T minus 20
The year is 2005... Anakin turns to the dark side, YouTube makes its debut and we’re all couch-jumping for Maria, McDreamy and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo…
T minus 20, rewind to this week in history 20 years ago with Joe and Mel.
T minus 20
The Birth of Pepe the Frog and the meme that broke the internet
🎧 Rewind to 30 October – 5 November 2005
🎃 The great pumpkin arms race
New England’s finest farmers flexed their green thumbs at the Topsfield Fair, where a 1,314-lb orange beast stole the show. People clapped. Kids squealed. Somewhere, a guy whispered “that’s a big-ass pumpkin.” Simpler times — when the heaviest thing online was a JPEG of your harvest.
🐎 Makybe Diva’s mic-drop moment
Flemington lost its mind as Makybe Diva thundered home to a third straight Melbourne Cup win. No horse had ever done it and none has since. She retired on the spot — champagne spraying, Glen Boss crying and Australia collectively declaring her the GOAT (Greatest Of All Thoroughbreds).
🐸 A Frog is born (and it feels good, man)
November 2005 saw the debut of Matt Furie’s comic Boy’s Club — and with it, the birth of Pepe the Frog. Back then, he was just a chill stoner amphibian with bad aim and good vibes. Twenty years later, he’s meme history — proof that even frogs can’t escape the internet’s chaos.
🐥 Chicken Little takes flight
Disney went fully digital for the first time without Pixar and served up Chicken Little, starring Zach Braff as the sky-is-falling featherball. It made $315 million, confused adults, delighted kids, and marked the moment Disney said “we can animate on our own!” (spoiler: not quite yet).
🎸 Ozzy goes classic rock
The Prince of Darkness released Under Cover, an entire album of ’60s and ’70s covers. Beatles, Cream, Stones — all filtered through that unmistakable Ozzy snarl. Critics called it weirdly wholesome, fans called it “dad rock for the undead.”
🎤 Wolfmother’s big, hairy debut
Australia’s retro-rock revival roared with Wolfmother’s self-titled album — part Zeppelin worship, part thunderous festival fuel. Woman and Joker & the Thief tore up Triple J, every ad and half the movie trailers for the next decade. Hair, riffs, chaos — peak 2005.
📺 MTV’s petty revenge era
Jackass alum Ryan Dunn debuted Homewrecker — a show where wronged roommates got to destroy and redecorate their enemies’ bedrooms. Think Pimp My Ride meets Mean Girls. It was cruel, hilarious and oh-so-MTV. Justice, but make it petty.
📖 The wheel keeps turning
Robert Jordan dropped Knife of Dreams, the 11th entry in his endless fantasy saga The Wheel of Time. Fans devoured the drama, complained about the endless bosom descriptions and still begged for more. Spoiler: there would indeed be more. Many more.
Hang with us on socials to chat more noughties nostalgia - Facebook (@tminus20) or Instagram (tminus20podcast). You can also contact us there if you want to be a part of the show.
Transcript is generated automatically.
The year is 2005. Anakin turns to the dark side. YouTube debuts and we couch jump for Mariah, McDreamy and a girl with a dragon tattoo. T-minus 20. Rewind 20 years with Joe and Mel.
Week of 30 October 2005. T-minus 20. Hey, what do you think this is a talk show?
T-minus 20. Icebreaker, don't judge me yet. This is bananas.
My question is, who approved that? Do you see where this is going? Not really.
Remember when YouTube was the new kid on the block or MySpace was your entire personality laid bare? And your biggest tech flex was not scratching your favourite CD. Having a pristine CD. That was a good time, wasn't it? Welcome to T-minus 20, the time machine that catapults you. Is it a time machine? Is it a catapult? Maybe it's trebuchet. Back 20 years, back 20 years, exactly. To relive the news, pop culture and delicious weirdness of 2005 with your deliciously weird hosts. Mel over there and me too. Hi Mel.
Hello. Yes, a good time. A good nostalgic time. We're rewinding to 30 October through to 5 November 2005.
We've got pumpkins the size of Volkswagens.
It's green and orange gourd weighing in a whopping 2,000, wow, 107 pounds.
That's an arms race. Good gourd indeed. The Topsfield Fair turns into horticultural warfare as farmers battle to grow pumpkins bigger than cars. I love it. I'm so excited by that.
But the Cody D. McLean with 100 metres to go. Excellent runs to 2nd. Origine runs on. But a champion becomes a legend.
A champion becomes a legend at the Melbourne Cup. Oh, it's that time of year where people start to get socially aware about the trick reports.
Are we allowed to talk about it still? Is it a thing? Do people still go? I don't even know.
I think they do. But they don't post it on the socials. No, because for fear of the repercussions.
It's very low key. You don't want to be cancelled.
Exactly.
In his infancy, Pepe was basically depicted as a stoner, saying the phrase, feels good, man. He then became a popular internet.
He did become a popular internet meme and we have to talk about Pepe the frog.
20 years. 20 year old frog. Can you believe that?
Yeah, well I can. It's been a significant amount of time but lots of things have happened since so I can believe it. as I've come to believe with a lot of these things because of the research that we do for the podcast each and every week.
I didn't realise that memes were that old. I didn't realise they'd been around that long. I remember...
Well, he was one of the first, wasn't he?
Yeah, and I don't think he like fully became a meme until a few years later, but I remember the first time I heard the word meme. It was from you, actually. You'd... You gone out for your Bucks night, and you'd taken a bunch of photos, and you were showing me through the photo album. And one of the guys at your Bucks night had pulled some unfortunate face at an unfortunate angle, and you said, oh, look at him, he looks like a meme.
Yeah, he looked like the forever alone meme.
And I was like, what is a meme? And you're like, you know, a meme. I couldn't describe it and I couldn't understand it. And it was the weirdest conversation I feel like I ever had.
The really sad thing about that is that was in 2011.
Eight years late. Yeah, eight years late.
That's right.
So it didn't look like Pepe the Frog, though. He looked like it was a different. Yeah, because then you told me what the name of the meme was and that made it even more confusing. I'm like, what is a meme? And it's just... Weird. It was like the NFT conversation.
Yeah.
It was like the 3D printing conversation. They all just, I just didn't understand.
Just esoteric over your head.
Yeah.
Give it eight years, you'll be right.
But 2005 memes are kind of just starting out because we are starting to be more social online. We've got MySpace, we've got the Facebook, we've got the YouTube.
Yeah, and we want to communicate and be funny with minimal effort.
Yes, exactly. So Peppy was one of them. I think around this time we also had, there was a Lord of the Rings one. where there was a Dutch musician and photographer, Erwin, I think his name was. And he made a video. He made some mash-up of Lord of the Rings called They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard, I don't know.
Isengard.
What's an Isengard?
Isengard, it's a city, city in Middle Earth. Yeah, Isengard.
Hobbit Land. That apparently was a really big.
Was that all the cross-eyed hobbits and stuff? Was that what that one was?
I don't understand.
Because I've seen heaps of Lord of the Rings style memes. Oh, you should get into it.
That was a big one.
It's been more than eight years, so it's probably about time you got on the bandwagon.
Yes. Look, I don't want to be an early adopter. Going back to NFTs.
Certainly no danger of that.
There's lots of people that are kicking themselves over NFTs going on. Really? Jumping on board that.
Where did that end up?
Where did that end up?
Yeah, nowhere. Nowhere. That's right.
What's the Bitcoin doing these days?
Oh, well, I think the Bitcoin's doing pretty well for the people who got onto the Bitcoin early for the early adopters. This is the risk you take.
That's why I don't want to be an early adopter.
Fair enough.
It's too dangerous.
I take your point.
And there was another one, another meme that was really big in 2005, really big in Brazil, actually.
