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Matt Watts and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
124 Plays1 year ago
Joe and Mark join Matt Watts, writer, comedian and actor to discuss the classic radio series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTG).
That’s right, before it was a book or a movie, the Douglas Adams classic was a radio series on the BBC.
They get into the nature of writing. What it’s like working on long-form prose after spending a career writing jokes and scripts. How fun it is to fly by the seat of your pants. And how it’s possible to get better and better at it as you get older.
But don’t panic. They then take a nerdy left turn and really get into HHGTG.
For more information about Matt Watts and this episode, please visit the show notes.
Re-Creative is a co-production of Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with Mark A. Rayner.
Contact us at: joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com
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Transcript
Delayed Return & Season Two Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, Mark. We're back. A couple of, what, two to three weeks later than we said we were going to be? Just two. I think just two weeks. Why is that, Mark? Why are we late?
00:00:09
Speaker
I don't actually have a good reason, do you? I know that it's probably my fault because, you know what, I was busy staining my deck. So, yeah. Okay, that's a perfectly reasonable excuse. Welcome everyone to season two of Recreative. We can't believe that we even managed to finish season one. And we're very excited about season two, so we hope you are too when you start listening.
Embarrassing Moments
00:00:39
Speaker
Hello, Mark. Joe, what's the most embarrassed you've ever been? That's a good question, right? Wow. You know what? The fascinating thing is I drove my daughter to a camp she's working at today. Yeah. And she asked me the same question. No. Yeah. We talked about some of our most embarrassing moments. And, uh, oh, I've had some doozies. How much are we doing? We could devote the entire episode to that.
00:01:07
Speaker
Okay. Well, you don't have to answer the question either. It's a personal question. Okay. No, I want to answer it. I want to answer it. Okay. No, we're not going to talk about that one. That was too embarrassing. It has to be like the right level of embarrassing.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah, it does. Yeah. Don't tell me something that I absolutely will not be able to scour out of my brain. Don't do that to me. No. No. Well, we were... Okay. This was... We were talking... Oh God, can I even? Okay, I can edit this out if I need to. Can I even?
00:01:45
Speaker
So okay, here's a, yeah, no, an embarrassing moment. So standing with a couple of friends in front of an elevator in the Toronto broadcast center and the elevator door opens and we're all looking to go in, but we can't go in because the elevator is completely packed.
00:02:00
Speaker
and there's a woman there, and I won't use a real name, I'll say Mildred. So Mildred is standing there, and I say, look at that, guys. If Mildred wasn't there, we'd be able to fit in the elevator, the three of us. And then the door closed. And then one of my friends says to me, you know, Joe, if I was Mildred, I don't think I would have appreciated that remark. And immediately I was like humiliated, because I'm like, oh my God, I've just completely offended this woman.
00:02:30
Speaker
And and she was like a person of some considerable influence at the CBC. So I tried to go and apologize to her and I couldn't get through all the secretaries and receptionists and everything to even apologize to her. So finally, I faxed her. It was back in the days of faxing. I said, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean anything about that remark. And then she faxed me back and said, I'm never talking to you again, Joe Mahoney. At which point I knew that she was she was OK with it.
00:02:59
Speaker
So you're one of the few people in the world that sent an apology facts. Yes. Yes. I think that probably puts you in a fairly rare category. And I do believe it's probably the last facts they ever sent. Okay. Now what about you?
Matt Watts on Anxiety & Embarrassment
00:03:14
Speaker
Okay. Uh, mine goes way back and I, hopefully our guest Matt is already thinking about what his is cause we're going to have to ask him after this. So, uh, when I was boy, we lived in England.
00:03:27
Speaker
And it was my first day at this school. It was like a proper English school. It was not a private school as we would consider it, a public school as we consider it. But we had to wear the short pants even in the winter and so on. And so we had a big assembly. It was my first day there and they'd spent the entire morning walking me around, telling me all about everything and how wonderful it was.
00:03:48
Speaker
And we get to the assembly and all the kids are sitting on the ground like that. We always did when we were kids. And the headmaster, because it wasn't the principal, it was a headmaster, says, Mark, would you like a seat? So I stood up in the middle of the assembly and said, no, I'm fine on the ground with everyone else. And then I realized he was talking to another child who was at the back of the hall who had crutches.
00:04:15
Speaker
Oh no. I don't think I've ever recovered from that to be honest. I was so humiliated. Oh dear. But at least they didn't say yes. Yes. Yeah. And did everyone like turn and look at you and... Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it was the least weird thing about me.
00:04:34
Speaker
because I was American. I had to wear an American accent and I said strange things like, can you tell me where the garbage is? And they would like, you mean the rubbish? Garbage, garbage. But yes.
00:04:48
Speaker
Okay, so we've given Matt plenty of time. Matt Watts, our special guest today. You know, I don't know if I have a most embarrassing moment because I was combing my brain for this. As someone with an anxiety and panic disorder, it's like every day I have some kind of extremely embarrassing moment or at least a seemingly embarrassing moment. And even if I look back to my childhood,
00:05:15
Speaker
I can't think of something that stands out. So it's possible that either I was just constantly feeling sort of humiliated or there was never anything that was that humiliating to begin with, which makes me think that maybe I've been looking at my life all wrong because I don't have a specific story like that. I don't have something where I said, oh yeah, I stood up in front of a group of people and peed my pants or something like that.
00:05:41
Speaker
I wish I did. I love both your stories. I wish I had something comparable. That's fine. I mean, I feel like maybe we should have had a trigger warning at the top of this because I didn't even consider that someone with an anxiety disorder might find that, even the question, kind of upsetting. I love it. I don't find it upsetting at all. I mean, I find it upsetting that I don't have something that I can throw into the pot. It's just I live for humiliating stories.
