It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reloaded podcast last week online. Welcome back guys to TV Reload. My name is Benjamin Norris and on this podcast I go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. Each episode you will get a front row seat with content makers like executive producers, writers, editors and casting agents. What's the talent that we see on our screens?
TV Reload reloads the shows that you are currently watching and gives you a better insight into our television industry and our streaming services. Today. On the podcast, I have one of Australia's most celebrated personalities, ev Jones, who is here to talk about Snack Masters Series two, which debuts on Channel nine at seven pm this Sunday night. Eve started off on Gogglebox Australia but quickly updated our TV status with an amazing effort, coming second on I'm a
Celebrity in twenty nineteen. Since then, we have seen her pop up on talk shows, award nominated podcasts and radio gigs, and last year Channel nine gave her an exciting role on Snack Masters, which Audio of course demanded more of. We will talk about the new series today and I will give you some exclusive insights. But I also have a surprise for ev in today's episode, which I need you to keep in mind as I start the chat.
Unbeknownst to my guest, I have Snack Masters executive producer from Warner Brothers, Caroline Swift, affectionately known as Spence to everyone in the industry listening into the chat. Will Evy be caught, out, shocked or outraged as I reveal our hidden guest, You will just have to wait and see. However, let's get started with today's episode as I welcome Evie Jones back to the podcast TV Reload.
The show is.
About food and it's about Australian food. This year, the Snackstakes have been raised. It was funny because working on goggle Box we never got directed.
Snack Masters set an extraordinary challenge for Australia's top shies.
She knows that to be a really good producer is to make the talent feel confident. You'll be leading on all the secrets of how they're really much Thanks to Snack Detective Evy Jones, one journalist ask are we promoting eating junk food? And I said absolutely not.
Yes, Snackmasters start Sunday at seven.
I'm nine. They have made careers on saying I've had the worst edit.
Hi Ivy Jones, Hi Benjamin Norris. Do you remember the last time that I called you mate? When I had you on the podcast Get a Mate?
Did I have a go at you for calling me mate?
Only because it sounded so ridiculous?
Like I was, like, you never called me mate.
I'm still struggling though what to say when I start the podcast, because you know me, I want to get to the juice and I want to get to the fun part and saying hello to people. I actually really bad it hellos and goodbyes in general.
Oh love that fine, that very fascinating about you, and I'll be watching intently from now on, well.
After the therapist I go. Anyway, thank you so much for coming on and talking about series two of Snack Masters. Is it good to be back.
It's so good to be back. I'm just so glad that we have got a second season. Channel nine are doing such a good job in placing their TV shows. I think that they've realized that there are spaces for these shows, not to put them up against other shows in prime time, in ratings time, where they're going to be not watched, but put them in times where it
really does help, especially around Christmas time. You know, we're a food show and we're not competing with other competitive food shows, and it really helps you get into that Christmas spirit and that holiday g and the show is about food and it's about Australian food. So what better way to kind of do that cross you know, groceries Christmas food eating? Isn't it interesting? I didn't know Tim
Tams were made that way. So I'm really glad that we got that second season and we're having it aired at the same time, and I think that, you know, as season three will pretty much come because of that.
It's a summer series. You know. My favorite thing about the show is the nostalgia factor. We go on a little journey and go and have a look at snack and see how long it's been in our lives for and a lot of them are culturally a part of Australian history.
Have you watched the episode where Poe and Scott go back to the eighties. They go to a corner store and Paula Duncan is behind the counter.
I haven't seen that yet. I've only watched episode one, but I'm very excited for that because I'm still living in the eighties and nineties.
Oh my god, it's so good when you see her, she has an age today. And they go past the door, the glass door as they walk in, and there's an old TV week cover because the whole shop's been set up as the eighties, and there's an old TV cover with Paula Duncan on.
It, and she's standing there behind. It's so brilliant.
I meant to I must text Spencer go whose idea was that it's brilliant?
You have been lucky enough to see the first few episodes of Snack Masters. We'll have to wait until Sunday. But what did you think? What have you thought of yourself on the show?
I always think there's not enough of me. I'm not in it as much as I thought I was going to be. I'm so disappointed.
Probably a good time for us to introduce our special guest here that's going to.
Don't stop it, stomp it. I'm dying.
I'm dead stop it.
I know you.
Is going on. God, Spence, I didn't mean that.
I'm so like you can say whatever you like.
I'm not in it enough. But that's the nature of the beast, isn't it That you do all these special entertaining things and then like nah tim tam slams not for us. I know.
