was in the second row. I was really unhappy when they moved me in because they just said,

oh, is it just you? And then they moved me into this one empty seat. And I could just see him because there's a couple of moments where he needs to pick people in the audience. And I could just see him scanning the audience and just not wanting to choose me. And yet I must have just been just like, I don't know, like some beacon of don't choose me, don't choose me, don't choose me.

But, yeah, it was great. It was really great. So he didn't choose you? No, he didn't. He did very well, which is just as well. Well, he chose me. Did he? Yeah.

Did you get man raped? You bit him on the neck, didn't you? Yeah, well, there were circumstances. No, but there's that bit in the show where you get someone up. It's a play. It's a play. It's a play. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he fights someone.

He did that that night, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He did that where he walks past me and I go, don't pick me, don't pick me. And then he walks past me, but then he does the double back, goes, nah, fuck it, you're coming up. And I went, oh, God. So I don't know what's happening, but he gets me up there and he goes, right, we're going to start fighting now.

So we start fighting. And so I'm like, okay, well, I'm supposed to get into it, I guess. So then I do get into it. I end up biting him. And then he'm like, okay, well, I'm supposed to get into it, I guess. So then I do get into it. I end up biting him. And then he's like, what are you doing? Like, I know it's a performance, but Jesus, settle down. I'm like, you're the guy that got, picked me out of a crowd, put me on stage and said, we're fighting each other now.

Sorry for taking it one tiny little more step up. You're a method actor. You should know that. I should have known. It's the risky takes. Yeah, I didn't know all the rules of retarded fight club. Sorry. We've talked about this on the show before.

I don't know if you picked this up in the show, but a friend of mine went and saw that show in Brisbane and the female voiceover, he thought that it was me doing it and went up to Sam afterwards and said, that's really funny that you got Tommy to do the voice because it always comes up on the podcast. Well, obviously you hadn't been drinking. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. So I'm guessing it's not you.

It's not me. But enough people, like countless other people have said they thought it was me. And someone, I think Josh Earl said he met the girl in question in the street the other night and he said, it blew my mind. It was like. How much she looked like you? No. Jeez, that is a horrifying image.

No, I still haven't seen it. I'm fascinated by this. It did click in my head when the voice came up. I went, yeah, I can see that. I got distracted by trying to pick who the people were. Oh, the voiceover. Because the first, not the actual narrator, is a familiar voice. Yeah. He's on familiar voice. Yeah.

He's on Triple J. Yeah, he does a lot of stuff. But then the characters, Tom Gleeson's the first one you hear. Yes, yeah. And then so then I was like, oh, okay, so it's like spot the mates. And then the next one I was like, ah, I can't pick it. And then it got really distracting where I just wanted them to keep talking, to go, no, I think I can pick up.

It's someone doing a voice like they're trying to alter their own voice. And then, um, and it just, yeah, it actually was to the detriment of my enjoyment of the show. And so I had to go, let it go. Let it go. It's like the Simpsons. It's like the Simpsons when you get into the Simpsons and then there's some voice that's not from the main ensemble and you go, oh, well that's clearly got to be someone.

And so then you, you going through the rest of it going, oh, is that Dan Aykroyd or is it Chachi from Happy Days? I don't know. Or you'll see their name will come up in the credits at the end and you'll go, I didn't even know. So then you have to go back and watch it again to even pick the voice because they weren't just doing themselves. They were putting on an advertation.

I kind of don't like that on The Simpsons now, how it seems like more so when they have a celeb on, the celeb is just themselves in Springfield for a day for no apparent reason. You know how they had Dustin Hoffman on and Michael Jackson? That actually crafted character around it? Well, it's because it's reached critical mass where every character on that show has now got elaborate backstories. And this is like, you know, Apu never used to even have a name. He was just the, you know, the quickie mark guy.

And now he's got like eight kids. Yeah, and people like Skinner and, you know, his mother that he's on with Edna Krabappel and then he's not even Skinner. There was some weird thing where he was the Vietnam vet guy and they swapped lives. I remember that episode being on when I was quite young and even then going, what have they done? That's sort of universally seen as the moment that it jumped the shark.

Yeah, you kind of ruined your own characters. How desperate are you for plots? Even then, that was like 10 years ago now and they're still going. And so I think the idea of getting a celebrity to play themselves gives them a license to go, right, well, this justifies a different person in the mix. Yeah. If we had to go, right, well, we've got Brad Pitt, but he's going to play, you know, some new guy who moves in next door. Yeah, yeah. Suddenly you just go, ah, well, how do we work that?

You know, we've got so many characters in this town as it is who have to coexist and we've milked them for every possible idea. We'd much prefer it just to be, it's Brad Pitt, everybody. When you think about it, the Simpson family should really name drop way more than they do. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. They would be a nightmare at dinner parties.

Just the other day when I met a little man by the name of Alec Baldwin. Was that before or after you went to the moon, Homer? I was having a chat with Julian Assange the other day. They would be, they should just be impossible. Well, I look on that show now, I think there's a contract with Fox where they've got a chunk every episode that has to go, no matter what, on a song. So, you know, they've got the rights to play a song, a famous song in The Simpsons. So now it gets to a stage where Homer's like walking past the car and someone's got Jessie's Girl on in the car stereo and just starts playing for no good

reason. But it's like, we've got the money, so why not let Splurge and get a Ramones song or something? Yeah, it's crazy because that's expensive stuff. I've noticed that. Yeah. Family Guy's very guilty of that. Family Guy's really guilty of getting like, you know, they'll do like, they'll recreate entire music videos.

Yes. Just for three minutes. Now, this will be like a 20 second grab just because they can. Right. Wow. Anyway. We need one of them right then. I wish I was Jesse's girl.

I'll splice it in in post. It'll sound great. Now, Rob, we're talking about the Comedy Festival and you're in town to catch up with people and stuff. This is something I wanted to ask you about because it always seems like when I look up, you know, bios for yourself and, you know, and other stalwarts of the festival and stuff, like, for example, in Husey's bio, there's a thing about,

and I don't know how true this is, whether this is inflated a bit, but there's a story about him. When he started doing the Comedy Festival, he was in a tiny room in a closet and struggling to get people each night. And then the next year, he was selling out a 300-seater. And that, to me, just seems like, I'm sort of fascinated by that because it seems like such a bygone era of the festival. Things would never happen like that.

People don't jump up, you know, in that like that quickly anymore. It felt like it was an overnight feat. I'm just using the Husey example. I remember he started the week before I did. So we've been doing it for the same amount of time, but he's been doing it for one week longer than me. So we started out in Perth at a place called The Laugh Resort at a club called Pockets.

The week I went down to watch the night to see how it works because I was going to get up the following week was his first gig ever. So I saw his first gig and then when I got up the second week, the next week, that was his second gig. His first one was terrible, really bad. He had a table of friends and all his material was based around his mates. Oh, he was that guy. He was that guy.