Yeah.
It was, how do you, I think it was in another language. It was Sandwichich.
Oh, Sandwichich.
Yes. Are you familiar with Sandwichich?
No. I'm so, like, I'm just not a finger on the pulse, guy. See, the thing is, in 2005, when memes were a thing, I had access to a work computer, but I never had access really to a home computer.
We had a house computer, but.
I don't think it was yours.
I don't think it was on the internet.
No, well, I don't think we had the internet at home. We just had a computer.
We could afford the internet. Yes, that word processing.
Yeah, that's right. You do some basic word processing. You do your resume. Yeah. and put some word. WordArts in there. Yeah.
Who needs memes?
Who needs to go online? Who needs memes when you've got WordArts?
You make your own memes in WordArts.
Yeah, that's where the real creativity happens.
Oh, that rapping. I like that one on the angle. Oh, the WordArt kind of wraps around.
I was like, rapping? I know, I didn't know you could do hip hop in WordArts. I was like, what are you talking about?
I remember I went for a job in... It would have been about the year probably to 2000.
Oh, yep.
And I used WordArt on my resume and I wrote my name sideways down the side of my resume. My name, put it up there.
That's classy.
In a really cool way.
Like in a ribbon type effect.
Yeah, sideways. And yeah, like I sort of rotated it and it was blocky text. Anyway, I printed it out.
Put a drop shadow on it.
Yes.
Yeah.
I printed it out. My printer was on the fritz. I'd run out of a particular colour and it I printed out in this horrible purple. I thought, oh, it's too late now. I've got to drop it in for this job. Anyway, I got the interview and then I got the job. And I remember when I first started, I was like, oh, we were so impressed with your original graphic. With your graphic design skills. It just stood out. It was incredible because it was this horrible purple word out.
My printer had run out of magenta.
It was great.
I still don't get memes. I don't get them at all. I.
Love the concept though of there's just something and people use it as a way to communicate some sort of feeling and then it just becomes this. this cultural moment. Like I kind of like that.
I should say, no, I do get memes. I just don't get them in time. That's what I'm saying. I don't get them in time. I'm like you.
Well, I'll teach you about Peppy tonight. It doesn't.
Take me 20 years, but I just, I just, like even these days with the, what is the 6-7? Oh, yeah. And it's like, and as soon as you react to 6-7, you're like, what the is that all about?
That's how they want you to react.
Then you become part of the meme. You are, yes.
I'm cool because you don't know the reason you've asked what it is.
Why? Six, seven. What? Yeah. And then, but like now I'm trapped. It's entrapment. I don't understand. There's a hatches, matches and dispatches clue time. Maybe, is this a meme? Could you?
I'm more than happy to license it as a meme if anybody would like to share it and turn it into a cultural phenomenon.
Oh, we should talk more about that during the Peppy the Frog thing. We're just like, just laying all the cards on the table before the game's even started. Goodness me, it's a Hatches, Matches, and Dispatches clue time. That's what it's time for right now. This little game where we play a little audio snippet, a clue for the segment that's going to be happening at the end of the show just to keep you going. I mean, I don't even know if that's effective. in this day and age. That's how behind the times I am. But we're doing it anyway. It's a celebrity this week that had a birthday that said this.
It's a rare and beautiful thing, this kind of uprising. My God, that Lila. Do you see how they follow her? No. Cut the power. Keep an eye on the exits. And do nothing. They'll open the doors themselves.
It's pretty easy for, I think, a lot of people if they've been keeping up on current pop culture stuff. And I am a massive fan. We'll find out who that is at the end of the show. Over to the news, because we're getting into Halloween season. And I just kind of got sick of Iraq and There's lots of natural disasters. Yeah, hurricanes, wars, cyclones. There's been a lot.
Yeah.
And it'll all come up in the best bits at the end of the year. I don't know.
Terrorists, there's lots of terrorist stuff.
There's the best bits very loosely. So I just thought, you know, it's Halloween, tis the season for pumpkins. Pumpkins, not just any pumpkins, but over in the States, there is a huge, huge community of giant pumpkin growers. Maybe they're not that huge, but there's a few at the upper echelons of giant pumpkin growing that are quite famous. And a lot of them go to the Tops Field Fair, the Tops Field Fair in New England. So back in 2005, This is a huge showdown that happened at the Tops Field Fair. A crowd shoulder to shoulder with their kids on their shoulders, cameras all going everywhere, all to see which local pumpkin grower had made the biggest one, grown the biggest pumpkin. And the top honour for 2005 went to Jim Beauchemin of Goffstown, New Hampshire with a 1,314.8 pound monster of a pumpkin. You keep talking about the show. Yeah, get it into metric. Get it into that. But close behind him was Bill Rodonis at 1,291 pounds and Bruce Ford at 1,248.6 pounds. This is a top story. This is the days when breaking the pound mark with pumpkins made people gasp. And by 2005, the pumpkin wars had really taken off. It had became, it had grown, excuse the pun. It's quite a massive event. And lots of these fairs all across America around this kind of Thanksgiving, Halloween time would harvest and then weigh these pumpkins in competitions and big money as well. I think Topsfield Fair, I think first prize is around like $60,000.
Really.
Some of them are around 20,000. Yeah, it's a big payday for a big pumpkin.
So Jim's, that equals the 1,314 pounds is just under 600 kilograms.
It's a big pumpkin.
Over half a tonne. That's A lot. Imagine carving that for Halloween.
And really, I mean, the $60,000. I mean, how much do they charge per kilo? Pumpkins. Yeah, it is big. It's a lot of soup. It's very big. So Topsfield's particular fair and the pumpkin weigh off, I think, started in 1984. And at that stage, okay, so in 1984, the heaviest pumpkin they could get at the fair in the pumpkin competition, 433 pounds.
It's about 1/3.
That's petite. That's like a squash by today's standards. Exactly. Fun fact, just a bit of a side note. And Faith No More's Jim Martin, the guitar player. When he left Faith No More, he went off to farm pumpkins. He's a pumpkin farmer.
Yeah. Does he try to grow big ones?
I think he does. I think he likes to grow giant pumpkins as well. But I.
Don't think you can eat them. I think the giant ones, they're not very tasty.
They're not very good.
They're very bland.
A bit marrow-y, quite bland. Yes, but it's more the... it's like a lot of big things, really. They're quite hollow inside. Yeah. So over the years, this is like top field one is the Super Bowl of pumpkins as far as they're concerned. And by 2000, I think that's when they started to get the big 1000 pound pumpkins. Yeah. And I think that was by a guy, a guy by the name of Steve Connolly, who is still very famous today. I think he actually won it in 2024 and he's broken records a few times. In 2000, In 2007, there was one that was 1,689 pounds. That was the record. In 2012, there was a 2,009 pound pumpkin. So obviously, yeah, so that's over a tonne. That's like, that weighs as much as a ute. Yeah. And so they, once they sort of got onto it, these horticulturally minded guys, they started to really, really work on their techniques and things like that.
I wonder what they do. Yeah. Like are they using special?
Fertiliser, working out the timing of the plant, the actual soil, you know, the location, all of these things.
The pH of the soil.
All of these things. There is a real science to it. And they're just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And if you go to 2025?
The 2025 all New England giant pumpkin weigh off was one for the books.
Alex Noel from Abington, Connecticut smashed the Topsfield fair record. Take a look. His green and orange gourd weighing him at a whopping 2,507 pounds. Noel broke the previous record. It was 2,400 pounds, 2,480 pounds. That was set back in 2022. This is Noel's third time winning the contest. And according to the Globe, this win was different from others because he and his wife just welcomed their first child the day before the weigh-in. This winning pumpkin will be on display until next Monday.