That's the thing about the it is, it's the vagaries of this business. You shoot and shoot and shoot and show and so much ends up on the cutting room floor. It kills me as well.
Well, that's good to know. That's good to know at least that I bad.
And I think certainly with this show. This show is hard to cut, you know. And it's really is.
And it's it's because it's got so many moving parts, you know, and and it also has like a really it's key requirement is clarity, you know, like which which making it on track goes to God because it doesn't speak to clarity.
Yeah, it is a it's a tough one to edit.
Let me tell you.
I wanted you to pop in to celebrate Evie Jones and the magic of Snack Master Series two. So for people listening this is this is a huge cup for us to be able to have you here and to share some of your thoughts with ev.
Yeah, it's such a great show, and you know, I'm so glad that I get to work with you. I've worked with you before, and I think there was a time you wanted me for Celebrity Apprentice and when I said no because it was a lockdown and I was having such bad anxiety and mental health and I said to my manager, I'm just so worried that if I
say no, they'll never offer me anything ever again. And you personally said to my manager, please let her know that we will always, you know, think of her for things, and not to ever think that way that you know, saying no to something means the death of your career. And I always remember that it was a very kind thing to hear back to have you know, feedback for and I was like, oh few, thank god. And then snack Masters go and I'm like, oh my god, perfect. Oh yeah, no.
I think it was one of the joys of actually putting together you and Scott and Poe. And I remember actually when we kind of did that thing that you do up on the you know, you've got people's headshots and you're like, you know, what are we gonna do? Yeah, and then we kind of put I sort of slid you three te together and it was like I think It's one of the proud as casting kind of pace done actually, because I think you all just work like you just look right together inside the show to.
Get when you cast ev what had you seen in our delightful and delicious ev Jones that made her write for the show. I mean, they look great together. But was there something that you'd seen of her or what was she and the zeitgeist for you?
Well, obviously I was a massive fan of, you know, couch Time on goggle Box, so you know that was that was my sort of first first kind of foray. And actually, this is going to be this is going to sound very weird, and Evie, this will sound very weird to you. It was actually a pace on Angie's bachelorette when you went and visited her when they were doing nude painting or something.
Do you remember that, Dari God, yeah, there was a penis right, I remember it, Yeah, And.
I remember watching that and just.
Going, oh, seeing you in a different sort of environment, a looser sort of environment, I suppose, Well, not just on a couch, I suppose. And I just loved your energy and clearly your ability to put people at ease, even when the pizzas were exposed and thought, honestly, you know, someone who can put someone with their penis out of ease, surely must be able to talk about a tim tam in a factory, you know.
But actually.
It was actually that scene where I was like, oh, there's.
More to this lady, I think, and and I just and your energy is You're one of the very few people I think who are beautifully energetic and in the flesh. But also you can translate it down lens. A lot of people like that. That's a really difficult skill.
There is a huge leap between reality TV stars and genuine TV personalities, and I always think that, you know, for TV personalities, there has to be something very genuine and authentic, and you have to be very inquisitive as a presenter, and I think Evie has that. She sees people. She is a great listener, she's a great storyteller, but she makes people feel like they want to open up.
One of the key things is, and I think this is true just to being a human being. I think as well is just being constantly curious. And I think that is what I think. You know, you bring beautifully to this role, but it's also a relatability as well, you know what I mean.
Food made on a mass scale is.
Really much more scientific, isn't it ev as opposed to it's about science, isn't it really to try and take something like that and actually make it relatable. That's for me, I think, is that it really is your skill there in regards to the information that you're getting across.
I mean, the people that I talk to, they take their jobs very seriously, which I absolutely love. You know, they a lot of them they actually have food scientists, and I think that that is brilliant and hilarious all at the same time. And when I talk to them, they're so into their jobs, but they're also really into just talking, you know, to someone about anything, and they so you get this beautiful side of them, and that that's what I like about them, because you know, most
of them work regionally. They're all in like regional towns and absolutely love that, you know, we've come out and so interested. I say to all of them, do you have like tours come through? And have you had any other shows you know come in and do you know documentaries? And they say, no, this is the first time, and don't you think that this is fascinating and I'm like, yes, I do. I actually do. They get really chuffed about it.
Yeah, And I think there's some there is some stuff that to be genuinely proud of, like the fourign twenty pie fight.
Really, what's the biggest bakery in the world, is that right?
It is the biggest pie bakery in the world.
You know there it is in little old Barnsdale.
I know.
And the guy that was Early, he's from Germany and he has I loved him so much, like I wanted to just hug him to death. He designs part like he comes and he's got pie brain and he thinks of things and he loves pies and baking so much. Not on the weekend he does his own like stall. And I kept thinking, oh, I wish Poe was here, because you know, she does that as well. She loves cooking and she does TV shows and all of these things.