And it just, it was awful. It was really, really bad. But in true Hughsey fashion, he got up the next week and talked about how bad the last gig was that he did last week. He said, I got up last week. I died. I did all this material. I was talking about my friends giving me the nickname frog and the audience kind of snickered. And he said, well, you're laughing now, but no one was laughing last week.

That gets a big laugh. And he said, well, yeah, well, basically this no one was laughing last week. That gets a big laugh. And he said, well, yeah, well, basically this is the joke I did and did the exact same joke, but now in the context of I did this joke last week and it tanked and the audience loved it. I do like it, but that's a pretty common thing, like people going, you know, this is what I used to do 10 years ago when I was doing comedy and I was starting out and I was a bit shit. I like that he's compacted that whole thing down into just one week.

Yeah, it was an extraordinary. I've never really seen someone get it so quick to go from, oh, I'm really bad at this to the next week going, hmm, it seems if I just sort of talk and tell the truth it works. And obviously he got to a big place in Perth, moved to or back to for him to Victoria. And his first few gigs in Melbourne were not good. Like he was trying to, people didn't quite get what he was doing.

We don't have Husey's mates down here. Yeah, I think that was it. But I remember the first couple of gigs he was struggling here and a bit on the outer a little bit. And then I'm not really sure what it was, but there was just something that clicked and it was one, it was, yeah, this one festival and mid-festival he got moved. He was, I think, in the upper hi-fi bar area, which is just the bar area where everybody drinks.

Oh. And he got moved because it was selling out every night with more people wanting to be part of it. So they moved him, I think, like across the road to one of the big rooms at the Town Hall. Oh, wow. In the space of a year. The frog bit got around.

It was. It was. But, yeah, it was – I don't know that I've seen that with anyone else. Because I am fascinated in that because it does seem like such a different time of the Comedy Festival. Of course, now it does seem like such a different time of the comedy festival. And, of course, now it's so much bigger and, you know, it grows every year. Well, it's a lot more centralized now.

You know, when it first started, it was the city. You know, the first couple of times I went to go and see it before I was even performing in it. Like you'd be getting on trams. The idea of doing three shows in a night back to back to back, you just couldn't do it. Right. It's go see something because it would take you somewhere out of town.

Yeah. It might be, I don't know. And it still happens. People still sort of have gigs outside of the town hall sort of central district. But if you do that, it's risky. And now it's like everyone's in the town hall and all the shows run to a specific time so that you can, you've got the 15-minute turnaround

to get out of that show and run to the next show so you can go and see it. When it, you know, the first year I did it was like, well, everyone was trying to, they just, you make your own time. You've got your own venue. And so it was like everyone was kind of doing gigs around 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, nine o'clock. But the idea of doing a show at six, you didn't really do that, or 11, you didn't really do that.

And now it's become very, very centralised. And I sort of wonder whether it makes it more difficult or easier to kind of start out now than maybe it used to. Yeah. Well, take us back to what was the first year that you did a show? Like what did you do for your first festival show? I did 90, I'm going to say 96. Yeah, I moved over in 95, so it would have been 96

I did my first festival. Was that a group show? Yeah, I did a double act in the cloakroom at the town hall and we found out, we thought we were on at, I think it was 7 o'clock, and the guide came out and had it listed as 6 and that was the start of things not going well. It was like, oh, okay, well, that's a different time than we thought and it's a very different time.

6 o'clock is a tricky, you know, who's going to come see a show at six? I'm doing six o'clock right now. It's tough, isn't it? It's very tough. Talking off the ledge. People got to get home from work and then get into the city. But, well, people have the theory. Everyone says that'll be good because you can just get people straight

after work. But I actually don't think it works that way because people are literally having to race straight from work. And, you know, when you're doing full-time work, you want at least an hour. Like seven is good for that. Seven's good. And there are people who would be like, well, seven's pretty early. Yeah.

But having said that, the next time we did a show, we did it at 9.30. And when you tell people we're on at 9.30, they go, oh, geez, that's a bit late. Yeah. So you just don't know. But, and also the problem at six is sometimes people will have a ticket, but just don't get there. You know, they might be running late. They can't get a park. And so then they just turn around and go, ah, don't worry about it.

I just, I just can't, I won't make it. I'll get in there. I'm going to be 15 minutes late, 20 minutes late. It's not worth it. Yeah. And they don't show. So we had, it was a really rough first festival and it was a very elaborate show so we needed to get in,

set up the room, have all this stuff organised and then the front of house person would stick their head in the door and the phrase you never want to hear is... You're one of the best three, best one-liner comics in Melbourne. Second to that is, so what's the least amount of people you'll perform to? And I think we said five, and she said, there's four. And we went, oh, all right. But we ended up doing a completely different, we said, well,

we won't do our full show because it's not going to play. It's too elaborate. It needs a crowd. And so we just ended up doing a more improvised, looser show. Yeah. And it was pretty much like that most, I think we cancelled, we must have cancelled at least three, four shows just from there not being enough people.

And it was rough. And we'd come from Adelaide. We'd run the show through for the Fringe in Adelaide and it had gone well. So it was a bit disappointing to know the show was there. It was just we had a bad slot and I just, you know, maybe trying to get in at the Town Hall was a bit ambitious that first year.

Yeah. I love what you're saying with the numbers. I had a last night. Like I've been doing, in spite of the time, I've been doing all right with numbers. And then last night I had my've been doing, in spite of the time, I've been doing all right with numbers. And then last night, uh, I had my friend, a house person comes in and goes, there's two people. What do you want to do?

And I was like, oh, you know, I'm fine to do it. I've done shows to two people before and they can actually be great. If you get a good two people and you just, you make it more conversational. Like one of the best shows I've ever had at a festival was with this old American couple who just was in Adelaide and they were great. They became like my mates by the end of it. It was awesome. So anyway, I go, yeah, look.

That is Stockholm syndrome, isn't it? If we don't start laughing, we may not walk out of here. I was waterboarding them at the time. So yeah, so my front of house goes, what do you want to do? And I said, oh, look, I'm fine to do it if they're fine to listen to it. We'll make it fun. It'll be all right because my show is like one long story. So I thought this will be all right.

And so she goes up and she's asked them. She said, are you okay to watch it? And they went, oh, no, that'll be awkward. We don't want to do it. She should have just brought him in. Like if they thought it would have been awkward, but it actually would have been because my show is not me firing out gags. It's me just involving people in the story.

Yeah, and that's what it needs to be. You know, you need to be, you can play to a small crowd, but it means you have to change your material, and that's why the show we were doing was not going to play to four people. I played the smallest crowd I've ever done is one. Oh. And it was great. It was such a great night.

I really enjoyed it. But, like, I've always thought if I just had one person who wanted to see it, I would, like, I would not just do it. I'd go, let's go to the bar and, you know, have a drink. What happened was it was a comedy. It was like a stand-up night. And through a set of bad circumstances, they'd sort of, they'd be open one week, then not the other week, and then

they'd leave it for a while. So basically, their clientele disappeared because all their regulars were like, well, sometimes we turn up and there's no show on. I think that gig might still be running. Yeah, there's a lot of them around. And this was the last time the room was ever open. And I think maybe three, four people turned up. And so then they said, well, we're not going to do the night. We'll cancel it. And there was one guy who was there and he said,

oh, I've just had a really shit day at work and I was just kind of feeling like I needed a laugh. So all the comics had kind of gone home as well. And there was me and a friend of mine and we said to the promoter, look, well, we'll get up. Open the room. If you don't mind, we'll go in and we'll do something. So I sat in the crowd, in the audience with the punter.

