The Unbelievable Truth - 04x05 Tobacco, Sausages, Frogs, Elvis Presley

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

04x05 2 November 2009 Clive Anderson, Henning Wehn, Fi Glover, Dom Joly Tobacco, Sausages, Frogs, Elvis Presley

We present The Unbelievable Truth, the panel game built on truth and lies. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth. In the chair, please welcome David Mitchell. Hello and welcome to The Unbelievable Truth, the show that mixes truths and lies. I'm David Mitchell, that's an example of a truth, and I'm very excited to be here. Joining me tonight to lie, cheat and dissemble like the media hounds they so clearly are, we have Dom Jolly, Fee Glover, Henning Vane and Clive Anderson. The rules are these.

Each panellist will present a short lecture that should be entirely false, save for five pieces of true information which they should attempt to smuggle past their opponents, skilfully concealed amongst the lies. Points are scored by truths that go unnoticed, while other panellists can win points if they spot a truth, or lose points if they mistake a truth for a lie. We'll start with Clive Anderson. Clive, your subject is tobacco, the cured leaf of which is commonly used for smoking, chewing and snuffing. Off you go, Clive. Fingers on buzz as the rest of you.

Tobacco. In England, the introduction of tobacco is mistakenly associated with the inventor of the all-steel bicycle, Sir Walter Raleigh, known to his close friends as Chopper, for obvious reasons. Well, obvious to his close friends, anyway. His erroneous association with tobacco smoking came about because Raleigh once financed a trip to America by winning a bet with Queen Elizabeth that he could weigh the weight of smoke. Tobacco was originally smoked not through the mouth, but the nose. American Indians fashioned a special pipe with a forked

fee. Don't make that sign at me. I'm miming the fork. I'm about to insert it in my nose. Truth. Truth. Justice. Yes, it is. Freedom.

Smoking up the nose by the Indians, I think is probably true. Yes, it is. Freedom. Smoking up the nose by the Indians, I think, is probably true. Yes, smoking up the nose by the Indians and the two-ended nostril pipe that Clive mimed in an insulting way. Yes. That is true. Well done, Phil. Thank you very much. It was... This Y-shaped pipe was variously referred to as a tobago or tobacco,

hence our word tobacco,. Sort of compromise. Americans fashioned a special pipe with a forked end designed to fit into both their nostrils. This allowed the user to smoke and eat at the same time and was particularly efficient at creating and eating smoked salmon simultaneously. Although smoking was famously condemned in Britain by Charles I, tobacco leaves became widely installed as loft insulation. In Sweden, tobacco was used for cobbler's aprons.

In Scotland, cattle feed. And in Holland, tobacco was actually sold and prescribed as an anti-plague remedy. Don. I think the Dutch used tobacco to cure the plague. Yes, they did. Well done. To cure the plague? Yes, they did. Well done.

Apparently the smoke was thought to protect against miasmas. And at the height of plague in this country, smoking was even made compulsory at Eton. The chronicler Thomas Hearn quotes from one Tom Rogers, an Eton schoolboy, all the boys of that school were obliged to smoke in the school every morning and he was never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoking. French scientists have proved that the most agreeable way to consume the active ingredients of tobacco is as a suppository

inserted into the rectum, though it's not so satisfactory for blowing smoke rings in polite society. While serving in the Royal Navy, Prince Philip was saved from a sniper's bullet by a silver cigarette case in his breast pocket. Nonetheless, although he gave up smoking on the morning of his wedding to the then Princess Elizabeth, ironically his wedding present from President Eisenhower was a cigarette case made of Kevlar. Scott of the Antarctic and his team warded off attacks by aggressive penguins by smoking cigarillos the night before the day they discovered

they'd been beaten to the equator by the Glaswegians. When Picasso was born, the midwife thought he was stillborn and abandoned him on a table. But his uncle, who was a doctor, realized the young Picasso was just going through his first blue period and revived him

by puffing cigar smoke into his lungs. Dom. I think that's true. I think it probably explains a lot about Picasso later on. I think he probably was stillborn but then lived. Yes, you're absolutely right. Well done, yeah. Yeah.