But on the weekends she trots off with all of her little bakery treats to the Adelaide markets and that's a real foody and Early was like that as well. Yeah.
I loved the what That's one of the things I really enjoyed about this show very much, is that the nerdier and the more eccentric and the more into their particular products they are with the people that you talk to, and then on the judging paddle, the better.
Someone said to me that they assumed that you were casting people to play them, So I don't want to throw this person under the bus. But I was watching the first episode, which will be on Sunday night, and I thought it was so funny because they are brilliant
on this show. I mean, I don't know how you get access to go to these places, because that would be really hard, but then also to have access to the real people and have them want to do it is amazing, Like, I don't know how you put that together.
Well, I think it was one of the things that when we reached out to, you know, our hit list of snacks that we wanted to do. You know, one of the kind of key things is that, you know, you guys need to obviously give us that access to your factory for ev to go and visit, and preferably who Evie has leading her through the detective work. Ideally what they also sit on the judging panel as well, But you need to make four people available to us and not all of them can be your advertising and
marketing people. We don't, in fact, we don't really want those people want them.
We don't.
We don't like seeing it. We don't want them they're seeing all the time boring. We want the guts of it all.
Yeah, they and they. I think also that these people don't often get.
You know, some of them have ben have they been doing it for like work, work, the for thirty years. They're part of the family of that of that snack they live and breathe. It's actually quite beautiful. The pride that they, you know, that they take in it isn't that.
Absolutely, they're very proud of what they do, and they love that we're interested in it because they get it, and they kind of like, oh you really, you really do want to know. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to you know. It's my favorite part is the bits they can't tell you but they can't help They say, you promise you won't tell anyone, and I'm like, no, it won't go to air, and they can't. They just
can't help themselves. But tell you that little secret ingredient and you're like, oh, it's a shame, we can't put that to air. And they're like, I know, but really you can't bless them.
Spencer is going to say, you know you, it's so well known for the shows that you make. You're so busy. I think you're probably one of the busiest producers in the country, and I see your name coming up again and again on shows. But what I love about the shows you are making is you make the talent look really accessible. And I don't know how you do it because you when you're watching a show and things, you feel included as an audience. And I must admit there's
so many shows where they don't get it right. But I've always wanted to ask you, what's your secret in building relationships to get the most out of the people that you work with.
Thank you. That's very kind of you to say that.
I think for me, for an audience to feel engaged, they need to feel relaxed. And to feel relaxed, you need to know that the people who are guiding you through the show are confident and know where they're going, you know, so you don't sit there kind of going, oh my god, I feel nervous because this show seems to be drifting and.
You know that kind of thing.
But I think for me, how to do that is too often to get out of there, get out of your own way, you know what I mean, because a lot of people who are out in.
Front of the camera far better than they think they are, you know.
And I think that, you know the For me, it is just about infusing people with confidence and making them believe as much in themselves.
As I do.
So I think that I think it's that simple, you know, And being also to being relentlessly collaborative, you know. I think that that's the I try and do that with all of the guys that I work with, all the producers I work with that you know, I don't.
I never claim to have. I don't have all the answers, and I don't. I don't.
I'm not always right, and in fact, more often than not, I'm not right. And it's actually being able to trust people. I think people perform much better when they're trusted, when they've been collaborated with, and when they know that that the people who are producing them have can play confidence and yet confidence in them.
I think.
I genuinely think it's that simple.
The confidence is natural ability, I think, and you know, that's what I can see in your presenters, there's no arrogance to them. Pose of a great example of that. Evie is a great example of that. You know, there's a confidence that's coming across on screen, and I think that sometimes can be hard to conjure, you know, when there's so much pressure, when there is so much pressure on them, especially with Evie, Like you've come from doing reality TV and then now you are a fully fledged
TV presenter and doing it brilliantly. I know personally that's inside of you, but then to get someone to unearth that out of you, that's a real skill.