00:06:08
Speaker
Because the lesson is that you survive them, right? When you have these moments where you feel like, this is so embarrassing. How am I going to ever live with this? In the end, they become an anecdote that you tell on a podcast years later to make people laugh. So that's ultimately the lesson. There's no
Transition from Acting to Writing
00:06:26
Speaker
trigger warning. It's more like, oh, you'll feel good when you hear this. Well, and the great thing is your brain will remind you of it at 4 in the morning.
00:06:33
Speaker
just occasionally. Just like, oh, hey, remember that time? Remember that time you did that thing that everyone laughed at and was really humiliating? In high school, I had a lot of moments with a girl that I liked, I'm sure, where I stayed up till four in the morning going, oh, why did I say that? Why did I do that? Just constant regret. I mean, I have lots of those, but nothing like... I live in fear of throwing up in front of a group of people. That would be awful, but it's just never happened.
00:07:03
Speaker
Wow. Well, that can be arranged. We can get you a bottle of Ipecac and, you know, throw you a party and then slip it into something. Yeah. So maybe we should explain who our guest is and why he is or get him to do that. No, get him to do it. I love the idea of someone explaining me. It reminds me of a joke. Do you remember the movie? It was Flying Deuces, the Laurel and Hardy movie. Laurel,
00:07:32
Speaker
No, Hardy decides he's going to kill himself. On topic, he's humiliated because of a woman. So he goes down to the river and he's going to tie rocks to himself. He's going to throw himself in the river. And he insists that Stan Laurel go with him. And Stan Laurel says, well, why do I have to die? And then Ollie goes, because if I'm not here, who's going to explain what you are? That's a great line. I don't remember that. Something like that. I'm paraphrasing. Yeah, that's great.
00:08:01
Speaker
You can explain me, Joe, or I can explain myself. I'm not entirely sure how to explain myself. I think you have to explain yourself. That is the tradition. That's how it goes, man. That's how we roll. We don't do any homework. I'm Matt Watts and a writer, retired actor, comedian. That's the bullet points.
00:08:25
Speaker
I worked with Joe at CBC for years on a radio drama series, multiple ones, and have moved into a more quiet suburban life working on a book right now.
00:08:39
Speaker
and just trying to enjoy my middle age for the most part. So you say retired from acting? Is that how you described it? Why? Is that just because you wanted a quieter, more less stressful? I can't remember. I did something. I was one of the writers on the Amazon Kids in the Hall series that just came out. And so as is tradition, I had a couple little cameo parts in the show.
00:09:10
Speaker
And being on set again, I just realized, I really don't like this. I don't enjoy it. I've always...
00:09:19
Speaker
been a writer at heart, but then through stand-up and performing, you know, and also, let's be honest, acting is far more soothing and validating for your ego. I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed elements of it. I think I've just come to a place now where I just, I really, I didn't like being on set. I didn't like being on a trailer. I just,
00:09:46
Speaker
I think the pandemic was a part of it too. I just got really comfortable working from home and being at home. And I like being on set with other people. I just don't like being on set as an actor. So, I mean, I'm quasi-retired, right? Like I'm not saying no, never again. I'm just not pursuing it. Because you're very good at it. Oh, well, thank you. I also don't like the
00:10:12
Speaker
I don't know. I deleted all my social media accounts. I just don't like the public nature of it. I don't know. You know what it is? I feel like I've been in therapy long enough that I don't require the validation that comes with performing. Does that make sense? That makes total sense to me. Yeah, absolutely. At a certain point, your fuck-o-meter gets down. It's empty and you don't care as much.
Writing Over TV & First Book
00:10:38
Speaker
I love to write and what I enjoy so much about listening to the podcast with you guys is when you talk to other writers and you just sort of get into that. It's never the focus of the conversation but it goes there occasionally and that's the part where I go, oh yeah, I love this talk. I love the talk of the process and with acting, I never cared about acting process. Do you know what I mean? When other actors talk about their method, I'm like, I don't care.
00:11:07
Speaker
Isn't that most people? Yeah. Even other actors. That's part of it too, right? There's the public persona or there's a public perception of actors. And I'm like, I don't want to be associated with that.
00:11:19
Speaker
So, to the book because you mentioned Matt that you are writing a book and I've been bugging you for, you know, a decade and a half to get into writing books because I know you're writing from your script writing, you know, from your television writing and especially your radio writing but I always thought that you should be doing books and now you finally are. So, tell us about that.
00:11:41
Speaker
I think it's what I wanted to do when I was a kid. It was where I started in grade school. It was the kind of ignoring every other assignment. It was just the writing assignments that I enjoyed and it was that kind of thing where you'd write pages a day and submit them and I loved the craft and I think that's what I wanted to do.
00:12:05
Speaker
in high school, the allure of stand up and television, it's a lot easier. Writing jokes and writing sketches and then writing half hour episodes, there's a skill to it, but it's not as many words on a page.
00:12:21
Speaker
And I just sort of let that idea drift away. And then I'd always had an idea for a book that I wanted to explore and the pandemic happened. And through my television writing agent, because it's a big agency and they have a book agent, a literary agent, they hooked me up with her just to sort of talk to her about the process or process. And she kind of coached me through most of it.
00:12:50
Speaker
and just checked in with me once a week. How's it going? I read some pages, that kind of thing. And I just cranked out that first draft. And I was shocked that I did it and then had spent the last year and a half just revising. And I'm almost done this final revision, I think, before it goes out. I felt more in my element writing this than I have anything else in my life.