Yeah, so his wife's preggers about to have the baby. And he's too busy looking after the pumpkin still makes it to the weigh-in.
Wow.
And good because he probably won about 60 grand. Well, no, his child was born the day before the weigh-in.
So he would probably preparing it all.
No, well, there was shots of him there and he had his big pumpkin. He had a photo of his wife and a photo of the baby there and collected his big cheque. It was great. I have to tell you, I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole with these giant pumpkins today while I was doing this research.
You've been inspired, have you?
It's fascinating. And the people that do it are quite fascinating as well.
I can imagine.
Yeah. And you know, it's in and when you see their pumpkins out in their in the wild in their pumpkin patches, I mean, you know, just the security that they put around the pumpkin. I'm telling you, like, you know.
Well, it sounds like it's very competitive. You wouldn't, yeah, there could be a little bit of, you know, tampering and tinkering going on if you don't.
Have tampering behind the scenes. Exactly.
Well, some performance in. dancing pumpkin fertilizer? Like, do they have to drug test the pumpkins?
How do they test the gourd to find out if it's been... They do stuff like the night before.
Yeah, they're adding to it.
Yeah, but these people, these men with these pumpkins, they treat them like they're babies. They nurture them. So, you know, 433 pounds in 1984, and then you've got 2,500 pounds in 2025.
There's something going on. Doping. doping.
I just think it's like, it's like records, like how, what's going to happen?
Where will it end?
We're going to end up with pumpkins the size of planetoids. I mean, that was kind of a sport as well, pumpkin growing. I don't know. Oh, very competitive. Official sport, but I mean, yes.
You need to be fit to kind of move them around as well. How would you transport this?
Forklifts, they use forklifts and trucks. We keep doing this. We keep trying to move on to the next segment and dragging ourselves back to the other one because we have questions because we're naturally curious. Let's get curious about the Melbourne Cup. That's what was happening on the 1st of November 2005 at Flebington Racecourse.
Got the Cody D to clear with 100 metres to go. Excellent runs to 2nd. Champion becomes a legend. But Katie Debra's won it from either on a turn. Excellent. Like a falconer's place up and just behind those horses then was Lachlan River.
Lachlan River. He's that's a horse. Oh, yeah.
Oh, there's a place.
No, it's well, maybe it is. But November 1st, McKibie Diva winning the Melbourne Cup. That was her third Melbourne Cup victory.
This is when we still watched it at work. I remember watching this one at work. Yeah, you don't watch it at work now because if someone suggests that, you know, they get judged.
Yeah, the woke brigade come after you. can't be, you can't be. watching people be cruel to horses.
I did watch this one at work, and we had a sweep.
Yeah, you used to have the work sweep. I'd never get people to wear hats and fascinators and whatnot, and all of a sudden, about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, people would start popping champagne in the staff room. Just one or two.
All the TVs would be put on the cup.
It was literally the race that stopped the nation. That's right. Yes.
Gosh, things have changed, haven't they?
They really have. And I don't know if it's for the better, if I'm being honest.
Oh, you miss it. You miss the Melbourne Cup. I don't, because I always used to buy, I must have a big head. And I'd always, I didn't like the hats. I'd always get a fancy headband. But every time it would just cut the circulation off my head. It's so uncomfortable.
Well, you could pass out.
I hated milk for that reason, because, yeah.
We don't have to go to the function. No, but that was.
Just at work, because you'd have to wear a fancy thing on your head for work. And it would just always hurt.
Well, and then there's also the local race days. Like some people go all out and they'll have the day off. They'll basically wag the afternoon.
Yeah, because they do it at the. Yeah, so they'll have a local race. And they watch the Melbourne Cup on TV. This is part of the race course, but not the Melbourne Cup race course.
No, that's right. Well, they're just, they just, they just want to get on the punt. And so they do. And it's always, I love the social pages. Or even just, I mean, the telegraph.
Old fashions in the field.
Yeah, and the telegraph used to be great where you'd see, it got to the stage, I think, once social media kind of took over.
Oh, and they started riding the wheelie bins.
It was less about the horses. more about the photos of people dressed up to the nines and the before and after shots, like the beginning of the day versus the end of the day. Just people generally behaving quite badly. Drunk ladies carrying their shoes. Yes. Men with their shirts half off.
Carrying their shoes is the least of your worries. That's probably the most tame.
Yes, You know, people with their skirts up over their heads passed out on the grass.
Yeah, people doing bush wees.
Yes, bush wees, of course. And just I mean, really the sport of kings, it really is. It's very classy. He's incredibly classy and it just really brings out the best in people.
It does, yes.
It brings out the best in people. It brings out the best in animals as well, and particularly Makaibi Diva for a third time.
The third one, yes.
Yeah, with a headicap, she had 58 kilos of extra weight that she had to carry. And they just thought it'd be too much for her. But guess what? No, it was not. So she packed a little bit of weight. Well, they do handicap horses based on, I think, the weight that they make. Like they obviously have to be a certain weight to run and they will add weight to them to bring them up to the weight, I believe. I'm not a horse racing aficionado. I'm more of a people watcher when it comes to horse racing, I have to say. But yeah, so we had Glenn Boss in the saddle. Cool as he like. Gates open. She sits way back early. Classic McIvy Diba, very patient, very calculated. Comes around the turn, the familiar burst, the crowd rises. Boss asks, she delivers, and just like that, she's home. Untouchable she was. Boss throws his fist in the air, the stands erupt. And then Lee Friedman comes in and says, yeah, we're going to retire her now. That's enough. That's enough. She's done 3, undefeated at the top. That would be like Tom Brady retiring after he won the Super Bowl, which is what I think he did when he played for the Buck. Anyway, that's what it's like. go out on a high and that's what they did. First and only horse to win three Melbourne Cups for Kybie Diva.
How much do you win for the Melbourne Cup? It's a lot, isn't it?
Yeah. I don't know. I'm not entirely sure how much you win. Born in England, the horse was named after an owner's first five employers or employees. First 5 employees. So Ma, Kybie, Diva. I don't know.
Is that like their initials or the letters of their names?
And there's a statue of her at Flemington now. Is there? Yep, they got a statue out there of it.
That's nice.
Yeah. People saying, could there be another diva? And the answer apparently is no at this stage. But you never know. I mean, what was Black Caviar? That was a popular horse.
I remember one called, well, there's one called Media Puzzle.
Media Puzzle was a popular horse, that one in Melbourne Cup as well.
There's one called Kiwi, that one in the 80s or the 90s.
I remember that one at school. Pick them based on.
Because I had a friend, they weren't my friend. I had someone that I knew when they had some sort of ties to New Zealand, and so they wanted Kiwi.
Right.
School sweep. Could you do it at school? Do they watch it at school?
I don't know if it's a school thing anymore. I think it is because, again, we can't have nice things anymore. Well, we get to start them early with their gambling and stuff. I mean, they've got the microtransactions and stuff in video games these days anyway, you know.
I wonder if they play it at school, would they have to do one of those gambling, those gambling ones?
Gamble responsibly. Yeah, How much are you really standing to lose?
How much you win? You lose more than you win.
You lose more than you win.
Before they play the Melbourne Cup.
Chances are you're about Yes. I mean, we all learnt that in school the hard way, one way or another anyway.
All right, meme time.
Okay then.
November 2005 is when we have the birth of 1 Peppy the Frog. I don't remember this at the time. And I said Peppy the Frog out loud, and I was like, I wonder what Peppy looks like. And then our son just went fossicking in my what do you meme game and found Peppy straight away. And I was like, oh, that's.
Yes.