Yeah. And you know what, I can vouch for most of the people that I work with in the crew as far as producers and directors go, that Spence really does make them feel collabed, like they're part of it and they really listen to And I've spoken to a lot of them that would be like, oh, I just love her so much, like she's just the best. She's
the best. And I'm like, yeah, like that's really rare, you know, because everything I did was celebrated, and it just makes you want to do more and go better and keep doing it because no one's saying, you know, oh, that's not really working. And you know, it was funny because working on goggle Box we never got directed and
it would so fly on the wall. And it works really well if you just kind of let let people go and do their thing and be who they are, and then you edit it really, you know, get it, so it's so good. I remember there was we had one woman come in one day out of eight seasons
and she had come from reality TV producing. I think she'd done the seven year Switch and that kind of thing, so back back then, and she we have this god mic or god speaker that we called it because we were in the room alone, but our crew would be in another room all set up with their equipment and they'd be watching and listening, and if the producer wanted to talk to us, which was very rare because you
frighten the life out of us. When we'd hear the god speakers go on, we're like, oh shit, oh God, we forget that people are in another room. She kept using it and we're like, this is really meir, And every time she'd use it, she'd say things like, oh God, you went on a bit there, or okay, anyway, can we continue with the movie. Wow, And Angie and I that day we shut down. I can still remember we were watching Top Gun. We were like, I can remember every single thing about that particular shoot.
That day.
We shut down so badly that the EP called us the next day and said, I've just watched last night. It's rushes and don't worry, she's never coming back. And you know that's not Please don't ever shut down like that again, Like, you know, we will make sure.
That you know you just are who you are.
But it was amazing how just that one little critique when you don't know you've done anything wrong. There's such a massive difference. And I guess in reality TV that kind of a director or a producer is needed because then maybe you get the drama that you want, whereas other productions you need your talent to be really confident and feeling like they're doing the right thing, and your job is to get rid of the shit later on.
Yeah, it really I think it is about making This is going to sound so La wain Ka, but it is to be the best version of themselves, you know, and to see anything else just and I know it sounds like fuck, you know, how hard is it to be yourself?
It's really fucking hard, you know. That's what it is. It's about going no, no, no.
We've booked you for a reason for what you bring. Give me more of it.
You just mentioned something that I think is really funny. People sit at home saying that they could be on Google Box, or people sit at home saying, oh, if I was on this show, I would do such and such, But it's it's not true. It's actually you know, you can sometimes become a very different person under the pressure of, you know, shooting something. I remember Alex Maverdikes once said to me he was like, an introverted person can all of a sudden become extroverted in front of a camera,
and vice versa. An extroverted person can quieten down. And so it's not as simple as being confident enough to think I can do it. Use something very rare that people have that transcends on camera.
I think the camera, television. The camera is a very blunt instrument. And I think this is less about I.
Think what I think what with what Evening does, but certainly with respect to reality contestants and stuff like that, because it is such a blunt instrument, and it also it doesn't lie.
So if you kind of I'm just one of the things I.
Say to all the people who are considering coming on any of any of the reality shows that I do, which is, if you come in and think, you know, oh my god, I'm going to self censor and I'm going to put a wall up, and you know, I'm going to be very intentional about what I do and.
Say, you're just going to look fucking shifty. You're not going to look like you're in control.
You're going to look fighting something and you have to be naked. You know, that is the way to win and succeed on these shows. Drop everything and then the but you do anything odd like put up walls or try and be something different or you know, shut down or whatever, and it'll have the opposite outcome of what you want it to.
I can vouch for that.
In a celebrity get me out of here. I had to control a little bit of mine, not what was being seen, more about what was happening in the jungle. You know, you can't eat this, and you can't you know, you have to blah blah blah blah. And I just kept trying to control everything. And then after two weeks I had realized that the time I realized and I said to Angie, I don't think I'm gettingvoted out of
his When I did, I had best experience. I reckon you could see a completely different side on camera as well.
I think I think you've hit the nail on the head. It is something that I've said to everyone about that. It's like, do not take a spot away from someone else on this show if you want to come in and try and control it. And if you do that, you'll have the most terrible experience of your life. You will hate me, you will hate the producers, you will hate the whole thing.
Come in open nude and.
Willing to basically jump feet first into this experience.
It'll be fucking life changing for you.
What do you make of the Maths contestants that leave the show and just go on and on and on about the edit, and you know, because it happens every season now since about four seasons, like really hardcore, they have made careers on saying I've had the worst edit.
Yeah, look, I I just don't even listen anymore. My response to it professionally is I you know, and as we start to put a cast together, reality shows. I have very clear conversations with people about exactly this. I'm just like, look, I can't make you do something, I can't make you say something. So you know, what people are normally responding to is that it's condensed.
Time and juxtaposition. That's what they're responding to.
And you know, you if you took you know, my day and condensed it down to three minutes, it's going to look and feel very different than watching it unfolding real time, you know. And I think that that's something that people just can't quite get their head around. And also, you know, the reason they want to go on maps, and the reason people want to watch maps is often the you know, the skill of the edit is the compare and contrast and real life you don't your eyes don't compare and contrast.