00:13:15
Speaker
And it's funny because when people talk about how hard it is to write a book or they're impressed, they go, I can't believe you wrote a book. I think it was remarkably easy in some ways in terms of the discipline and the enjoyment of it, I think. It was really difficult in other ways, but as someone who's written his entire life,
00:13:39
Speaker
There were certain parts of it that I didn't find as difficult as I think other people would assume it is. And when I hear authors talking about it, about their own processor or the craft, I know where my limitations are. But again, I'm sort of rambling here. I love the craft of it. I love sitting down and
00:13:58
Speaker
And Joe, you know this about me. I'm a big outliner, so I like to outline and hammer that outline. We've talked about that. And then sitting down with room to deviate from the outline. But I don't know. It was one of those things where I had an epiphany during the book where I thought, if I could just do this for the rest of my life, I'd never have to. I don't want to write television again. I never want to have to go back to that world. It's so self-contained, too. I just really enjoyed
00:14:25
Speaker
I just really enjoyed amusing myself to be honest. If there's a component of that where it's just like I'm my own audience here and obviously I care about what other people think but it's the most indulgent and immersive writing experience you can have. Also, I love the idea of writing this thing and it exists finished whereas you write a television show
00:14:49
Speaker
It's a blueprint for something. You're handing it to actors and it might not ever get made. That's the biggest part too. The book is done, right? It's the finished product. You can put it out. Hopefully other people read it. But even if they don't, it's just out in the world as opposed to most of the stuff I write ends up in a drawer because it either doesn't get produced or, you know, something frustrating. Yeah, exactly. So it was just, it was so satisfying on so many levels that I'm, you know, ready to finish this one and move on to the next one.
00:15:17
Speaker
There are three things I want to say to you. First of all, it's pronounced pro-seize. And second of all, don't worry about the rambling. I will cut that down to 15 words. And the final thing is just a huge reassurance that as Mark and I can tell you that there's tons of money in writing. So yeah, you should be able to spend the rest of your life doing it.
00:15:37
Speaker
I know. It's unfortunate, right? Like that's the reality is that it's not, the chances are there's not going to be a big windfall at the end of this, but it's not why I did it. Again, you know, the only regret I had while I was writing it was that I didn't do it sooner. You know, I did think if I had started on this path in high school and wrote my first book in my early twenties, let's say, and I'm 48 now,
00:16:04
Speaker
How many books could I have written in that period of time? Oh, yeah. And you would be rich. You wouldn't be talking to schmucks like us.
Longevity in Writing vs. Other Careers
00:16:10
Speaker
No, but then I realized I was talking to my girlfriend about this yesterday. I said that it would have been such an isolating life. The thing is that I'm a very... I spent a lot of time by myself anyway and I always have, but as a teenager getting out to the clubs and doing stand-up and meeting people, it got me a part of a huge community. So I appreciate that.
00:16:33
Speaker
If I'd never, I would have never met you, Joe, to be honest, right? That's true. This is all part, I've met you through CBC Radio after working on Newsroom in CBC Television and, you know, so it's, I'm happy for the life I led, but I do wish I'd written some more books earlier.
00:16:49
Speaker
I really connect with the idea of how it's not narcissistic, but it's very self-involved, the process of writing. For me, this is my favorite time of year because this is the time when I have, I'm not teaching right now, so I have the mental space to draft a book. I've become a pantser. I used to be an outliner. Matt, get a few more books under your belt and you might become a pantser at some point because that's happened to me.
00:17:15
Speaker
Now, is it more exciting for you? It's exciting. And every morning I wake up and it's like, oh God, I get to find out what happens next in this story. And I'm always surprised. That's not true. I'm 90% of the time surprised by what happens.
00:17:31
Speaker
when I sit down to write, because stuff comes out that I hadn't really thought about or planned. And it's so much fun. But yeah, it's really self-involved. There's no question about that. But I mean, if you can't entertain yourself, you're never going to be able to entertain a reader. I mean, I guess that's the ultimate expression of it, too, is if you are, especially as a panzer, right? If the idea is that you're surprising yourself every day, there's even more enjoyment you're getting out of your own writing. Yeah.
00:18:00
Speaker
It does mean for more drafts though. I think that's the one thing I would say is that at the end of the day, yeah, you're doing four, I do four or five drafts now rather than three.
00:18:11
Speaker
The book that I wrote, I outlined like a film. And that meant that I got about one third of the way through the outline when I realized it was way too short. And so I started improvising and deviated and wrote a bit by the seat of my pants until I got back to the outline. So there's a huge middle section. And then I had to
00:18:37
Speaker
take the book and card it, go scene by scene, put it on the wall, and then rearrange the whole book just to make sense of the stuff I'd added. Because I added 100 pages that didn't necessarily belong where it ended up. And I have to admit, that section was the most fun. But I still knew where I was going to end up at a certain point. I can relate to that. My first book was like that.
00:19:02
Speaker
So you just turned 48, right? Yeah. Douglas Adams. How old was he when he died, sadly? Was he even 50? I think he was like 48. We are going to Wikipedia. I can see right now. Well, no, I'm leaving it to you, Mark. Okay, I'm looking at it right now. I can see that rosy glow of the computer on your face. 2001, he was 49 years old. Oh my God. 49 years old. Oh my God, he did so much by the age of 49.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, you're, but you're just getting started. You got a whole bunch of books in you. But the reason I bring up Douglas Adams. I'll say this to interrupt you, but as a 48 year old first time novelist, the beauty of books is that there's no such thing as like, I mean, there are a couple, but there are exceptions.
00:19:53
Speaker
There's no child prodigy authors. It's something that tends to come later for most people because you need the life experience. It's not writing a song that is passion and gumption. It's experience and education.
00:20:09
Speaker
and I would argue it's better to write books as you're older and that's it, that's all, I just wanted to throw that out there. That's what I tell myself in the morning. I agree that, like I've always thought that being interested in writing books is great because it's something that you can do your entire life presumably. Yes. You know, as opposed to, you know, I went to school with guys who are like hugely into sports and they wanted to be, you know, sports stars, hockey stars, basketball stars and there's a shelf life on that.
