Matt Hutchinson: Comedy Encounters, Jurassic Diversity & Streaming Restrictions

Good afternoon, good morning, Screen Rats.

Welcome to another episode of Television Times Podcast.

Now, I'm not going to be doing much of these intro spiels for a couple of weeks, only because I'm in the process of moving house.

You might hear a slight difference in reverb in this room that I'm speaking in.

Mostly because it is kind of empty, apart from boxes and packing tape and stuff like that.

The reason for this is we got a message from our landlady.

Yes, we have a rented property, don't own a house, never have.

What a shame.

But we got a message from her that we had to move out in early January and immediately started looking for somewhere else to go.

And then we found somewhere and now we're trying to make that work.

But there's all kinds of, I won't bore you with admin and rigmarole and portals online and government websites.

And it's an absolute headache to move.

I'm kind of enjoying the process of just sort of pottering about and pulling something out of the wall, filling the hole, putting the screw back in the little box, covering stuff in bubble wrap.

And when I run out, I just buy more or get some packing tape.

And I'm quite enjoying the sort of putting everything in boxes part of it.

Not sure how much of the move I will enjoy.

Although if all goes well, by the time this podcast comes out, we should actually know whether we've got that house or not.

And hopefully I will be shunting stuff in the little garden carts because it's only about half a mile away.

And then we're going to actually pay for removals because as my wife constantly tells me, I make my own life hard by just not giving into paying for things that I just should.

For once in my life, I mean, we have too much stuff now.

We have children, so I need help carrying all this stuff.

I would lug it myself.

And, you know, in previous years, I would have made a big thing of that.

I wouldn't have been going, oh, look at me.

But I would have just like, you know, I ain't paying for that fucking thousand pound removal or whatever it costs, hundreds of pounds, I'm sure.

Anyway, so that's why it's a bit echoey in here.

That's why I'm all flustered and haven't got much to say.

I'm feeling pretty good about things.

It's weird to tear down the first studio, but it's good because we're moving into the new year and a whole separate kind of recording process is coming up and there's other things, Irons in the Fire, you might say, for 2024 that I'll talk about later.

Loads of great recordings under the belt, more coming up, even some this week that I'm very excited about and next week, which are on location.

So basically, once I move, I kind of don't need to do any recordings for two months or something.

I have so many in the bag already, and you're going to hear all of those in early January going forward.

Right, so let's get to this week's guest.

This week's guest is the fantastic Matt Hutchinson.

Matthew Hutchinson, as he's known online as well.

He's a doctor and a comedian, an actual doctor and a comedian.

For those regular listeners of the podcast, you may remember that I bumped into Matt in the Edinburgh Special.

He was just wandering around in Edinburgh, and I bumped into him, and it turned out he was a comedian.

We got talking, he was a great little interview there, but we always wanted to do a bigger one.

And I wanted to bring him on for a full episode whilst in Edinburgh, actually.

And he got delayed and delayed and delayed.

And we ended up catching up last weekend, I believe.

So this is a quick turnaround, this one.

Quick record and out before Christmas.

What do you think of that?

So yeah, this is the brilliant Matt Hutchinson.

Check him out online, he's got loads of great stuff.

He had a fantastic run in Edinburgh.

But like I said, he's actually a doctor.

So I guess I started talking about medical things.

First of all, here we go.

It's Matt, it's Matt, it's Matt, it's Matt, it's Matt, Matt, Matt Hutchinson.

Welcome to Television Times, a new podcast with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't, about what scared them, what inspired them, and what made them laugh and cry, here on Television Times.

Are you actually still a practicing doctor then?

Yeah, so it's complicated in that I'm doing a PhD at the moment.

Yeah.

So I do one clinical shift a week.

So you juggle both?

Yes, with comedy and writing.

Like, I mean, I keep writing.

I've got this little chart.

A couple of lawyers, lots of teachers, lots of teachers, quite a few doctors and nurses.

There are loads of doctors now.

It's not in any way a USP, unfortunately.

I have to branch out far more.

Like, there's, you know, there's sort of me, Benji, Michael Akadiri, Kwame Asante, there are others, Ed Patrick.

There's even other ones.

You could form your own Edinburgh surgery while you're up there and sort of do stuff on there.

I think, yeah, you could literally start a private clinic catering to the very specific needs and problems of comedians and break it in, actually make money for the festival.

I think you could.

How was your festival in the end?

I mean, I should say that I met you by chance in the street.

Yeah, we met.

I was doing some child care.

Child care with your very, very young boy.

Yes, it was great.

It was quite stressful.

I think, as everyone experiences, you spend half the time sort of hoping the show's going okay, dealing with tech stuff.

And then once that's done, hoping people will come and see it, hoping the viewers will come complaining when they do come and don't, you know, looking at what your friends are doing.

Do you take any pictures of yourself with a small audience?

No, to be fair, I didn't have...

I only had one very, the only time I had one really small audience, like really small audience, was there was some...

Apparently, because of my shows in the middle of the day, there was a day where there was a crash, like the ticketing thing crashed or something.

I don't know if that could have been what the producers told me just to sort of massage my ego.