You don't, you know, you know, buck cut up, you know, me.
Kind of going on, my god, I've got a thing about you know, dirty feet, and then suddenly, you know, someone walks towards.
Me with dirty feet.
It just does.
It never happens that way in real life, whereas in television we.
Can construct it that way.
But it's not giving someone a bad edit, you know, it's also stuff that gets left out.
That's usually their other issue as well.
Right, yeah, well we don't get to see or you didn't get to see the good side of me.
But you know what's funny is that I interview people like three times a week, and you know, a lot of reality TV contestants say yes to doing my podcast, So this is very unusual to have such high caliber guests today. No offense to them. No offense then, But do you know what's really interesting is that they say, while they're being interviewed about their edit, I'm not like this, But as they are saying it, they're portraying every single
attribute that they say they don't have. So they'll be like, but I'm not aggressive, and you're like, you know, you're being to me. They're being aggressive now, like and you feel like saying to them, no, you know, it's not the edit. It's just the disconnect that you have with yourself, this version of yourself you've created over the years of your friends or your parents or your mum or whoever's told you that you were wonderful and amazing. That's that's
the disconnect. That's someone's lied to you.
You know, you get to a certain age and you you haven't ever really you know, you don't know how you behave, you don't know how you sound, you know what I mean. And also once you kind of get past about eleven, not many people often tell you no, you know what I mean?
Or no that's not what you know. Well, that's not the way to behave, you know. And often there's a lot of saving people from themselves on these shows, you know, And I think that's.
Actually really ever acknowledged by you know, people on these shows. Often we can see what's going on, and we can see how it's going to be, how it's going to come across, and you kind of go, hey, you probably should insert apologize to that person on camera now, or go and do that, you know, to try and kind of assist, and you get ignored or told that you're being you know, I'll do it. I want don't try
and produce me. Okay, cool, we won't try and produce you. Now, it's up to you to however you come across highly.
They're allergic to themselves. Just to sidestep that for just a little bit, and just because we only have spens for just a limited time, I just wanted to say you know, we are seeing more women behind the scenes of television more than ever before, and you hear stories of it being a big boys club back in the day, and then here we have you, who has the respect of other producers. I often speak to other producers in your industry that are male, you know, that male dominant space,
and they hold you in such high regard. I just wanted to know from your perspective. You know, what do you think has changed, you know, for you to be able to and for more women to have more opportunity like this in this industry?
Great question, I think, what is it?
Look one of the I'll just start with the fact that if you'd said to me fifteen years ago that three of the major houses in Australia would be creatively run by women, I would.
Have not quite believed you, you know.
And the fact that I'm now at Warner's Mills and Taza, you know, creatively running and the Malshine Beth Hearts creatively running ITV. You know, I, honestly I don't think would have believed you. And the reason I wouldn't have believed you is that all I saw was rigidity in the guys that had been there for almost as long as i'd been in television, you know, which is now coming up to cross to mighty thirty years, you know, so, and it was because I didn't see the move, you
know what I mean. And also, you know, it was always traditionally that all the show runners were men with the odd exception, and then there was this army of kind of women, kind of you know underneath. I think it's been a natural thing that's happened that as those you know, as those men have either moved into.
Networks or retired.
Or what ever, it was kind of inevitable that this army of really hard working, clever, creative women we're going to rise up, you know. You know we've got I think the balance is sort of getting there, you know what I mean.
And you know, I've got some.
Fantastic male showrunners that I work with who bring a completely different view to their shows, and equally, I've got some fantastic women's showrunners who do exactly the same. It's it's it's yeah. But how do I think it's happened. I think it's just happened because it was inevitable. It was inevitable.
Well off the back of that, I was going to say to both of you, have you noticed in the content change then on screen, because you know there has been a shift behind the screen in elevating women's voices and equality and presenting diversity in a different way. Do you think we are seeing a change in the content that we see on our screens you.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this, darling.
It was great to hear what you were saying about how there's you know, an army of women underneath those men, so as they naturally leaving or retiring or dying that you know the next best person is going to come up. And I found find that really interesting because it was a man's club and it's not going to become a
women's club because we just don't work that way. It will become a meritocracy, which Ben knows is one of my favorite terms in the world, where we eventually get to a point where we assign roles to whoever has the merit to deserve that role. And that's why I think that the changing TV and the landscape in movies,
all of it is so wonderfully changing for diversity. We are seeing, like to have a show at love on the spectrum winning Emmys, Golden Globes, to have you know, people of color being shown, disability, people being shown so
many you know, so and having hosts. That one thing Poe and I said when we first met each other, and I actually told Adrian, which I was like, I don't know what he's going to think of it when I said that, But Poe and I was so excited that we had an Asian and a fat girl on Channel nine as hosts, not as comedy, not as you know, but people who are being taken seriously because once upon a time, Channel nine wouldn't and it wasn't that reason.
