The week Hannah Montana arrived and the internet learned to Tweet

Rewind to 19 March 2006 – 25 March 2006 and the world serves up cyclones, the birth of Twitter, Disney Channel domination and reality TV chaos.

🎤 Hannah Montana arrives and Disney creates a superstar
Disney Channel premieres Hannah Montana starring Miley Cyrus as a teenager secretly living a double life as a pop star. The show instantly becomes a tween phenomenon, spawning tours, wigs, dolls, video games and enough merch to fill a Target aisle. 

🌪️ Cyclone Larry flattens far north Queensland
One of Australia’s worst cyclones in decades barrels into Innisfail with winds up to 240 km/h, shredding homes, crops and basically every banana tree in sight. Around 10,000 houses are damaged and the cleanup effort becomes one of the biggest disaster responses in modern Australian history. The real national trauma? Bananas suddenly cost $12–15 a kilo and supermarkets treat them like luxury goods. 

📱 The very first tweet enters the timeline
On 21 March 2006 a simple message quietly launches the loudest town square on the internet. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey posts: “just setting up my twttr.” At the time it’s basically a nerdy SMS status update tool used by Silicon Valley techies. Tweets are capped at 140 characters, there’s no algorithm, no quote tweets and most posts are things like ‘eating lunch.’ 

📺 Reality TV discovers its final form
Bravo debuts The Real Housewives of Orange County and accidentally launches a reality TV empire. Originally pitched as a peek into gated-community life, the show follows wealthy suburban women navigating luxury lifestyles, relationships and increasingly petty arguments. 

🎭 V for Vendetta turns a comic into a global symbol
The dystopian thriller V for Vendetta hits cinemas starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. Portman famously shaves her head on camera in a single uninterrupted take, a moment that becomes one of the film’s most talked-about scenes. Even bigger impact? The Guy Fawkes mask worn by the vigilante hero becomes a global protest symbol.

🎸 Prince proves he’s still untouchable
Music legend Prince drops the album 3121 and it debuts at No.1 on the Billboard charts — his first chart-topping album in nearly two decades. The record channels classic Prince energy: funk, sensuality and mysterious symbolism. To promote it he throws secret celebrity-filled house parties at his mansion, because when Prince releases an album he doesn’t just drop music… he creates an entire vibe.

📚 Danielle Steel continues her unstoppable publishing run
Romance powerhouse Danielle Steel releases another bestseller, proving once again that no matter what else is happening in pop culture, Danielle Steel is quietly publishing books at a pace that makes the rest of the literary world nervous.

Hang with us on socials to chat more noughties nostalgia - Facebook (@tminus20) or Instagram (tminus20podcast). You can also contact us there if you want to be a part of the show.

Transcript

Transcript is generated automatically. 

The year is 2006. We head to the hills and learn reality is scripted. Your Sony Cyber Shot uploads 462 blurry regrets. A Facebook poke makes everything complicated. And Twitter's like, cool story, you've got 140 characters. Go. T-minus 20. Rewind 20 years with Joe and Mel. 

Week 12, 19, March, 2006. 

T-minus 20. Bringing the sexy bag. 

I want to forgive you. 

T-minus 20. I hate this long distance relationship. 

And I want to forget you. 

Good job. You have no style or succession. This is a beauty. This is very nice. Yeah, boy. Kachow! Bless you. Welcome aboard T-minus 20, the podcast that fires up the nostalgia time machine and rewinds to the exact same week 20 years ago, each episode digging through the pop culture, news, music, movies, tech, and random chaos that defined the mid-2000s. The stuff you definitely remember, plus the stuff you forgot ever happened with your hosts who forget pretty much everything that ever happens, which is why we're doing this, to sort of refresh our memories, refire the synapses, to stop the tide of age. Jo and Mel. Hello, Mel. 

Yes, think a little history, a lot of nostalgia and plenty of, oh my God, I remember that. Oh my God. If you owned an iPod Nano, downloaded songs on dial-up, speed iTunes, or argued about reality TV at work the next day, congratulations. You are our people. This podcast is for you. 