In his infancy, Pepe was basically depicted as a stoner, saying the phrase, feels good, man. He then became a popular internet meme, even shared by celebrities. According to CNN, Pepe the Frog was one of the biggest memes on Tumblr in 2015. But like some kids do when they grow up, Pepe fell in with the wrong crowd. Commenters on bigoted, racist, and anti-Semitic threads in online forums like 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit transformed Pepe. He went from teenage stoner frog to various symbols of hate, including Hitler and a Ku Klux Klan member. But not all Pepe memes are hateful. The ADL said it's important to examine use of the meme only in context. For Newsy, I'm Lauren Stevenson.
Thank you, Lauren. And what a lovely new sting you have at the end of your little segment. That was good. Yeah, so I mean, things ended badly for Peppy, but in 2005, things are still quite innocent for.
Peppy, the frog. Well, that's when he started. So he was designed by a cartoonist called Matt Fury.
Yes.
And he was a frog, but he had a person's body, frog head on person's body.
That's right.
And he originated in the web comic called Boys Club.
Yes.
And the first edition which came out in November 2005.
Yeah, so still very innocent.
Well, kind of. I mean, he was a frog with a human body wearing a blue shirt. And he's in the 1st edition and he was actually doing a wee. He was doing a wee. He had his, he still had his pants on. They were just pulled down. And he was doing a wee. And one of his roommates was like, because he'd left the door open while he was doing a wee. And one of his friends says to him, why did you keep your pants on and just lower them while you're doing your wee? Probably didn't use that many words. Probably just said, what are you doing? But you know, I had to paint the picture. And Pepe just, that's when And Pepe turned around was like, feels good, man. And so then, stone a frog who just, casually doing away with his pants on.
Yes. And that's all fine. Perfectly innocent. Just a frog taking a ****.
Yeah.
But then, you know, 2008 to 2010, we've got MySpace, we've got 4chan, we've got Reddit, we've got all those really, if you're not savvy, if you're not savvy on the internet, if you don't get memes, you don't want to be hanging around those places because they're going to eat you alive. Yes. And that's where Peppy fell in with the wrong crowd, like they said in the story.
Yeah, so they turned him into there was sad Peppy, smug Peppy, angry Peppy. And then it became like obviously really popular and still nothing too bad. But we get to 2015 and he's one of the most popular memes on 4chan and Tumblr.
Yeah.
And then things get... a little bit dicey. So then he becomes associated with the alt-right movement and some of the variations of the peppy meme aligned with Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists. So not so great for Peppy. And I think he was also linked to Trump's campaign in 2016 somehow.
Yeah. Do you know what? I was like, oh, we've been dealing with Trump since 2016.
Yeah, I was like, oh, wow.
That's...
Can't believe it's been, yes, 2016.
Wow. Yeah.
And he was even classified. So he got an official classification as a hate symbol by the anti-defamation, the ADL.
Yeah, the ADL were the ones who were like, but they do say that context means everything. But I think they had, you know how they have Free Comic Book Day? So the guy that invented him, Fury, he came out in 2017 on Free Comic Book Day. And he's like, Pepe's dead. We killed him. He's not Peppy, he's dead, he is, he cannot, and because of the fact that he was being used as a hatred. I've created this character.
Innocent frog taking a **** and look what you've done.
And you've taken him.
Look what you've done.
And you've turned him into.
You've taken the ****.
You've turned him into a war criminal, effectively. You've turned him into Hitler, which is just, I mean, he's.
Just doing away, being chill. with his pants on.
And it is, it is the blueprint for why we as a society can't have nice things. Exactly. Because there is always going to be some kind of fringe dwelling, whether it be left or right, doesn't matter, movement, that is going to take something nice and wholesome that a lot of people love and enjoy and just f*** with it and ruin it for everyone. And then we can't have, and then it's gone, it's over.
If you are interested in Peppy, though, there was the documentary came out five years ago called Feels Good Man. And it actually went into the detail of his creation, his memeification and the fight to actually save his character. And it reframed it into a case study on how internet culture can spiral beyond the creator's control, because he did obviously lose control of.
He's almost like the Jesus Christ of the meme world. Like, you know, he's like loved by everyone and it was like the philosophy behind it that feels good, man. It was all okay. It was all great. And then somewhere, somehow everything got lost in communication and they killed him.
But even after that came out, I think a lot of online communities, particularly artists and meme fans, worked to reclaim his wholesome roots. They wanted him back in wholesome pepper.
I mean, it's too late. As soon as you chuck a schwa sticker on something, there's no coming back. Although, I mean, Volkswagen. Boombox is brought to you by two irrelevant X-radio people that clearly don't understand how memes work. Bunch of has-beens. Six, 7? Sure. It's, don't open up the boom box. This is, this whole, I feel like a lot of this episode has been a bit of a boom anyway. But this is where you can drop your boomer complaints. You can come in via our DMs with your booms if you like. You can send them over to T-minus 20 podcast on any of the social platforms, really. Whatever messenger service suits you, we should be able to figure it out. You can even send an audio one. The best way to do it though is an audio one via Instagram, I think.
Yeah, because then you get to be on the show, your voice.
Yeah, you're on the wireless.
Do your boom for yourself instead of us reenacting your boom and reenacting it poorly.
Yes.
It can be done in your own voice with the passion behind it.
Yes.
And the emotion that goes with it.
That it was originally intended. Yes.
Not our poor interpretation thereof. And somebody has done that.
What?
In our DMs. It's interesting, we've got three because it took three ghosts to figure out how to... It's one that goes for one second.
Yeah, that doesn't work yet.
Okay. And then there's one that goes for three seconds.
Oh, dear.
There was a breath.
That's all right. They're just figuring they're finding their way through it.
Third time's the charm.
Okay. Just hang on. So just this is a safe place. So there's no there's no judgment here, which is why I just don't want to, you know, take the **** because they've made a couple of attempts.
Oh, I wouldn't even know how to send one myself.
Exactly. Well, yes, we've been through this as well, haven't we? It was awful. Anyway, so.
Someone, yes, someone run.
Third time's a charm.
Third time's a charm. Are we ready?
Yes.
I don't even know how to play it, actually.
Oh, God.
Oh, that's my alarm.
That's your alarm.
Okay.
There's one already. Okay. Okay. Yep.
Hey, Joe and Mel. Karen from Queanbeyan here. Hey, Karen! I just try to give you a boom. This time I think I've got the voice thing working, so that's exciting. My boom is... Why can't people just walk on the left hand side and they're walking on a path? It's not hard to stick to the left, just like you do in the car. Simple process. Anyway, love the show. Love you too. That's my boom.
Oh, I love you too, Karen.
She's so nice.
She's incredible.
She's so nice.
So true. Keep left.
Yes.
How hard is it?
Absolutely.
I could even get around the slow walkers. I could deal with people that walk slowly through the shopping centre if they kept left. Easy to overtake. I hate, you know what I mean.
Yeah, what?
When you'd go up the stairs or down the stairs.
Oh, the escalators.
No, just the normal stairs, the walking stairs. And people don't keep left on the stairs. And they're going super slow on the stairs.
Yeah.
And you're using the stairs because you want to be quick.
Yeah. And if you're quick, because you can hold on to the rail if you keep left and you're a bit slow, that's all right. If you're quick, you can just kind of dart around them. Feel a bit sure of yourself in your balance.
Three, two or three abreast and you can't even get around them.
Yeah, that is annoying. You know though, the whole keep left thing. Remember we went to America and for the first two days I was not having a good time.
You kept talking.
What the hell's going on here? Why do people keep running into me? This place sucks. I want to go home. And it turns, it's, they drive on the opposite side of the road and it's the same with the footpaths as well. They keep right. So good one. Yeah, not very smart of me, but Karen, I mean, she's so nice, Karen. I think she just did that because she feels bad about us and she's, because she's such a nice person, she always thinks of the best in people. It's like, oh, why don't people keep left? I mean, even that is so nice.