But as far as I'm aware, there was some weird problem where basically there was sometimes where lots of people had loads of stuff in their baskets and no one else could find them or something.

I mean, that sounds like a line, now that I'm repeating it.

Your show that you did in Edinburgh, is it finished now, are you taking it on tour, are you doing more with it?

No, if I were to be given the opportunity to do one or two shows, sort of to perform properly in London, maybe film it, then I probably would.

I haven't got the time to talk or the inclination to be honest.

Cause I mean, when you spend six months prior to doing Edinburgh, previewing and doing this, you're basically living the lifestyle of someone who's already on tour anyway.

So when you've got a family, I think my wife would not be best pleased with me then going, oh, I'm going to go and spend the next six months forward.

It's really hard.

Away from home.

So you're juggling.

So no.

Yeah, it's hard with a family.

It changes everything, doesn't it?

Because our oldest is nine, nearly 10.

It was very hard.

Like it was okay with one.

Used to sort of still just like go to Europe and hang out in Hungary for a month for fun.

Or, you know, and I do a job in Azerbaijan or something weird like that.

Or different places, of course.

And then we had twins.

And then that was like, well, I can't.

Oh, wow.

I'm not going anywhere now.

That's it.

No, exactly.

Now, this is me.

That's me done for two decades.

I'll just stay here.

So I can't be totally like, if I go in the lounge now and tell my missus, like, you know, okay, I've got to go.

I've got to go here, here, here and here.

She'd be like, well, no, you can't.

No, exactly.

Well, I should stop complaining.

You've got three and particularly twins.

Because how are the twins now?

They were six this week.

Yeah.

So it's okay.

Twins is not, it's not as shocking as, well, I'm sure lots of people have very bad experiences.

But for us, it was just like, well, you're doing it anyway.

So you're just doing a little bit more.

But people just say they wake each other up, they don't, they isn't that one of the main problems?

Well, I've got one night out and one of them, the girl, she sleeps, she'll go to sleep anytime.

She'll say at four o'clock in the afternoon, I want to go bed now and go to sleep.

And the boy, he'll stay up till 11, 12.

He's not always banging around.

He's a night owl like me.

And he's up early too.

They just get up like when the sun comes up.

Okay, so she doesn't need sleep, so she's just ready to cause havoc straight away.

How's your daughter?

Is she a good sleeper?

Mostly when she's well, she gets quite a lot of colds.

So then as soon as she does, then she doesn't at all, or resists it quite a lot.

So, like that, up and down.

But she's good overall.

Compared to some of the people who are literally like a couple or two, three years in and still not getting a sort of complete night's sleep.

We're not anywhere near that.

No.

Well, I think we did that with our first, I remember sort of just walking around with him and just trying to get him to go to sleep and just rocking him and doing whatever I could, just walking around.

We'd go to America where my in-laws were and I'd just be walking around in Arizona just with a kid on me, just nine, ten, eleven, and I could please go to sleep.

Twins?

I think it's much hotter in Arizona.

Baking a child.

Yeah, so you're just like roasting the child.

Well, we did that.

I used to take him out.

I'd take him to the swings and they'd go, hey, you can't walk to the swings.

It's too hot.

It could be fine.

Because I like walking and they all drive everywhere like, you know, Wally.

So I would go to this swing set and then I'd have to phone them to come and get me because the sun would just come out and it would be so brutal that we couldn't get back.

It was like the last of us trying to get home.

It's just murder.

The sun would just be like, well, that's, I can't take him in that.

He's white.

Cook him and they were like, see, he's got the Irish skin.

So he's pale.

He's going to burn like, you know, so I'd have to call them out and there's a sort of emergency kind of, what's it called in something?

Extraction point.

Extraction point.

That's it.

Extraction point.

I feel that's what you burn in the amounts of military jargon.

You end up with sort of also TV military jargon buried in your mind despite having never even seen a gun.

Have you ever been involved in any of those sort of, you know, a military doctor kind of situation flown anywhere to help with any of that?

Short answer, no.

I mean, I'm quite, I mean, even so, it's complicated.

So I do work in A&E sometimes, but even when I work in A&E, I don't work in sort of injuries.

It's more medical problems in A&E.

So the short answer, no, no, no, no, no gunshot wounds, no ER moments.

Yeah, not like in films.

No, not like in films, not like in, you know, there's no, yeah, no major accidents, no cranes falling on people, no one being shot.

Yeah, no casualties.

So like, this is something that just occurs to me.

I'm one of those people that doesn't like the sight of blood.

If someone has like the worst thing you could say to me is come in and take my blood.

And how did you like to be a doctor?

Do you just not have that or do you have it and you have to get over some of that stuff?

Or do you have any qualms about any of those sort of things like knives going through skin, all that stuff with needles?

I guess maybe it's selects away from people.

And then also, I think maybe as you go through training, I think, for example, when I was doing...

Because you get introduced to it in stages, because even in your first couple of years before you start seeing patients, you do dissection.

So when we did our first dissection, there was an episode where a guy, as soon as they brought out the first body, fainted.

And he fainted onto the body and knocked it.