That's right. And there's a lot of stuff happening this week that was made just for you. Five years before Yasi hit Queensland in 2011, Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry, the strongest Queensland cyclone in a century, smashed the northern coast of the Sunshine State. 

And left a path of destruction that cost over a billion dollars. 

Big damage to the banana economy with Cyclone Larry. 

Bad news for bananas? 

Yeah, devastating cat 5 cyclone that hit far north Queensland this time 20 years ago. 

Lily alert in 18 seconds. She's your best friend, Miley. Sooner or later, you're going to have to Tell her you're Hannah Montana. 

Oh, Hannah Montana goes with the days. 

Yes, Disney Channel debut is a show about a teenage girl secretly living a double life as a pop star, launching the career of 1 Miley Cyrus this time 20 years ago. 

Jack Dorsey had the idea of a way of communicating status, what you're up to. And you can see from his original one page of A4 blueprint, it was a very simple idea. You can see, incidentally also, that he was still a student when he came up with this idea. The only status options he provides are either in bed or at the park. 

Remember that? The very first one. 

The very first one. Just setting up my Twitter. He dropped all the vowels out of the work. 

That's why it was very cool to leave your vowels at home. 

One of the smallest experiments that turned into the internest's loudest town square, meme factory and political battlefield, Twitter, this time 20 years ago. Yeah. 

Gosh, I remember that like it was yesterday. It doesn't do that anymore. What sound is excellent? 

I don't know. I'm not, I kind of left. I left. And you know, when I was on there, it was kind of pointless anyway. 

Did you ever use it? 

Yeah, but I'd just say asinine stuff. Like I would just tweet whatever I was doing at the like status updates. And it's like, nobody cares. And nor should they. What a waste of time. 

I still haven't updated the app since if it came X. I refuse to. I want to keep little birds. I'm still on the Twitter. Mine's still Twitter, but It's actually kicked me out now. Up until last year, I could still get in there, but now I can't unless I upgrade to X. You've. 

Been exiled. Exiled from Twitter. 

So look, to celebrate 20 years of the first tweet, I've got some pretty famous celebrity tweets from over the years, and I want to see if you know which celebrity tweeted that. 

Oh, see, because they would have just done free for alls as well. Like you'd subscribe to them and be like, such and such is doing the laundry. 

Yes. 

That sort of stuff. Asinine rubbish. 

There are a lot of beige things like, oh, here's my dinner and I'm tired. And where are my friends? You know, that kind of stuff. But some of these, some of these you'll know. Let's see. 

Let's see how you go. Hang on. So I'll do the tweet and then you say the thing. And if we do it really seamlessly, like you, the listener, will just have a much better experience. 

Like you're in your Twitter? 

It'll be visceral. 

Yeah. Great. 

Yeah. 

I just farted. 

Who did that? Who tweeted that? 

Who do you think tweeted? I just farted. 

I mean, that could be anyone. Is it? Can I have a clue? 

Marvel related. 

Marvel related. A Marvel. So somebody who is a Marvel character. Robert Downey Junior. 

No. 

Tobey Maguire. 

No. We're just going to keep going. 

Well, I want to know who it is. I would just want to have a couple of guesses. Marvel related. 

Yes. 

Stan Lee. 

No. Chris Pratt. Thanks for the accolades there for me for reading out the answer. 

Reading out the answer that you already had. 

Okay. All right. I can feel another tweet coming in. Winning. 

Oh, it's easy. Charlie Sheen. 

Yes. 

Oh, that's wrong because he's just all kinds of them. I hate it when I press the wrong button. All right, one more. 

We've got a few more. 

Oh, we've got a few more. Okay. 

I hate it when I'm on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like, oh great, now I've got to be responsible for this water bottle. 

Oh, I'm going to need a clue for that. I have no idea. 