00:20:39
Speaker
And then you've got to figure out what you're going to do afterwards. But with books, you can spend your whole life going, you know, I'm going to write that book eventually, and then you're like 70 years old. I can still do it. I just saw today that Bram Stoker was 50 when he wrote Dracula. I did not know that. Yeah, and the other thing about writing is that, you know, you can continue to get better. Yeah. As even your 80s, you can get better. Hell, I noticed that from revision to revision.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah. And just even on the first book, I was looking at some first draft stuff and I thought, holy cow, this is garbage. I think James Mishner was writing to his late 80s early, you know, he died at 91, he was still writing. Yeah, I was really lucky. I got a chance to talk with, he wrote The Manticore. Robertson Davis. Robertson Davis, thank you. Yeah. I got a chance to meet him and he was in his 80s and he was writing still and he was still writing really good books.
00:21:32
Speaker
So that's one of the great things about writing is that you can keep doing it and you can keep improving too.
00:21:39
Speaker
Well, and he did absolutely get better as he went along. At one point he said, it was after my parents died. That's when I finally was able to like... That's interesting. Because all the self-consciousness went away. That's fascinating. I believe in that. There's a lot there. So, Matt, you were going to talk
Influences of Douglas Adams
00:21:54
Speaker
about... So, the irony is we've been talking about books and now you're going to talk about a radio show. Well, I'm going to talk about a radio show that most people know is a book, which is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
00:22:09
Speaker
I've never heard of that. Can you tell us about that? You've never heard it. I was just going to say, I believe we've all read it and heard the series, but apparently Joe has it. I was hard pressed to figure out what single piece of artwork influenced me the most. I had to just think about my childhood and what I loved as a kid. With Hitchhikers, I can remember all the steps that got me there. I had a friend
00:22:34
Speaker
I have no siblings, but I had friends. There was a guy named Derek Shrainer when I was a kid. He was the older brother of a girl who I went to school with. And Derek introduced me to Holy Grail. And Holy Grail, I was 10, I think. And it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.
00:22:56
Speaker
And that set me down a path. And I'm one of these guys, and I have always been my entire life, if you introduce me to something that I really like, I start going down the rabbit hole of who influenced them, who else was in that world, that kind of stuff. And so with Grail, I went on to Python, Goon Show, and then eventually, the first book of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I was probably about 12 when I read it, 11 or 12.
00:23:28
Speaker
I read that book back to front that and restaurant as many times as I could I was you know because in at that age also you repeat a lot of what you're reading you read it over and over you watch the same movies multiple times I read that book so many times and then I didn't know was it a radio radio show I happen to be in the world's biggest bookstore and they had that large the the audio section cassettes and things and
00:23:53
Speaker
And they had this big clamshell box of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was like, what is this? At first I thought it was just like a book on tape. And on the back of the cover, it said BBC Radio Series.
00:24:06
Speaker
So I used my allowance, I bought it, I took it home, I listened to the first episode and it blew my mind and that was it. I was hooked and I listened to the whole thing and started, you know, because then they also, they had put out LPs. They re-recorded I think the first four episodes or the first six, the first phase with the same actors.
00:24:30
Speaker
And that was it, so that's it. And I think that shaped my sense of humor, my love of science fiction, even. It all kind of stems from Hitchhiker's. And then also, as a kid, I was into Doctor Who, and when I found out that Douglas Adams had written some of the most exciting Doctor Who episodes, at least for my generation, it was Tom Baker, and things like that. It was the City of Death. Those episodes were big, big episodes when I was a kid. So it all came down to him.
00:25:00
Speaker
And I don't know what year it was that Dirk Gently came out, but I skipped school and I went to the world's biggest bookstore. And I met the man and he signed my book. And he said, where'd you get that pin? I was wearing a don't panic pin. And I said, it was from the Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy video game. And I thought it was weird that he didn't know that. And that was it. That was my brief little meeting with the man.
00:25:27
Speaker
Okay, so a couple of things. Number one, the radio version came before the books, right? Correct. And then he wrote the books. He had a crazy whirlwind year there where he was a writer on Python. If I remember correctly, he had an idea. It was going to be like a series, an anthology series, and each episode was about the world ending. And then it grew into Hitchhikers. And I don't know if you had an order for a full series or an order for a pilot.
00:25:55
Speaker
But he did the show, and it was successful. And a publisher was interested in turning it into a book. Meanwhile, there was a second series, and then also they wanted a TV series of it. And then he was doing all this while he was show running Doctor Who.
00:26:12
Speaker
So it was, there's a period of like two or three years there where he had a million things on the go. And several of them were Hitchhiker's related. Wow. And now, okay, the other thing is that we asked Gus to come on this show and talk about something which has inspired them. And you're presenting us that Hitchhiker's got to the galaxy, the radio version. And it absolutely, completely, obviously inspired you because then you went on to actually make radio plays for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is where I met
Creating Radio Dramas at CBC
00:26:41
Speaker
you.
00:26:41
Speaker
Well, and it's interesting because I had listened to radio shows before that. Remember when I was a kid you could get records out of the library of like The Shadow or The Green Hornet or Superman, the old 40s radio stuff. So I'd heard it and I loved that stuff. But then Hitchhiker's it all kind of coalesced. And then yeah, I had always loved this idea of doing radio drama.
00:27:04
Speaker
And I'd started developing this idea for television, to be honest, called Steve the First, a post-apocalyptic comedy in the vein of Hitchhiker's. I mean, it's got, I'm sure if we listened to it today, we'd be like, oh, I mean, at the time even we knew it had Hitchhiker's all over it, too much so that it kind of, you know, doesn't totally work because, you know, what makes Hitchhiker's so great is the kind of Winnie the Pooh, rhythmic British-ness of it. Yeah. His voice helps a lot, I think. Exactly.
00:27:33
Speaker
And then I, I pitched it as a television series and then, uh, someone, it might've been Mark McKinney suggested it as a radio series and I pitched it to, to someone at CBC, our friend, Tom Anico. Right. And, uh, he, he, he picked it up for a pilot and, uh, and then then I recorded a pilot and I got the first mix and I hated it. And then meanwhile they'd ordered the other five.