So then this corpse on a trolley just rolled through the...

Well, it's not a lecture theatre, it's the dissection room.

So perhaps he at least maybe went into a non-surgical specialty.

You never had any of those things to get over?

I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm the most into...

You know, I'm sure I can be squeamish about some things.

I don't like teeth stuff, so I can never be a dentist, I think.

But, you know, I know that, so I didn't see dentists.

Yeah, exactly.

But I mean, no, I wouldn't say...

Also, I think it's quite removed when you've actually got a task to do.

Like, I think when it's your job and you've got someone in front of you that you need to do something to or for, you don't have the quite same mindset of being so squeamish.

Yeah, because there's no choice.

I mean, certainly some things are gross, but not to the point of not being able to continue.

We had this thing when we were on tour with one of Darren's shows, and there was this guy, and he put this thing out to everybody, like, if you're scared of needles, don't put your hand up sort of thing.

But this person held it the other way around, and they ended up on the stage, and they were terrified of needles, and the whole thing was he was going to shove a needle through the top of their hand without drawing blood.

And the guy started freaking out, so we had to stop the show, and then Darren somehow, don't ask me how, removed that fear through hypnosis, and the guy did it.

And it was even more amazing, because then you had this guy, who was literally five minutes ago, terrified of needles, shoving one through the back of his hand.

And it was wild.

It's a good night, that one.

And it doesn't bleed.

It doesn't bleed, no.

I mean, I don't know.

It's not a trick.

I know that it is real.

The needle is in the hand.

I think it's just magic.

That's the secret to Darren Brown, is that he's actually a wizard, and he's like a man pretending to be a mentalist, when actually, it's just magic.

It could be, for anyone listening, that needle went through that guy's hand.

There was no trickery.

It's not a fake hand.

There's no fake needle.

None of that.

So yeah, that was interesting, I thought.

Because fear is a kind of, you know, I was watching, there's this new show, it's called like, and we'll talk about television, we should, The R07 Road to a Million.

You've seen any of that?

Oh, is that, yeah, with Brian Cox?

Yeah, Brian Cox pretending to be sort of in charge of all these people.

And there's this young couple, they're like, you're really rooting for them the whole time to win, because they're really funny, and they're swearing all the time.

But they just get the raw end, like every single task they get, is like climb a crane to get a box, go up a mountain.

And one of them was this spider, this gigantic, and I got to say big tarantula in a box, sorry.

And the female participant of the couple, that sounds wrong to you, she was really scared of spiders.

And this thing was kicking right off, you know, really kicking off.

And you can see the fear in her, and she got really close to it as well.

And I was thinking, I could not do that.

And I'm not, it's not a problem.

Big beast, run jigging about at high speed.

I mean, the thing was meaty, you know, and I was just like wondering like, what you think about like fears and dealing with fears and stuff like that.

I suppose I probably wouldn't like a giant spider, because I think there was in, I don't know if you saw in Edinburgh, there was a show where comedians were performing with different animals.

No, I don't know.

One of them could have been a tarantula.

So you basically, it's a strange premise, we have to stand on stage and hold an animal while still doing your set.

It could be a snake, it could be a rabbit, or it was a real animal.

And some of them, I think one of the potential animals was a tarantula.

And like I'm not afraid of like households spiders in particular, like I will pick them up, but the idea of something crawling, something that can crawl onto your back.

So I would put that in my layer of fears.

I also think that, I think when you're young, I think it's probably good to try and get over as many of your fears as possible.

I think by the time you're in middle age, it's like, my fears have not caused me any problems up until now.

I'm fine with them.

My desire to challenge them has dwindled quite drastically.

I'm happy living with the fears I have left.

Yeah, I think you're right.

There's a point where you can get over them.

Like I have a huge fear of flying.

Yeah, I fly a lot and I've reduced it somewhat, but not for any carbon footprint reasons.

I can't pretend.

Just through sheer fear of flying.

It's the small planes that get me.

It's the small planes and I hate it and it's awful and I hate the airport and all the stress around it.

And to go through that, I better be going somewhere far away that's worth it, you know, not just to France.

Look at the train.

I mean, airports are bad anyway and stressful even when you take out, even if you're not afraid of flying.

Like I hate going to the airport just because it's basically just being treated like an asshole.

It really is.

For a few hours, just like, do this, go here, take this off.

Now you're doing this too slowly.

Like just particularly the thing where it's like the trays and there's a queue backing up behind you, but you've got like your laptop and you've packed stuff strangely.

I reckon you're good at that.

You've got your laptop out and you're ready.

You're not standing there going.

I mean, I have, but it's more just because of the anxiety because I don't want to be causing a queue behind me.

Because I think it's that kind of particular Londoner thing as well as like, you know, there are very few people hated more in the world than the people who, for example, don't have their Oyster card or phone or whatever using Ready at the games.

Or an old woman with coins.

And so when you're doing that, yeah, exactly, in an airport, then that's multi-faceted.

I mean, you could decide murder for that.

There's nothing worse than someone standing there going, oh, I have to take my wallet out or they've got a bottle of water all the way to the tray.

And then that person behind immediately gets annoyed with them.