Unhinged on a flight, probably in first class, actually probably on a private jet. 

Right. Unhinged. On a flight. 

I hate it when I'm on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like, oh great, now I've got to be responsible for this water bottle. 

Is it? 

Someone who probably shouldn't have a Twitter or an ex or any social media. Really. 

Donald Trump. 

No. What was his? Coffee. When he spelt coffee wrong. 

Okay, any other clues? politics. Are they in politics? Are they in music, entertainment? Music. 

Music. Very controversial of recent years. 

Tommy Mottola. Bobby Brown. 

No. 

Very controversial of recent years. 

Recently, quite controversial. 

In music. 

You probably shouldn't be making tweets or any social media posts because just says things that are inappropriate. 

I just feel like it's any that's anyone in the entertainment. It could be anybody that says things that Eminem. 

No. 

Starts with a K. Starts with a K. 

Come on, that's easy. 

In music. 

Initials KW. 

KW. Kylie Winogue. K. Male or female? 

Male. 

Male. This isn't helping me at all, is it? Kendrick Romar. 

Good genre, yes, rap. 

Rapper. A rapper, KW. 

Who's just been quite controversial over the last few years. 

Oh, Kanye West. 

Yes. How could you not tell that was Kanye? Now I have to be responsible for a water bottle. 

It's very hard. This is really difficult. 

Okay, this one. Surely you're going to get that. I can feel it coming in. Ready? Yes. If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. Hashtag Oscars. 

Ellen DeGeneres. 

Yes. Very famous Oscars selfie that was tweeted afterwards. 

Yeah, another one. 

Dear friends, I'm pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart. 

The Pope. 

Yes. 

Yeah. 

Got his nano and signed up for the Twitter. 

Yeah. 

He was very progressive, wasn't he? 

The Pope. 

That one. 

Well, now that he's got the iPod, yes. 

He's on the Twitter. He's no stopping him. 

The Pope with the. The holiest, I don't even know. I don't know where I'm going with that. This is another one. 

Four more years. 

Well, that'd be some kind of politician. I'm suggesting it was probably Barack Obama. 

Correct. 

Because we don't like it really when politicians tweet these days. It's really a mess. 

No, Well, yeah, it's not even tweeting though. So what is it? What do you call it when you're exing? Are you exing? 

Exing? I don't know. 

That sounds rude. 

I often thought that the past tense of to tweet would be twart. 

I thought to twart. 

Well, it just ties in with the I just twarted. It was a musical twart. It sounded like a recorder doing a theme from Entertainment Tonight. It's A hatches, matches, and dispatches clue. A celebrity birth, death, or marriage that we're going to give you a clue for right now and then talk about it at the segment at the end of the show. So you can just keep it in your mind until the end of the show and then you can be like, I remember who that was and I was correct. And isn't that exciting? What do we got this week? Just a birthday. 

Birthday, yes. 

No significant birth, death, marriages. 

No. 

We'll just go with a birthday. A celebrity having a birthday. Who said this? 

Do you want to know what I see when I look in that ring? 

Honestly. 

A bunch of cheap, interchangeable, expendable, useless women. Stand to our faith! Women who have turned to reality television because they just weren't gifted enough to be actresses. Stand to our faith! And they just weren't talented enough to be champions. 

Then it's fighting words. You couldn't fit that in 140 characters. 

That would be an angry tweet, wouldn't it? 

That would be an angry tweet from an Angry Bird. And I don't mean that in a sexist way. We'll find out who that is at the end of the show. And now here's Mel with the news. 

It's the 20th of March and this is some Australian news, not so great news over here. Cyclone Larry. 

Good Australian name for a cyclone? 

Larry. 

Larry, yeah. Like your drunk uncle that shows up at a really bad time, makes a huge mess and then leaves. 

Yes, quite the whirlwind. 

Yes. 

This one was particularly bad. It was a powerful tropical cyclone in far north Queensland. It makes landfall on the 20th of March 2006 near Innisfail. Was one of our worst cyclones in decades. 

