Wednesday, Mar 17, 2021 • 21min
No Such Thing As Enough Money For Comic Relief
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In addition to your regularly scheduled weekly episode, here is a clip from last week's No Such Thing As A Fish 20-hour podcast, streamed live from last Friday for Comic Relief!
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Talking about
Speakers
(5)
James Harkin
Richard Osman
Andrew Hunter Murray
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Transcript
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James Harkin
00:01
Hi everyone. Welcome to a very special mini little episode of
No Such Thing As A Fish
. Now, if you remember last week we said we were about to do a twenty hour podcast with thirty five incredible guests and guess what we did it! Thank you so much to those people who joined us.Share
00:23
The crazy people who stayed up for the whole twenty hours. I don't know what you think you were doing, but anyone who came to any of those sections and especially anyone who donated, thank you so, so much. So far, we have made over £150,000 for
Comic Relief
. Some of the best causes around the world. But we want to do better and the way that we can do that is by you guys catching up with all thirty five sections because we are putting them on YouTube
.Share
00:54
This episode that you're about to hear is a little taster of our conversation with
Richard Osman
, the host of Pointless
, House Of Games
, best selling author. Really hope you enjoy it. If you want to hear the full thing, you can hear that on our YouTube
page where, over the next two weeks we will be putting up all of the sections, maybe three a day, something like that.Share
01:18
And that will be chats with people like
Michael Palin
with people like Stephen Fry
, Sandy Toksvig
, Shappi Khorsandi
, Carrie Mulligan
, who you might have heard has just been nominated for a little bit of an Oscar this week. Richard Curtis
. There was an amazing bit where Tim Minchin
did a song for us.Share
01:37
Honestly, each one of those sections is so much fun in its own way. And the way that you can watch any one of those will be to go to QI.
com/ComicRelief
. If you're thinking, well, I don't want to listen to those incredibly talented and funny people, I just want to give money to Comic Relief
.Share
01:54
Well you can do that as well and to do that, you go to
ComicRelief
. com/fish that will take you to our just giving page and honestly, if you can spare as little as £5 it will make such a massive difference to people all around the world, especially in a year when charities have really, really been struggling due to Coronavirus.Share
02:16
Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this little chat with Richard and I suppose, on with the podcast.
Share
Dan Schreiber
02:31
Welcome back everyone. It is time to move on to our next guest and boy do we have an exciting one? We have someone who is, I guess, the biggest quizzing personality on tv, you'll know him from
House Of Games
, you'll know him from Pointless
.Share
02:50
But just as a sort of side project, he's also become the best selling fictional author to have a debut book out in the history of books. That is kind of a side plate of things that he does. You'll know it as the
Thursday Murder Club
. We're so excited to have him here for fact number eight it is Mr Richard Osman
.Share
Richard Osman
03:12
Hello everybody, how are you?
Share
Dan Schreiber
03:15
We are good.
Share
Richard Osman
03:15
How is it going so far?
Share
Dan Schreiber
03:18
We've raised £45,000 since since going which is very exciting. We had a target of £35,000, so we've exceeded that. And yeah, if all your fans watching now can contribute as well, we would be hugely grateful.
Share
Richard Osman
03:39
I think you'd be on £45,150.
Share
Dan Schreiber
03:40
Well let's get into it. We understand you've brought a fact, so it's time for fact, number eight and that is
Richard Osman
.Share
Richard Osman
03:47
I have bought a fact that it's
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
related for reasons we will get onto. But my fact is, the man who wrote the theme tune to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
also wrote Mistletoe and Wine.Share
04:01
A gentleman called
Keith Strachan
. He's been around for years and years, he's a musician, musical director, all sorts of things like that. Wrote, mistletoe and wine, for a musical, funnily enough. Cliff took hold of it, so he won an Ivor Novello
for it, but for years also wrote theme music for Celador
.Share
04:17
So we'd do lots of ill-remembered shows like
Talking Telephone Numbers
and then you know, one day he gets the call saying that we're doing this pilot in a couple of days time. It's this thing called Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
. We're not happy with the song we've got which was written by Pete Waterman
of Stock, Aitken and Waterman
so we're not happy with it. Is there anything you can do?Share
04:34
He sat down with his son, put something together, lots of sort of strings and stuff like that. A couple of days later the pilot goes out. That song has probably made him tens of millions.