This is all so needy so far. My mate got up and did some stuff. He sat down. I got up and did some stuff. And then we said to the guy, you get up. You get up. So we sat in the audience and he got up and just told whatever jokes he knew. And it was great.

Maybe we did, I don't know, maybe half an hour between the three of us. You know, we flashed him after a while. It was taking too long. And it was great. And then we just kind of sat in the venue and talked for a bit and then just kind of went, right, we'll see you later. There used to be a room out in Moonee Ponds where it was like, not exactly what you mean, you know, sometimes when you have a small crowd,

because it's that intimate thing, you can share things, you can talk directly to, you know, all seven people that are there or whatever and it can be nice and you play that different show, like you said. But there used to be a gig out there where it would be like, okay, we're going to have seven, we're going to have ten people, whatever. So this will be like that. But then there were just assholes every time.

There was always seven or ten assholes and you'd come out and go, this is going to be nice. And you'd go, fuck off. I'm like, all right, all right, well, we'll play a different game, will we, or what? Yeah, I did a gig only a couple of weeks ago where it was in Moonee Ponds where it was like a three-leveled club but only the bottom level was full because it was midweek.

And so everyone else was kind of playing it again like all three levels were full and were kind of struggling and so then they start to get a bit shitty with the audience over it. And when I came out, I just – I didn't look up because there's no one to look up to. So I just kept looking at the bottom level and then just talk to each individual person. And so my set was really saying to each individual person in that room, I said, there's so few of us here, we might as well get to know each other.

So I was like, so who are you? Where are you from? And just kind of went through and that was basically my set was meeting every individual member of the audience and depending on where they were from or what they did you know the usual kind of shtick you kind of go off on on a tangent for a little bit but then you come back and it was it was great i enjoyed it but i've also done gigs like that where the people in the room are like fucking tell jokes we're not here to you know sit back and give you everything you need. And because, again, if it's a smaller crowd,

I feel you should turn around and go, well, then why are you here? I throw it back at them. It's different if it's a heckler hidden in the darkness in a full room. If you can see the person, if there's only six of us here and you're like, no, I'm not interested, I feel you can break down the show and stop everything and go, why are you here? Are you okay?

Why turn up to a comedy gig and not be happy? And I've done that before and sometimes it works. This gig was like this nightmare gig that used to happen and it would be like, one night it was literally like, you know, you tell one joke and one guy goes, ah, that was shit. I go, oh, thanks, one joke in, that's nice. Well, I reckon you're a bit of a shit audience member. And then the nine other people sitting went, goes, ah, that was shit. I go, oh, thanks, one joke in, that's nice. Well, I reckon you're a bit of a shit audience member.

And then the nine other people sitting went, oh, gee, that's a bit harsh. I'm like, what? What sort of show is this going to be 60 seconds in? Yeah, it's never good to have so few people in the room that you can hear someone go, ah. You know what you were saying just before about audiences' natural reactions to not sit down the front? My room is like a 50-seat room and the backstage area is like it's a bathroom

basically that's been converted. So it's a tiny little bit. And I've got that thing happening where people come in and even though they see the size of the room, I don't know if they think that I'm like underneath the room in like a soundproof bunker, but you're hearing people's conversations as they come in. Oh, yeah. And it's always like, like I do it when I come out. I go, I think some of you didn't realise this.

I'm like right there as you're coming in chatting. I can hear everything that's going on. And every night I'm hearing my front of house girl fight with people to get them to sit down the front. Oh, come on, guys, just fill up from the front. Nah, what if he comes out and hangs shit on us? Nah, he's not going to hang shit on you. It's fine.

It's just, but it is funny. With your show being about you having cancer, that would be quite fun. If you did come out and go, well, I've got cancer, but you're even fucking worse, you dickhead. Yeah, I wish you had had it. But here's the thing. Very rarely do we think about this. As a comedian when you were starting out, the first chance,

I mean what you're hoping to do is get to a point where you have worked so hard at your craft and you've gotten so good at it that the people that are coming out are coming out to see you and the crowd that you are playing in front of are your crowd. Usually it's the flip side where there's a crowd of people and you get shoved in front of them and you just kind of hope that you're their cup of tea. People have left the house and know what you're about.

Absolutely. The problem is the first time you get to do that is usually at the festival. You build and hopefully they will come. And it's under the worst circumstances. You've got a room in the town hall. Those rooms aren't set up for comedy. Yeah, they're all conference rooms.

They're conference rooms. They're boxes. Sometimes it's a stage that's kind of tucked away in a weird recess. There's trams rattling past. Heaven forbid you're on, you know, and you usually work this out within the first couple of nights. I was in the regent room one year and so the cloak room, I think, is directly underneath it And there was a point

Where the act Underneath every night Had this enormous bass drum That they would bang, bang, bang, bang, bang And so The first couple of shows I did it kind of came at a point That was quite distracting And then it became trying to time it

So I knew where it would be In my show and try to Hit it so it wouldn't be distracting. Well, there's that point in your show, the 35-minute mark, where Rod Quantock plans for all of his crowd members to walk through your show. Well, I was trying to watch Gatesy and Bob Franklin's show in the Regent Room the other night. And they're doing this sort of scary thriller sort of play thing, but a scripted piece, and there's this saxophonist busking out the window playing, you know, da-na-na-na-na-na-na. It's the worst possible circumstances for an emerging comedian

to have their first solo show. You sit backstage on this tiny fucking stool. There's no backstage. You're just kind of behind the curtain. You hear, like you say, you hear the audience come in. You sit backstage on this tiny fucking stool. There's no backstage. You're just kind of behind the curtain. You hear, like you said, you hear the audience come in. You sit there. You have to introduce yourself. You walk out.

You can't really enjoy the show because you've got to watch the clock because if you go over time, you're in big trouble. And it's the worst possible circumstances to appreciate and enjoy what should be your first time. And so people can come away going, man, this is rough. I'll just keep working clubs and never do solo shows again. And then you've got the reviewer up the back of the room who goes, oh, yeah, I thought it was really funny.

I laughed for an hour. But he introduced himself. I thought that was very unprofessional. Two stars. No one was laughing. You know, well, there's four people. And they can all see each other. They're freaking out.