She's thinking of people like us. Music. Let's start with #1 here in Australia.
I ain't singing she a gold, but she ain't messing with no broke, broke. I ain't singing she a gold, but she ain't messing with no broke, broke. Get down, girl, go ahead, get down. Get down, girl, go ahead, get down. Get down, girl, go ahead, get down.
Kanye, number one. He was number one last week as well, wasn't he?
Yes.
Yeah.
I heard them playing, they were playing him at the work cafe the other day. They were playing that song. I was like, oh, that's nice.
I thought he'd gone the way of Pepe the Frog.
I think 2005 Kanye, it's still okay. Yeah, very similar trajectories.
Okay.
Let's go to the US top five.
And you keep on playing games like you know I'm here to stay Shake it, shake it You love my lady love My hump, my hump, my hump, my Homestay got you She's got me spilling different Look at this photograph Every time I do it makes me laugh How did our eyes get so wet? If the man stay on the floor If he ain't ready, let me know Let me see if you can run it, run it I ain't saying she a gold digger, but she ain't messing with no broke. Get down, girl, go ahead, get down.
There he is again.
Yeah. Number one over there as well. Number 2, Chris Brown, probably another song they won't be playing anymore. Number 3, photograph. #4 my humps, #5, shake it off, Mariah.
Exactly the same as last week.
What was the Mariah Pitbull thing? What was that?
Oh, I think.
What happened there?
She played at some music festival. I think Pitbull upstaged her. I think people just went crazy for Pitbull.
For Pitbull.
Yeah. Just back on the whole subject of the charts, I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here.
Oh, yes.
Because I believe, I believe that music in this day and age is just under attack from all angles. Yes. To the point where, week in, week out, you painstakingly are putting together the show preparation and all that sort of stuff. You go to the Billboard website, there's the source, you know, from a historical point of view.
And it's very hard to use the calendar, I might add, because the pop-up ads pop up and then I'm actually buying something and then I've got to click out of that and then I've got to go into the calendar. And you can't just pick the year. You've got to scroll back. So to get back 20 years, there's a few clicks involved.
Right.
And if I press the wrong one, I've got to start over.
Yeah.
It's a very delicate little thing to do. And then you finally get there and you click on the week and up pops the top five, usually.
Yeah.
But not this week.
No, because it's now behind a paywall.
You've got to pay to see the charts.
From 20 years ago. Why would you have to pay to see it? Billboard. To see what you're doing. Music. Music is under attack from all sides, you look at music, you're looking at all your streaming platforms and you see those big megastars, your Tay-Tays and your Dua Lipas and your Metallicas and all of that sort of stuff. billionaires. But that's not the reality for most people that do music. Most people that do music are under attack. They're sleeping rough. You know, they're struggling to make ends meet just so that they can do what they love and give you something that hopefully you love.
To create their art. Yes, and now we've got to pay to create our art. You know how much it is.
No.
$15 US a month.
Did you look at the f*cking top five from 20 years ago?
It's all right. It's all right. We've got the way back machine. Don't tell Billboards.
Oh, don't. See, they're going to...
No, you can't. You can't tinker with the way back machine.
Nostalgia is under attack.
The way back machine is the way to do it. Otherwise, look, if that ends up behind a paywall, we're not going to have, robot guy is going to be out of a job and we're just going to have the number one song from the Billboard because that's on the Wikipedia.
I know it's music and it's the charts, but like you can't put history behind a paywall.
I know. Well, see, this is the thing. Maybe, there's a market for World Book and Britannica to come back and print those for us.
Oh, we just have like an almanac. That's what we need to do. We need to, somewhere, if somebody's got an almanac of like the top five from the last 20 years, steer us in the right direction until that.
We could go out to buy. Maybe we'll have to start going to the library.
It's just outrageous. Who stands to profit from, aside from Billboards? Billboards. Well, yes. I mean, how relevant are the charts now? Anyway, I mean, there are Billboard are probably under attack from the streaming platforms as well.
I did find the ringtone charts.
Maybe my criticism towards Billboard is a little bit mispired.
Maybe they're losing money. I did find the ringtone charts. They're still free. So maybe that's what we'll do. If the Wayback Machine gets blocked, we'll do the ringtone charts.
I mean, I just like the first thing that we turn to in times of crisis and Desperation is music and art to make ourselves feel better, and it's just like I can't even.
I know, put that behind. It's alright, we can still, we can still, the U.K. one's still free. They had a new number one this week. good, the Arctic Monkeys.
I feel like if music is under attack, the Arctic Monkeys were trying to kind of save it. I quite like them. And I quite like that song.
That was their debut single.
Yeah.
From Sheffield. They'd built a cult following before that, though. They were handing out free demos at gigs and spreading and sharing songs online with... much like Peppy, in early fan forums and a lot of file sharing sites. And they became a bit viral in the early 2000s. So they actually blew up on the internet first and then I think got signed. after that and then released this single.
And maybe they like scared the **** out of Billboard and they're like, there's going to come a time when things like this are going to continue to happen and we're going to have to put all of our stuff behind paywalls. You know, because like the undergrad, and I guess that's the other thing with art and music after my rant, like it kind of finds a way. And at that time in 2005, I think the Arctic Monkeys really found a way.
Well, handing out demos, yeah, that was very different to what the record labels were doing at the time. And if you weren't on a label, it was pretty tricky and pretty tough. They started doing that before things like MySpace really started that whole sharing of music.
Yeah.
So they're very ahead of the game. And that then ended up getting them a label because they had all that interest online and then were signed.
Yeah, and I think hopefully for them, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I'm not a huge fan of this. It's not like I read everything up on the Arctic Monkeys. I just like some of those songs. But hopefully when it did come time to get that deal, they would have had a lot more leverage, you know, because of the clout that they had built grinding it out by handing out demos and stuff. Straight to #1. Hustle, really.
We had a debut album here in Australia. This band absolutely huge back in 2005.
It's like I left my Led Zeppelin record at the back of the fridge and it grew some kind of fungus on it and I just went out of date.
I do remember you having views on, and this was huge in Australia, particularly with the sort of younger... millennial crowd.
So I think, they exploded onto the scene.
The generation below us thought it was so original. Yeah. And because, I mean, in the charts at this stage, it was different.
Well, that's like you had bands like Jet and stuff as well that were really popular in Australia.
I do remember you had Jet at the time.
Again, it's just derivative. It's been done.
But I don't think people quite realised. No, not the use at the time.
And look, you know, this is again, you know, I'm just booming away here. I'm being a, I'm a horrible person. So, but like they did, they exploded when I, and it wasn't that it was original sounding, it was just like you're saying, it was different. It was original for the time.
Yeah, because I think we're starting to see a lot of, well, there was obviously a lot of hip hop, there was a lot of emo, and then there was like just your typical rock. This had a very different sound to what else was charting at the time.
But also, again, this is like a young band, right? So they came onto the scene, I think, fairly quickly. And when they put their EP out, like that's only a year before.
But they did it independently, though. That's what I mean. They were digging a lot around Sydney at small venues. And people were really enjoying their live performances. So Andrew Stockdale, Chris Ross, Miles Heskett.
Yes.
He's Wolf Mother. And they released the independent EP. And I think where they really did start to take off was when they started getting airplay on Triple.