Yes, they were drawing comparisons to Cyclone Tracy at the time. So it was quite devastating. And I think the key figures involved in this, obviously the key players in the communication around how bad this cyclone was, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie. 

Oh, Peter Beattie. 

Prime Minister John Howard, and of course the bomb, the Bureau of Meteorology. 

Called the Bureau now, isn't it? 

They're never going to shake the bomb tag. I'd hate to break it to you, bomb, but we all affectionately know you as the bomb, not the Bureau. 

Well, I'd be happy with that. You'd a bomb. Like that's a compliment being bomb. 

And the Bureau, I mean, the Bureau sounds like they should be investigating crimes. 

Sounds like they need to wear a suit. 

Yes. Mind you, I do feel like the way weather is going at the moment that it is verging on criminal activity because it's just all over the shop. So maybe the Bureau is appropriate. What do I know? 

This one was a category 5 at peak strength. That's pretty bad. Winds up to 240 kilometres per hour. 10,000 homes were damaged. Estimated damage bill of around 1.5 billion Australian dollars. 

So this is what's left of the house. TV and surround system and couches and deep freeze were there. The winds must have been absolutely awesome to blow. trees like that to take them out by. 

The roots, snap them off at the bottom of the roots, it's just incredible. All sugar canes down, houses gone, it's pretty wild. 

Yeah, it's because Queenslanders are a bit slow. 

It took them a week to figure out what happened to them. 

Yeah, no, it's terrible, though. 

They seem quite calm, though. That's very Australian, isn't it? What are you going to do? 

I guess when you walk into them afterwards. Like, you know, in all seriousness, when you're walking around in the rubble of your house, like, yeah, it's, yeah, what are you going to do? You just go But there it is. That's what that's where the stuff was. And now it's gone. 

But miraculously, no direct deaths, which was credited to strong building standards and the warning system as well. But it did look like a bit of a war zone afterwards, particularly in Innisfail. The thing that we probably remember most, though, the bananas. 

The banana shortage. 

The banana crops were devastated. And it was like 80 to 90% wiped out. 

Yes, how's using that banana for scale? 80 to 90% of Australian bananas gone. 

And it then obviously bumped up the prices. And I remember that. It was across the news. It was around $15 for a kilo of bananas because they were just... There were just none left. And I think 2006, we did, was that when we did a little bit of travelling up north and we went to the big banana and there was no bananas there. 

Was no bananas to speak of. 

It was actually, yeah, you had to sort of be a bit careful around. It was a sensitive topic. 

They were in demand. 

Couldn't really talk too much. 

But they had armoured guards up around the paddocks to stop people from looting the bananas. 

Yeah. 

People were hoarding bananas and toilet paper. I'm making that up. I don't know. 

But it did last for months and it did become somewhat of a bit of a running joke. Once we knew that everybody was okay, we were rebuilding and we were able to make light of the situation, but we weren't eating bananas for a while. 

And the people of Queensland, very resilient as much as I give them a hard time because of the whole state of origin rivalry, very resilient. They're used to cyclones. It's not like it's their first rodeo when it comes to cyclones, but Larry was quite severe, which is why there was those comparisons to Tracy. And of course, then they go into the, this is where communities galvanize and they do that all the time. You know how the news narrative goes. It's like disaster and then they go in and then they get the eyewitness accounts from people talking about where their surround sound system was and where it may have ended up and people crying over the devastation of their houses perfectly justifiable and stuff. But the news has got to be there to capture it. Otherwise, you know, the rest of the nation can't feel the emotion. So they get in the way and they go and get that. They get all the brief and all of that sort of stuff. And then the stories come out about the galvanizing of the community and how everyone banded together to help each other. I do recall a couple of eyewitness accounts from the time where people were actually guarding their houses because people were coming in and looting in the early hours of the morning. So, you know, it's not all sunshine and lollipops as the news would have you believe. Like a lot of people were actually hanging around their devastated homes in order to defend them from looters as well, which was terrible. Big, big rebuilding effort, big insurance effort, obviously the banana shortage, which lasted for months and became a bit of a joke, the lighter side of it. And Larry is kind of the precursor to Yasi, which happened in 2011, which is a lot bigger. 