Share
James Harkin
04:45
Oh really.
Share
Richard Osman
04:46
- theme tune in the history of television.
Share
James Harkin
04:49
Did they use the same theme tune around the world?
Share
Richard Osman
04:51
Yeah.
Share
James Harkin
04:52
Oh, really. Wow.
Share
Richard Osman
04:53
Millionaire
and Weakest Link
were one of those shows that was always done as a kit of parts. I. e. if you buy it, you buy the look, you buy the set, you buy the graphics, you buy the music, which isn't always the case. So yeah, every time it's played in America, every time it's played in Azerbaijan, Keith Strachan
is-.Share
James Harkin
05:10
That song, like, the
Millionaire
theme, it's not not that melodic is it?Share
Richard Osman
05:16
Well, that's the thing, you couldn't whistle it right.
Share
James Harkin
05:18
No, Exactly.
Share
Richard Osman
05:19
It's like, dun dun dun dun dun
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
05:20
I've heard that you are meant to be able to sing along to it and I can just about get the "who wants to be, wants to be a
Millionaire
du-dl-du-dl-du-dl-err" and I don't know if I'm singing the right bit to the right-Share
Richard Osman
05:34
I don't think you are with respect, but what I do know is you've just made
Keith Strachan
seven and a half pence.Share
James Harkin
05:41
That part of it is based on the musical song,
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
, isn't it?Share
05:47
I think it's the other part that he-
Share
Dan Schreiber
05:49
Who sang that? I kind of know that song when you say it.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
05:53
Who wants to be a millionaire? Oh, it's a real oldie, It's like a
Cole Porter
era-Share
James Harkin
05:56
I know it's from Fiddler On The Roof or something, but someone in the chat will know what it's from I'm sure.
Share
Richard Osman
06:02
You're much less slick when you're live.
Share
James Harkin
06:04
I know, normally we have
Sandy Toksvig
telling us these things.Share
06:09
If this was a podcast you'd have
Anna
saying saying exactly where that came from.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
06:13
You don't know we've shut down our computers. I have to ring up my mum and ask her the answer to the question.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
06:19
That pilot of
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,
actually the first episode that went out, I think the pilot was broadcast. It got 46% of the total TV audience at the time and I mean it was so huge. Chris Tarrant
said the day after the first episode went out, someone shouted at him from a passing lorry "phone a friend" and he said that happened every day for the next fifteen years of his life.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
06:43
Oh gosh.
Share
James Harkin
06:44
Oh my god.
Share
Richard Osman
06:46
As a quiz show host you barely go through three shows without someone looking nervous if they don't know an answer and saying "can I phone a friend"? It's the go-to when you don't know an answer.
Share
06:55
When you sit in the makeup chair as well, so if you're a new contestant, you sit in a makeup chair, this is just if anyone ever goes on a quiz. Every single man, nervous of course, sits down and says "short back and sides please". Every single one, and there's poor makeup artists having to go "ha ha ha".
Share
Anna Ptaszynski
07:14
So many people watching who would have been one of those people, Richard, who are crying into their-
Share
Richard Osman
07:20
But I would do it as well, you know. You're nervous and so it doesn't-
Share
James Harkin
07:24
So, Richard do you get like people shouting things that you in the street like "Central African Republic" or, what are the things?
Share
Richard Osman
07:32
No, people always just shout
"Pointless"
to me in the street. I'm aware that other people walking past, who might not know who I am, have just seen someone shout "Pointless"
out of the window of the van! The things I get most after Pointless
, honestly, what it used to, and these days, it's the book and its House of Games
. But the thing I think I used to get more, as much as Pointless
is people saying, oh Countdown
. You're the guy from Countdown
.Share
James Harkin
07:54
Really?