J. Yeah, of course. But that's what I mean. But the passage of time for that hype, like hype built really quickly, then the label comes a knock in and they start doing really big shows. They get lots of money, I think they get a lot of money up front. And I don't think that they were prepared at all for the success. And they certainly, especially, I think maybe Andrew Stockdale, and I'm dancing around it a bit because I'm not clear on all of it, but I just feel like Wolfmother were a little bit ill-equipped and they probably weren't mentored in some kind of way to survive that initial groundswell. of hype and, when the, because they took off, they took off real quick. And then, because you had, okay, so that song, Mind's Eye, was probably one of the earliest songs off there. That was one that got a lot of triple J airplay, but probably wasn't the bigger hit. Obviously, you had Woman, which was the breakout single that got them to the Grammys in 2007 for best hard rock performance. Then Joker and the Thief comes out and that gets put on the ******* movie soundtrack.
It's on the Hangover as well.
Was on a hangover. So like, this is serious, serious hype here.
Yeah.
And it just, they just went berserk very, very quickly.
The album was five times platinum here in Australia. I think it was released a little bit later in America, hence why it was appearing on movies that were a little bit later than 2005.
Yeah.
And then they took off overseas as well. But yeah, there was a lot of discussion around it being the the best album Led Zeppelin never made. They were festival regulars as well. Obviously, big day out over here, but Coachella, Glastonbury even. Massive.
Yeah, but they just, you know, like I said, and that's the other thing too. So not only are they ill-equipped to cope with the success, but then they are workhorses. Like, regardless of what you think of the music, they get worked pretty hard. So I think we fast forward to 2008 and things are getting pretty tense with them. I think they played like Splendour in the Grass in August that year and people were like, I think they're going to break up.
Yes, they were looking a bit uncommunicative, I think was the words that we used.
And indeed, I think that's exactly what happened. They did split up.
There was rumours and I think a couple of days later in response to the rumours, their manager did release a statement saying that they had split up. I think Ross had left the band straight after Splendor in the Grass due to irreconcilable personal and musical differences.
Yeah, then I think it was like Heskets like, well, if he's going, I'm out too.
I'm not staying with this guy.
And that was it. So all that's left is like Andrew Stockhard.
Well, he kept it though. He kept, he kept the band Wolf Mother. And then sort of revolve. It was like a revolving door project. He started to play.
With a bunch of session musics.
Yeah, he just rotated people in and out. I can't recall anyone.
Yeah, and well, I don't know. There's a lot of rumours about him being hard to get on with, none of which I know are validated or true. I know that he did some stuff recently and by all accounts it was pretty great.
Yeah, I think they were touring, weren't they?
Yeah. One of the one of my favourite Mike Patton moments that you will see on the internet that really went viral was when he was backstage in an interview while Wolf Mother were obviously playing on the main stage at a music festival.
There's always stuff to do. You don't need to look very far. And these are all things that really I've been wanting to do for five years. So in a strange way. Are you hearing this? What year are we in? Forgive me, but Wolf Mother, you suck. Help me. Am I crazy? Can I get an amen? Oh my God. Enough already. Are people that stupid? I guess they are.
Yeah, wow. That actually did.
That's hard.
Look, it didn't end up reflecting very well on Mike Patton either at that moment, I don't think. No, because it kind of shows a fair bit of bigotry.
Nasty.
Yeah, I mean, they're all kind of trying to eke out the same existence, you know. Yeah, it is funny. And I mean, I kind of get where he's coming from.
I hate them. I didn't hate them because it was something a little bit different at the time. And I just, I loved the hype. I loved, and I similarly with Jet as well, like I quite liked Jet. And again, yeah, they were a bit derivative, but.
I'm indifferent to it. Even if I don't like it, if it gets, if that gets somebody else into rock and roll and it gets them into music and it gets them listening to a whole different array of music, great, like fine. I don't, it's, I don't care either way. And like, why would anyone who attempts to start a band and try and make money from it and turn it into something that you can make a living for while creating enjoyment for other people? I mean, I think it's a really honourable and quite stupid pursuit because it's not very profitable. Like I said, music's under attack. So, you know, and this is a thing, you can sit there and you can ***** about it. And this is, this is what happens too sometimes in scenes where like, you know, bands are ******** about about each other and stuff like that. And it's like, you're actually not kind of, you're not doing yourselves any favours. And I get it because it's competitive. So when somebody is successful and it's not your cup of tea and it's not something, and maybe they don't have the same amount of proficiency or skill as you do, like how ****** were people when Nirvana became famous because they just, yet I would argue that technically like the songwriting is just beyond the pale. It's like genius stuff. But you know what I mean.
Hashtag community over competition, everybody. Come on. Let's rise each other up.
Let's go to one of the nice guys, one of the nice guys of rock and roll, even though people would call him a madman. We had an album release back in 2005. Ozzy Osbourne released Undercover, which was his 9th studio album on the 1st of November. And this was just Ozzy doing covers, exactly like it says on the tin, mainly from songs from the 60s and the 70s that he liked. It was a very self-indic project for Ozzie. And I think it was going to be tied into the Prince of Darkness box set, which I've got, which had a lot of the covers first appearing on there, but they ended up doing it as a whole album, I believe. And he had Mark Hudson producing it. And then Ozzie was doing songs like from, you know, Cream and the Rolling Stones. He did Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh. He did Mississippi Queen by Mountain, 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson. He did sympathy for the devil. It wasn't a great version of it. And I bet it was his own interpretation. And like I said, I think it was a very self-indulgent project for him. But he loved above everything with music. He loved the Beatles. Like he has a quote. The first he said that the first time he saw he heard the Beatles. was like his world went from black and white to color. He just has such a great way of describing things. So he does a really nice cover of In My Life by the Beatles.
In my life, I love you more.
Just like in that short little bit where you just hear him sing that sort of Beatles sounding song and you can hear the influence that they have had on him in his voice even though you kind of his music is very different to the Beatles. Yeah, but it was just a nice little album for Aussie. I wasn't super excited by it because it wasn't new music from Ozzy Osbourne, but there were some nice covers on that. And it was also a lot more laid back to what we're used to with Ozzy. But yeah, it's really hard actually not to feel a bit sad when you're seeing the end of In My Life there.
Over to the movies for this week, 30th of October. number one at the US box office, a little animated film by the name of Chicken Little.
He saw the signs. He tried to warn us. Now, in our darkest hour, Katie's got a plan to save us all.
Run.
When it comes to saving the world, it helps to be a little chicken.
I love this movie, but I only like I love the chicken little story. Even as a kid, I love the story with the acorn and the acorn, not acorn, not like.
The complete opposite of the dad that calls acorn acorn and you've called an acorn acorn. I love this.
There's a chicken just sitting out in the field and under a tree and acorn fell on his bed and started singing. Oh, an acorn. I just, it's the sky is falling on my head and it just, it's just, that story is so transcendent of just, is that the word I'm looking for? I don't even know. I called the acorn an acorn. That's, that, I've lost my mind. That story is just, So it's one of the most relevant fairy tales of all time because, this thing happens and this person is hysterical and the groundswell of asteria. And that's their truth and they share their truth with everybody and everyone comes on the right. Everyone's like, well, it must be the truth. And it's like, nobody's like, maybe that's fake news. You know, it's just like, yeah, nobody fact checks Chicken Little. And as a consequence, without that fact checking, and Chicken Little just manages to create an international incident, pretty much. Just from one little acorn that... See, I did it again. Why can I not say acorn?
Zach Braff was Chicken Little. What was he from? Was he the Scrubs guy? Was he in Scrubs?
Zach Braff. Yes, he was. Sorry.
Yeah, that guy. What else was he in? He was in lots of things, wasn't he?
Zach Braff. Oh, he was in... Is it Garden, not Garden State? Is that the movie?
We did love him in Orange County.
I don't know.
He was popular.
I think it was Garden State was the movie I was thinking of.
Joan Cusack.