By federal law, it is no longer possible to smoke tobacco anywhere in the United States. Addicts now have to step outside into an Indian reservation or Canada. Oddly enough, Cuban cigars do not come from Cuba. They originally got their name because you had to queue in a bar to buy them. Thank you, Clive. And at the end of that round, Clive, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that Sir Walter Raleigh once financed a trip to America

by winning a bet with Queen Elizabeth that he could weigh the weight of smoke. He did this by weighing a pipe of tobacco, smoking it, and then weighing the ashes. The difference, said Raleigh, was the weight of the smoke. The Queen, it said, remarked that she had heard of men who turned gold into smoke, but he was the first who turned smoke into gold. Would I have got as big a laugh for that if I couldn't have you killed? Yes, absolutely, you would have done, Your Majesty. And the second truth that Clive smuggled is that Prince Philip gave up smoking on the

morning of his wedding to the then Princess Elizabeth. Which means, Clive, you've scored two points. It is indeed true that our own Prince Philip quit smoking on the morning of his wedding to the Queen. After that, if he wanted to settle his nerves, he used a combination of light-hearted conversational misjudgment and casual racism. He used a combination of light-hearted conversational misjudgment and casual racism.

Okay, we now turn to Henning Vein. Henning is a German comedian, which, like a stoical Liverpudlian, is theoretically possible. Your subject, Henning, is the sausage. A food product made of finely chopped and seasoned meat, either fresh, smoked or pickled, which is stuffed into a casing. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Henning. The word sausage was named for the Earl of Sausage,

a notorious gambler who lost the American War of Independence, although he did give his name to the Sausage Islands, now Hawaii, and the South Sausage Islands, which are claimed by Argentina. But sausages date back much further than this. Sausage fossils have been found in Ireland, containing pieces of mammoth, salted leprechaun, and 40% rusk. I think sausage fossils, as I worked out what you were saying. There was sausage for seals, what I thought you said. That's like a campaign. Sausage for seals.

Seals will love sausage. I think you may have smuggled in a fact that sausages, fossil sausages have been discovered in Ireland. I'm at risk of point on that. Well, I'm afraid it's risked and lost. There are no fossilised sausages that we know. Or campaigns to feed seals sausages. Henning.

However, the oldest sausages have been found in Iceland. They are estimated... LAUGHTER They are estimated to have been made in 275 BC, according to carbon dating techniques and an inscription reading, best before 2508-275 BC. 2508 275 bc in roman times the sausage was linked to pagan festivals and banned this led to the ancient sausage prohibition and the rise of alus coponus who controlled sausage smuggling in a time remembered as the roaring 320s

sausage smuggling in a time remembered as the roaring 320s. Faith. I just want to hear you say, what was it? Sausage. Anus caponus. Anus caponus. Anus or Alice. I think Alice, I heard.

I think Anus caponus is a sort of Romanized version of Al Capone. I'm sorry, I heard Anus... It was just lost on me. You only hear what you want to hear. Yes, I'm a lady. Yes, that is exactly what I do. I find that a bit unfair that it's perfectly acceptable to mock my accent here. No, I'm not mocking your accent. Because if I was from Liverpool, that was mentioned earlier,

and I would just whinge along everything, then that would be perfectly fine. Wait a minute, I thought you were from Liverpool, that was mentioned earlier, and I would just whinge along everything, then that would be perfectly fine. Wait a minute, I thought you were from Liverpool. No, that's wrong. I love the Liverpudlians, though. Yes. Because if it wasn't for them, we Germans would be the least like people here in the country. I tell you now, if Germany was to declare war on Liverpool today,

the rest of Britain wouldn't want us to win. I'll tell you now, if Germany was to declare war on Liverpool today, the rest of Britain would want us to win. You gigging soon in Liverpool? What's this talk of war again? It's all getting a bit bellicose, isn't it? No, it's all right. You know, it'll all be taken as a joke around there, everything always is. Sausages have always been at the forefront of politics.

In 800, the German Holy Roman Emperor, Karl the Great, was spotted by his rival, Horst of Bottrop, having a sausage with tomato sauce rather than the more traditional mustard. He immediately stepped down because back then then politicians still had some decency. Despite the country's famed love of the sausage, the German Sausage Appreciation Society, with its 3,000 members, is dwarfed by the British Sausage Appreciation Society, which has... I think that's true. I think that we Brits probably love sausages more. Well, what Henning was going to go on to say, which is true,

and I'm going to give you a point, so it's all right, is that the British Sausage Appreciation Society has more than 7,000 members. Wait a minute, so Dom buzzes before something is said. Because I knew it was true. And you knew something true was probably going to come along fairly soon. What I'd say is if it's a

skill to spot something true after it's been said, to spot it before it's been said is positively a superpower. So it should definitely still get a point. I'm therefore going to buzz four times at the beginning of the next lecture and claim my four points and go home.

