6 Ben Fordham 1000 Minute Live Stream

Tommy: It's a very low barrier to get into the Gronk Squad.

Josh: That's crazy. We've committed to do The Daily Talk Show for 10 years.

Tommy: Hi guys. Hi guys.

Josh: Put it in the calendar. I'd just like to cheque the temperature in the room. I told you my squeegee story.

Tommy: It is outrageous.

Josh: Come on, let's go. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Daily Talk Show, Ben Fordham.

Ben: Oh, come on. 1,000th birthday, boys.

Josh: Oh, thank you, mate. You're looking fresh. You look like you've just, uh, been on a holiday, mate.

Ben: I've got a week off, but you know, this is a big occasion, I think, for all members of the Gronk Squad. And even where I am here at a far-flung location, well away from the Big Smoke, it is not going unnoticed. And, uh, congratulations to you. Who would have thought after all this time, after all these shows, you'd still still be standing, still somehow be kind of friends and not kill each other. Close on a number of occasions. I think probably the most awkward moment I can remember, uh, out of the last 1,000 shows was, um, I think it was when Tommy wasn't that into Screenplay Sunday and Josh just wouldn't let go of it. And I remember after about 2 or 3 shows of postmortems and examinations of Tommy's enthusiasm levels and every topic would come back to that. I thought, I think I need to ring Josh and just let him know, mate, I think it's time you let this guy off the hook. I mean, I think we've now established the fact that he wasn't in the best mood on that particular day for Screenplay Sunday. And rest in peace as well, Screenplay Sunday.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: RIP.

Josh: Very relevant. Very relevant.

Tommy: Ben, you've had your fair share of co-hosts over the years. Now you've got your own show. Is it because you can't deal with other people, co-hosts, or they can't deal with you?

Ben: I've sat alongside Lisa Wilkinson and Georgie Gardner and Rebecca Madden, and I can honestly say I haven't killed any of them. So, and they haven't killed me. I tend to get along with them. But there is sometimes, look, let's face it, in an on-air partnership and relationship, they're generally meant for doom. And then if you have a look through And I know you guys have discussed this before. If you look through talk radio, there are many successful FM partnerships because FM tend to have those, those duos or triplets or whatever you want to call them. There are many of them that have a great on-air vibe, and this happens in TV as well. But you get them behind the scenes and they just want to give you a 10-point debrief about why the other person's a pain in the ass. Yeah. And you can understand that. So look, you can go through your 10 points, both of you, right now if you choose to. Or otherwise, we can—

Tommy: we don't have enough time. Don't have enough time. No, Josh won't let it go for the next 1000. No, absolutely not. But what is— what would be the thing that would annoy a co-host that's working with you about you? Like, what is it? What do you do, Ben? What's it like when you're tired? Is there something you do?

George: Too perfect.

Ben: What I used to do is steal their ideas in a commercial break, right? So, you know, so you're in the commercial break and the co-host says, "You know what?" And they start talking about, like, it's about Prince Philip's death. They go, "You know the amazing thing about Prince Philip?" And then they tell you something about Prince Philip that you never knew and that no one's really heard of. I would then Google it to make sure it was right. And then coming out of the break, I'd go, "Yeah, you know the amazing thing about this sport?" Right? And you just start saying it and they're looking at you like, "Is he actually doing this?" But of course they can't say, "I just told you that during the ad break." It just looks so petty. So they've got to sit there and nod along with you and go, "Really?" And then ask you questions about the information that they told you. So stealing other people's stuff and then just presenting it as your own, to watch their shocked expression, that's always been a bit of a favorite. The other one that I used to do with Karl Stefanovic quite a bit is that we would both find ways. I remember he would tell a storey one day about— I think we're talking about doing bombs in swimming pools, right? You know, back in the day, summer holidays, you know, it might have been like a local council had said no more jumping or diving or bombing in the local swimming pool. And we're talking about that and Carl started talking about it. He goes, remember that? That was the best thing about growing up, you know, going or having a swimming pool and doing bombs in the pool while your mates are over. And I just looked at him and I just thought, I might just dud him here. So I just said, I said, mate, we didn't have a pool. And then it just changes the conversation into, sorry, mate. I mean, we didn't all grow up with swimming pools, mate. I'm guessing if you had a swimming pool growing up, then yeah, that probably would be a thing. So we both find and then find ways of trying to assert that the other person had had a gifted upbringing. So if anyone brought anything up, so fairy bread would come up and I'd just go, oh mate, we didn't get that growing up. And it's just a conversation killer, but it just makes the other person look like, oh mate, we didn't all have fairy bread every day when we were growing up.

