The Unbelievable Truth - 06x02 Nudity, Shoes, Walt Disney, Cakes

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

06x02 4 October 2010 Tony Hawks, Henning Wehn, Graeme Garden, Arthur Smith Nudity, Shoes, Walt Disney, Cakes

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, the panel show about incredible truths and fairly credible lies. I'm David Mitchell. As always, tonight's panellists will be showing more forked tongues than a coachload of snakes at a raspberry-blowing competition. Please welcome Arthur Smith, Tony Hawks, Henning Vane and Graham Garden. The rules are as follows. 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, cunningly 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 lie for a truth. We'll begin with Tony Hawks. Tony, your subject is nudity, described by my dictionary as the state of being without clothes. Off you go, Tony. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. I myself have a compulsion for nudity. I'm a nudomaniac. Everywhere I go, I go nude. In fact, I'm

nude now, as we speak. Graham? I just thought I'd liven it up for the listeners. Well, underneath those clothes... We do try and create that image of nudity. We hope you're all mentally undressing us at home. But the thing is, I'm not nude now. I lied. Yes, no, Tony isn't nude now.

He's, you know, just crotchless. Does that spoil the point? Carry on, Ted. In Victorian Britain, some doctors considered examining lady patients nude was immoral, and so they decided to wear clothes. I'm guessing the first part of that sentence is indeed true, that they considered it immoral in the early days.

I don't think they did when that was necessary to the examination. I think, you know, the Victorians were... What do you know about Victorian medicine? Loads and loads. I know, for example, that on my list of the true things that Tony's going to say in his lecture, that isn't one of them. The key word there is immoral, and they didn't consider it immoral. They were probably quite embarrassed about it.

You know, they probably didn't do it at the drop of a hat. No. Let alone drop of lots of Victorian underwear that I don't know the names of. But I think... Rumours. Please don't swear. Carry on, Tony. The traditional chicken pluckers of France

were not permitted by the church to look directly at a plucked hen as it was deemed to be naked, and nudity was considered a sinful state. This led to the development of an interesting punishment. A French woman who had committed adultery had to chase a chicken through the town naked. Ancient Babylonian artists freely painted scenes of nudity and sex but would never show the female face. Whereas ancient Chinese artists would never depict a naked female foot because they deemed it too rude or sexy to feature. In Britain, boys under 10 are actually forbidden by law

to look at naked mannequins. Those that do look at them either go mad or become disc jockeys. In 1998, I stripped naked and sang the Moldovan national anthem on Balham High Street as a forfeit, having lost a bet I made with Arthur Smith that I had to beat the entire Moldovan national football team at tennis one by one. Graham. I think that's true. No, it's not true.

As is well documented, Tony won that bet. It was I, naked outside. And if anyone's seen the video, I have to say it was a cold night, alright? And something's got to be true. Yeah, some things are true, yes. I just don't know what is true. Well, one of the truths could be that you're failing to spot the truth, didn't I say?

Graham. It is. No. They're all coming up anyway. Yeah. He's just toying with us now. It's embarrassing. Here's one.

OK. In March 2004, a party boat filled with 60 men and women capsized on a lake in Texas after all the passengers rushed to one side as the boat passed a nude beach. Henning. Yeah, he just said that was true. Yes.

Well, I think he was attempting a double bluff, but fortunately your literal German mind has avoided that pitfall, and you're right, that is absolutely true. It happened on Lake Travis when a double-decker barge was passing Texas's only nudist beach. Two people were hospitalised. Tony, can you give me a hint please?

Okay Last year an Australian travel agency was formed which arranged outings for naturists calling itself exploring the bush Arthur I think cheap though that joke is, it's appropriate that an Australian would have made it. And it's entirely plausible that an Australian would start up a nude travel agency. So I'd say it's true. Well, unfortunately it isn't. But I bet if you do Google exploring the bush,

something interesting will come up. It will almost certainly involve australians and nudity thank you tony and tony at the end of that round you've managed to smuggle four truths past the rest of the panel that's a very that's a very high scoring round And the first one is that a nudomaniac is the word for someone with a compulsion for nudity. There was an old French punishment for adultery, which was to make the adulterous woman

chase a chicken through town naked. That ancient Chinese artists freely painted scenes of nudity and sex, but they would never depict a naked female foot. The fourth truth is that in Britain, boys under 10 are forbidden by law to look at naked mannequins. This is a law dating apparently from the reign of George V. He was very worried when mannequins were first put in shop windows

that when they were between outfits, the under-10-year-old boys would be in some way corrupted or traumatised. Or maybe think that's what women were really like, and, you know, in their later life be surprised when they moved. Anyway, that means, Tony, that you've scored four points. OK, we turn now to Henning Vein. Henning is one of the funniest men in Germany. He's a bit like being described as one of the oldest men in Scotland

or the best tennis player in England. Your subject, Henning, is shoes. Outer coverings for the feet, usually of leather, with a thick sole and heel. Fingers on buzzers, everyone else. Off you go, Henning. Shoes were invented by Jesus. LAUGHTER Shoes were invented by Jesus. Jesus invented the Jesus sandal, the Jesus boot, and the Jesus Nike Air Max, the design

for which was stolen by Judas. The second person to leave a footprint on the shoe world was Grimaldi, the French clown, who invented the unfeasibly large shoe. Arthur. Well, I think it's quite plausible Grimaldi did invent the clown shoe. He didn't, unfortunately. But it is quite plausible.