So now he's in a bad mood.

I hate it.

Have you traveled with baby food yet?

Yes, I had a joke about it, actually, but it's basically like, so you know, they have to test it as if it's like either drugs or explosives.

Because there's nothing that looks much more like heroin, if the films are to be believed.

Top boy with heroin.

But it's literally like carrying a tub of beige powder through customs and it can either be what's either explosives or heroin or baby food.

One of the three.

We had a flight from Newcastle where I lived up to LA about three or four years ago and we took enough little baby, the pots of baby food.

And it was quite expensive, you know, they're not cheap, right?

And we have enough to get all the way across for twins.

And at Newcastle Airport, this one was like, no, you can't take it on, it's big, it's too big.

And I was like, come on, dude, I've checked.

Because I was 10 grams over because each one, she goes, yeah, we're gonna have to throw it away.

And I mean, it's the, I literally, oh, yes, I did say that line.

I said to her, it's not a fucking bomb.

And she went, easy now, don't say words like that.

And I thought, oh, this is getting, this is getting tense.

It's clearly not a bomb.

The list of things.

So how do you suppose to, so how does that resolve itself?

Throw it away.

She said throw it away.

And she said, what food did they eat?

They said we could rebuy smaller ones, airside.

And they were twice the price.

I had to buy them.

I literally threw them all away, walked through, went into boots and had to buy 20 quid's worth of food.

And I've probably never been more livid in my life.

I can imagine.

Yeah.

I still think they're fucking with us with all that stuff.

Seriously.

People used to get on planes with cigarettes and, you know, all that stuff.

Yeah.

Well, this is true.

But I guess we got either a combination of Richard Reed and that other...

The shoe bomber...

.

where he was doing the liquid plot.

Yeah.

Because there was that supposed liquid plot.

I can't remember when it was, was it?

But that was when...

Because I can remember when the liquid restriction came out and everyone thought they were joking.

It's just like one guy, isn't it?

It's like one person's idiot plan is like ruined, everyone's flying.

And where do they get the number from?

Why is the amount, you just take two.

If you needed like 250 mil of liquid explosive, you just take two of them.

Yeah.

I mean, that is a good point, but I guess it's, you know, maybe it's just like the more pots you have to fill.

So, by the time you're filling the sixth one, you're like, maybe I shouldn't do this.

Because I always find that really irritating when like, if I get a headache, which is not often, but if I do, I take one big paracetamol, two ibuprofen, and I have it with a black coffee, and it seems to sort it out.

And every time I look in there, my wife's not taken all the ibuprofen, so I have to go and buy some, and I can only buy one packet.

And I always think that is mad.

So I have, I know that I've done this.

I've gone into Tesco's on the high street, bought one packet of each, gone to Saint's, just bought one packet of each.

And it seems like a mad restriction.

You go to America, you buy in a huge tub of like...

There is some evidence for that though.

Like as in, I mean, there's nothing funny about this, but it's in, I mean, again, it's one of those things where it's a pop psychology fact.

So you know where you sort of have to temper everything you say with, did I read this in a sort of dubiously researched Malcolm Gladwell book rather than a proper, you know, academic time.

But I think generally speaking, there's decent amount of evidence that as soon as you remove the immediate availability of a means, so even like a small hurdle in acquiring a means of self harm, then it can reduce the activity.

I'm going back to the tablets, which are slightly funnier, is I noticed that they are now a, basically shrink flation has hit tablets now because I got a packet the other day and they're supposed to have like five on either side.

They had four on either side and I was like, Oh wow, that's very cheeky.

Cause I thought they're supposed to have 16 in every pack.

This one didn't, it was reduced.

I think it was 12 or something.

This is Tesco's, I don't trust Tesco's.

But your thing there that you just said reminds me of what I do with the bike.

Like you put one extra obstacle, cause I guess that is what it is.

Because when I park my bike, I put a dead, like a lock that doesn't do anything on the front wheel, like a pound shot lock.

Just so a thief will go two locks.

Now I'll go for the one with one lock.

Oh, you put an extra lock, so you lock it out.

You just rely on a pound shot lock.

It's a decoy.

It's not doing anything, but it's just, it's two locks there and usually a bright color.

Then my theory is because my dad used to steal bikes because he was a terrible man, that he would not lick and eat a bike with two locks.

That's where I come from.

Beautiful, beautiful bloodline.

Yes, so to television.

Which is unconscious that we've only got about a half an hour.

It is what it is.

You're a doctor, you can't not come up.

You've got to talk about your life a little bit first.

Of course.

Yeah, I have to go to a children's party, even though we threw a children's party yesterday.

Yeah, that is the weekend these days.

It's a lot of parties.

Soft Play is not my cup of tea.

So loud and echoy.

Oh, earplugs.

I must take earplugs with me.

I've got to do that.

Yes.

So when we met in the street in Edinburgh, you mentioned this show called Nightmare with a K, which I now know all about.

It was out in 1987 to 1994, and they bought it back for some kind of YouTube special thing a few years ago as well.

And I've been looking at that.

And I mean, it's quite...

It sort of reminds me a little bit of Games Master, but much, much darker.