00:28:00
Speaker
And when we went into record episode two, there was an engineer there who had heard the pilot.
00:28:05
Speaker
and started telling me everything that was wrong with the mix of the pilot. And I agreed with him 100%. And that man was Joe Mahoney. I was so obnoxious back then. I vividly remember the day of you sitting at the board and us having this conversation and leaving and saying, Joe's got to work on the show. He's got to work on the pilot. I want him to mix. I want him to remix it. And it was a very complicated thing because it was being mixed in Winnipeg and I had to fight
00:28:35
Speaker
to have it taken away from whoever was mixing it there. And no offense to that person, but you just had a better handle on it. And also, I could be with you, because I couldn't go to Winnipeg. So Joe and I started working together, and I would go to the studio with you while you mixed. And do you remember, while I was writing episode two, you were mixing, and I was on the floor with cards, trying to card the episode, listening to you mix. And I was like, Joe, what do you think about this? And it became a very, very quick
00:29:05
Speaker
friendship, and collaboration.
00:29:07
Speaker
Well, we were, yeah, we were completely simpatico, which was how I felt about it. It is the most fun I had in the decade that I spent making radio plays at CBC. And that's saying a lot because I had a lot of fun during that decade. And I will say about the guy who we took the mix away from, you know, I felt obviously very awkward about that. So I had phoned him up and said, listen, this is what we're thinking, you know, it's kind of awkward, do you mind?
00:29:35
Speaker
And he was incredibly gracious about it because he was actually an extremely talented recording engineer for music. And that was his thing. And he didn't have the background in radio plays, but I couldn't do music the way that he could do music. So we each had our specialties, so it just made sense. Like I said, it was no offense to him. It just wasn't the right fit. Yeah. Yeah. And so I lived out my dream of doing a Hitchhiker's like show with CBC and Joe.
00:30:04
Speaker
It was 1987, by the way. 1987 is- Dirt Gently. Just in case there's some listeners screaming out there. I was 12. I was 12 years old. I must have read Hitchhiker's way earlier than that. I would think so, yeah. Yeah, because by Dirt Gently, I was well versed in the whole thing.
00:30:23
Speaker
I mean, that's it. That's, that's the age, right? That you're like, absolutely. Yeah. Cause I mean, I think you're like a sponge. It's, it's what, what blows me away is there's, you know, about nine years difference in our age, but I have so many of the same influences like Python for me, like imprinted on my brain. Cause I saw it actually, I saw it on television. So we're going back to the year I was embarrassing myself, uh, in England. I saw it live that year. I think it was probably the last season, but, uh, yeah.
00:30:52
Speaker
Oh, season four. Yeah, the, the, the, yeah. Well, but at least it was probably also a reruns too. Cause I mean, they, they reruns cause I remember seeing Tom Baker back then too. Well, I don't mind when he was supposed to be, when was he, when was he the
00:31:08
Speaker
the doctor. Well, he was the doctor before I like he was he was the doctor in the 70s. So I would have been too young to actually see it because I was 75. Yes, I remember watching Dr. Who and I think it was Tom Baker was the guy with the scarf, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I was a kid, the one I remember the most was this one called Brain of Morbius. And they I think it was that TVO here aired them
00:31:27
Speaker
Like they weren't airing them immediately because you know, yeah, I think I think I would have been too young but they must have been so yeah, I just got lucky that I happened to get introduced to Python really early and it was it was great because that was something that I could watch with my father and he would get all of the adult humor, but there was it was Python was a so stupid to
00:31:46
Speaker
I mean, great jokes about philosophers and so on, but some of the stuff was like the mystery of funny walks and so on. I think it's up on that stuff though, because it's like, you know, remember also there was Benny Hill. And it was like Benny Hill was funny, but it wasn't as good. It's kind of like, I think about when I was a kid, there was the Frantics and then there was the Royal Canadian Air Force on Saturday mornings on CBC Radio. I love the Frantics. I did not like the Air Force.
00:32:15
Speaker
My dad liked the Air Force. I don't know if he liked it. There was definitely, I don't know, there was just something cooler about that stuff. There was just a, even if you're a kid, I think you can pick up on those things. Yeah. I wonder how many people have been influenced by Python in our generations. Well, we're a generation or two, so we're the same generation. They're like comedy Steven Spielberg.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah, basically, yeah. They set the template for a lot of our sense of humor, I think, for an entire generation.
Humor in Absurdity
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah. So you said Douglas Adams actually wrote for Python. I did not know that. No, I didn't know that either. I don't know if he wrote that much. I think he wrote for Graham Chapman, or he sort of co-wrote some sketches with him. I don't know if he was an official writer on the show.
00:33:05
Speaker
but I know he did some work with Chapman and around that fourth season. I think it was like in that fourth season. And I know they partnered up the Pythons and wasn't Graham Chapman partnered with John Cleese? Yeah, so and then that last season he wasn't part of it so that makes sense to me that he would have needed a partner. Right. I think that's exactly what happened. Yeah.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah. So, I wonder, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so the radio series, we know that the spirit influenced you and certainly when we were making radio plays with CBC, in my mind, and I think perhaps in yours as well, we were trying to make that breakout hit. We were trying to make the Canadian
00:33:50
Speaker
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and we thought that we could if only the CBC got behind us and they kind of never really did. But, okay, so beyond the spirit of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was there anything else specifically that influenced you? I think that, I think for a kid like me and I think this speaks true for a lot of kids who Hitchhiker's resonated with. You know, Hitchhiker's is the most emotionally resonant book or radio series.