That is why I stuck it in there. Yeah, you softened us up with the ginger's business. I notice you're not saying whether they're true or false. In a rather ungenerous way. I've returned a favour from earlier on, don't worry. Get your finger on the buzzer now. OK. By the end of...

It's true. Henning, I knew you wouldn't go for the double bluff. Well, you're absolutely right, he wasn't, and you did buzz three words into something that was to be true. So I'm very happy. It makes the whole thing a lot quicker and more efficient in a way that is characteristic of the Germans, I'd like to say, and I mean that as a compliment.

So, yes, you get a point, Arthur. in a way that is characteristic of the Germans, I'd like to say, and I mean that as a compliment. So, yes, you get a point, Arthur. And Henning, if you'd now like to say the thing that's true. By the end of the 14th century, the French nobility had two foot-long shoe tips, which they had to snip off during battle so they could run away more effectively. And, yes, that's absolutely true. It was called the Poulain,

was a 14th century shoe whose tip was as long as two feet long for princes and noblemen, only one foot long if you were rich people of a lower degree, you know, noobs, and only half a foot long for commoners. Such shoes proved a hazard among the French crusaders, and at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396,

they had to cut off the ends of their shoes in order to be able to run away. After becoming longer and longer shoes became higher and higher. Ladies of pleasure in Venice in the 15th century wore shoes with heels that could be as high as 75 centimeters. I remember reading that in a guidebook to Venice. Well, you're right. Well done. Yeah, they were as high as 75 centimetres and then they were subsequently made illegal because of all the accidents that they caused. They became illegal because many a prostitute toppled over

and fell into a canal and needed to be rescued with poles. This is why men who hire prostitutes today are called punters. During the French Industrial Revolution, which Germany is still paying for, shoes became objects of protest. Factory workers would throw their sabots, or wooden shoes, into the machinery to wreck it. And this is where we get the word saboteur. Graham.

Just rather boringly, yes, I think that is true. Yes, that is true, yes. Where we get saboteur and sabotage from shoe throwing. Well, for this reason, shoemakers in France and the Low Countries were regarded as lazy reactionary good-for-nothings, whereas in a far more progressive Germany, the shoemakers or shoemakers were so successful that they had time and money to win the Munich Grand Prix

every year between 1799 and 1842. German scientist Georg Richmann believed that rubber shoes would protect him from lightning. When he stood... Tony. Well, I haven't buzzed in yet, so I thought I would with the undoubted fact that the rubber shoes invented by Mr. Reichmann, he believed, would protect him from lightning. You're absolutely right, he did. But he wasn't blessed with success, was he? No, he was not. Because he stood outside watching a thunderstorm in 1753. His shoes exploded.

And he died, although his feet did remain warm and dry. I mean, you've got to feel very... He's on to a real winner. Rubber shoes, we won't conduct electricity, we're better off in a thunderstorm, and yet the poor guy, they explode. Yeah. Small consolation.

How? What do you mean, small consolation? There's no consolation at all. Massive disaster. Now, about 257 years later, we're still talking about him. I suppose that's true. Just an attention seeker. I've never had a pair of shoes explode on me.

They have obviously developed over the past 250. They designed them very, very carefully not to explode. Health and safety got mad. You can't have the bottom half of a leg blown off by an exploding shoe without the nanny state getting involved. The shoemaking process produced terrible hallucinogenic fumes, which would, after many years, make the shoemaker insane. Could you just say that word beginning with H again, Henning?

I enjoyed your pronunciation. Oh, that is a tricky one. Hallucinogenic. Oh, that's fair. Yeah, getting a round of applause for being able to speak. You're doing very, very well at patronising me. Patronising, that means talking down to people.

Of course, what you don't realise is that he can't actually speak German. The leather shoemaker would buy dock faeces from street urchins for the tanning process. The worshipful company of shoemakers still has a squatting dog on its coat of arms. I think I remember, even as a young lad, there used to be people in Bermondsey who went around picking up buckets of manure off the road and using them in tanneries. Really?