Yes, she's great. I love her voice. Steve Zahn is hilarious too as a comedian. He was the runt of the litter. Yes.
Dan Molina was the fish out of water.
Gary Marshall was buck cluck. But the big one, Don Knotts, the great comedian Don Knotts as Mayor Turkey Lurkey. I mean, what? You know. It was such a good movie. It was really fun. 150 million it cost them to make. And this was Disney doing animation without Pixar.
It was the first. Yeah, it was their first animation without them. So that was quite a big deal.
Yeah, but they made $315 million.
And the merchandising that went along with it, the Happy Meals and all the toys. I remember I was working on the kids TV show at this stage and we would, we had, we did a big thing with it because we used to get all the movie previews. We had to go to the cinema and we filmed something next to a Chicken Little cutout. I think I had to pretend to talk to him.
It's one of my favorite Disney movies. It sort of reminds me that just slightly without of all of the political incorrectness of the old Warner Brothers cartoons a little bit as well. It's kind of got that vibe. But I adored it. I thought it was really fun. Over in Australia, we were still watching Doom.
Yes.
With the rock and the space zombies.
The computer game.
Karl Urban and that. Karl Urban was good, but the rest of that movie, terrible. We already spoke about that. And then we had a TV. This was the time where MTV were just throwing as much **** at the wall as they could and seeing what sticks.
In reality.
And that was kind of appropriate because I'm sure this other guy was probably throwing **** at the wall just for fun. It was Ryan Dunn, one of the guys from *******. He had a show Homewrecker. which came out, when was that?
On the 30th of October 2005. And it was kind of a hybrid of the reality stuff, the prank stuff, and a little bit of extreme home makeover, but for revenge.
Yeah.
So each episode featured someone who'd been wronged by a friend or roommate. They could have been, somebody cheated on, drank my milk.
Like I had my milk in the fridge.
They trashed, they borrowed something, scratched their CD, you know, little things, somebody at the time build up.
Somebody took my Led Zeppelin record out of the back of the fridge and I know it was out of date, but you played it and it turned into Wolf Mother. Yeah.
Breathing too loud?
Yeah, exactly.
Playing acorn too much over and over again.
That's exactly right. Can't say acorn.
So the friend then gets a chance to get even by completely redecorating the offender's bedroom in the most hideous or humiliating way possible, hosted by Ryan Dunn.
Yeah.
Some examples. We had a fitness junkies room that got turned into a fast food graveyard, a neat freak space covered in filth and chaos. Could you imagine?
That's terrible.
And A selfish obsessed roommate's walls plastered with unflattering photos of them.
That's not very nice. I don't like that. If somebody came into my personal space and altered it, I would be... Extraordinarily.
I could imagine.
Yes.
I can imagine.
I would go all Chicken Little on them. Completely hysterical.
That's how I feel with the Tupperware cupboard. I would bring down that up and then you.
I would bring down the sky.
You containers away and you ruin the whole thing.
See, that's you're being Chicken Little.
I think I need to.
You are being Chicken Little when you talk about the Tupperware cupboard, actually, and I don't want to fight it.
Can you please come over and sort this out?
I don't want to fight in front of the kids.
You have a problem.
Okay, sure.
They thought. MTV thought it was going to be great. This is, everyone will love this, you know, everyone loves Jack ******* people like Punks.
Yeah, and this is just, you know, Viva La Bam was on at the time as well.
Oh, gosh. So this is just going to be a winner for us. But I think the audience were a bit confused. I don't think they tried.
To do it too much. They tried too hard.
What is this?
And I kind of liked, I have to say, I liked Ryan Dunn as a personality.
Is he the short one with the beard?
Yeah, he's always, he was still alive. He's the one that passed away. He did the drink driving accident before he crashed the car. Yes. Yikes. Yeah, no, like it's fine. You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes, unfortunately. It's very, like- That is sad. It was sad, of course it was sad, but I mean, you know, it would have been a lot sadder if he had killed a bunch of people as a drunk driver too. So anyway, that show was a total fail.
Yes. And I don't think they've ever kind of... You know how they've re-released a lot of the early reality stuff now 'cause nostalgia. That's one that is really hard to find. I think there's a few clips up on YouTube here and there, but it's not one that they've re-released.
I know, right?
When their roommate announced... By Homewreckers, their nine show, Dieselrichtige Aufreut. The Rafa is delicious, Rubin. By MTV Homewreckers.
I can only find a promo from MTV Germany. It's the only artifact that I could find.
It sounds so much more aggressive.
It really did. It's a pretty aggressive show anyway, and that's what I mean.
MTV is more interesting in German.
My goodness, we've got a book that we didn't read. Oh, I do know this author's name though, and I've seen in the sci-fi fantasy section, I've seen his name on the shelves with some books and very fantastic.
Are you familiar with the work of him?
He just has a very strong name too. Robert Jordan. that's a strong name. Is it? Yes. And what's this book called?
It's called Knife of Dreams. It's book 11 in the Wheel of Time series. I think we've spoken about it.
Yeah, that's the Wheel of Time series. Somebody said, like, I feel like actually this might be up my alley. This might be something that I'd enjoy. You know, sci-fi, fantasy type stuff.
Maybe.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah, well it is that dark sci-fi fantasy stuff.
Give us a synopsis, see if you're interested.
Okay, the dead are walking, men die impossible deaths and it seems as though reality itself has become unstable. All are signs of the imminence of Tarmon Gaidon, the last battle when Rand Al Thor, the dragon, reborn. Oh, I don't know, actually.
It's a dragon.
I don't mind. It's just a name. You just got to keep up with all the names. Must confront the Dark One as humanity's only hope. But Rand... I'm not sure I can keep this up. But Red dares not fight until he possesses all the surviving seals on the Dark One's prison and has dealt with, oh, it's not those seals, sorry, and has dealt with the Sean Chan who threatened to, the Sean Chan. The Sean Chan. The Sean who threatened to overrun all nations this side of the Arith Ocean and increasingly seem too entrenched to be fought off. But his attempt, but his attempt to make a truce with the Sean Chan.
It just screams, it's just like a group of Sean's running around, like Sean from Five.
Yes, exactly.
Running around making mischief.
Or a dedicated TV now. Tonight on Sean Chan. James Bond, 007. Yes, it's Sean Connery in, I don't know, one of the ones that he's in, followed by... Do you know what I mean? Yes. You know what I mean?
Yes, the Sean Channel.
All the famous Seans. And coming up next, it's Sean Aston in Goonies, exactly. Shadowed by treachery that may cost him everything, whatever the price, though he must have that truce, and he faces other dangers. The winds of time have become a storm and things are, God, that music's just getting a bit much and everyone believes that the believers are fixed. No, the winds of time have become a storm and things that everyone believes are fixed in place forever are changing before their eyes. What? Even the White Tower itself is no longer a place of safety. Wow, the White Tower. I don't like, I don't like the sound of that. I don't think that's where you'll find Peppy. I don't think the White Tower is ever a place of safety. I mean, anyway, now Rand, Perrin and Matt, Egwene and Elaine. Yaniv, Yaniv and Lan and even Loyal must ride the storm winds of the day. Yeah, okay, the dark one will triumph.
So are you convinced? How are you feeling now about... Robert Jordan's Knife of Dreams.
I don't think I, don't think I've given it a fair go, really.
You haven't sold it to us.
Really haven't sold it to anyone, have I?
Okay, well let's see, let's see if Mike One Star can convince you.
Okay.
Do I need to know how big the knockers are on every single female character?
Yes.
Mike One Star must be Australian.
Correct. Okay.
Some of whom I believe were introduced simply so Jordan could say how big their knockers are.
I reckon he's British.
Knockers.