00:34:19
Speaker
But there's something about Douglas Adams' view of the world and the galaxy that sort of absurdism. And he really got a lot of humor out of things not making sense. He laughed at the nonsensical nature of the world. And I think for a kid who's struggling to understand how things work or trying to make sense of things and can get really anxious or frustrated at not being able to understand how things work,
00:34:46
Speaker
Having material that pokes fun at that and says nothing makes sense, and it's funny because nothing makes sense, I think that was incredibly reassuring for me. And I'm sure, again, like I said, I think for a lot of people who have really resonated with. I think there's a real common thread to the kids that loved Python, loved Hitchhiker's Guide.
00:35:10
Speaker
It's that. It's laughing at the absurdity of the world. And when you're a kid, you need that. Especially if you're coming from a broken home or there's fighting in the house, it's looking for something that makes sense of all of it, or at least says there is no sense to make, and that's okay too. It's so clever. And when you're a kid, you wanna feel clever. So when you get the jokes, you feel like you're clever.
Writing Challenges of Douglas Adams
00:35:40
Speaker
Although it's funny because I just remembered that in grade school I wrote a report on the peril sensitive sunglasses and I completely misread it. I thought they said pearl sensitive sunglasses. So I never really I was like again I must have been 10 or 11. I didn't understand the joke and then I remember
00:35:58
Speaker
learning what they actually meant. Oh, there was an embarrassing moment. There you go. There you go. You got one. There you go. I was very embarrassed to realize I'd written a whole report on Pearl's Sensitive Sunglasses. I was like, oh, Pearl, as in danger. Oh, that makes one more sense. It's like, oh, never mind.
00:36:14
Speaker
Well, I remember for me, for me, a part of the Douglas Adams brilliance was lines like it hung in the air the way bricks don't. Yeah. Yeah. You know, which I just, when I read that, I'm like, oh my God, that's how did they come up with that? That's brilliant. Like, okay, so that line in Douglas Adams is genius to me.
00:36:32
Speaker
They're all it's it's all genius like that's the thing about that that book is I can't believe I mean he was a pants or two right like he kind of just wrote it as he as he as he came up with it and and there's stuff in there that you just go cheese it looks like that just sort of flew out of his brain. Well and he didn't even want to write it like the first book is only what 160 180 pages long.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's like the first three episodes of the show. By the end of it, they had to like lock them into a hotel room to make them write anything. And you're not allowed out of this hotel room until you finish writing, you know, Dirk Gently. I believe that that first book ends where it does because that was the deadline. It was like, you're done now, we have to take it away from you. And that's why it kind of ends in a
00:37:16
Speaker
Let's go to the Millyways, right? It's just sort of a weird to be continued. And of course, you know what he said about deadlines. I was going to say, that's my email signature. It's, I love deadlines. I love the bushing sound they make as they fly by. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, but you're like you're writing, because I would read Matt's scripts, you know, before we made them.
00:37:39
Speaker
with an eye towards, you know, making some suggestions. I would usually have my obnoxious suggestions that I would make, but there would always be some, some bits and some lines that I would just think, holy cow, like this guy is funny, you know? And like you're coming up with stuff that I don't know how you come up with it. So, I mean, it's just, I think, I think part of it's just a sketch background, you know, just sort of like, I remember Bob Martin, he said that the best way to approach this show,
00:38:06
Speaker
is just treat every scene like a sketch. What's the game in the scene? So, you know, it's just geared towards trying to find humor. And sometimes it's stupid, absurd stuff, and sometimes it's wordplay, and sometimes it's a joke, and you know, we just try to find something. And I think also we just have a similar sense of humor. I'll just say also, I think you found me funny because we share a brain.
00:38:33
Speaker
I don't think everybody finds my stuff funny. I think I'd be a lot more successful if they did. Yeah, well, actually, you know, I've been looking back at some of my earlier work and my overwhelming impression is that, man, I was weird. You know, my stuff is weird, you know? And yeah, like to an extent that I did not appreciate, I think, when I was creating it.
00:38:58
Speaker
I don't know, weird's good. Oh, you know what, this is a side note, but the Hitchhiker's Guide TV show, I remember really disliking, and I still don't like it. I can't watch it because I don't want to see what any of that stuff looks like. I had both based on the book and the radio series, I had an image of Marvin, I had an image of Zafod, and then the TV show just could not do either of them justice.
00:39:25
Speaker
And it felt slow as a result. What did you think in the movie? I didn't mind the movie so much, but I thought it was really interesting because they, Adams did a pass on it, right? Like, I don't know how much of it, but, you know, he really tried to bolster Trillian's character because in the radio series in the book, she's just nothing. And I thought he did, I thought they did a passable job. I liked the Henson Muppets. Like, I liked the Henson, the Vogons looked incredible.
00:39:56
Speaker
And I really liked Sam Rockwell as they thought. I thought he was perfect. I actually really liked Stephen Fry doing the narration.
00:40:04
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah, he was great too. Yeah, I thought he was perfect because I think I didn't have that voice in my head because I didn't know who Stephen Fry was when I read the book, but it kind of like matched up with the tone I thought in my head when I read the book originally because yeah, I'm like you, I read the book before. I did actually hear the radio series or one of the seasons, the second time I lived in England in the early 80s, but it wouldn't have been live. It would have been a reef day with gas, right?
00:40:33
Speaker
Yeah, they were never live. Oh, you mean it would never been like the first time it was broadcast? Yeah, it wasn't like when it was first released. No, because I don't even know when that was when the first season aired. It was in the mid to late 70s, maybe. Mid 70s, probably. Yeah, 77, maybe. And I but it was funny, because I heard I caught it on the radio. I think my mom was listening to something and then I went, Wait a minute, don't don't don't you said that's that's Douglas Adams. And I loved it. I was there every day. But I knew the story, of course, because it read the books. But yeah, I still love listening to it.
00:41:04
Speaker
It's just so inventive and it's so, again, sci-fi is so tricky because, you know, there's so many different aspects or there's so many different ways you can go about it. Like, you know, how close is it to our contemporary world? Or how realistic is it? How grounded is it? And then Hitchhikers is just kind of a mishmash of everything. You have the infinite improbability drive.