Tommy: Yeah, Richard Wilkins got out of the room when you started talking about the pools because that guy's got two.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, it's, um, it's like the opposite of improv when it comes to the improv of having— Yes, and yeah, the yes and it's the no, no, absolutely not. Um, uh, when it comes to improvising, uh, with having, uh, people call into your show, what's like the worst caller experience that you've ever had? Have you ever had ones that have just been horrendous?

Ben: Mate, I think it's like I've had calls that have gone bad, like, you know, and these are— there's some that are funny and some that are probably not so funny. But like, if you want the real sphincter-tightening moments of like, you know, like awkward. Yeah, this is awkward for you. A guy called in once on the show and I thought mid-call he started beatboxing.

Amy: Right.

Ben: And so he just started turning into this kind of beatboxing kind of thing. And I, and I thought this must be a prank. So I thought, I'll roll with it. And I said, oh mate, I love the beatboxing. I love the beatboxing. It's great, right? He wasn't beatboxing. He had a stutter.

Josh: Oh no.

Ben: And so I tried to turn it into a gag and I threw it to the break. And then Zach, my executive producer, said, mate, I don't think he was beatboxing. He's got a stutter. And I was like, oh no. How did So I said, no, hang on. So I talked to him during the ad break. I said, hey, mate, sorry, do I just get mixed up? Then he goes, yeah, I'm sorry, I've got a stutter. And I said, I didn't hear the stutter at all.

George: Yeah.

Ben: And I said, that's why I thought you just launched into like a bit of beatboxing. And he was like, no, no, no. So I had to go back on the air out of the next break and say, look, just to, just to clear up, you know, Michael, who we spoke to before, he wasn't beatboxing. It turns out he's got a stutter. So, you have moments like that where you think, oh, how did I get myself into this? You know.

Josh: Is there any dump button in television? Like, if you fuck up, like, what do they do on live TV?

Ben: No. No, there's no dump button, which is quite interesting in a way, isn't it? It's like if it happens, it happens. I suppose if they were broadcasting from somewhere overseas, there'd be a little delay, but there's not a function set up to go, let's kill this broadcast. It's only when— You know, like the famous case of Kerry Packer back in the day calling up Channel 9 when Channel 9 decided to put a show together called Naughtiest Home Videos, which was a spin-off of Funniest Home Videos. It was hosted by Doug Mulray, the former Triple M breakfast host from Sydney, and Uncle Doug hosted Naughtiest Home Videos. And after Kerry Packer had watched the third video of dogs rooting, he called Channel 9 and said, quote, "Get this shit off the air." And they said, "We can't, it's halfway through the show." It was episode 1. And he said, "It's Kerry Packer. Get it off the air now." Right? So they just pulled the pin on this show during an ad break and just started playing Gone with the Wind or some old movie. Right?

George: Oh my God.

Ben: So I think it takes the owner of the TV station to call up and say, "Get this shit off the air," until all of a sudden it's off the air.

Tommy: Hey, Ben, we talked about the hacking earlier of— was it Channel 9?

Josh: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: So, what happened? I mean, that's the dump button these days. You just got to hack the channel. What happened there? Can you give us the once-over?

Ben: Well, apparently, someone got inside the system and basically snooped around inside the back part of the system for a number of weeks. And they gathered enough information, um, to be able to compromise all the systems and to be able to have the whole thing shut down. Curiously, they didn't ask for money. Traditionally, what they do is someone then makes contact from overseas and says, look, we've, we've, we've accessed all emails, we've accessed passwords, we've got pay details, we've got contracts for a number of your employees. In other words, enough information to cause you mass embarrassment if it was dumped online publicly. So, here's how you can make this problem go away. Usually, or there have been many cases where those calls or emails come. In this case, that hasn't been the case. So, it may have just been someone trying to cause a bit of trouble.

Josh: Do you think that it could be some sort of foreign government? Are they thinking that?

Ben: Mate, that would be beyond my kind of specialty. Like, you saw I had enough—

Josh: I thought you were a cyber expert.

Ben: I had enough trouble trying to link up my AirPods just to do this interview.

Josh: Yeah, there's no foreign interference with your AirPods. You just—

Ben: It was the Russians.

George: Okay.

Josh: It was the Russians.

Ben: It's confirmed. It goes all the way to Vladimir Putin.

Josh: I mean, it does make it an interesting story, right? Like, it's this idea that, you know—

Ben: I'd love to be able to give you the scoop for the 1,000th show. By the way, is Chewy Tuesday still on the go or is it dead?

Josh: We look, we missed— We ran out. Sam's stash ran out, but we missed what we missed. Tuesday. That was the only day we'd missed.

Ben: That segment's on life support, let's face it. What's your favorite—

Josh: what's your favourite chewy?