The other side of that is, you know, when people, like people coming to see shows because they know the person and I've had some people come to my show from hearing this and that's been sort of good because this is, you know, like people, you know, know me a bit from talking on this so they know sort of what to expect. But, I mean, with yourself, with doing stuff on the TV, did you ever find like, because I think this does happen with people a bit where you get known from telly and so people come with an expectation of you being the TV guy and

then if you're swearing or talking about different stuff, did you ever struggle with that? Yeah, I had a big gap for probably about nearly five years where I didn't do a solo show. And there was a couple of years where I was really doing very little stand-up at all. So I kind of got to a point where when we did our first series in 1999, and I had been doing a bit of Good News Week and stuff like that before that. But doing the TV show on Channel 9 was the first chance I had to get out on my own. It was enough to give me that little foothold that I needed to do a solo show and have people come to see me. And it worked well and it was great and I toured a little bit with that. toured a little bit with that. But then the next year, 2000, we started full-time at 10,

and that kind of took me through working all year for 10 years. So the idea of writing material, running it through and getting out and doing a solo show was never going to happen. So we would do, like Pete, Dave, Corinne and myself would kind of do a little tour. Usually at the end of the year, we'd just write some sketches and maybe do a little bit of stand-up and we'd just take it on the road. But it took me five years to get myself back out there full-time as a stand-up, not just doing the odd club gig every now and again. And so by that stage, there was now this chasm of, well, you've moved from being a stand-up to now just being a host, a TV guy.

So the idea that now is going back to stand-up, in inverted commas, as people would say. Like I'd have interviews saying, so why are you going back to stand-up? You're going, I'm not going back to it. It's just I haven't had the chance to do it in a while and now I have. But I felt at that time the shift had happened where it was now, well, you're a TV host who's going to get up on stage and what are you going to do? And so it was good that it forced me to have to really write hard. I had to concentrate on what I was doing. I couldn't just rest on my laurels. I felt

I really needed to prove myself, to myself, that I could still do it because, you know, after five years of working on television, you have a lot of stuff written for you. So the idea of, well, I needed to show I could still do this to myself and to my peers and to the audience. And it went really, really well. It went really well, which I was pleased about.

But I think there was this expectation of, well, it's just kind of going know gonna come out and and be very broad and a bit fluffy and you know we're doing what they're in charades on our tv show so when i came out and swore i did a bit of political stuff um you know i ended the show with um uh a cheerleading song, a song about the Abu Ghraib, yeah, Abu Ghraib, naked human pyramid thing, controversy that was going on set to Tony Basil's Hey Mickey. And yeah, I don't think people would have been expecting that from a guy who used to hold up novelty fruit and go,

looks like a dick on TV. Yeah, so it was a hurdle I had to overcome, but I was glad that that obstacle was put in front of me and I had to overcome it because it would be very easy just to sit back on your laurels and go, oh, I won't do this anymore. Or to go, I only was using stand-up to get the TV job, so now I don't have to do stand-up anymore. Yeah, see you, mate. Yeah.

Well, we're apt to have you, especially because this is like 10 in the morning, the day after the Logies. So I have to say that we, on the way in today, I did check your Twitter to go, when was the last tweet you put out? Four in the morning. Okay, well, this is going to be a toss of the coin, whether he's going to turn up or not. Because he's replying to stuff at four in the morning, and, well, this is going to be a toss of the coin whether he's going to turn up or not because he's replying to stuff at four in the morning and he's got to be up in a

couple of hours. So how was it? How was the Logies? I enjoyed it this year. I had very little to do. And yeah, I was a little bit nervous because it's only been, what, two years, I think, since I've gotten up and done something at the Logies, but it was still this feeling of, oh, do people care anymore?

And they ask you beforehand, so what are you going to do? What are you going to say? And I was like, well, I don't know yet. I don't know. I haven't really thought about it. And they said, oh, because everyone else has kind of got material. And I was like, well, I'll come up with something, but I'm not going to write it and give it to you.

And then I had this idea of wanting to make a joke about menstrual cycles. You knew you were at the Logies though, right? Yeah. And I've said fuck at the Logies before and that didn't go down well. But basically there was the boy band, I guess, group One Direction, and they, midway through the show, ended up coming into the room and sitting directly at the table behind us. And they had all these burly security guards and I was thinking, oh, I could maybe go up and say hi and get something that I can then use

on stage later, but you just couldn't get to them. And then I was just couldn't get to them. And then I was just kind of looking at them and thinking, oh, there's something in it. And then, I don't know, just this idea came about sitting so close to them that initially I was going to make a joke about their menstrual cycles, five young guys together and making a joke that they're kind of borderline effeminate and their menstrual cycles have all aligned. And then I went, oh, that probably won't go down well.

And so as I'm walking backstage to come out and present, in my head I'm going, look, there's something in it. I think it's funny, but you've got to be careful. The room will probably not take it well. So I was thinking, right, two things I need to do. One, don't say period, say menstrual cycle. And two, include yourself in it. So it's our menstrual cycles. So make yourself, you know, take yourself down to that level.

And, yeah, so I went backstage and they said, so have you got anything? And I said, yeah, I've got something, but I'm not sure whether I should do it or not. Was there like a little club outside the Crown Casino that you could go out and try that bit out on first just before you walked back into the Logies? The Logies open mind. I heard next door.

Well, I heard the night before someone said Hilsey had been running his material through during the festival because he was opening the show. And so he went out and was running that gear through, you know, a couple of nights at some point during the festival. And I was like, son of a bitch. Like, he's written stuff. He's rehearsed it.

But he was opening. He needed to. But I was like, shit, I'm just, son of a bitch. Like he's written stuff. He's rehearsed it. But he was opening. He needed to. But I was like, shit, I'm just going to go out and hopefully make a joke about boys getting periods. This could go horribly wrong. And so, yeah, one of the writers backstage said, so what are you going to do? And I said, look, I've got something, but I'm not sure about it. And he said, do you want to run it by me? And I looked at him in pause and went, no, because you'll tell me not to do it.

And so I went out and lobbed it. And, you know, whether it's on stage at the Logies or you're doing a stand-up gig, there's always that joke that when you lob it out there, it just seems to hover forever before it lands. And when it lands, you're just waiting for the laughs to hit. But you know it's either going to hit or it's just going to be not even silence but just, oh, boo. And it was that moment as it just kind of went out.

But I don't know. I think I committed to it and I managed to pull it off. But it was fun. The night itself was fine. I had so little to do. I could actually just sit back and enjoy it for a change. Yeah, nice one. Was there any – I mean, you've gone to a lot over the years.

Is it – like it seems like a bit of a high school reunion of everyone catching up at the end of the – well, not the end of the year, but just a good chance to get really drunk. And I did watch – I was watching the Today Show this morning to see how Carl Stefanovic got on. It's really hard to tell with him because it's like, are you drunk or are you just a bit of a dickhead? I wonder whether he puts it on a little bit now, like whether there's this thing of, well, Carl's going to be drunk and so he just kind of pretends to be more out of it than he actually is. He sort of was amping it up a little bit, I thought, because it got to a stage where you go,

you're not allowed to put drunk people on TV, are you? Because he was pretty bubbly about it and whatever and they showed a little bit of footage of him from like three, four hours before, and he was doing that thing where you jump up and click your heels and stuff. I'm like, well, you're clearly drunk. Like Fred Flintstone. He should seem bold.