That's so devastating, yeah. 

But you remember the footage of bananas locked in cabinets. You know how with meat, it's got the sticker on it nowadays in the supermarket. It's got the sticker, so it'll set the alarms off if you don't. Oh, yes, bananas as well. 

Keep them safe. 

Yes, and lots of TV footage of shredded banana plantations. But I mean, and I have to admit, I was not prepared for the banana crisis. 

No, and it's funny how whenever something, there's a shortage of something, you suddenly want it as well. I do remember I did end up purchasing a banana and it was probably, I think, about 6 bucks for a banana because I just, because I couldn't have it. I had to find one and I'd paid premium prices. Like with the strawberries, remember when they were putting needles in the strawberries? 

Oh, that's it. 

And then I just suddenly felt an urge to eat strawberries. 

Not because there were needles in there. 

No, not because they were, because I couldn't have them or because they were. 

And as soon as you can't have it, that's right, you know, as soon as crazy uncle. Larry comes to visit in March and then eats all the bananas. Everyone wants bananas. More so, well, it's equally as serious. I'm not saying that wasn't serious because it was, but thankfully nobody died. Thankfully nobody died when hurricane, hurricane, tropical cyclone Larry. It's not a hurricane. We're in the southern hemisphere. We've had this conversation before and I don't care to recount it again. You can go and listen to a previous episode if you want to get it. I don't even know where that's buried. Somewhere in the annals. of T-minus 20. Anyway, I'm not doing very well at segueing this, which is a bit of a pain in the **** but we'll go on to the 21st of March. Do you remember the Capitol Hill massacre in Capitol Hill? That was in Washington, DC, I believe. Was it Washington? Seattle. Seattle. Seattle, Washington, not Washington, DC. Seattle, Washington. That's right, Capitol Hill massacre. So there's a house party in Seattle. These people go to a house party after a rave and a gunman is there, a guy who was in invited back, who they perfectly innocently invited back to this house party. Turns out that he's a crazed killer and his name is Kyle Aaron Huff. He's 28 years old. He opens fire and kills six people at this party before taking his own life. There are people that are shot here, please. Ma'am, you told me these were fireworks. Are these fireworks or gunshots? I think they're gunshots. Do you see anyone injured, ma'am, or. 

Yeah. And is the person that did the shooting still there? 

I don't know. The person still was. That was a really strange 911 call. It sounds surprisingly calm, but you have to remember that person's hiding and trying to be quiet. They're at that house party. So there was about 100 guests there. Just a big party. Yeah. And it was one of the deadliest shootings in Seattle history at the time. And it was hosted by a bunch of young kids that were in the local punk music scene. Like I said, they'd had this after party after a rave. This kind of loner looking guy gets invited along as well. And then just decides to open fire on them, which is absolutely terrible. 

And as you heard in the call there, the person on the other end of the line was saying, But I thought you said that they were fireworks, because they did initially think that the sound of the gunshots were fireworks, but then pretty quickly realised that it was actually someone with a gun, which is just horrendous. 

Yeah, and I mean, it's just another example that contributes to the discussion that is still going to this day around mass shootings in the United States of America. The usual thoughts and prayers, the usual debates about gun control and mental health, And public vigils, outpouring of grief, all of that sort of stuff. But bug are all really done about it in the grand scheme of things, which is very, very sad. It was on the news for a while. And then it wasn't. And then we just moved on to the next mass shooting in the United States of America. But I do remember this one quite vividly because it was like this after party at A Raven. It was in someone's house. It was a mass shooting at a party that was in a house, which I think made it a little bit different. It wasn't a school for a change. Well, you know, got to mix it up a little bit, don't you, America, I guess. Sorry, that's all very cynical. I feel like these days, back then, yes, we've got two big crises there. We've got, you know, Hurricane Larry, sorry, I keep saying hurricane, Tropical Cyclone Larry over here. We've got a mass shooting in the United States. I feel like just in the current news cycle, I've been getting quite fatigued. You'll know, like at the beginning of March, it's all a bit full on. You were wondering how much petrol is going to cost, the cost of living is going, the interest rates, all these things. We seem to be in this rolling crisis cycle at the moment. I feel like we used to get a bit of a reprieve, but we don't now. 