Ago wouldn't Ago.
I'm yeah, the fact that I think you know that it's it's you know, we're making television for women twenty five to fifty four.
That's so that's who I make television for, you know, and.
It's you know, there's still moments though, where you know, it's just talking about there are still moments where I sometimes sit, you know, or I.
Hear things being pitched.
You know that that is so like, oh my god, I cannot believe you've not brought a woman into that particular pitch, you know, And it's a complete Sausage Fest, trying to pitch a show that is clearly about.
Women for women, you know, and it still happens.
It's occasionally still lapses, but it's occasional as opposed to them now And I think what I love just about what Evie said, because I am also about meritocracies and and I just you know, I'm you know, I'm the fair I'm a feminist who just all I.
Just want is just let's just all be equal. I don't want to work in television that is just all women, you know, just like I didn't like but it's all.
Men, you know what I mean, the best person for the job.
It's a it's a delight now that what I love is that now, you know, broadly speaking, when I go out and look for the best person to the job, I now have a really equal balance with respect to the genders that I can choose from, which is fucking great.
Ben So I just want to say thank you so much for coming on and joining us. We got a little bit more of you today than I thought we would, and I just want to say thank you because I know how busy you are.
Thank you so much for having me. Benjamin and ev I love spending time in your company, So thank.
You, thank you for your generosity with so much time. Amazing you guys later, Why Evie, I thought it would be fun for you to say something, and you just walked straight into it. I didn't even even did anyway, it was super duper fun and I'm so glad we did that. I pranked you, I punked you. I'm ashed
in kutcher. Anyway, We're going to do a bit of a factory reset right now so you can catch your breath, and I'm going to play the Snack past season two promo, and then we're going to come back and talk a little bit about food.
Prepare your taste buds.
Feeling hungry famished for six delicious nights on nine.
Yeah, to replicate the snack Australia's best chefs and to head recreating our most iconic snacks.
I think I stopped this up.
Do you give up?
Ads?
Get it together.
I know You've got this and all out showdown like no other. It looks like salt and Pepper Calormario. I'm trying to attack us. Your time to crack the snap shots down.
Unade Masters start Sunday at seven on nine.
The mad of the show as well has to do with our own relationship with these snacks, you know, and I think that we have we hold them quite sacred. And it's I remember with episode one with the ice bovo. I can't remember who said it, but someone said, oh, I've eaten over a million of these, and my grandma used to have them. And I thought to myself straight away, Yes, my grandma used to have them too, And every time I was there at my grandma's house, we would have
an iced bovo. And then immediately I felt the No, obviously, my Grandma's no longer with us. I could feel her, you know, I could sense her, and I thought.
That I love that.
That was something that was important to me as a viewer, to have those sort of relationships, and I think, yeah, as I said, that's the magic of it, that's the magic of the show.
Absolutely. That is exactly why I think the first season did so well. When people watched it, they were like, oh, that's taken me back. Oh that ad of that, you know, drumstick, Oh my god. The twist is, oh, that's really taken me back. Because we have such fond memories of our snacks.
Watching the UK version I watched they did Quality Street and the reaction of people opening the Quality Street, the chefs and their shoes, chefs and people who were working in the kitchen, they're like, oh cool me, I haven't had one of these work quite well. And they're like, but oh oh, this has taken me right back. Oh you needed tetley tea now, and you know that kind
of thing. That is what is so wonderful. That's why using the old footage that they do is really really smart to get us to go, oh my god, I loved that. That snack. That's been around six six episodes this time two snacks per episode, so we've got twelve snacks. Well, the Allen's one is actually three snacks, so more than twelve.
We also have a strain relationship with snacks, I think at the moment because we now tell ourselves that we can't have snacks. Oh, there's got to be a healthier option, you know. And it's there's something about the guilty pleasure of being able to have a snack because we all still have them. If we didn't still all eat the snacks, the supermarkets wouldn't be full of them. So people are
still eating them. But there's a shame factor. And I think this show's really good at being able to remind us that we need these guilty pleasures in our life and how delicious they are, because you know, life could be pretty grim, so oh my eat a stam.