Ben: Shut up, this is what I do, right? Honestly, mate, get a life. I tried to breathe a couple of extra weeks into it by getting Hazem from Redfern convenience store to send you a load to at least, you know, it's like the dying Dying boy in the well and you send him down a bit more bread to keep him alive for another week. But, mate, I can't rescue the boy out of the well.

Tommy: It's dead. Timmy's done.

Josh: Are you— No, I'm actually curious. Do you ever chew gum whilst broadcasting?

Ben: Tommy, can you please—

Tommy: I think we should throw to George. George, did you have something from the archives that you want to pull up?

George: Yeah, I've got something from the archives. Ben, you mentioned before about—

Josh: hey Ben, hang on, what was that? Hang on, what was that? Oh, hang on, I've muted you for a second. Uh, Benny, hang on, I'll unmute you now.

Ben: You better try out of the type.

Josh: Uh, talk now. Can you hear?

Ben: I'm gonna have to dial back in.

Josh: Okay, that's fine. Yeah, yeah, dial back in. Okay, so we'll just— we'll, uh, we'll wait for, um, uh, for Benny to get back. He has, uh, he's, uh, he's, he's, he's struggling.

Ben: Hang on, I'll ring back in.

Josh: Oh, we can hear you now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ring back in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, perfect. Right, um, so I will just— we'll wait a moment for, for Benny to come in.

Tommy: Amy Jackett, welcome to the building!

Josh: She's not on microphone. Do you want to get into the microphone and give it a hand? Oh yeah, the handheld works.

Tommy: That one, that one seems to be— they need to be real close.

Josh: Yeah, I can make it louder. I just did it so the speaker didn't squeal.

Tommy: Hi, Amy.

Ben: Hi.

Tommy: Oh, there you go.

Amy: Happy 1000.

Josh: Thank you.

Tommy: Do you want to swap spots with Jess so you can get the nice camera up close on your face?

Amy: Would love that.

Ben: I've really prepared for it.

Tommy: It's more for the highlights video in the future so we can have a nice beautiful shot. Get in nice and close, Ames. There we go. That's how she has to sit. Look at that. That's it.

Amy: Like, man spreading.

Josh: Okay, so Fordo is back. Can you hear us, Fordo? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Perfect. All right, it looks like JB's just gone to do a— Have you gone to do a wee, JB? He's going to be back in a sec. We've got Amy Jacket in the studio. Ben, have you got any questions for Amy?

Ben: Yes. Is she there now?

George: Is she?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, she's right there now. Hang on, I'll put you on. Video. There you go.

Amy: Really well, how are you?

Ben: Yeah, good. Are you guys surviving this 1000th show? How's it going for you?

Amy: Yep, yep, we are.

Ben: Um, you look like you're being held hostage.

Amy: There's a little bit of truth in that.

Ben: Um, but it looks like one of those hostage videos from overseas.

Amy: Yeah, yeah, we'll get through.

Josh: We'll get through. We'll get through. That sounded like it. Like that. Yeah, that sounds like it. But please send the Bitcoin.

Ben: Just blink. Just blink lots if you're in lots of trouble. When Tommy said that we were going to do this show and they were going to go for 1,000 shows, did you just say yes because you thought this might be one of these things that might run its course and then, you know, he'll kind of move on and grow up a little bit?

Amy: Yeah, I think, um, after the 24-hour, um, livestream that they did, I thought, oh, there's no chance that this will ever happen again, so we're pretty safe. And then they, um, talked about the 1,000 minutes, and I, I didn't do the math. I was just like, hours, what are the hours? And they said 16, and I thought, oh yeah, it sounds quicker than 16.

Tommy: 1,000 minutes for some reason sounds quicker than 16 and a half hours.

Josh: If we've learned anything, we can't really do math. We can't do math.

Ben: Anyone asks Why?

Tommy: You know, Ben, no, just, you know, just for, just for fun.

Josh: Hey, uh, Ben, I know this is sort of, uh, random, um, are you across like the whole Iran, um, you know, the person that was like, uh, uh, what's her name? She was like, uh, held hostage. Yeah, yeah, that's such a fascinating story.

Ben: Oh mate, well, I reckon the, the craziest thing about it is the idea that while she was being held a prisoner, essentially held hostage in a foreign land. This is a university lecturer from Melbourne, Kylie Moore Gilbert. While she was held over there, accused of being a spy, her husband back home falls in love with one of her colleagues from the university in Melbourne, hooks up with her, falls in love with her. So then when his wife is finally released from the hellhole prison in Iran, And she makes her way back to Australia. Kylie Moore Gilbert's mum has to break the news to you. Oh, look, honey. Oh, your husband's left you and hooked up with one of your mates.