It's like someone's stolen his marbles. Look at him. Stolen? No. Lost? Yes. Yes, anyway, there are 7,000 members of the British Sausage Appreciation Society. I really like sausages, but I would never consider joining a society to mark that fact.

Also, isn't the Sausage Appreciation Society, that must be the SAS. Which is quite disturbing, because that's not really what I thought of them as. I would say that who dares wins is an inappropriate motto. Wolves have ears. Strangely, the German Steak and Kidney Pie Association strangely the german steak and kidney pie association boasts 152 000 members and a canoe club on the rhine i had no idea what he just said

what was it what he was saying was a canoe club on the right yeah but the basic message and where the joke was, the idea was that the German Steak and Kidney Pie Association is so much bigger than the German Sausage Appreciation Society. So in the number, how many members? If it's 150, 2,000 or 150, 3,000, and if it's a canoe or bicycle club, and if it's on the Rhine or in the mountains,

it doesn't really take away from... You see, this is where we think of Germans and comedy, analysing it. No, I think... Yeah, I think we're absolutely all agreed that that certainly... That certainly is a humorous conception. So, um... That certainly is a humorous conception. From 1939 to 1940, Finland and the Soviet Union engaged in the sausage war,

during which hungry Russians overran a Finnish kitchen, filled up on sausages, and then refused to fight. In Britain, sausages are called bangers because during World War II, they contained so much water, they exploded when they were fried or bombed. But it's... LAUGHTER Fee. It's true.

Yes, that is true. It is true. Yes, they were called bangers because they went bang because they were all watery. Yeah. So, well done. APPLAUSE In parts of tropical Africa, because they went bang because they were all watery. So well done.

In parts of tropical Africa, there's a tree known as the sausage tree, which has long fruits which look just like sausages. There is also a mesh tree, but in a cruel twist of fate, it cannot be cultivated within 50 miles of the sausage tree. Clive? I'm going for the sausage tree. There must be a sausage tree, because that's an image that we can imagine.

Yes, you're absolutely right. There is a tree in parts of tropical Africa called the sausage tree. And it's, yes, because of its suggestive shape, it's often been used as an aphrodisiac. They're saying sausages look like penises, that's it. Thanks for the explanation. Thanks, sorry, I just... They're not usually strung together like that, though, are they?

Your voice has gone all husky there, Clive. The world's longest sausage was made in Britain, of all places, in 2000. It weighed 15.5 tonnes and was 35 miles long. Before it could be cooked, however, it was stolen and eaten by Digby, the world's biggest dog. Thank you, Henning. Yeah. the world's biggest door.

Thank you, Henning. And Henning, you managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, which are that from 1939 to 1940, Finland and the Soviet Union engaged in a sausage war during which hungry Russians overran a Finnish kitchen, filled up on sausages and refused to fight. And the other truth is that the world's longest sausage was made in Britain in the year 2000. It weighed 15 and a half tons and was 35 miles long.

Oh, no. Look, what are you expecting? The longest sausage ever? What, you think it's going to be a foot and a half? I would have thought the longest sausage... If you'd said nine foot, I'd have believed that. I'm sorry, I'm unable to produce with me now the world's longest sausage.

I'm sorry, I know there have been rumours. But at the end of that round, Henning, you've scored two points. Germany boasts more than 1,200 types of sausage. Not much of a boast, but better they concentrate on sausage production than taking over the world. Scottish black pudding is a type of sausage made from dried blood. Easy to come by in Scotland. You just scrape it off the pavement in the morning.

Right, it's now the turn of Fee Glover. Your subject, Fee, is frogs. Jumping amphibians, characterised by their long hind legs, webbed feet, protruding eyes and absence of a tail. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Off you go, Fee. Thank you very much. Kermit the Frog was secretly married to Miss Piggy

in a late-night Elvis-themed wedding chapel in Vegas in 1981. It wasn't until they signed the register that it was revealed that Miss Piggy writes only in block capitals and Kermit is left-handed. When a frog throws up, it throws up its entire stomach so that it's dangling out of its mouth, then it digs out the contents by hand before swallowing the stomach back down. You may not feel hungry after hearing that, but we do have to talk about frogs' legs. The French are second only to the Welsh in their appetite for chewing the thighs off the chubby ones, but Heston Blumenthal has got it covered when it comes to frogs' liver pate. It takes 300 frogs to make one small slice of pate. You might want to wash it all down with a glass of Beaume de Venise, although frogs themselves

never drink. The ears of the male and female American tree frog are tuned differently. While humans can hear the frog's complete call of cocky, the male frog is only able to hear the first part, cop, and the female can only hear the second part, key. It's thought that this habit might be the precursor to men not being able to hear the words tidy and up, and women not being able to hear the words shh. Dive. That very convoluted stuff about males and females hearing different things. Cocky.