He goes right up on his toes and it goes, and the way he drove to the gig. He's been a king at the Water Buffalo Lodge ever since he won the gold last year. What are the references? He has an elephant that washes his dishes and makes little wisecracks. What a shitty job. Yeah, it's like even the fact that they're filming it to show later to go, oh, how drunk is Carl again?

Am I right? Yeah. It's wearing thin. Yeah. But, yeah, it's been interesting this year to have the Logies crossing over with the Comedy Festival. Yeah. The last few years it feels like they've been separated.

So to sort of be in town, be out catching up with friends that I haven't seen in a while and enjoying just kind of being out. I'm not doing a show. I'm just kind of doing whatever I feel like I might want to do while the festival's on and catching up with friends. And then the Logies was very much the same. It was kind of like they said, do you want to present something?

I was like, yeah, sure. I'm not up for anything, so I may as well do something on the night. And then I'm otherwise just catching up with friends that are there and enjoying just kind of hanging out. Should I check Twitter to see how your period joke went? Because it seems like that's the sort of thing where people are just sitting there waiting for anything to go wrong in the logos. I feel I got the best reviews possible, which is no one said anything. Oh, great.

That's perfect. Yeah, the producer of the logos this year is a friend of mine who used to work on our old show. And she was saying afterwards that she hadn't looked on Twitter. And I said, well, don't. I think maybe this year it kind of got to the point where people were like, we don't care what Twitter says this year. I felt for Gretel Colleen was the person who taught this country about the power of Twitter. I remember being in the room that night and a lot of us had only been on Twitter and I was late getting onto it, I felt anyway. But I'd like people like Husey and Ryan Shelton were on it saying,

you should do it, you should do it. And so I had got onto it maybe three months before and I felt like I was already six to eight months too late. But then Gretel was the first person that she hosted that year and then every other year prior to that, and there were people who had done good, bad and indifferent jobs, but you do the gig, you unwind, you wake up the next day and you deal with it privately. She got off stage with people saying, how do you think you did? And she went, oh, I think I did okay.

And they're saying, well, everyone said you were shit. Look. Like it was everybody on Twitter just and suddenly all the media people in the room and then the next day, like she's woken up to reviews having been printed. There was no day of lenience as the reviews come in and then they get printed. And I think that's when the greater media realised Twitter

gives us material. We can see what all these industry people are saying about the night while they're in the room. It's live commentary. And then all of a sudden it became a thing for about three years and it feels like maybe it's kind of people are like, you know, the last couple of years there's been, you know, controversies in inverted commas where people are intentionally doing something.

But now it's like, well, you know what you put on Twitter, people are going to read. So I feel like it's lost its sting a little bit. And I think maybe it's a little bit more, not hack, but it's so expected for everyone to get on Twitter and go, oh, this live event's not much chop. You know what I mean? The thing is, if you're just going to watch it to slag it, then don't.

Well, I mean, you can do that. If you want to get on Twitter and say what you want to say, it's fine. But from an industry point of view, my take on it is fuck it, you get up there and do it. You get up there and do it. You get up and host it. No one wants to host it. Why? Because we're all a pack of pricks in that room.

So just, you know, shut the fuck up or get up and do it. Get up and do it, struggle, and then you'll know what it feels like. You know, and I'll sit there sometimes and kind of roll my eyes at things. But at the end of the day, you go, you're in that room because you wanted to be in that room. People beg, borrow and steal to get an invite because you don't want to be asked, are you going to the Logies and say, oh, no, I didn't get an invite this year. You want to feel like you're important. Well, then turn up and at least watch.

It would be like, yeah, paying to go see a comedy show than sitting in the audience just to heckle. Or like we were saying, those audience members that sort of sit there going, oh, this isn't very good. Why fucking be here then? Go home. Go home. It's interesting that you say that because I got invited last night to the Project Logies party because I've done a little bit of work on that show and didn't end up going because we were running around the city

trying to book a guest for our live show tonight that we're doing. But the last time I went, I worked on your show for a bit as a writer in I think 2007. And so I got, while I was working there, I got an invite to the Roving Logies party, which was I think they hired a hotel room in the Crown Towers. Yes, yes, yes, always messy. Yeah, but then, so I got invited, I RSVP'd, and then a couple of weeks later

they got rid of a couple of writers, of which I was one. So I wasn't working on the show anymore, but I'd I RSVP'd, and then a couple of weeks later, they got rid of a couple of writers, of which I was one. So I wasn't working on the show anymore, but I'd already RSVP'd to the party. So it was like this awful, like, George Costanza-esque dilemma of what do I do? Like, I'd like to go because I sort of knew, you know, a bunch of the other writers who worked on the show, and I was like, how many opportunities do you get to do this kind of stuff?

So I wanted to go, but I didn't want to walk in and have everyone be like, wait a minute, this is horrendous. So I actually, I talked to a friend about it. I talked to Adrian Kalira about it and he said, just call up, just call up and go, look, here's the situation. Call up the girl who sent you the invitation and just say, here's the situation. She was like, yeah, come along.

And I was like, okay. But I remember you, like you were obviously, of course, in the actual thing. Yep. And you kept popping up because it's on a delay. It was like funny watching you come in and go, look at the TV and go, he's about to say this. Oh, how does he know?

And also, why is this little prick still here? I thought, I thought I said a month ago, I didn't ever want to see him again. And then Tommy got up and made a speech. It was weird. He gave a toast to someone's birthday. You assholes. And everyone on Twitter went, boo, get rid of him again. One of my first, my fondest Logies experiences was one of the first

where we won, the first time we ever won was for the show, which is great. I'd much prefer that as a first win than an individual one. I was always happy to be nominated for something I had done personally, like a presenter award or something, as long as the show was nominated, first and foremost. So for the first time we properly won was for the show. So Pete, Corinne and I got up and we're all sitting there

and I'm trying to make a speech and I can hear Pete in the background saying to Corinne, we're on stage at the Logies. So then we've gone down, you do the press room and all that sort of stuff. And there's still about at least an hour's delay between what happens in the room to what goes to air. And so then we've done all of the stuff we needed to do and then went upstairs and watched at the end of the night. And I was up for gold that night and I didn't win,

but walked upstairs to the point where the award had just been announced. So everyone in the room has just seen us win for the show. And they're all like, yay, yay, yay. And then as soon as they announced our name, we burst through the hotel door with, who wants to see a Logie? And it was a really, like we're watching through the little, like listening through the door and trying to look reverse through that weird spy hole thing on the hotel room door.