00:41:32
Speaker
everything that he writes makes sense, but it's all adhering to his own logic, like the whole thing about flying, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. On the surface, it sounds ridiculous, but then you think about it for a second and you go, right, of course, there's a logic there.
00:41:54
Speaker
And that's everything he writes. And I think I respond to that too. I could never really get into Terry Pratchett that much because I thought he was a little too fantasy driven and I could never really nail down the internal logic of his worlds. And people always compared him to Douglas Adams too, I guess just because of the humor. But again, I find that Douglas Adams stuff, it's grounded and it sounds scientific even if it isn't.
00:42:23
Speaker
Well, and the impact on science fiction, you cannot write.
00:42:28
Speaker
Humorous science fiction without being compared to Douglas Adams.
Humor in Sci-Fi
00:42:32
Speaker
That is true. You guys would know way more about this than I do, but there's a real bias against humor in science fiction, isn't there? I think there is. It's very hard to write funny science fiction. Just to start with, it's very hard to write a novel that's funny.
00:42:57
Speaker
Right. Any long form narrative, it's challenging to do the thing because you don't have all the ability that you have in stand up. You're not there, so you can't react to what people are doing. You can't even do sort of personal interplay like you can with the sketch. You can sort of do that a little bit in terms of setting up the scenario and
00:43:22
Speaker
But yeah, it's really challenging to write humorous anything in a long form. And then I think in science fiction, there's an additional hurdle, which is, yeah, you're always going to be compared to Douglas Adams. It's kind of inevitable. And so then to do something that's somewhat original, then you're fighting against that a little bit, I think. It's interesting. I didn't even think about that. Because you're right. When I read Hitchhikers or listen to, I guess we're deviating from
00:43:51
Speaker
We're talking more about the book, which is fine. We're talking about the properties, the IP. It's all good. It's all still in the genre. But you're right. It was really funny. And how often have you read a book, let alone a science fiction book that made you laugh out loud? And it's true. You're right. I mean, I've read, I just read this book called, I had to Google it because I forgot and my brain is like a sin, but it was called The Book of Joe, coincidentally, Joe. It's called The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper. And it made me laugh a lot. And I thought, right, other than
00:44:19
Speaker
you know, like a David Sedaris collection of short stories. It's not very often that you read a book that makes you laugh while you're reading it. And I hadn't even thought about that, but yeah, yeah, exactly. And Douglas Adams did that. Well, and interestingly, all of us here, you know, write or attempt to write amusing prose.
00:44:38
Speaker
I mean, I tried to write a funny book, but I'm sure, you know, like, I don't know. It could be one of the things, like, oh, this doesn't work. But a lot of it for, I think, for Adams, though, just is his voice.
Appreciating 'Last Chance to See'
00:44:49
Speaker
Because one of my favorite Adams books is actually not fiction. It's the book he wrote called Last Chance to See. Love that book. Yeah. Which is a beautiful book. It's hilarious. I mean, I've got the scene of him
00:45:04
Speaker
I can't remember what the islands are in Indonesia where he's gonna see the Komodo dragons and there's chickens in the front of the boat. And he knows what the chickens are for. The chickens don't know what the chickens are for. And that's burned in my mind and it's so funny. Well, and yeah, and anybody listening who has read Hitchhiker's Guide, I would say you have to run out and if you haven't read it, read Adam's Last Chance to See because I think it's his best work, which obviously is saying a lot. I agree.
00:45:33
Speaker
I wonder if it's even available. That's a good question. It was, okay, I can tell you when it was written. It's, you know, there's certain authors. Well, occasionally it's like one of Stephen King's best books is on writing. Yeah, that's true. Michael Crichton wrote a book called Travels. Did you ever read that? And it was about his travels overseas and his travels in the world and also his travels in like he went to meditation resorts and he went to past life regressions and it was sort of
00:46:02
Speaker
It was an external and internal book of travels. It was fascinating. I mean, again, I read this as a teenager. I don't know if it holds up, but I always remember it sort of standing out. It's like, wow, every now and then these fiction writers will write something of nonfiction and it's just as good and I wish that they did more of it. It's 1990 and it is available. So, for last chance to see. Oh, good. Yeah, people should read that. Anything else you want to say, Matt, about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Radio Show?
00:46:29
Speaker
I thought that the actors were all very good in it. Simon Jones was perfect. He was the narrator? No, Peter Jones was the narrator. Simon Jones is Arthur Dent. I still listen to it from time to time. I haven't in a while. They continued it. They did the tertiary phase.
00:46:48
Speaker
recently in the last 20 years, they adapted the third, fourth, and fifth book to radio drama. I never really listened to them. I couldn't really get into them. Just like the later books too, like the, I don't know if you read Life the Universe, of course you guys read Life the Universe. Yeah, read them all. But it is not, you know, there's a significant drop off after a restaurant for me.
00:47:11
Speaker
They get a little dull. I like that the life universe and everything has that bistro math Yeah, the ship that is powered by bistro math. I like that But what book has the whale? That's the first that's the first book. Oh, really? Okay. Oh, you know what? The third one has that's a great little bit is the oh, yeah the the pot of petunias the that's it's it's the guy who he's immortal and
00:47:39
Speaker
And he's decided to go through the universe and insult everybody to their face. And then there's the guy who keeps getting reincarnated. And because every time he dies, it's Arthur Dent who kills him. And we find out that he was the bowl of petunias. Yeah, and the whale. And the whale. Oh no, not again. Oh no, not again. Yeah, that's what that was referencing. He was the guy who keeps getting reincarnated and killed by Arthur Dent.
00:48:09
Speaker
Now, something else which is kind of odd about Hitchhiker's Guide, the theme.
Unique Theme Choice for Hitchhiker's Guide
00:48:16
Speaker
Journey of the Sorcerer, wasn't it? Yeah, by the Eagles.