That must be true. Why would you set off on this long tirade? That is true. Dive, well done, yes. No lecture on frogs would be complete without a celebrity tag. Brendan Fraser has such a fear of frogs that when filming scenes for The Mummy in the Arizona desert, he insisted

on being flown each night to a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dom. Brendan Fraser, I think, has always looked a bit of a pussy, to be honest. To me. I don't like him. I've never understood him. And I think not only would he be fearful of frogs, but he probably would put a hissy fit

and want to go to Memphis, Tennessee. No, no. Sorry, no, he's actually an incredibly brave man. And what those films are is live footage of him defeating supernatural monsters. Right. Which would otherwise have taken over the entire world. So that's gratitude, is it, Dom Jolly, to the man who has saved the world from several mummies now.

And I would say the defeat of just the first would be above and beyond the call of duty. Right. V? I've only got a tiny bit left to tell you. The reason why he's being flown each night to a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, is because it's illegal there for frogs to croak after 11pm.

Well, that's clearly rubbish. Not going for that, Tom. I'm not, no. Thank you, Fee. Well, at the end of that round, Fee, you've managed to smuggle four truths past the rest of the panel, the first of which, obviously, is that in Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for frogs to croak after 11pm.

What do you mean it's illegal? How do you enforce that? I think it is one of the stupid laws that is still on the statute book in Memphis, Tennessee, along with the fact that it's illegal to take unfinished pie home from a restaurant, and it's illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it, waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists or pedestrians. Very sensible. That's not ridiculous. That one's fair enough.

But all those laws... That's just sensible, isn't it? Yeah, I've been to Memphis, and trust me, that's very necessary. All those laws which apply to humans, you can enforce against humans. How do you enforce against frogs, which are wild animals? Presumably, you prosecute you prosecute yeah do you prosecute the human who owns the land or that the frogs are what are you supposed to do then you own some isn't the reason just because then after 11 o'clock you're allowed to go out and kill them? I think that's why that's... Isn't it legal to kill frogs anywhere?

It's not like there's swans, is it? You can kill frogs. I'm not saying everyone go and kill some frogs. That's not nice. But I think if you do kill a frog, you won't get done for murder. No, no. It's like with... Same as wasps, you know.

No, you mustn't kill frogs. They're suffering from diseases. No, no, I'm not saying... No you mustn't kill frogs. They're suffering from diseases. No, I'm not saying that. Don't kill frogs. Kill frogs now. Kill frogs. Frogs are not protected. Leave the house, kill frogs.

I believe that, yeah. I think they're a protected species. Keep calm and carry on. Yeah. Well, if you have accidentally killed a frog, I don't think it's... Well, that's manslaughter. Frogslaughter. Anyway, the you have accidentally killed a frog, I don't think it's... Well, that's manslaughter. Frogslaughter.

Anyway, the second of the four truths that Fee smuggled past the panel ages ago is that Kermit the Frog is left-handed. In fact, most of the Muppets are left-handed because apparently if you're a right-handed puppeteer, it's easier to manipulate the face with your right hand and the arm with your left. If they're operated by a right-handed person, there'll be a left-handed Muppet, and Kermit is among them. The third truth is that when a frog throws up, it throws up its entire stomach so that it's dangling out of its mouth

and it digs out the contents by hand. What? And the last truth is that frogs don't drink. They absorb water through their skin. Which means, Fi, that you've scored four points. Thank you very much. Frogs must close their eyes in order to swallow. There's a joke there about secretaries at the work Christmas party,

but not at 6.30 on Radio 4. A group of frogs is called an army. A group of young, annoying frogs is called a French exchange trip. And now it's the turn of Dom Jolly. Your subject, Dom, is Elvis Presley, the popular American singer, widely known as the king of rock and roll. Off you go, Dom. Following his first appearance on stage at the Grand Old Opry,

Elvis Presley was told that he'd make a better lorry driver than singer, and he took this to heart as no lorry was ever allowed into the grounds of Graceland while Elvis was in residence. Elvis is related to most of the American population, including Marilyn Manson, Oprah Winfrey, and every American president except Barack Obama. Elvis was fascinated by Asian women and even tried to learn Chinese. For amusement, he would sometimes drive around the very small Chinatown area of Memphis, shouting out phrases in Mandarin Chinese at

passers-by before throwing $100 bills at them. Yeah, that sounds quite plausible. We've all done that. No, I'm afraid that's not true. Sorry. Whenever Elvis became involved with a woman, he would ask them to refer to his manhood as Little Elvis, and he learnt this phrase in over 12 languages.