Just trying to give my claim a bit of a... Yeah, no. Because this isn't true, Arthur. But it's an extremely, extremely vivid picture of a deprived childhood. I don't think it is poo that's used in the tanning process, but I think they do use wee. That's who we've got time for on the start of the week.

Henning. Yeah, may that all as it be. Er... Be that all as it may. Say that again. It's be that all as it may, not may that all as it be. No, write that down. As well as being footwear, shoes have nutritional benefits.

It's a statement, isn't it? Napoleon ate his shoes during his last days on St Helena, as chewing shoe leather can keep a starving person alive for an extra day or so. Napoleon asked for more shoes, but was told, not until he had finished his hat. Today, women's obsession with shoes is the reason why they're unable to secure meaningful jobs in commerce or industry. It's all right, ladies and gentlemen.

No one's buzzing. Thank you, Henning. Thank you, Henning. So, Henning, at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle one truth past the rest of the panel, which is that chewing shoe leather can keep a starving person alive for an extra day or so. Basically, natural hide is as nutritious as meat, but once it's tanned, there's no nutritional value,

but just the act of chewing sort of fools you into thinking you've been in some way nourished and keeps you alive a bit longer. And that means, Henning, you've scored one point. Now it's the turn of Graham Garden. Graham's son, John, is keyboard player with the Scissor Sisters, and if the Scissor Sisters enjoy just half the chart success that the goodies achieved, they'll be extremely disappointed.

Your subject, Graham, is Walt Disney, the American filmmaker and entrepreneur who created a new kind of popular culture in feature-length animated cartoons and live-action family films. Off you go, Graham. Walt Disney's first effort at animation was about the fleas and other amusing parasites found in the fur of wild rabbits, called bunny bugs. But it was not a success. When Disney won his first Oscar for Steamboat Willie, he was presented with a specially made statuette with Mickey Mouse ears. For Snow White and the seven

dwarfs he was awarded one full-size oscar and seven little tiny ones but when he won the academy award for mary poppins he refused to accept the statuette because it wasn't carrying an umbrella i think one of those three facts is definitely true i'm gonna go for the ears one that's not true no not the ears one what is true not true. No, not the ears one. What is true is the full-size Oscar and the seven little tiny ones. Duh! Sounds so close. Among the many names originally considered for the dwarfs in Snow White were Sporty, Scary, Baby and Posh.

On a visit to Disneyland, Walt Disney ate a hot dog and then counted how many steps it took to finish it and throw away the wrapper. It took him roughly 20 steps, which is the spacing used in every Disney park to this day, from hot dog stall to litter bin. Arthur. That sounds like it should be true.

It is true, yes, well done. Presumably another ten steps further on, there's a place to be sick oh yeah didn't he ban people from having mustaches who work at disneyland or something we might find out later yeah oh i hope so in world war ii walt disney worked secretly for the oss they had recruited him as a codebreaker after they'd noticed that in the movie Fantasia, the sorcerer is named Yen Sid, a clever anagram of Disney's own surname. And what really impressed the spymasters was the fact that he hadn't gone for the more obvious Sydney. Walt Disney only wore his trademark false moustache

for photographs or public appearances. And the reason that Disney employees were not allowed to wear moustaches and beards... Yes, come on! Disney employees were not allowed to wear moustaches. Yes, Arthur, that's absolutely true. Yes, Arthur. In accordance with the Disney employee manual,

moustaches and beards were not allowed due to their communist connotations. Disney's application for permission to build and run elaborate rides at his theme parks was nearly denied when the authorities discovered that one of Walt Disney's favourite hobbies was planning elaborate train crashes on his huge model railway. He loved hunting and was a passionate deer hunter, and he once claimed that he put the death of Bambi's mother into the film just to give his mates a good laugh. Thank you, Graham. And at the end of that round, Graham,

you've managed to smuggle three truths past the rest of the panel, which are that, as I said before, in 1939, Walt Disney got a full-size Oscar and seven little mini Oscars for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The second truth is that in the movie Fantasia, Disney named the sorcerer Yen Sid, the letters of Disney reversed. And the third truth is that Walt Disney planned elaborate train crashes on the half a mile of miniature railway track in his garden,

which served as an inspiration for the larger steam trains at Disneyland. And that means, Graham, you've scored three points. It's now the turn of Arthur Smith. After losing a bet to Tony Hawks, Arthur had to stand on Balham High Road and sing the Moldovan national anthem whilst naked. Luckily, as it was Balham High Road, no-one noticed. Your subject, Arthur, is cake, a sweet baked food

typically containing a combination of flour, sugar, eggs, butter and other ingredients such as raising agents and flavourings. Fingers on buzzers, the rest of you. Off you go, Arthur. The Brit artist Gavin Turk once baked a huge cake in the form of Chairman Mao, only to find the next morning it had been eaten by three drunks who broke into his studio and were passed out on the floor. Henning. I believe the bit that he baked a cake in the shape of Chairman Mao.