And it was a really nice moment to kind of be able to time it. So as soon as it was announced on the television, we walked into the room. And I think we kind of freaked a few people out who didn't realise it was on delay. But it was, yeah, it was a nice little moment. Well, we, that night we were in that hotel room. It was funny because you've got the main living room and the telly's on and, you know,

it's a party. So everyone's chatting and Nick Maxwell's there being, you know, Nick Maxwell. And I was standing with Gerard McCulloch and he was like getting a bit antsy because he's like, I actually kind of want to watch the ceremony. He takes it seriously. Yeah. So we went into the bedroom, which had a big plasma in it. And we've just both gotten into the bed, like under the covers in our suits and just lay

there watching the ceremony. And people would walk past the room and go, what are you guys doing in here? And we're like, we're just getting a bit too into the glitz and glamour of television's night of nights, if you don't mind. Was that the year where there was like a big porno kind of bathroom thing? Was that a different year, maybe? Maybe. It was like one year where, because we were just getting bigger

and bigger and bigger as a company and as a show. I think it was the year when two grown men slept in a bed together and watched the Logies. It was the same year that you did the stand-up tour. Oh, right. It was that year. Right, did the stand-up tour. Oh, right. It was that year. Right, right. Well, there was one year, I can't remember when it was,

but I was downstairs in, I don't think the show was on, but I was like in the after party and someone has come up and tapped me on the shoulder and said, you have to go up to the room because there's been complaints made by other people in the hotel. And so you have to go up and calm the security people down by saying these are my people and it's okay and I will take responsibility.

And you don't know who the people are that are causing trouble? No, and I was like, oh, well, I know who it is, but it's like, I don't want to go up and, you know, if I know who's up there, there'll be men in beds, probably. I'm not going to claim responsibility for that because I know the people that work for me and I know how wrong they are and I know how rowdy they are and I know what a mess they're going to make. And I'm only paying for one of the men in bed at the moment. The other one I'm clearly trying to get rid of. I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be there. You should have some retina scan thing or something.

Well, at one point they were talking about taking bets on who was going to win, and I was getting into it, and I was like, oh, I can't really afford to make bets like this. I'm unemployed. And one woman goes, why are you here if you're unemployed? Good times. Good times. Unemployed in the top suite at Crown?

What's the problem here? That's the way to be unemployed. Yeah, I've hit the big time. Now, you, Rove, you obviously are here only for a couple of days in Melbourne. You're over in LA. And the thing about you, I think I've always thought, is you're such an unabashed fan, I think, of things. It doesn't ever seem from the outside like you're cynical or anything about what you do. You always seem very happy to be interviewing people

and you're still a genuine fan of stuff, of people that you meet and stuff like that. Now that you live in LA, is that just kind of like moving to Disneyland or something? Like because of all the shows and celebrities? It is, it is. It's one of the reasons I ended up going to LA. It wasn't, I had all these people who,

the night I announced on the show that I was finishing, for most people, that was when they heard or knew. And they were all saying to me afterwards, oh, you've got a gig. You've got a gig somewhere else. You're going to the States. You've got a gig. Because I had sort of been going back and forward, but not for the idea of looking for work at all.

It was just one of those things, you know, it was just cheaper. It had gotten cheaper for me to fly to LA to interview a guest than it was to sort of do a satellite interview with them and stuff. And I just think we got better material with me being in the room. But yeah, it was not that I had a gig. It was just I had had enough of what I was doing. And then after the fact, made the decision to go stay in LA for a bit just to get away because I didn't want to be surrounded by people.

I didn't want to be walking down the street and have people saying, why did you finish your show or open up the paper and hear what someone else was doing and go, oh, fuck, I shouldn't have. What have I done, you idiot? So I just went get away and part of it was go to LA because I wanted to think, well, what do I want to do next? And I was looking around and was not being inspired creatively with what the television landscape had to offer in Australia.

So I was trying to find, well, what other things are out there that can kind of stimulate me? So I thought, well, we'll go to LA and see what's going on. And it was like being front row at the greatest show on earth. It's like any, any television show that gets made, even if it gets axed after three episodes, you can watch those three episodes.

Um, there's no, it's not working. We'll drop it in a time slot at 11 o'clock. Like for people who love, you know, shows like Arrested Development here, you have to buy the DVDsds because you just you know you hear about shows and then you try to find a way to

watch them um you know or movies you know and you hear about these great you know documentaries and things about the industry or um like there was the joan rivers documentary um there was a great one called i am comic or conan o'brien can't stop movies that, you would have to buy them on DVD if you lived here. They're not necessarily going to get released here. But in the States, they're there. They're there and you can find them and they're right at your fingertips. So it was just a decision to move there so you didn't have to pay so much postage on Amazon is what you're saying?

Pretty much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And to be honest, there are some things that you couldn't get delivered to Australia. You can't get an American iTunes account. Well, not under your name anyway. No, that is true. You'd have to do a different one. I'm getting that at the moment with video games.

Anyway, I won't go into that. I just realised how much of a long, boring thing that was going to be. And we don't care. But it is intoxicating. Like you were saying, we were there in October for about a month, and while we were in LA, we went and did with Matt Besser, if you know him, the guy who founded the UCB. He films a little chat show out in his garage and we went and did that

and it was just silly and a muck about. And he had three guys who were probably in their mid to late 20s kind of playing these weird characters. And we were like, oh, these young guys, these are kind of nice guys. And then we leave and we find out, you know, one of them was like the lead in a movie. One of them's been on 30 Rock. They're all writing a script for Judd Apatow.

Yeah, one of them was in Ocean's Eleven. Yeah, it was like these guys are all like roughly my age and like doing all this stuff. It's like, oh, that's what happens when you're just young and you're around. I got up one day and just, I don't even know how, I think I bought a ticket to a show from somewhere and then you kind of end up accidentally on a mailing list. But I just got this message that was saying there's a show tomorrow night

where Steve Martin is interviewing Tina Fey to launch her autobiography. Yeah. Do you want a ticket? And I was like, hell yeah, I want a ticket. And went along and was just sitting in this room just watching Steve Martin and Tina Fey be just incredible together and just going, this will probably never happen again, that these two will cross paths and I get to sit here and watch it.

And then the following week, Will Ferrell was doing a benefit show there and so I went along to watch that and there's just all these unannounced people like Tenacious D got up and did something. Yeah, great. It was just one of those things where even from a comedic point of view, all these people that felt like they were at arm's length on the other side of the world, if you choose to, are there. And I really try very hard to not let it become stale, if that's the right word.

As an example, and this is, I hope, as wanky as I will sound during this whole thing, but I got invited. Well, actually, I won't sound wanky because it's a wrestling thing and no one will give a fuck. But I was invited to, for non-wrestling fans, they had these big shows during the course of the year and the second of the wrestlemania people would know but the second biggest one of the year is called summer slam and it was happening in la and so all the wrestlers were in town and they have a pre-party and so i had been invited to go to have drinks at this pre-party thing but it was like it starts at 11 o'clock at night and it's on a Wednesday. And I was like, oh, it's a bit late and I'm feeling a bit tired. And I'd had dinner and had watched

television. And so I was in that zone where I'd normally want to just sort of wind down. But then there was a part of my brain that went, remember when you, like if five years ago, you said to yourself, I've been invited by the guys from the WWE to go and have drinks with them before SummerSlam in Los Angeles. And I decided, no, I can't be bothered. I would kick myself in the nuts and go, you dickhead, why did you not go? So I made sure that I went along. And it's just something I keep reminding myself is don't, because there's all this stuff at

your fingertips, don't let it become standard and blasé. I mean, you can't do everything, but at least, you know, make sure that that excitement is always there. And plus, it must be like, there's a fair slice of home over there as well. Because when we went, we were just astounded how many people from Australia there are there. Yeah, but you don't want to hang out with all of them. No, no, no, of course not. I've actually quietly tried to say to people, we didn't hang out with each other in Australia.