I know we've talked about this on the Edinburgh one, but I just wanted to bring it up again, because it really is very dark and very scary.

Yeah, it was really weird.

Yeah.

The imagery on there.

Like, particularly the helmet being on them, you know, sort of walking around in the dark and they're like, right, left, no, do this, do this.

And then it's like, no, you've died.

It was very sort of like real world kind of level jeopardy for these kids.

Because there wasn't any age restrictions on things when you were a kid.

You could just watch.

I mean, that wouldn't have been for little kids.

People would have just watched it anyway.

That's what I mean.

It was just on in the afternoon.

So it was on, I think, at like, you know, like obviously after school TV programs, you've talked about sort of say half three or three to six.

It's pretty sure it was on CITV.

It's just as one of the standard shows.

Yeah, I definitely remember it being on, being scared of it.

It's a really scary imagery.

So have you thought of any other TV shows from that period that maybe gave you the willies as it were?

Or was it just Nightmare?

Yeah, I think I can remember.

Do you remember the little plastic toys, Mighty Max?

So it's like the boy version of Poly Pocket.

Right, I'm going to look it up.

Yeah, go on.

So there was a TV show that was a spin-off of that.

I can remember one particular episode of that being about werewolves.

I can remember that giving me nightmares when I watched that as a kid.

Because it was very graphic, very, you know, intense.

And again, just like, there's a weird kind of, yeah, I think there's far less thought into what scared kids and what you could put on at half three, four o'clock in the afternoon.

I wonder when the rules came in.

Your mum, you're asking.

I am 36.

36.

So you're watching telly in late 80s, early 90s basically as a kid.

Yeah, so you're a peak nightmare, definitely.

But peak to being too young for nightmare as well.

Yeah, well, that's what I mean.

There should have been like a, you know, this is a 15 or 12 or whatever it was and they didn't really do that.

I think the BBFC thing was still in place then, because I can remember like it would be a sort of badge of honour if you were a kid and you could go, I watched a 15, you're an 8 or 7 or whatever.

That stuff is annoying, isn't it?

I mean, I had my son who's 9 and said, can we put Netflix on 12?

I put it on 12.

And suddenly he's watching like Adam Sandler, Zohan.

I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That's a 15 in my mind.

It's all dick jokes.

You can't be watching that.

Or it goes straight to, they call it 12 plus.

They're very dodgy.

So they're just like, well, what is that?

Is that 12 to...

Wait, is that 12 plus?

Is that just a 15?

Is that an 18?

12 plus 6, very specifically.

Yeah, I mean, I think as well, like even...

You can say that we thought things were bad back then, but I can remember, I think people get scared by bits of like Harry Potter and stuff like that.

Some kids, there's a lot of jeopardy.

It goes beyond mild peril.

Absolutely.

They are quite scary.

I've not seen them all.

I've not followed it, but sometimes he'll have one on and I'll walk through and I'm thinking, well, that just looks like a horror film.

I've just walked through it.

I mean, I don't want him, if we're watching anything that would be even vaguely like that, I would pause it before he comes in the room.

Jurassic Park is a PG.

And in that, there's a dismembered arm.

Like Samuel L.

Jackson's dismembered arm comes out through like a revolving door or something because I've just realized there's what's...

This is like a very niche point about Jurassic Park, but that scene demonstrates how poor the diversity hiring was within the Jurassic Park instance.

Because basically, I'm talking about within the film, so that organization, i.e.

the park, must have had so few black employees.

I think her name, Ellie Sattler, is in Laura Dern's character, thinks Samuel L.

Jackson's character is still alive because she...

just the arm, you just see it looming out of the darkness.

And she goes, oh, I would say his name is Dave, goes, oh, Dave, that's you.

So she can tell it's just him by his arm.

The only black arm that she could have seen in the whole park would have been that guy.

We're doing a lot of films for Telly, aren't we?

We watch it on Telly, though.

I'm actually quite astonished by the lack arm situation.

Again, we're still talking about films, but that's a film that terrified me, because I went to see it when I was about five or six in the cinema.

What?

I was too young.

Oh my God.

How old?

I saw, when Jurassic Park came out in 1993, so I would have been six.

Wow, yeah.

And I saw that in the cinema.

I thought that it was an error on my parents' part.

That is definitely an error.

I can't say anything because I worked on a show called How to Train Your Dragon Live Extravaganza in Beijing.

My wife and son had to come out, obviously.

He was in the audience at one point and that had a stonking great monster parading all about the place.

And the next job I got after that was Walking with Dinosaurs live experience, which he didn't come to and I'm glad he didn't.

But other people would bring their kids, tiny kids, especially in Asia, to the front seats of the auditorium.

And there's this massive, and I mean massive, 10-block sized T-Rex that stomps and it looks real.

And it would shit you up.

I mean, it was so loud.

It would come right over, it would wander over and then just go, and it would look down at the kids.

And you'd just see 50 heads just go up and down.

You can see a whole load of psychologists rubbing their hands and there's my work done for the next...

But kids love dinosaurs, apparently.

Kids do, yeah.