Snacks arelive. But you know, I've spoken to a family and that when I were asking what the show was and I would say Snack Masters, they would say, oh, what junk food? And I'm like, yeah, I guess, but we don't call it that and we don't present it as that. And I've had one journalist ask and we promoting eating junk food and I said, absolutely not. You know, we're not telling you to gorge yourself on cheesels. We're saying, how amazing are cheesels when you eat one and you
haven't in a while. Because this thing is that people, yeah, buy snacks all the time, and we can see that in our grocery stores and everything. But they're not your meals. They're your snacks. You know, you sit down and you watch TV, or you sit in bed with your partner, or are you sit in bed alone and you have your little treaty and it's lovely, you know, and that's.
The majority of people.
I think that, yeah, we have been shamed into eating not eating these things, but everyone still does. And we know that everything in moderation is absolutely fine. You can't eat snacks endlessly because they're too rich. All snacks are just too rich, so your body eventually after, I mean, everyone knows you have one meat pie, a little four and twenty pie. You can't eat another one. Your body's like no, no, and are you making a face? You can eat two of those things.
I love pies. Why I just.
Wait, Benjamin, until you find out how many times they roll the pastry that goes on top of that.
I believe you, wait, I believe you. I am an a fishiado is that the word, and a fiscionado of pies like I love. I can't go through a small town though without trying their pies.
Neither pies are the best invent. I mean, everything is a great invention, but for me, if it's got food in it, but pies.
You know, we talked about this last time. Last time we spoke was the day before season one launched, and we talked about what people would say to you online about snacks and junk food and all of this stuff, And it's really interesting conversation because you and I were kind of nervous about what people would say. Actually, no, you weren't nervous. I didn't care. You said shut the fuck up, and in the nice swep I was.
I was like, people are going to say, oh, look at this fat bitch eating snacks, Like did they say that?
Though?
Never did? Never did actually surprised me. I thought Channel Channel nine viewers were a lot harsher than other network viewers. They're not. So I apologize to everyone listening.
And Channel I don't have enough money to go around, and no television network does these days to pay people off. No, don't say that. Say what you're like, You know, you can't censor people. But you know, the interesting thing about last season two this season is how much people on the on the series. You know something that I think you noticed because I brought it up with you at the time. I was like, people are loving you on
this show. Like it's one thing to be friends with you and to kind of think of you as a bit of a secret in some ways, because you're like, oh, I know that person's amazing, but then to share them with the world is another whole side of it, and then for people to see you the way that I see you is quite amazing and quite beautiful.
Oh thank you. Yeah, I haven't had one of my best friends call me after the first episode last season and she goes, you were really good. I went, why do you sound so surprised? She goes, well, I just she said, like you were really good.
You are so good on this show. It fits the mold perfectly. And we were so lucky enough to have that conversation about why you fit on this show so well, why you look so up it's so good up against the others with Spence, So you know, that was quite an amazing It's.
A good fit. It's a really good fit.
And you know, like we Spence said, you know, she knows that to be a really good producer is to make the talent feel confident, and she certainly does that, like in space and not to the point where you're a big head, but you actually go, oh wow, people can see what is inside and I'm going to show that because it's being celebrated.
Because I believe in the season three, I just want to ask you, is there a snack that doesn't get cut, that doesn't get done season one and season two. That needs to be done for season three.
I want a big mac Macis is my you know, as you know, if I say to someone I love you more than Macis, that means everything. It's true because I haven't. No, I know I haven't because I don't. There is not many people that I love more Macas. So if you ever hear it, you know that you are truly, truly above and beyond in my eyes that I love my mum more than Macers. So that's how high up it goes. Yeah, I'd like, you know, KFC or McDonald's, but KFC obviously we can't do because they're
never going to reveal. There's secret herbs and spass.
I've actually worked one of the secret host spices and I don't know if this is heart radio leave this in here, but you know what, it was funny. Ben and I went out and had a lot to drink. So we've had the craving for the CA. The KFC is what we call it here at our house uh Asian. We ate a family feast of it, which we'd done once before, and you know what, I noticed it did something to the two of us.
Which maybe it was horny goat weed.
That's the secret herbs and spice. I cracked it. You know what's really funny is I was like, this is so bizarre. I was like this chicken has got maybe the hormones and the chicken or something. I was like, this is very strange because, like I was, we've been together for thirteen years. As you know, I was looking at it.
I don't put hormones in chicken. That's a big meth that go on. But I was looking like he was, you know, and it was just after no, it was definitely I know exactly what it is because it happens to me all the time as well.
After I ate Chinese, what is it?
Then MSG no, MSG gives me night terrors like, oh well it's.
Not well it is something.