Just because we're on the other side of the world, why are we going to hang out? That's the exact text message that you sent to us. It's hard to avoid. It's hard to avoid. That's the thing that I used to get with, because I'm from a very small country town called Maryborough. Everyone would drive to Ballarat to get McDonald's just for a night out.

This is exactly the same as you going to LA. It's Saturday. Let's rock. Same as you hanging out with The Rock. We would go to McDonald's and I'd be lining up for a cheeseburger and there'd be someone from my town there in line and they'd go, hey, mate. And I'd go, literally, I've never spoken to you when I've been 80 kilometers that way. So why are we talking now? Here we are at Macca's.

Yeah. Here we are at Macca's. Yeah. Here we are at Macca's. That's the same thing. You think that's the same thing as Anthony LePaglia calling up Robyn and going, let's hang out. No, no, thanks, mate. Yeah, I was in a Macca's once. Yeah, I was in Sunshine Johnson getting a cheeseburger.

I like that fundamentally it is kind of the same. It's relatable. Sadly enough, it's relatable for my life. But yeah. But there must be like, we would hear a lot of Australian accents on the street over there. So surely for you, you must still be recognized. Even though you're all the way over there, you must still get recognized. There must be a lot of Australians going, hey, mate, I said hi to me mum for you, so yeah.

Yeah, what about people that have left the country before the show ended, that haven't kept up to date with what's going on back here? Yeah, there's some people that I've met who are Aussies who, you know, who have been there for the amount of time I was kind of on air or maybe caught the first couple of years but not at the point where I was at the peak of my fame. So to them it's kind of lost. But what's interesting is when you're out, normally it's not a problem. It's when you go to like Disneyland or like one of the theme parks where there are tourists around that inevitably someone will see you.

But for some reason it doesn't seem to – I've always equated it to being like a small kid who has a dog come up to them. In McDonald's. In McDonald's. But if you're at a friend's house or something and someone's got a little kid and there's a dog in the backyard and the dog gets excited because there's a little person and they run up to them. The dog doesn't mean any harm.

The dog is just going to lick the kid in the face. But the kid doesn't know. There's just this big hairy thing coming at them and the kid kind of freaks out and starts crying. That's what it's like sometimes for me when people come up to me. I don't know. There's just this big hairy thing coming at them and the kid kind of freaks out and starts crying. That's what it's like sometimes for me when people come up to me. I don't know them. They are kind of excited to come and see me and they come bounding up and sometimes I can get a little bit freaked out.

And depending on the situation, sometimes that attention will just ripple out where people who hadn't recognised you will suddenly be drawn to you because someone else made a big deal out of it and it kind of gets a bit overwhelming. But for some reason when I'm at like Disneyland or something and a tourist will come up and recognise me and ask for a photo, it's fine because no one else around me knows who I am and so you could have someone else walk past and say, could you take a photo of the two of us please?

And they'll just think, oh, turns out all Aussies know each other. That's all they think is just you're too much because I'm a nobody. These metaphors should be in the Lonely Planet Guide to LA. So when you're there, try and be the dog, lick the boy, but don't bite the boy. While you're in McDonald's, don't expect that the person behind you is going to think that five years ago you were a wrestling fan. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's true. But to be fair, you are walking around Disneyland dressed as Peter Pan, so I can see why.

I am wearing a What The T-shirt, so I was asking for it. And a character that looks like a dick. But it has also been very beneficial because to be doing a television show from the States where nobody knows who you are, it's been very handy having the Aussies. So when we say, look, we've got this new TV show that's happening and we need people in the audience, a lot of expats and tourists who are in town have come to see the show, which has been great. It's been very helpful for stuff like that.

That's right because you're right near the – is it the Grove? Yes. Yes, that's right because we walk through there one day. It's a big helpful for stuff like that. Yeah, that's right. Because you're right near the, is it the Grove? Yes. Yes, that's right. Because we walked through there one day. It's a big outdoor shopping centre. Yeah, yeah. We went and watched Craig Ferguson's show. Yeah, he's right next door. Yeah, we are literally in the studio next to him.

Yeah, because we were walking through and someone just picked us up and went, do you want to come and see Craig Ferguson? And I was like, oh, wow, who's on? He's just around the corner. He's just standing there wanting people. He just wants some attention. And I said, who's on? They go, Stephen Wright. And I went, um, and then they go, oh, look, we'll pay you $40. And I'm like, what?

Really? Yeah. They paid us to come and see Stephen Wright. They paid us $20 to go and be in the audience. And I had a backpack on, so I go, and they're like, oh, you can't bring your backpack in. You've got to go and cloak it. We'll give you $50 to not take the backpack.

I had to go and cloak it across the road and spend like $10 to cloak my bag. But you're still in profit. I know I'm still in profit. $30 in profit. Just weird. Isn't that crazy to think if you said to yourself 12 months ago, someone will pay you $40, someone will pay you to watch Craig Ferguson and Stephen Wright in the same room. You would go, bullshit.

Yeah. And they were saying, please. Can you please come in? It's weird. Someone begging you to come in and then go, but not with a bag. Not with a thing on your back. Stephen Wright doesn't like things being contained. He gets freaked out by things that carry other things.

Well, actually, I came to a taping of your show before I started doing comedy. I think it was maybe 2002. Ah, so you're to blame. Oh, God. I was, and still am to a certain degree, a big Jamiroquai fan. Oh, yes. And JK. He would have been on.

He was on your show, but he was on, I think he had a concert. His concert was on while you were doing the show live. Yes. So they pre-t doing the show live. Yes. So they pre-taped just his segment. Yes. And a forum, the Jamiroquai forum that I was on, they were like, hey, here's how you get a ticket to go along. And this is, of course, you know, you filmed your show like a fair way,

like in the suburbs of Melbourne. Ngunnawadding, yes. So it was kind of like, it was probably one of the dorkiest things I've ever done, like driving out to Ngunnawadding. Apart from being on the Jamiroquai forum. Well, to me, it's all one of the dorkiest things I've ever done, like driving out to Nunawar. Apart from being on the Jamiroquai forum. Well, to me, it's all linked into the one event. But yeah, having to go that far out, not even to see the whole show, just to see five minutes of the show.

Yeah, we used to do that. We had this weird thing that I think eventually was a bit of an albatross around our neck where we were so caught up in being live that if someone couldn't be live in the studio, we just did stupid things to try to keep up the idea of this is live. If you suddenly – we'd throw to tape sketches, but for some reason if there was a guest or something, we had this need for it to be live.