I can remember the Natural History Museum had an animatronic exhibit and that being quite scary.

So it was around the Jurassic Park time as well.

I think obviously the time, they're like, suddenly dinosaurs are the most exciting thing in the world.

I can never remember going to that as well again and just being like, that's a real dinosaur.

I'm terrified.

And they had that kind of, obviously the kind of fake smoke everywhere.

Oh really?

I guess I always knew that dinosaurs were real, but when I went to the Natural History Museum and saw that the big bones as you walk in, it's got a name, isn't it?

That dinosaur like DP or something, is that what it's called?

Oh yeah, yeah.

It used to be there when I was a kid.

I think it's a replica, but I thought it was real.

That stuff really sticks with you.

And the moment when you realize, oh, they existed.

That's a real thing.

They existed, yeah.

That's kind of mad.

Let's get onto some questions.

Here's one I'm interested with you for some reason.

Gone to your head, what reality TV show could you stand to be on?

Okay, so I was thinking about this one, actually.

I mean, I guess it depends on how you qualify or what you'd call a reality TV show, because there's some I quite even like to enjoy being on.

So if it's something that includes things like MasterChef or Bake Off, then I would love to be on one of those.

Or even something like one of those travel dogs, but I presume you more mean kind of more plasticky kind of-

I mean, whatever you want to mean, it can be that, or it can be full of people-

So yeah, fine.

I'd love to be on either MasterChef, Celebrity MasterChef or a more travel doc-y thing kind of like Anthony Bourdain-esque, going around the world trying food, but with kind of handlers and fixers.

Cause I think one of the things that prevents me from traveling is having to do it yourself, not knowing what's safe, what's not safe.

Whereas if you've got CNN or whatever, the travel channel, paying for a local fixer and getting you all the right stuff.

Getting you there safe, like race around the world.

Yeah, exactly.

Whereas if we're talking about more of the kind of, you know, the only way is Essex, Made in Chelsea, that kind of thing.

I think of that ilk, you might as well go something like Made in Chelsea, because at least then you're going to like expensive, nice places, which brings quite a lot of money.

You know, you're having an unpleasant experience with people that are particularly like in places where you can at least, you know, have outlandish and outrageous food.

That's a great answer.

I like it.

I thought, yeah, I mean, obviously the mind does lead to Big Brother, but you managed to lead it down the path of, you know.

Yeah, I mean, this current Big Brother's completely passed me by.

What channel is that on?

It's so easy to avoid TV these days.

Bad TV, yeah.

If you're not, yeah, so you're so selective in terms of what you do or don't watch.

Like, I think, you know, no one I know watches Big Brother.

I've not had a single conversation about this currency as a Big Brother, but I used to go on Twitter occasionally to see people that you maybe follow and they were discussing these, but you've never heard of them.

Yeah, and you won't.

I mean, I don't think this lot will be like, you know, going in...

There's that era, isn't there, where they sort of all became famous like Rylan and people like that.

I think that's over for those kind of shows because no one's...

I don't think people are really watching it because the audience isn't there.

It's not there.

It's not event TV.

It's the same thing.

I've never seen Love Island.

No, me neither.

But that's because I'm selective.

I mean, I do this podcast and there's so much I haven't seen.

What was it before Pop Idol, it was called something else?

Pop Stars.

I saw that and never watched a single Pop Idol and I haven't seen Britain's Got Talent.

I just can't watch things like that.

Or Strictly, never seen Strictly.

Don't understand.

My granddad used to watch the old version of that when I was a kid.

Come Dancing.

It's just called that.

Sounds rude now.

Life's too short, you know?

Yeah.

Well, me and my wife's family watch Strictly quite a lot, but yeah, no, I've never really gotten that far into it.

So I will have a loose awareness sometimes, but I didn't even know it was on at the moment again.

Well, something about Krishnan Gurumurthy was on it, wasn't he?

And I only knew that because he comes up on my feed because I like him.

But that was about it.

And I was like, oh, he's in that?

That's strange.

But like, Yeah, the people you suddenly find, but like, you know, something I don't want to preempt any of your other questions, but even the fact that I'm a celebrity, as well, you know, you sort of see people and you're like, why is that?

Well, I mean, I will say it and I'll leave it in.

I don't care.

I think putting a Nazi in on television for fun is not a very good leap forward.

And you are turning him into a TV character that everyone, some people, will find adorable and fun, but he's not fun.

He's Mosley.

It's not good.

Stop putting these people on telly.

Not quite the same extreme, but obviously, I guess, in the way that Boris Johnson was kind of softened up and normalized and projected through even being on things like Have I Got News For You, not saying that Boris Johnson is Nigel Farage per se, but in terms of people that you don't consider.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, essentially, I think his profile would come from Have I Got News For You, but I love Have I Got News For You.

It's one of my favorite TV shows and I watch it avidly even now.

But I mean, having any of these people kind of as a guest, as you say, sort of normalizes them and propels them up to a point.

I think so.

Well, I mean, Boris was always brought on there to be mocked, wasn't he?

He played up to it and he became that.

Okay, let's go for, I'll cut that Boris shit because I don't want to give him a second more.