They're not British Bizarre. In this book, there is any combination of adjectives in the word bosom. Formidable bosom, ample bosom, pleasantry bosomy, not used in this book. Oh, there's a range of bosoms.
Oh, he wants to, yeah.
He's explaining the different classes.
Roll out the bosoms.
Bosoms that are rolled out in the book.
Oh, I think he's, I think he's.
What's a formidable bosom? A formidable? A formidable bosom.
Yeah, you want to relate it to cup sizes, like formidable bosom. Pleasant, pleasantly bosomy would maybe be like a, like a B or a C cup, Ample bosom, like a D cup, double deck, formidable, probably F cup, formidable bosom.
Would be the biggest, would it?
Yeah, I think so.
Formidable would be the biggest.
Formidable bosom.
I was picturing an aggressive bosom. I don't know why. But anyway, there's lots of bosoms, so maybe you would be interested in the Wheel of Time series, judging by your for you page on the Instagram.
Anyway, Jamie, Jamie one star, or is it Jame? I think it's Jamie.
Jamie spelled fancy.
Yes. And I thought book seven was where Jordan really embraced the spanking fetish. Wrong. It's this one. Wow.
Bosoms and spanking. That could sound terrible.
I think the reviews are actually doing a much better job than my synopsis.
Emma one star. Technically, I haven't read it. But anything with book 11 and counting in the title deserves less than one star.
This is that, yeah, I get that. I'm turned off because if I've got to go through a series of 11 books, if I've got a committee, I don't read, I don't read much.
Yeah, so there's 11, and I think the author died after this one, but then another author picked up the series and kept going.
Picked up the Wheel of Time. The Wheel of Time. The Wheel of Time.
Yes, this was his last one before he died. And then, yes, another guy took it, took it.
Yeah. Ronald E. Stimpert, one star, pretty upset. Every third page is blank, leaving gaps on the story. That's not the, that's not the author's fault, Ronald E. Stimpert. That's a, that's a, you know. Stylistic publisher. You're reviewing the purchase, right? Yes. Like you could, and I'm sure if you actually contacted the right people, you could get a resolution from that rather than...
Does it mean that, yes... The printer ran out of ink. I'm not sure. Why is every 30 pages?
That's an example of, you know, somebody who's just gone a bit too far out of their way.
Down the bottom, this page left intentionally blank.
It's an angry review, okay? Like, and it's, you're slightly, but you're not playing the ball or the content. You're playing the circumstance.
Yes.
And the circumstance is unfortunate, but it's got nothing to do with the story. Yes. So maybe you should think a little bit more about it. Like, I'm sure there's other reasons for a one-star review based on all the other ones above anyway, right?
Yes, like the bosoms. Fair call. The spanking, sure.
What?
Too many books.
I'm concerned that you keep coming back to the bosoms. Or maybe I shouldn't be concerned. Actually, I'm heartened that you're coming back to the bosoms.
I'm just, I'm stuck on what a formidable bosom is. I just, I don't know. Maybe I need to read the book to understand.
I don't know. I'll tell you what, you know, a skipping rope, an F cup. that was a formidable episode. We're almost at the end of it, except for the hatches, matches and dispatches segment and the old clue. I know there's been a lot of water under the bridge. A lot of water gone under the bridge, but you might remember this one, this clue.
It's a rare and beautiful thing, this kind of uprising. My God, that Lila, do you see how they follow her? No. Cut the power, keep an eye on the exits, and do nothing. They'll open the doors themselves.
If you said Toni Collette. Congratulations. Toni Collette's birthday.
It is.
On the 1st of November.
Yes.
I'm not going to say how old she is. I don't think we need to. Her acting capability is timeless.
Our Toni grew up in Blacktown, in fact. Studied at NIDA. Very quickly her talent stood out.
And the guys at NIDA now are just like, yeah, we could really jack the fees up now.
She's one of our alumni.
Yeah, exactly.
Breakout role, obviously, in the 90s with Muriel's wedding, where she gained 18 kilos for the role. And one of the most iconic Australian characters ever.
Yeah.
She was in The Sixth Sense. She was incredible in that, wasn't she? She was the mum. She was.
She is.
That was a good movie.
Great. She had. I don't think she's been bad in anything.
No. About a boy. Little Miss Sunshine. United States of Tara or Tara?
Tara.
United States of Tara. They won an Emmy Award and Golden Globe. That was the one where she played a woman with dissociative identity disorder.
Yes.
Multiple personalities. Hereditary. You loved that. I haven't seen that. That's too scary for you?
That is a just such, she should have won an Oscar. I can't believe she didn't win an Oscar for that. It is just that performance in Hereditary gives me goosebumps.
Don't you swear at me, you little ****. Don't you ever raise your voice at me. I am your. mother. Do you understand? All I do is worry and slay and defend you, and all I get back is that face on your face, so full of disdain and resentment and always so annoyed. Well, now your sister is dead. And I know you miss her. And I know it was an accident, and I know you're in pain, and I wish I could take that away for you. I wish I could shield you from the knowledge that you did what you did, but your sister is dead! She's gone forever! Oh, what a waste. If it could have maybe brought us together or something. If you could have just said, I'm sorry, or faced up to what happened, maybe then we could do something with this, but you can't take responsibility for anything. So now I can't accept. And I can't forgive.
That is such a formidable scene. Mm. Yes. No bosoms intended. That is such an incredible scene. And she's just extraordinary in that movie. And I just, that just cemented it for me. I'm like, she is one of the best actors, not only to come out of this country, but just one of the best actors. She is, I love her. And the grab that we were playing for the clue, that was her in that TV show.
Wayward, which we've just started watching.
And she's absolutely, it's not bad, but I would argue that she's the best thing about it.
Oh, yeah.
Like, every time she's on camera, you just, or on screen, every time she's on screen, you just want to see more of her.
Yeah, she is so good. She plays Evelyn Wade, the headmistress of an academy, a mysterious school for troubled teens in Tall Pines. Actually, we've got to finish watching that. Maybe after this, we can find out what happens. I'm dying to No.
Spoilers. There's, I'm dying to know as well. But as long as we don't, you know, have to deal with the dark one and Tarmon Guidon in the last battle, I'll be very happy with it. And that's it. Yes, we're done.
Happy birthday.
That's it. Happy birthday, Tony Collette.
Thank you, Karen, for your boom.
Thank you so much for your boom, Karen.
You agree 100% with that?
I do agree with you, but I just think you'd be too nice anyway.
It's still a very polite boom in the scheme of boom.
It's the loveliest boom that ever boomed. It's more of a bloom than a boom. But that's it. So if you want to boom at us, you can do that for sure. Search for T-minus 20 podcast over on the socials or just come and say hi or just follow our account so that you can get updates as to the silly things that we do from time to time. Well, things are starting to wind down a bit for us. It's been a very big, long year. And normally we're a few episodes ahead with our recording. This is a little sneak peek behind the scenes, but we've kind of, we've let that kind of go. We've had a lot of stuff on.
Flying by the seat of our parents, really.
We are at the moment. And it's. We're going to limp to the finish line.
There hasn't been a lot of videos lately. Just sharing funny, nostalgia stuff we come across because lazy.
Yeah, Well, not lazy, just busy.
Busy, busy, busy, busy. And now trying to find the Billboard top five, it takes extra time to go into the Wayback Machine and search through that because I'm not paying $14.95 US a month. Yeah.
You, Billboard. Seriously. But not you. We love you. Thank you very much for listening. And we'll be back next week with more fun and frivolity and knows what else. See you.
Thanks for taking the time to rewind. Join us next time for another week that was 20 years ago. In the meantime, come and reminisce on the socials. Search for T-minus 20 podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.