So I would sometimes do an interview with a guest that wasn't available in studio, but they would do a hotel kind of junket thing. Right. So I would drive to the hotel. I would meet them. Like to the point where it was, hi, Sandra Bullock, hi, Keanu Reeves, and then you would go, I'm going to go into the other room. You're going to sit down with an earpiece in and pretend like I'm on a satellite link.

Then I would do the interview in the other room. I would come back. I'd say, thanks. That was great. Then I would go back to the studio. We would cut the thing together. Then I would re-record my questions from the studio like they were on a satellite feed. So it would feel like it was still rooted to the studio space.

So sometimes the guest was available to come to the studio but not at night because they had a concert on. So we would say, right, well, we will record your segment. So we would bring in an audience just for that. So you would predominantly want fans of that person because they will come out at 3 o'clock in the afternoon to Nunawading to watch that person interview. Dad drove me out there.

It was a good day for him. And then you'd slot it in. So you literally had a satellite feed to Moorabbin or something. Yeah. Wow. It was so stupid because then it was always great at the time because you had this really nice little intimate, you know, concert that fans could come to and be this close to, you know, a person that they admire.

And, you know, we tried to do as much as we could around it so it wasn't just the interview. You played a couple of taped sketches. Yeah. So we tried to at least make it even just a little 30-minute something that you would come out and see. make it even just a little 30 minute something that you would come out and see. And then when we would do the live show, there are people that have got their tickets weeks before looking at the guest list gets announced JK from Jamiroquai is on the show. They're like, awesome. And there was always, we would tell them the segment before we wouldn't wait.

We wouldn't tell them at the top of the show. It'd be just before. So we learned that if you got to like start of the night before we roll, hi, everybody, we'll be live in just a few minutes. But before we do, just need to let you know, JK is not here. He couldn't make it. So we've had to record it earlier and you just hear them go, oh. And then for the rest of the show, that would be shit.

So we would wait until just before to say coming up next is a bit on tape. But I always thought that must look kind of funny if it's like, because to get, you know, the audience for those, just that single tape segment of that band or whoever, you've gone out, it goes around the forums and it goes around the huge fans. So it was like, I remember that day, it was like all people who were clearly nuts for Jamiroquai. But then in the context of the whole show, you know, you're watching it and the audience are good and they're getting into it.

And then all of a sudden JK comes out and it's just people going bananas. And it's like, wow, what are the chances that all the people in the audience this night just happen to be huge Jamiroquai fans? And also like the logic of it. So if you're a fan of his, we want you to be watching that night. That's why you have him on the show because people who like him will watch. But if you do like him, aren't you at the gig?

And don't you know that he too is at the gig? But here's the other weird thing about that afternoon. I don't know. We were crazy. When we were lining up to go into the studio, there was a bit of pre-audience warm-up. Kynan Barker was doing the warm-up, and I was like, I think, 16 at this point, and I'm wearing a little golf cap hat.

I'm wearing a hat. So you should have. Because I like Jamiroquai, so of course I like funny hats, weird hats. And he's picked me out of the crowd and just ripped shit on me for like 10 minutes, used me like a swan. Oh, kind of did. Yeah, yeah. He's a good Jamiroquai as well.

Jeez, the irony. That'd be a wrist opener if any of you've had one. That would have made it to the forums. So he's just hanging shit on me, and I'm like, man, I'm here. And he's getting big laughs off of me from the crowd. And the weird thing now is that now I do comedy. I actually see him around a fair bit at TV things. And I've never brought it up to him.

It's always just been in the back of my head like, you humiliated me. One day. In front of my people, other Jamiroquai fans on the forum. You made me look like a right idiot. So you want Rove to pass this on? Is this how you're getting this on? Yes. Do you have Kynan's number?

Kynan is going down. Kynan was, I've been working with Kynan for years. The first time I met him was probably in 95 or something like that. We did a play together. The first time I met him was probably in 95 or something like that. We did a play together. He was from a town, a Victorian town called Warrnambool, that my performing partner at the time was also from,

so they'd kind of known each other. And we wrote this play together that we did for a one-act play festival in Camperdown. Wayne. The Camperdown Play Festival. Which we won. It was a two-day festival. We won Best Play and I won Best Performer. You won the Barry, the Play Barry.

I did. I've still got it. It was my first award. It's a hunk of wood with a rock stuck on it. Oh, you won the Piece of Wood Award at the Play Festival. I did, yeah, yeah. And then we took it on the road and we brought it to the festival or we did Fringe Festival and then Comedy Festival with it.

And then, yeah, within a couple of years I got the TV gig and he was one of the first people I went to and said, hey, you should come and write. So when we first launched, it was Corinne Grant, Peter Hellyer, myself and Dave Callan and we would all write and perform the material ourselves. Kynan was the only writer we had who was just there

as a writer and he would appear in the odd sketch from time to time and then was there for decades decades and would then also do warm up for the show and make fun of people And has he ever returned to the Did anyone care about that story?

Was that really just for my benefit? No, no, I like the camper down bit. Yeah. I'm just thinking of you going back to defend your crown in camper down. I would go there. I like people seeing a comedy festival show and going, it's pretty good, but let's be honest, it's more of a camper down play. There's no camper down.

Well, the thing was, we were meant to catch a train the morning of the festival to get out to Camperdown. And this story has everything. And I missed it. I'm sure there would have been another one in five minutes. So to be honest, full disclosure, I'd picked up the night before. Oh. And kind of woke up and just went, oh, shit.

Raced down to Spencer Street Station, missed the train by minutes, but missed it. And so they were all on the train headed out going, roves not hit, why do we? So I hitchhiked. What? And beat them to Camperdown. Wow.

There you go. That's quite a story for someone. See? I really just wanted to mention that I had had sex. That was the only point. 10, 15 years ago. There's a woman out there someone. See? I really just wanted to mention that I had had sex. That was the only point. 10, 15 years ago. There's a woman out there now going. It's happened.

I have had sex. I have had sex. There's a woman out there going, you know, I nearly made Rove miss the Camperdown Play Festival. That was me. Yeah. That's why we broke up. I was like, I nearly didn't get that hunk of wood because of you.

Yeah, yeah. I'm into the showbiz dream, baby. You've got to, yeah. Well, I think that does bring us to the end of the program. Ro, thank you so much for coming in and joining us. It was a bumper episode this week. Thank you for having me. It was a bumper.

Yeah. Yes. So Rove LA. Back in September. Yes, Fox 8. And then, of course, there's the summer version of Rove Camperdown coming after that. It will be awesome. Yeah.

Awesome. I've been looking forward to Awesome. I've been looking forward to that. I've been looking forward to that. And yeah, if you see me at the McDonald's

at Camperdown, don't just expect you can come up and say hi. Jessica's wearing Camperdown. Guys, thank you so much

for listening. If you want to get in touch with us, littledumbdumbclub at gmail.com. We're on Twitter at dumbdumbclub. We've got a Facebook page.

Still got the t-shirts for sale. Send us an email. Say g'day. Thank you very much for listening and we will see you next time. See you, mates.