Share
Richard Osman
07:57
Xander
and I-Share
James Harkin
07:59
Sorry
Rich
, who do they think, they think you're Susie Dent
or?Share
Anna Ptaszynski
08:03
Richard Whiteley
?Share
Richard Osman
08:04
No, I don't think they really think I'm on
Countdown
and I think-Share
Dan Schreiber
08:06
You have been on
Countdown
a couple of Times, so maybe they just really like that episode.Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
08:11
That episode got hundreds of millions of viewers around the world.
Share
Richard Osman
08:15
We once,
Xander
once literally introduced the show, "I'm Alexander Armstrong
and welcome to Countdown"
.Share
08:24
He knows what show he's hosting but the reason he did it is because he auditioned for
Countdown
and we were genuinely thinking because, you know, he was obviously a brilliant comic actor and was doing Have I Got News For You
all the time and we thought we would never do a daytime show and then we got some info that he was doing an audition for Countdown
and we thought, well if he's up for doing that then perhaps he'd be up for doing our show.Share
08:43
And so literally off the back of that, we thought, let's get him in and he came in and then then we had our host, so we have
Countdown
to thank for Xander
.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
08:52
Yeah, if he'll do
Countdown,
he will do any daytime show, let's face it.Share
James Harkin
08:55
What's your favourite theme tune Richard? You must have one.
Share
Richard Osman
08:60
Favorite theme tune is
Superstars
I would think from the'70s.Share
James Harkin
09:03
Ah, the sports thing.
Share
Richard Osman
09:06
You know it absolutely. You know, if they play like, theme tunes if you're watching
University Challenge
or something, you recognise all of them, but you can, I always think they're from Kick Start, but Superstars
is the one. Yeah, absolutely. It's so brilliant. If you haven't heard it have a little go and listen to it, best show ever and best theme tune ever.Share
James Harkin
09:25
I learned the other day, actually this was a few months ago, but that the
Inspector Gadget
theme tune and the Mysterious Cities Of Gold
theme tune and the He-Man
theme tune and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
and Ulysses, for people of a certain age, were all written by the same guy called Shuki Levy
and he also wrote the Israeli 1981 Eurovision Song Contest
entry, which I haven't heard. It must be amazing, right, because they are, every one is an absolute banger!Share
Anna Ptaszynski
09:52
Although
Inspector Gadget
is just a big old plagiarism, the same as Sonic The Hedgehog
, Inspector Gadget
goes, de-de-de-de-de-Share
James Harkin
10:03
Inspector Gadget
Share
Anna Ptaszynski
10:03
Yeah, that's
Hall of the Mountain King
, same as Sonic The Hedgehog
, he's just slightly changed the timingShare
Richard Osman
10:08
"That's just
Hall of the Mountain King.
What cowboy's done your theme? "Share
James Harkin
10:14
Wasn't
Who Wants to be a Millionaire
based on Holst
, The Planets
?Share
Richard Osman
10:18
Yeah, there's a particular like, stab of Brass or stab of Horns or something that he worked from.
Share
Dan Schreiber
10:25
I read a cool thing about
Holst's
, The Planets
the other day, I think it was for Neptune. They had the choir that's in the song fade out, but they weren't able to fade it out properly at the time and so what they did was they had the choir in a different room and they slowly closed the doorShare
Andrew Hunter Murray
10:42
No!
Share
Dan Schreiber
10:43
Yeah, and then once it was shut. Yeah. Again, if we were editing this, this might not end up in the final show, possibly not true.
