Jimmy Rees - Taskmasters - Comedian

It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast.

Last week Deadline.

Welcome TV Reload listeners. My name is Benjamin Norris, and this is your podcast to get all the inside goss on the popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably, our TV sets are a major part of our home entertainment, and very little is known about how our favorite shows get made. Each episode, I find guests that want to dive just that little bit deeper into the shows they're currently making so that you can hear all their exclusive stories and gain access to

In plenty of comedy sketch roles across.

The country, including what We're talking about today, which is his latest series, task Masters, where Tom Gleeson and his trusty sidekick Tom Cashman have been setting a series of challenges, each more mind bending and head scratching than the last. You can catch up on ten Play and weekly episodes are screened on Thursday nights at seven thirty. I will ask about Jimmy's transition from children's entertainer to mainstream comedy. We will find out more about his inspiration for last

Awesome, it's great to be here. Stop it the stop it with the family flattering me.

I'm blushing, I know, but you know it's funny because I've got lots of kids in my life. I don't have kids myself, but I look after my friend's kids. And I spent so much time watching you as a children's entertainer, and then I didn't really see the transition of you becoming sort of I'm going to say an adult performer, but that's probably.

Doesn't say I'm right, does it. I don't own a poll.

Sounds like you've got your own only bands account.

The hardest transition is not saying adult entertainment when you've come from kids entertainment, but you just say entertainment. I've learned it's just entertainment.

I can imagine that you had a lot of Australian entertainers that you looked up to, you know, before coming into the industry, you know, growing up, who were those sorts of entertainers that inspired you to go into television? Yeah.

Look, when I was in my teens, one of the biggest shows around at the time was like Grove Live and Thank God You're Here was around. I did love that show because it was just sort of improvised and silly and funny. And I don't know why I gravitated towards TV. I think you know a lot of people who they're wanting to get into anament or whatever.

They kind of have this oh yeah, well TV, movies, radio, whatever.

It is like they'll try and get into anything, or they might do acting, and then that involves like sort of TV and film and stuff. But I was more interested in just like those moments where people are having fun and being silly. And I think, you know, Rove Live was this huge show in the mid twenty ten sort of thing of a two thousand sort of time of just this Tuesday night was this fun show.

It was a Tonight show.

It wasn't really we didn't really get the other ones from overseas at that time. It seemed like Rovere was just this young guy having fun with his mates and then played all these silly games, and I don't know, it's sort of gravitated towards that. It seemed like he was just being himself, being fun, and that's what that's why I enjoy it. But in my house when I was a bit younger, my dad's originally from England and he moved out here when he was in his teens or something.

But he's just got that.

But he just loved watching British humor and British comedies and like the Two Runnies and Hale and Pace and Monty Python and Mister Been.

They were on all the time in our house. So that was something that I just loved.

And I guess that maybe with that physical thing I did love, you know, sort of physical comedy.

I was brought up.

My stepfather was English, so our house we played all of those shows were always on television. A lot of my humor that I lean towards is all of that kind of stuff. It's kind of like a little it's a good school of comedy really to go through.

Yeah, definitely, even he had records and tapes of like the Goon Show and like even Billy Birmingham's The Wide World of Sports, you know, he does the cricket commentary and Richie Beno.

It's the sort of but that was on a record. We put it on the record.

And he had all sorts of different bits of media, different things that I'll turn you to see these later on and stuff, but even just radio shows that were funny he had on in the background.

Yeah, so it was a huge influence.

And then I think watching films and stuff, I did gravitate towards the silly kind of films like Jim Carrey movies and yeah and stuff like that.

So yeah, that's always always been my sort of bag.

Don't you think that we're really missing something? And I think you'd be perfect for this, But we're really missing a tonight show on television. And I know a lot of people say that they're kind of a bit dated. But yeah, when we've got people like Margot Robbie coming into the country to promote Battle Yeah, or big name actors, we've got nowhere to take them. We've got nothing in the Austraian industry to sit down and we don't need to ask them the big questions.

We want someone like you to have a relatable moment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I agree, And I think, you know, some people say that that's like you're correct, you know, oh, there'd be dated.

Oh maybe it would work here. But if you watch the.

Big American shows or whatever, half their audience is not watching the TV show. They are watching the online clips. They're watching every single else. They've built these little mini empires of just everything going on social and you know,

Well, it's interesting that you say that because I was talking to an American producer who works in nighttime TV in the States, and he was saying that all of the three shows that he's worked on, and he's worked on the top three shows over the last twenty years, and he said that they'd all be asked if it wasn't for the way in which people are consuming that content. And he said, that's why they do games more.

Now.

There's not a lot of you know, an actual interview. It's more like you know, getting to cold kidman to you know, to tie uself to a balloon and do.

All this kind of stuff.

But that's where the money is and that's that's you, and it leads been my question for you as well, which is, you know, being a kids entertainer and then now working as an entertainer. But they are quite similar in some ways.