Josh: I mean, it's not ideal. So where I went with it was I was like, surely. So, you know how they were saying that she was sort of taken in because her husband was Israeli. Then I went down the rabbit hole of maybe this whole thing, maybe the whole like cheating scandal and shit is all a ruse to try and avoid her looking like a spy.

Ben: I know, yeah, there's no evidence whatsoever that she was a spy. I know people like to, um, to believe in conspiracy theories and to buy into them, but there's no evidence she was a spy. They thought at one stage that her husband might be somehow involved, uh, in spy work, which is why they offered her a deal. They said We can, we can help reduce your sentence if you can convince your—

Josh: Oh, you've just, you've just, you've, you just, uh, got, uh, muted. Your audio is gone. We can't hear you, uh, Ben. Can you hear us though? I don't know what happened. Uh, you can hear us. Well, what we'll do is we'll, we'll, uh, maybe just try reconnect, uh, one last time, see if that works.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And then we'll play Uh, GBit. What GBit's found?

Tommy: I'm excited, JB. How's it— how's the cupboard going? Have you been in there?

George: Pretty good. There's, um, lots in here.

Tommy: Is there?

Amy: There's—

George: I'm just going in the cupboard. I'm in the cupboard now. There's lots in here. There's, um, lots of files, audio, video, um There's a small man at the other side. What's your name, sir?

Tommy: Hello, I'm Peter.

Josh: No reverb.

Tommy: Have you ever met my friend Paul?

Josh: Ah, hi, Peter.

Tommy: One name Paul. Fly away, Peter.

Josh: Fly away, Paul. Okay, let's see. Can we, uh, Forto, can you hear us now? Can you hear us?

Ben: Yeah, I've got you.

Josh: Okay, perfect. Forto, we're about to play, uh, a grab that GB has, uh, has found.

George: Okay, okay, we've got reverb. I don't need reverb.

Josh: Uh, do you want to do the reverb thing? No, no, no, no, I don't need it. I just want to explain.

Ben: No, I can give the reverb.

Josh: Go, go, go.

George: I found— I'm in the cupboard and I found— I found a bit of audio and footage because you mentioned before about Screenplay Sunday. People that don't know, Screenplay Sunday was a spin-off podcast we did during COVID which was a lot of fun. And the second episode caused a bit of drama between Josh and Tommy. Stressful time. So here's—

Josh: this is that.

Ben: No, don't play it again.

George: For context, we just finished recording Screenplay Sunday and then we did the Daily Talk Show.

Josh: He's hitting his head. Here we go. Here is the blow-up. We had Screenplay Sunday that we recorded and I'm in a conundrum because I don't think it was a very good episode.

Tommy: Yeah, what? Hang on, hang on. Jess isn't here to defend her scriptwriting.

Josh: Well, no, I feel like you were cock-blocking me. I felt though, so you were TJ. No, so what I was thinking, what I was thinking, well, because you'd already flagged with me, you said not really feeling that great, not, you know, I'll do everything. And I said to you at the time, I'm like, uh, do you want to not do Screenplay Sunday? You're like, nah, I'll still do everything. And then when you came on Screenplay Sunday, you're like, come on everyone, let's fucking hurry up, let's go. And then we're fucking making jokes and you're like I'm the type of guy to host a party and blow up at a guest and say, fuck off.

Tommy: And that's why I'm doing it happening right now.

Josh: Yeah, that's what I'm doing right now. No, I want to get it off because I don't want that to be the standard. I don't want this to be the standard. So we can put it out, we can put the episode out, but there's complete reform in the way that we're doing the show.

Tommy: I don't think it was bad at all. I don't think it was bad at all. I've been kicked off the show. That's what's happened here, guys. Yeah.

Josh: Yeah, you're being kicked off.

Tommy: Unbelievable. The show actually got worse from there on.

Ben: Can you imagine? It's like he thinks he's Russell Crowe. It's like, guys, I just want to call a meeting on day 2 of filming Gladiator. I'm not convinced that everyone was really putting in when those tigers came out. Like, come on, give me a rest.

Josh: Well, Fordo, thank you. For all the support over the last few years. We, when we went to Sydney, when we're in Sydney, you supported us a bunch.

Ben: Oh, and I'm looking forward to seeing, and I'm looking forward to tuning into so much of the 1,000th episode tonight. I rely on it. I really do. I love having that company and that constant there of having the daily talk show. So, you know what a big fan I am, and I love the fact that you guys put in so much effort into making it work, and we all love it. And we're looking forward to the next 1,000th.

Josh: Thanks, Fordo. Can we get a "that's crazy" from you just to finish up? That's crazy! Ben Fordham. Thank you, Fordo.