Share
10:53
Do you know what, my favourite theme tune, because of a fact is the
Seinfeld
theme tune. Now, I've always loved it because I love Seinfeld
and the stand up moment at the beginning. So for anyone that doesn't remember it, it's like baseline, but it was done on a synth. What I didn't realise was that for the first, I think it must have been eight series, that theme tune was re-recorded for every single episode because, and it makes total sense.Share
11:21
Seinfeld
is doing stand up. There are different beats to where his joke is gonna land each time. So this guy used to get sent the footage of the latest stand up bit going at the front of Seinfeld
and he would live jam the theme tune for every single episode. To put all those moments in when he could see Seinfeld
coming to a beat in the joke. It's something like 200 episodes that he rewrote it for.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
11:45
He must have got tired of that tune. Could you tell at the end it was losing some of its vigour in the final episode?
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
11:52
That's like when at the circus, when you used to see dancing horses dancing to the music and you think, how do they get the horses to dance to the music? They don't. They play the music to match whatever the hell the horses are doing.
Seinfeld
is the horse in that scenario.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
12:07
Andy
, I can't believe you just ruined that magic for children in the 1950s who went to the circus, but still! My favourite theme tune is also the most well known piece of music in the UK
, apparently, according to a 2000- I think it was a 2008 poll actually.Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
12:23
Eastenders
?Share
Anna Ptaszynski
12:24
Correct.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
12:24
Must be
Eastenders
Share
Anna Ptaszynski
12:25
And that
God Save The Queen
into number two, but I didn't realise, very neat Eastenders
fact, it has a spinoff called Julia's Theme written by one of the Eastenders
creators, and that's when, you know when you get an ending which is a bit more poignant and it doesn't really suit the "boom boom boom boom boom boom", and then Julius theme comes in and it comes in about once a yearShare
Andrew Hunter Murray
12:46
Wow!
Share
James Harkin
12:47
Really?
Share
Anna Ptaszynski
12:48
If you get a Julia's Theme that must be a big moment as an
Eastenders
actor.Share
Richard Osman
12:51
Of course,
Anita Dobson
had a big hit, they put lyrics to the Eastenders
theme tune. Anyone Can Fall In Love
, and Anita Dobson
who's Angie
had a hit with it on Top Of The Pops
and all sorts of things. Back in those days, you had A-sides and B-sides and I wonder what the B-side to that must have been.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
13:05
Yeah!
Share
James Harkin
13:05
They used to, if you used to watch
Bullseye
back in the day, at the very end they would throw the darts and try and win the big prize, and if they won the prize they would have the theme tune and if they lost the prize they would have the same theme tune, but in a minor key. A little bit slower.Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
13:27
So good! So sometimes they release the themes and they chart. Can you think of the highest charting TV theme tune ever?
Share
Dan Schreiber
13:35
It's gotta be a kids show, right? It's gotta be like
Barney
or Bob The Builder
or-Share
Richard Osman
13:39
I've got two for you right here I bet. The theme from
MASH
was number one, Suicide is Painless
, and another number one was Eye Level I think was Van der Valk
. So there's a couple for you right there.Share
James Harkin
13:50
Okay.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
13:51
I've got an answer for you all anyway, and it's going to divide opinion, it's going to divide the room because you've named a lot of songs that went to number one, so it's clearly a dead tie, but a million people in 1997 bought the
Teletubbies
theme tune, I believe that's in the UK
.Share
James Harkin
14:05
I was one, I was one of them.
Share
Dan Schreiber
14:08
Really, were you?
Share
James Harkin
14:09
Yeah, I own that.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
14:09
You see.
Share
James Harkin
14:11
I was a student at the time
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
14:12
And that was the demographic for the show
Share
James Harkin
14:14
Pretty much, yeah.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
14:15
But
Bob The Builder
was, which I think Dan
mentioned.Share
Dan Schreiber
14:19
Yeah, I said Bob The Builder
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
14:20
Bob The Builder not only had a huge number one hit, I think second only to
Teletubbies
, but Bob The Builder
released a version of Mambo Number 5 which also sold 400,000 copies.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
14:31
So, sorry, did
Bob The Builder
rewrote Mambo Number 5?Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
14:34
Yeah.