Well, you're a funny man.

What's the funniest thing you ever saw on telly?

Funniest thing I ever saw on TV.

So, I mean, it depends how far back you want to go.

But I mean, I don't think I actually watched this on telly, but Key and Peele is my favorite guest show, I would say, for example.

I mean, Key and Peele and again, controversial, depending on what you perceive that his current work and stuff.

But you know, I think Chappelle's show is again, seminal as well.

Like I can't think of, there are bits within that, that I think regardless of what you think of his current work, he's a very good guest show.

And I think he's a very good guest show.

I mean, I still like quite a lot of his stand up now.

Obviously, he goes down a road that is unnecessary.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, I think, yeah, of course.

Yeah, so I do like, there's definitely really good stuff in his current specials now at the moment.

And it's a case of A, I mean, certain people obviously will take issue with some of the stuff that he covered, but it's also, I found, there's the amount of time he dedicated to some transitions in some of his more recent specials beyond any issue people may have with the content, which is quite tedious hearing him talk about it.

Everyone, it's really boring.

And the last special, I can't remember the name of it.

I just had this feeling throughout it that it was like, it's difficult isn't it, I guess, if you're being lauded to that extent.

Because obviously he is, I think, I think the thing that doesn't come across and you can never convey in that kind of special is what he does, I think more broadly when he goes up, that sort of, you know, drop in those from places where he will talk for an hour, two hours, find all of these different things, which I'm sure is an amazing craft and those difficult things.

And that's probably how he works in that context.

But then when you take it out of that kind of thing of you, almost being, doing this quite amazing thing and then put it into the context of a special, it's hard to keep that, to capture that, if you like, on a special without it then just looking self-indulgent.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, what's that saying?

If people keep telling you, you're awesome, you're going to believe you're awesome.

I think he's living a bit of that.

But going back to Key and Peele, there's a sketch that I play often, probably too often for myself, that I love.

And I'm not particularly interested in the sports, but when they do, is it the NFL picks?

And they all have the mad names.

Yes.

Those names make me die, man.

The thing is, it is actually accurate.

And I guess the problem is you can always stray, particularly because obviously we're not in that country, into sort of the things of ridiculing a sort of a subculture or a culture.

But some of the names that people do have, like if you look at, for example, both college NFL, so college and NFL players, and even certain rappers, their real names are really boring, by all standards anyway, absurd.

Boring or absurd, as in, there's just quite a lot of made up names.

There's a thing about people giving their children completely unique names and literally just making them up.

So I think, for example, even people from the Migos, I think Quavo's name is Quantavious, for example, which I'm sure is a name that I've never...

That's a great name, though.

Quantavious.

Yeah, so I'm just going to go and say a few...

So if you look at the names of the Migos...

So yeah, Quavo's real name is Quavious.

Just makes me want the crisps.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously, I'm going to go into the other end of the spectrum where obviously some of them have got comedically boring names.

Obviously, Snoop Dogg's name is Calvin Brodus.

Is that his Calvin Brodus?

That's great.

Yeah, there are some really good ones, aren't there?

What's Ice T's name?

He's got some really...

And they're always really boring names.

Yeah, I mean, often they are quite pedestrian.

Pedestrian, exactly.

I guess that's probably why you need a rap name.

Yeah, I guess so.

You need a cool rap name.

A lot of Ice.

A lot of Ice.

And that was all started with Ice Cube, whose name is...

Yes, I know this.

I know this because of his son.

O'Shea.

O'Shea Jackson.

O'Shea.

That's the thing with Americans, with the surname as a first name.

You know, you meet, like, Taylor and this is Cooper.

And this is...

And it's fucking on, guys.

Although, actually, I think Ice-T might have been before Ice Cube in terms of first release.

You think so?

He's older, isn't he?

Ice-T.

I feel like Ice-T always came over as a bit of a...

Ice-T's pretty old.

Yeah, Ice-T must be like 60 or something, surely.

Been around my whole life.

Oh, my God, look, state of him now.

Tracy.

Tracy Lauren Marrow.

Tracy Marrow.

That's a good name, isn't it?

Tracy Marrow.

Tracy Marrow sounds like a children's book.

The winner of the Somerset Cucumber Competition.

I mean, that's better.

Tracy Marrow, you could like own that.

Yeah, Tracy Marrow sounds like a green-fingered child who, you know...

Okay, let's get away from getting smacked in the mouth by Ice-T if he ever comes to the UK.

I'm rewatching Red Dwarf with my son.

I don't know why the cat is American, I haven't quite worked that out.

But I think that actually, when it comes to like casting, was a bit of a head of its time, actually, when I think about it.

Because you've got two black leads.

Yeah, I was thinking, I had literally the same thought the other day when I was...

That's the 80s, you know?

Yeah, exactly, 80s.

And also like within a sort of not black, sort of non siloed TV show.

So I think going beyond sort of...

Yeah, it doesn't matter who they are sort of thing.

Yeah, exactly.

As in it's kind of a particularly...

I guess, I mean, it's not specifically Radio 4 directly.

I don't know what all the things came of it.

It's that very kind of BBC Radio 4 adjacent TV show.