I think the evolution of it's funny because when I was at kids TV, there's all this sort of research and stuff and saying that, like, kids attention spans, especially when they're young, we're in.

The preschool, we're talking under five.

You know, their attention spans are quite sure, so you've got to sort of change tack a.

Little bit and keep it visual.

But with the evolution of TikTok and reels, I feel like the adults are exactly the same.

Now our attention span has gone down a lot as well.

So yeah, I think you could sort of almost love the two categories that they share a lot of similarities where they might not have before waiting one week to watch an episode of their favorite show like that's that's sort of it's still around and people still enjoy that, but you know, binging something is more prevalent these days, and so yeah, I think you could argue a case that, yeah, there's these adult adults and kids audiences pretty similar.

It's interesting because you know, people either want to binge something for an obscene amount of time, like go outside, open a window.

Maybe yes, but they want to.

Binge something, or they want short sharp comedy, and you've kind of become the king of short sharp clips. I mean, I absolutely loved your skit that you did at the Logis. I was at the Logis and I'm absolutely.

Probably pretty sure I heard you because I was. I was interested because I don't usually like if I was there, I did it, I edited up it, I said that in I didn't need to watch it, but I was interested.

In how they would play it in the room and how would appear on TV. So I did watch it live.

I was like, oh, yeah, they had the room live, you know, and the reactions and I was like, oh, it's really really cool that everyone in the room was laughing along and it was it was fun and silly because yeah, which was good.

So I probably definitely did hear you laughing.

It landed really well.

I thought it was a really good skit, And I mean, I want to know, because if the pandemic hadn't happened, do you think you would have found because you've really found this niche. You know, it's flourished, like you know, you've probably started with a couple of videos. But if the pandemic hadn't happened, do you think that these skits might not have surfaced.

I think just the direction I guess they would have taken because I started with a lot of parenting stuff because I was inside.

Of Victorian and we were we.

Were stuck in our houses for a long period of time in twenty twenty. And look, I knew I wanted to post stuff online. I was, you know, contractually with the ABC, I wasn't really allowed to do a lot, you know, like the stuff I'm doing now I never would have been allowed to do under my contract with as playing Jimmy Giggle, And that was fine.

I'm absolutely cool with Jimmy Giggle.

Doing now mine, I know exactly.

Yeah, So I couldn't really live this other life online when I was under contract with the ABC, And that's the reasons that I signed up for, which is absolutely fine. But I'd never really thought about it until maybe a couple of years towards the end. I was like, okay, I really I just started writing down ideas and things, and then we had you know, more kids, and then I was like, this is chaos, you know. So when the pandemic gave me the impetus to just get along

They wanted to laugh.

I think for you as well, you do comedy that I really appreciate, which is a reflection on society. And I think that was the perfect time because during something we'd never experienced, like a pandemic, people behaved badly, and it meant that you could tap into making fun of, you know, people who behaved badly, like the Carrots, you know.

Yep, absolutely yeah, And some of those skits wouldn't have existed, you know, like the Brighton Ladies.

You know, I don't think it mattered where you live.

There was a bit of press about you know, Brighton at the time as well, which was you know the Krent from Brighton who escaped Brighton because you'd walked all the streets or whatever. But that was just born from you know, someone sent me a message actually and said, the talk around Brighton is hilarious, you know, because the father is not available, but you have to get the astrosenica if you're if you're older. But then people in

They want to look younger.

But then if they get the vaccine that these available to them, so in their fifties or whatever, then they have to reveal their age and they don't want to do that, so they want to wait for the fans. So that was just I was like, that is that is something that's so funny and it's actually happening like in these places where oh I don't want to get that one just yet, you know, I'll wait even though I want to be safe.

But it's just such a weird situation.

So some of those characters, yeah, I can absolutely have to put it down to the situation we're in and I wouldn't have created that those sort of little characters and skits hadn't we been in that. But yeah, it's it's funny looking around now. I just see videos all the time. Now, oh oh that's a video, that's.

A clip, it's so funny.

We have to quickly talk about task Masters before I let you go, because that's what we're here for. And I am so excited about the show. You could not be in better company when it comes to the comedians of Australia. I want to know, because this came from this concept came from England. Were you wanting to dip in and watch a lot of that before you did the show? I can imagine for some comedians they'd not want to see it at all because they'd sort of

I had seen it was a bit of both. Actually I had seen task Master. I knew what it was. I'd seen many a clip online that popped up on I'd watched an episode or two, you know, over the last few years and stuff, so I knew what it was. I haven't watched whole series or like binge, the whole lot, and I didn't do that. I purposely didn't watch heaps of it before I went into it. So yeah, it was a bit of both. I knew exactly what it

My alley put me down for it straight away. But yeah, no I didn't. But then, like in hindsight, after the wrapped the series, I'm like, maybe I should have watched a little bit more.

The only thing I would have which I had an understanding, is just some of the even watching like a couple of episodes in a row like that were sequential, maybe that just would have been a bit more beneficial for I just think maybe the studio part of it, because you actually it took me a couple of episodes to go, oh, we are we can reference back to other, you know, episodes because they are shot in order and we are doing it.