Share
Anna Ptaszynski
14:35
And changed the lyrics'cause it's so non child friendly.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
14:38
No, the lyrics are the same. It's all about women
Bob
has seduced!Share
Anna Ptaszynski
14:42
He's a sexy man! Everyone's got a builder fantasy, you know! Right? Okay, so on Mambo Number 5, that was the theme tune to something else, which I always love this fact. That was the theme tune to one of
Bill Clinton's
democratic conventions in the early'90s.Share
15:02
And it was set to be like the proper walk in, walk out music until someone pointed out at the last minute that it did contain the line, "a little bit of
Monica
in my life" and they had to pull it. That's an oversight, isn't it?Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
15:14
You know
Lou Bega
.Share
Dan Schreiber
15:16
Yeah.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
15:18
Do you know where he's from?
Share
Richard Osman
15:19
Mmm, I do.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
15:20
Oh damn!
Share
Richard Osman
15:21
He's German isn't he?
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
15:23
He's German! I mean I just didn't know he was G-. Did any. Alright, can we count Richard out for a second. Did you guys know he was German?
Share
Dan Schreiber
15:31
I don't fully know who he is!
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
15:31
Well, he's the singer of Mambo Number 5, which sounds like a very Latin song. It doesn't sound like a
Calvinist
rhythm.Share
Richard Osman
15:39
It would have been called Mambo Number Fünf though. A lot of those names, I've never thought about it, a lot of those names are quite Germanic there's Monica. Angela, you know they're quite unusual names. What about Helga a little bit of Brunhilde.
Share
James Harkin
15:54
Yeah.
Share
Anna Ptaszynski
15:54
Yep. I think I know the oldest theme tune in the world, comes down, is almost 1000 years old.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
16:03
The Archers
?Share
Anna Ptaszynski
16:03
That's, I mean, it's correct. He's won the money. What prizes does he get? A tea towel or something. It's
The Archers
.Share
Dan Schreiber
16:11
Oh.
Share
James Harkin
16:12
Really?
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
16:13
I was saying
The Archers
is a very old show and-Share
Anna Ptaszynski
16:16
It was a weird question, because the joke answer is the same as the real answer in this case. This is something that was spotted by
Howard Goodall
in The Story Of Music and he pointed out that there's 12th century piece, which is a Gregorian chant. It was written we think in about 1198. It's a Viderunt Omnes
.Share
16:37
And he is right, if you listen to it, it is very similar to Da da-da da-da da-da. It's a little bit more ahhhh ahh ahh, but it's there. Isn't that exciting? And then it sort of stuck around as a theme in various tunes through the centuries, and rocked up in
Prokofiev
at the start of the 20th century and then got into The Archers
.Share
James Harkin
16:59
Do any of you, I know one of you knows this, who wrote the theme tune for
8 Out Of 10 Cats
?Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
17:03
Oooh.
Share
Dan Schreiber
17:04
Who?
Share
James Harkin
17:05
Rich
does.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
17:06
It was one of the Cats, wasn't it?
Share
James Harkin
17:08
It was someone from one of my favourite bands.
Share
Dan Schreiber
17:11
Oh,
Steps
so-Share
Richard Osman
17:13
No, a band not as good as
Steps
.Share
James Harkin
17:17
Yeah, next best. It was
Richard's
brother, Mat Osman
from Suede.
Share
Anna Ptaszynski
17:22
No way!
Share
Dan Schreiber
17:23
Oh, no way!
Share
Anna Ptaszynski
17:23
Your brother's in Su- why didn't we get him on? That's cool, isn't it? Was he?