Elvis was also famous for spontaneous... Some of this must be true. This Little Elvis and the manhood, that must be right. You wouldn't make that up about the king of pop. That's Michael Jackson. It was rock and roll that was... It's a bordering kingdom. Yeah, it's a neighbouring kingdom.

Well, he was prince of pop before he was king of rock and roll. Is that what you're saying? I mean, look, I'm not an expert, but I thought Michael Jackson was king of pop, and Elvis is king of rock and roll. The point I was going for was the... And Prince lives in Minneapolis. Just to clear it up.

He clears it up. He sweeps the streets. The challenge I was making, and I fear it was wrong, was that Elvis referred to his manhood, a very tabloid word there. A little Elvis, but definitely not wise. No, that is absolutely right. Well done, Clive, yes.

Elvis loved to turn up unannounced in public places. He would often pretend to be the barman in a Memphis dive bar called Sixties, and it's said he once entered an Elvis look-alike contest in a burger joint and came third. All this tomfoolery, however, soon came to an end as the king spiralled into an addiction to candy floss and gummy bears. Henny. Didn't he become addicted to candy floss? I think that was the king of pop, actually.

No, I don't think he did. What was he addicted to? Heroin, I think that was the king of pop, actually. No, I don't think he did. What was he addicted to? Heroin, I think. Don't you lose weight if you take heroin? Depends what you have for pudding. Was Elvis addicted to heroin? I don't think so. No.

I think you've made that up. You're just throwing in lies now. That's the point of the show. Elvis turned to another interest, death. He'd spend a lot of time hanging out in the local morgue inspecting corpses, and this eventually led to him becoming obsessed with taxidermy. He had a specialist come to live in Graceland, and Elvis attempted to stuff his dog, Marlena,

and the grisly results are still on display at Graceland. Well, something has to be true, so I'd say that at the end. That he stuffed his dog, Marlena. That he became interested in taxidermy. No, that's not true. No taxidermy, no dog stuffing. Thank you, Dom. Thank you.

No taxidermy, no dog stuffing. Thank you, Dom. At the end of that round, Dom, you managed to smuggle four truths past the rest of the panel, which are that following his first appearance on stage at the Grand Ole Opry... Opry. Opry. Anyway, at this place that apparently often broke a lot of news stars at the time, he was told he would make a better lorry driver than singer. Elvis is related to every American president except for Barack Obama.

Some nice lady with a lot of time on her hands has worked out that he's related to every president apart from Barack Obama. He is 13th cousin eight times removed from Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Abraham Lincoln is his 15th cousin five times removed. George W. Bush, his 18th cousin twice removed. And all the others, some number of cousin, five times removed. George W. Bush, his 18th cousin, twice removed. And all the others, some number of cousins, so many times removed. It also means, obviously, that all of those American presidents are also related to each other, as are all the heads of state in our country.

The third truth is that it's said Elvis once entered an Elvis look-alike contest in a burger joint and came third. It is said a lot. It's not clear whether it's true. What is definitely true is that Charlie Chaplin came third in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. And the fourth truth is that Elvis would spend a lot of time hanging out in the local morgue inspecting corpses. So, Dom, that means you've scored four points. In his entire career, Elvis only made one fleeting visit to Britain,

his plane touching briefly down in Scotland in 1960. After a quick stop, he moved on, saying, man, this country's got some unhealthy food. The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra. Coincidence? Yes. Which brings us to the final scores.

In fourth place, with minus one point, we have Henning Vein. In joint second place, with three points each, it's Fee Glover and Clive Anderson. And in first place, with an unassailable four points, it's thisee Glover and Clive Anderson. And in first place with an unassailable four points is this week's winner, Dom Jolly. And that's about it for this week. All that remains is for me to thank our guests. They were all truly unbelievable, and that's the unbelievable truth. Goodbye.

The unbelievable truth was devised by John Naismith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Dom Jolly, Kenning Vane, Pete Glover and Clive Anderson. The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production for BBC Radio 4.