00:48:18
Speaker
By the Eagles, yeah. Doesn't that strike you guys as kind of odd that they would pick like an American, you know, Southern... You know, from what I remember, Adams was a big music guy, right? Like he was good friends with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and, you know, I think he just... I don't even know if he was a stoner because... Well, that kind of makes sense to me. His music tastes seem to be stoner music and Journey the Sorcerer is definitely like something
00:48:45
Speaker
Stoners would listen to. I mean, it doesn't even sound like the Eagles. It's a very comforting song for me. And I don't know if it's the song itself, or it's because I associate it with the show. That's a great sign. And some of his characters. I mean, they've got people. Brock's is pretty American. Yeah. That's an American character. There's no question. That's well, the name certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Mark Wing Davies playing him with an American. Yeah. That's a lots of people named Zified in Iowa.
00:49:13
Speaker
It's the sheer creativity of the whole series that I think is unmatched in ways. Going back to my point about science fiction, Joe and I had done these post-apocalyptic things.
00:49:37
Speaker
There's a limitation in radio in the sense that there's no limitation. You can just come up and do whatever you want. It's like anything you can imagine you can record. And I found it exhausting because it's almost pressure to come up with these incredibly creative things like
00:49:52
Speaker
Adams did. It's just everything he touched. It was just so unbelievably creative and inventive. So the last series I did was all set. I pitched it as Barney Miller in space. So it was just on a ship and it was a crew of a ship because I just didn't want to have to think about that stuff anymore because I'm not as creative as someone like Douglas Adams. I beg to differ. And I think he's someone who utilized the radio to its fullest potential by just going like the Zafod thing is a perfect example. It was meant as a radio joke.
00:50:22
Speaker
him having two heads because it's the same actor delivering both lines. It's something you're never going to see. And then the television show and the film both had to try to figure out how to make that work. And Sam Rockwell was good as, as they bought it up. Yeah. And well, to your point of him being American, and then I think Sam Rockwell played him as the ultimate American, right? He's basically doing Bush. Yeah. Yeah. This is great. Mark, what do you think? Any, any final thoughts on, uh,
00:50:52
Speaker
Oh, no, I'm just really happy to talk about Douglas Adams in any capacity at all. He's a joy.
Impact of Douglas Adams's Death
00:50:58
Speaker
It was a real loss when he died. It was. And a shock. I don't think I've had a lot of celebrity deaths that have impacted me over my life. Weirdly, the other one was John Ritter, but Douglas Adams was a big one when he died. I remember exactly where I was and that sinking feeling of
00:51:14
Speaker
How could he be gone? It's just like, he was such an influence and he was so young. He was very young. Well, it's one thing if they die when they're like 102, you're like, oh, that's sad, you know, 102, but I mean, a pretty good life, but 48, 49, no, that's, yeah, way, way too young. I think it depends. I mean, Leonard Cohen, when he died, I was pretty gutted, but, you know, he was fairly old or when he wasn't.
00:51:39
Speaker
See, there's a good question. Celebrity deaths that impacted you. Who were you upset, Leonard Cohen? Kurt Vonnegut. The only person I was as upset about was Kurt Vonnegut. I was very upset. He was praying for death. I know. He was fine with being dead. Do you remember his joke about cigarettes, like suing them? Yeah, suing the company. Yeah, because they hadn't fulfilled their promise of killing him.
00:52:04
Speaker
They hadn't delivered yet. That's funny. I was told I would die of cancer and you did not deliver. You know, Vanna gets his story arc, his live, basically Ted talks on the structure of story. I use that. Oh, that's fabulous. That's how I structure stories is I do it as a graph. I very much use his method. I think for whatever, for certain people with kind of certain kind of brains, it makes 100% perfect sense.
00:52:32
Speaker
Final Gate keeps his recurring theme on this podcast for sure, you know.
00:52:37
Speaker
But okay, celebrities. So Ed Asner, and you actually worked with that Asner, which must have been super cool. He did these spots on climate change and I remember the one line and he was already quite up there when he uttered this line. He's like, oh that, I don't worry about that. That's an after I'm dead problem. Another great line. That's kind of the problem we're facing though, isn't it? I have a few good Ed Asner stories and I'll tell you my favorite one was
00:53:06
Speaker
We were out to dinner and he walked with a cane towards the end of his life and he was very slow. But then I got up to go to the bathroom and he decided he had to go to the bathroom as well and he ran past me to get to the bathroom and he really had to go.
00:53:21
Speaker
And then I peed next to him and he was just, he was just making such perfect old man whooping, you know, like noises as he peed. That's a spicy meatball. Yeah, he was great. He was so much fun. That's great. That's all I got. Wow. Well, okay. And actually that's a great thing. How could we not end on end action? Exactly. That's right. Yeah. Matt, thank you very much for being on our podcast, Recreative.
00:53:52
Speaker
Thank you for having me. I'm so flattered you asked me to do it. Or maybe I suggested it. I can't remember. Maybe I said, Joe, I got to do your podcast. Awesome to meet you. No, we're delighted to have you one. And as we say to all of our guests, we may well have you one again. I'd love to. Yeah. Thanks. That was fun. Thanks, guys.
00:54:24
Speaker
So Mark, you and I have discussed how people can support this podcast. And one of the ways I would like to get them to support us is by, and I think you're going to like this, by purchasing one of your books. Ooh, I like that. How about your books? We're going to start with your books. We'll start with my books. Okay. And today I would like to point people in particular to Alpha Max, which is a novel about the metaverse, which is kind of in vogue these days.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, it doesn't take a lot of the standard approaches that the metaverse stories do. I think it's a bit more grounded. It's funny and it's a, and it's witty and it's smart and it's entertaining. Go to recreative.ca slash support and you can find your books there. Alpha Max by Mark A. Rayner.