Share
Richard Osman
17:33
He did that and with a guy called
Alex Lee
who was in Strangelove
and Suede
now is in Florence and the Machine
and yeah, they put that together a bit. It's fascinating'cause he still makes money out of it today, obviously, and Cats does Countdown
, which by and large is the Countdown
theme music, but then continues with the drums from Cats
, but because it continues with that, he still gets money for it. That's nice isn't it. The guy who does Weakest Link
makes millions, millions upon millions upon millions.Share
Anna Ptaszynski
17:59
We all know, everyone knows that's the key is to write a jingle that's used as a theme tune and no one can ever do it.
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
18:06
It doesn't always work though. So for example, in 1973, I love this fact, the theme tune to
The Last Of The Summer Wine
was released as a pop single.Share
James Harkin
18:16
Pop?
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
18:16
Well, certainly it was released into the singles chart and I say into the chart, it did not chart. Yeah, I just think that's adorable.
Share
18:26
Ronnie Hazlehurst
? Richard
, I imagine you know his name? He came up with so many theme tunes. He was the BBC
Light Entertainment music director.Share
18:34
So I'll just list a few:
Are You Being Served?
, Reggie Perrin
, Yes Minister
, Some Mothers Do'Ave'Em
, The Two Ronnies
, Blankety Blank
, Generation Game, you could spend a whole evening watching BBC
output and he would have done pretty much the whole thing, but after, oh,Share
18:48
And he conducted the British
Eurovision
entry seven times in a row. You know, great, great figure of musical composition. But after he died, several of his obituaries mentioned this amazing fact, which is that he also wrote S Club 7's
Reach. Well, no, hang on, he didn't. He absolutely didn't. Of course he didn't.Share
James Harkin
19:07
Well that's all I'm gonna remember!
Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
19:08
It had just been banged up onto his Wikipedia page and that, you know,
The Times
, The Independent
, The Guardian
, all these papers just sloshed it right into their obituary. He did not write Reach!Share
James Harkin
19:24
Of course. They wrote all their own stuff didn't they,
S Club 7
?Share
Andrew Hunter Murray
19:25
Alan Hawkshaw
did Countdown
too and he, this is really nice, whenever you listen to Countdown
, the theme tune is the sound of students being given grants because the royalties from it go to underprivileged students at Leeds College Of Music
.Share
Richard Osman
19:37
If you listen to
Cats does Countdown
, you know that 50% of the money is going to underprivileged students and that 50% is going into my brother's pocket.Share
Dan Schreiber
19:47
Well, we do need to wrap up. Thank you so much
Richard
.Share
Richard Osman
19:51
Oh it's been great.
Share
Dan Schreiber
19:52
We've been dying to talk to you as a foursome for a long time so this is this a big moment for us.
Share
Richard Osman
19:58
And can I just say from everybody, what you're doing, it sounds like, oh no, it's just a laugh, isn't it? thirty five minutes, thirty five people. To do what you're doing is incredibly difficult. You know, just you know, and I know you're doing it all through the night and stuff like that, you know, you're brilliant.
Share
20:13
We all know that and week after week you turn out this incredible podcast and to do thirty five interviews of thirty five minutes, I doff my cap to you everybody at home please, please, please donate because this is four incredible people doing an incredible thing.
Share
20:26
Couldn't be more of a pleasure to be invited on it. Thank you and honoured as well. And listen, good luck! I shall be watching. Not the whole thing. So thank you so much for having me on.
Share
Dan Schreiber
20:35
Thank you. Thank you for those kind words.
Richard Osman
everyone. And we will be back in just a few minutes time with our next guest. For fact number nine. It is Sue Perkins. Stay tuned.Share
James Harkin
20:46
Okay, that's it. I hope you enjoyed that. Like
Dan
and Richard
said there is a very quick way that you can give money right now to Comic Relief
and that is to go to ComicRelief
. com/fish and that will take you to our just giving page and if you want to watch all of the sections that we did with all of the amazing people, those videos can be watched, three a day, at QI. com/ComicRelief
Share
21:14
We'll be back again on Friday with a normal show.
Share
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James Harkin
Dan Schreiber
Richard Osman
Andrew Hunter Murray
Anna Ptaszynski