Well, it's not true. But he could have done. Yes. The cake on the sleeve of the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed album was baked by TV chef Delia Smith. Tony. That's true. It is true.

Ah, there we are. Delia was working as a home economist in 1969 when she was commissioned to bake a cake for a photo shoot. She said she'd been told to make it very over-the-top and as gaudy as I could. Following an altercation about artichokes in Rome, the Italian artist Caravaggio famously clubbed a waiter to death with a huge, stale fruitcake. Henning. That he did.

No, he didn't. But he could have. I once myself ate a cake that I now know to have been baked with a hallucinogenic drug. That's hallucinogenic. Henning has buzzed. Yeah, you should know.

So that would be true. Actually, now I think about it, that bit of it is true. Well, I mean, that is a bit of an own goal there, Arthur. Yeah, you're right. So I'm going to have to give the point there to Henning. I won't bother with what apparently happened to me on this hallucinogenic cake. You've got an amusing story that is untrue. I have, but I'm not going to say it now.

All right. I'm sorry I ruined it for everyone. Sometimes I think your apologies are insincere. Well, I've been here now for eight years. Yes. Well, I've been here now for eight years. The English word for a posh cake is gâteau, and the French word for a posh cake is le cake.

Surely it must be my turn to get one right now. That's not how we do it, but on this occasion, yes, you are right. Well done. In the 19th century, the cake containing arsenic in the icing sugar killed children who ate it at a birthday party. The French bride was arrested at her wedding reception in 1995 for stabbing her new husband with the knife they'd just used to cut the wedding cake. Tony.

I like this. It's a lovely, heartwarming little story. It's definitely true. It is true. Yes. Yeah. Using 180 eggs, 126 jars of jam and 220 pounds of sugar, a team of British bakers baked a cake in the shape of a full-size Skoda car.

Tony. I know this is wrong by the way you've said that, but I've decided to go for the Skoda car. With a massive pause. Someone go for it, someone go for it. Well, it is not true. But I'll tell you, what is not true is that using 180 eggs, 126 jars of jam and 220 pounds of sugar,

a team of British bakers made us go to car. What is true is that using 180 eggs, 125 jars of jam and 220 pounds of sugar, this was done. Now, I don't like the way Arthur plays the game any more than you do. I think I've got the crowd behind me. I think we could have a riot.

Yeah, but you haven't got... You haven't got the law behind you. David, God, this is like the Bodyline Tour all over again. David, this could be your moment. Are you a populist host, or are you just going to go with the rules in a shallow way? I'm sure there are different ways of putting that. You're maintaining the decency.

Are you going to have the decency of responding to what a crowd of people shouts at you to do, or are you going to feebly stick to the rules? I've got to stick with the rules. Stick with the rules. Thanks. In Norwich Crown Court in March 1983, a man was convicted of the crime

of having sex with a neighbour's cake. It was probably February. Now, look, I'm going to announce this next one, right, it isn't true. So that'll really allow me to go for the last word in it. The American English word cookie comes from the Dutch kerja,

which means cake. The Dutch word for biscuit is kerja, which means cake. The Dutch word for biscuit is... Thank you, Arthur. OK, Arthur, at the end of that round, you've managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel. One of them, in I think perhaps one of the least sporting rounds, not only with the jars of jam debacle,

one of the true things was the thing you specifically said wasn't true just before it, and that is that the American English word cookie comes from the Dutch kutje, a diminutive of the proper Dutch word for cake. I'm just taking the game as a step forward into the professional era. You won't be getting any professional bookings off the back of this.

The other truth you smuggled past is that in the 19th century, arsenic was often used to create green colouring, and a green cake decoration sold in Greenock, Scotland, with the inscription, for the Bernese, contained seven times the fatal adult dose of arsenic with fatal consequences the experience was to pervade the scottish attitude to green confectionery well into the 20th century with the professor of forensic medicine at glasgow university observing in 1955 fewer green sweets are sold in scotland than in any other country

and of course the scott Scottish aversion to all green foods carries on today. And that means, Arthur, you've scored two points. When the Queen travels abroad, she makes sure that she takes supplies of harrod sausages, mauve and water, mint sauce and a fruitcake. He's called Prince Philip. Which brings us to the final scores.

In joint third place, with minus one point each, we have Arthur Smith and Henning Vein. In second place, with one point, it's Graham Garden. And in first place, with an unassailable four points is this week's winner tony hawks 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 is divided by john naysith and Graham Garden and featured David Mitchell in the chair with panellists Tony Hawkes, Henning Bain, Arthur Smith and Graham Garden.

The chairman's script was written by Dan Gaster and the producer was John Naismith. It was a random production for BBC Radio 4.