That way.

It's usually some shows you record these things and they'll be like, ah, even though that was the third episode.

We recorded, we're gonna put that number one because that was the best one.

So if things become out of order and they're very episodic and you you tune into that episode, it stands alone where this one is.

Actually you could grow through the episode.

You can refer way back to episode one in episode nine if you want to.

Everyone seen everything.

And obviously we don't want to do that too much for people are just tuning in a little later, but yeah, it's that's probably something I would have just maybe watched a couple couple more episodes and gone, oh okay.

So they do that a lot.

Theories two My Friends Series two, that's what you that's.

What a series there is too will be new comedians, so.

That's how that's how they operate. So which is really fun.

Actually you do it one time and if you have all the regrets in the world, bad luck, you're not doing again, which is funny, Which is really funny. So you get through the series and you go, oh, if we did that again, and they're like, nap, sorry, we're gonna get a fresh batch. Of people to do it to go in blind basically, which is the cracks of the show, and that's what makes it raw and funny and silly because you get these tasks which is set there.

But the hints can actually it can be.

Interpreted both like two different ways, so you might go down one road or the other. But in the stress of the moment, you come up with the most random things and they don't give you any clues and anything beforehand. You just literally they roll the cameras you.

Do the task.

They don't say anything how well you've done or anything, and then you go on to the next one. So it's really it's really quite fun and like stressful at times.

Why did they chose to because they film parts of this in New Zealand, like and some of it in Australia, so you're kind of doing the tasks you know, overseas and then coming back the live audience stuff. Why do you think they decided to make the decision to offshore some of.

That, Yeah, I think I think it was more of a like a logistical kind of thing they had. The production company has has produced the New Zealand series of task Masters.

So the.

So like the house.

Like if you've watched some task Master or the UK version of the New Zealand version or whatever, you'll know that the that all the tasks happen in. Like in inverted commas, the task Master house is which they you know, rent this property for a week and they take over it and it's yours for them, and they set things up in a shed, they decorate it, they do everything to it, so every single task is happening there.

So the certain property.

Has to have certain elements, so I think instead of going and finding one, you know, like New Zealand had already gone through all that, So we used the same house as as the New Zealand version of task Master. They just obviously tweaked a few bits and pieces here. It had like a pond down the back which they could use with a little boat in the jetty. There was plenty of space to run around in the field

To pun show. You know, before you go, I have to ask you this last question, what is something from behind Everyone gets this. Everyone has to ask. I don't know why I'm talking like Donald Trump. Everyone gets this question. It's what is something from behind the scenes of making the show that we won't see on the program, kind of like maybe a behind the scenes secret or maybe something quite funny that happened behind the scenes.

Oh my gosh, you put me on the spot. There's so many just random things that happened. Well, it's interesting because most like the tasks you do, you don't see anyone else, you know, Like there's a few group tasks you see, like I saw Luke and Nina in my group for like five group tasks or something, and that was it. I didn't see anyone else. I didn't know how

That's something probably people wouldn't know.

But then when we got to the studio, there was plenty of moments which obviously won't make the cut because they got a little bit rude, and you know, they gave a bit like not fit for TV seven thirty timeslot.

Yeah, I think Julia Morris went down a.

Few rabbit holes of talking about a recent divorce, which he does talk about on the show, but this just gets a bit a bit too naughty.

Do you think of other things?

Oh yeah, okay, so there was which didn't make It's not in the series, but they get you to do these random things. And I didn't even talk to Julia about this in the end, but one of my tasks was, right, Julia Morris, thirty fan letters, but you can't say that

Letters to Julian, the real Julia Marris.

I'm like, oh, no, so I didn't say anything to her, and it didn't pop up in the series because you know, they shoot extra.

Tasks and stuff, you know. So, yeah, but I haven't actually spoken.

To her about it, that she got thirty letters from these random people. It's like, I'm made up name, So I made up all these different things. I like, put lipstick on and kissed one of them.

I'm like, so, she's.

Probably not asked Julia about this.

I know, because I.

Didn't know if they would use it after I had to, I didn't know if they were. But when I see her next, I'm going to ask her to say, did you get thirty letters at random, sporadic times from me?

Just like I.

Needed all the love I could get. I don't care who sent them.

I don't care you. Yeah, maybe she's said that they've ended. She's like, oh, they stopped sending them. Keep it. So, yeah, that's something I need to confront with.

That's something behind them, you know, like which, yeah, which is kind of random, I.

Guess, Jimmy.

I honestly, I think you are so funny, and I think you're so talented, and I think that this is the tip of the iceberg on where you're going to go with your career. ASIKSTRAA will love watching you on Task Maasses. I've seen a little bit of it. It's very funny. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast instead of talking to me.

That was a great job.

Appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, Task Mass is really fun. I think I think a lot of people I haven't seen it before will will really we'll really enjoy it, so yeah, tune in seven thirty