Then to MSG makes me so happy, like so incredibly happy. Me and Annie go and eat MSG. We go to old school Chinese whenever we can, whenever we can find one, and we just go and then we have the best twenty minutes around life and then we crash.
This is on brand for this conversation. So my grandparents would make a soup before you'd get to their place. So anyway, for people listening. I'm not about to talk about horny grandparents, so like just to still keep listening. But we always kept wanting to know what was in the vegetable soup, and they wouldn't give us the recipe. Actually, grandma would give you the recipe, but it was never as good when you recreated it.
My grandmother did that to me too, and it turned.
Out we close. Yeah, she would leave. Both of them were leaving out one thing, and as they got older and they kind of got you know, as you do, you lose a bit of your faculties. My cousins were staying with them and saw the secret recipe and were shocked at the secret recipe. And then once they told me, I said no, no, no, that recipe. Grandma and Grandpa would never have told you. There's no way, And they said no, no, no, And they told me I made it at home. It was exactly the way that Grandma and
Grandpa soup tasted. What is the secret recipe? What is the secret ingredient in Grandma and Grandpa my grandparents soupre? What is the secret recipe in vegetable soup at my grandparents house? What do you think it would be? Yes, that magie stuff, you know, the Maggie bottle.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, and not a spreado.
Look look, look, glog gloglo.
The more if you went into a Chinese restaurant, into the kitchen and saw how much of that months mono sodium glutenate that they used, it would actually make your eyes water. But I have started following a lot of Chinese TikTokers and YouTubers and things like that. I've been doing that for years, and the one thing I've realized is Asian food tastes because it does because of the holy amount of MSG.
That they use.
They're not frightened of it. There was a time when this big fear campaign went around Western culture of MSG, and it was probably done on purpose to make us stop eating Asian food and to get us to start eating Western food. So it makes sense, but we don't have They don't have the fear that we have of MSG. They'll never have it. They have it in their kitchens. So you can't buy MSG at Woolies or Coal's or anywhere. You have to go to the Asian grocery stores and
ask for it. Because it doesn't say MSG. It's in other languages, so I would say, where's the MSG, and they'd go over there and there'd be a million different types of MSG, different flavors of it. But it is just really salty salt that makes food delicious, and your grandparents had it right.
Gimme, gimme, gimme is what the hot turns out? But it gives me night terrors. Anyway, I digress.
He cares.
It's worth it.
I absolutely love you, and I have to wrap up this podcast because they tell me to make them thirty minutes and this.
One will be eighty five Lord of the Rings length.
But people I know have enjoyed it. Everyone who joins the podcast gets asked this question, what is something from behind the scenes, something that we won't see? Kind of a behind the scenes secret of working on the second series of Snack Masters.
Okay, I'll tell you one thing that we were not allowed to put to air. Now I've already discussed there is an ingredient in iced fovotes that we were not allowed to tell, and I'm not going to tell obviously, But when we walked in to the factory and went close to it, we could smell it so strongly, and once we knew what it was, then we ate of ice vovo. It's in the biscuit. When you just eat the biscuit on its own, you can taste it. And I was like, oh my god, it's so it's so
prominent and I've never noticed it before. So there's a little behind the scenes thing that where not they would not allow us to give that one secret away, So the chefs definitely don't put it in. Obviously they're replicas, but when you eat a nice phovo, you can definitely taste it when you know it's there, and I can't imagine a nice phofo without it.
Now, how many snacks do I have to give you for you to tell me the ingredient offline?
Never a lot, a lot. I can tell you one other thing.
I just got a filling yesterday, So donate too many snakes alive.
Keevin Jones, thank you so much for being able to join me on the podcast today. You have joined a club of being on the podcast twice, which has only been held by two other people.
Good Alex MAVs one and who's the other?
Pretty on the spot?
Didn't I?
That's Janet Vigeon.
Oh well, well, well I.
Don't know why I don't know. I was looking at it the other day and Abbi Chadfield has been on twice. Actually, so Abbi Chadfield, Jack Vision, Ebie Jones, and Alex madradikas all that is in the jungle.
Oh yeah, we have and three of us ate anuses. One did well.
But hanging a six so so Jack never ate the anus on screen. Just you're just assuming that happened.
I know that Jack and Abby would be big anis eaters in the jungle.
It's all I'm saying. Aby went for it.
She was amazing in those feuturals.
I have actual tears in my eyes.
Okay, thank you so much for coming on.
It has been a joint welcome.
You are so welcome. Thank you for having me again. Goodbye. All the best, all the best, as you say when you're end a phone.
Call, all the very best. I don't know why I actually fully crying.
H