And as you say, not only to have a sort of majorly black cast, but have it not then marketed purely as a black TV show.

No, it wasn't Desmond's or anything like that.

No, exactly.

It's what it is just happened.

They just happened to be and it's not mentioned.

There's no reason to mention anything.

Yeah, exactly.

He's just a guy in space.

A guy in space, yeah.

He deals with religion so well.

It's a really good education for my son because I'm not a religious person, but the bit where they find the missing page of the Bible and stuff, it's just brilliant.

The whole thing is just...

It's a long time since I've watched a lot of it.

I saw half of an episode the other day just as it happened to me on TV, but I should go back and watch some of it.

I love a lot of it.

There are questionable bits.

Yeah, so definitely a lot of the gender and sexual politics of many TV shows, you sort of go back and think, hmm, I should have known better even at the time.

Yeah, because I watched Welcome to Wrexham because I like always sunny.

And then off the back of that, I've been watching this Beckham documentary.

And I'm not, are you a football guy?

I'm not a football guy myself.

But it's interesting to watch.

It is interesting to watch, like this guy's life and all the things that he had to deal with.

And you really do see how the press completely destroyed him.

But it all sort of started, well, it started with kicking this guy, but he didn't really touch him.

But really, it all started in the press when he wore a sarong, which the Sun haven't had, they showed the headline.

It was something like Beck's the cross dresser or something like that.

Really?

Some of the Sun headlines are absurd.

It's disgusting.

Too posh to push when Victoria was giving birth.

Disgusting.

How is this still allowed?

How is that still operating as a system, like those newspapers?

I mean, I mean, God knows.

I mean, it was like sort of things as mad as like the just the concept of page three is ridiculous now that you think back at like the idea that you just go like, right, you had two pages of news, have some nudity.

Yeah, yeah.

Back to news.

Like that's so odd.

It is strange because you have the most prudish house.

Like I lived in Ireland for a few years and my granddad, he had the Daily Star calendar on the wall.

Like it was nothing in the room.

It looked like something out of like Banshees of Inner Sheeran or something.

There's nothing in the room apart from one of those old ranges and a table with a pig's head on it or something.

And this thing just on the wall, a telly, a radio.

Who needs a telly when you've got the Star calendar?

My mum would apparently bring it over from England to him every year.

Like in the New Year, that would be the thing that she gave him.

Weird, right?

It's just like this isn't a law.

It's such a weird family dynamic.

You think that's weird, but that's so normalized, I think, in terms of what we're unlikely to be going back to.

You'd go to a garage that would definitely be on the wall, like anywhere.

Yeah, I guess it's before the internet, so that's kind of what people do.

Yeah, exactly.

Now it's just in everyone's pocket instead.

We may think that we're different, but in fact, it's just Instagram will give that to you pretty quick.

Yeah, I'm not sure I've got that completely covered.

Anyway, Matt, I've got to go to a party.

I will enjoy that.

I won't.

Is there anything...

Pretend to, you know, keep it on your face, just constant image of enthusiasm.

Earplugs and...

It's so reverberant.

You've got that all to look forward to.

Thank you so much for coming on.

I really appreciate it.

We talked a bit about Telly and a bit about your comedy and a bit about...

I would be happy to come back on in the future when I talk more about Telly properly.

When I've got something to promote.

Yeah, when you've got something to promote.

Well, we'll get you on as a...

Well, it's not announced yet, so I can't even announce it on this properly, but what I mean is more when I come back and that I will be promoting something in 2025.

So that will come back then.

Okay, yeah.

Let me know and we'll get you back on and we can talk about the Telly of 2024.

Exactly.

Sounds great.

Thanks for coming on.

Enjoy the party.

That's Matt Hutchinson.

What a great comedian, what a great guest.

Check out his socials which are at the bottom of the show notes of this episode.

I look forward to seeing his show next year at the Fringe to see what else he comes up with.

So Matt, consider yourself a friend of the podcast, and we'll speak again soon.

Now to today's outro track.

It is a song called Zeroes and Ones.

It was written and recorded in 2001 when I was living in a house share in South London in Streatham where you cannot afford to live anymore.

I think it's called St.

Reetham Valet now where I lived, Streatham Vale.

And yeah, I recorded all this using an Atari and very little equipment and, you know, did hundreds of songs around that time.

It's one of my favorites.

Yeah, it is what it is.

I hope you like it.

It's from an album called Oh, Deer, which will never see the light of day, which is basically a picture on the front of a deer on some 70s wallpaper.

That's where the title came from.

Anyway, so enjoy this, Zeroes and Ones.

I really like this track.

You Little Wonder, Little Wonder, You.

Where did I get those drums from, eh?

Some kind of leftover from the jungle period of the 90s.

So yeah, that was Zeroes and Ones, something I banged out in early 2001, written on the spot, I think.

I really like it.

I don't know what to say about it.

Just enjoy it.

Probably never be remastered.

Okay, come back next week, where we've got another one of these great episodes for Before Christmas, just for you.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for tuning in.

Please follow us, like us, subscribe, all the things that people are supposed to say.

Bye bye for now.