And I think there's this phenomenon now because so much information is coming at us so quickly and it's stuff from right across the world and there's just so much horrible stuff happening that we're actually becoming more desensitized to it and just sort of scrolling through. Like there's been studies done on it and something that, you know, 20 years ago, if we'd seen that on the news, it would have dominated headlines for months. And there would have been outrage or outpouring of grief. And there would have been a lot of commentary around it. Yet now it's just, oh, what now? I'm just going to swipe on. And they're actually doing studies on it, which is just terrible, isn't it? 

Well, I mean, because there's this massive news story that's just bubbling underneath all of these other crises and news stories that are happening that keeps getting buried that probably needs a little bit more attention. I don't want to get into that news story in this. in this podcast, but I think you know what I'm kind of talking about or alluding to. It's a certain bunch of files that have been released and then no one's talking about what's happening in it. Everyone's just moving on to war or, you know, a prosperous radio couple splitting after 25 years. It's like, what about what's really going on? What about what's, and because we're in this doom scrolling like constant crises cycle, we are just kind of numb to all of it and really, really tired. Yes. And if you don't mind, I need to make a phone call. So if you could get off the internet. Stop chatting to your friends on ICQ. Just put it down. Put it down. 

Sit down because we've got to downloading from Lime. What? 

Massive, massive tech news, massive tech news, which we hinted at the start of the show. Twitter. Yes. The first ever tweet. 

The first tweet. 

Was *******. 

Was *******. 

You say ******* I say *******. Let's call the whole thing off. 

It was posted or tweeted by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter on the 21st of March, 2006, simply reading, just setting up my TWTTR. 

Twitter. 

Without the without the vowels, which was very early 2000s. Oh, probably getting into the mid 2000s to drop your vowels. Drop your vowels. 

Are we still are we still texting on a like a phone on a numeric keypad? no, just more a numeric keypad. So it's like you haven't got a keyboard. So you might be using it, so. 

Possibly. 

Yeah. 

I don't know. Yeah, because Twitter was a phone thing, wasn't it? When I got mine, when I first got mine, it was on my phone. 

If you had a Blackberry at this stage. 

I don't think you'd tweet on the house computer, do you? 

I don't know. 

I don't think they ever did. 

Depends. 

I don't know. I did a lot of retweeting. I was lazy. I couldn't think of anything. I just retweeted all those things. 

I just, I just, I used it and. because everyone else was. And it was like, what do I do here? Are you just tell people what you're doing? And it was like, why? So people can find out that you're not home and then break into your house. I don't understand. 

I think that is, no, I think that is what it was originally kind of set up to do, was to tell your friends what you were doing. 

So that they could break into your house. 

Not so they could break into your house, but just so you could just give, it was like the status update without having to have the big Facebook wall and ranking your friends and your MySpace coding. I think it was kind of to strip all of that back. You had the character limit imposed upon you. 

140. Go. 

So you had to really think about it and you had to make it count. And it was this idea of, yeah, here's what I'm doing. I just farted. Or now I've got to be responsible for this water bottle? 

And you know, geez, I hope I don't fart in the presence of the water bottle. 

What will the water bottle think of me? 

Well, you know that first tweet actually got auctioned as like an NFT. Crypto collectibles have exploded in popularity. 

Everyone from artists to rock bands are joining in. And now the co-founder of Twitter is also offering to sell his and the platform's first ever tweet. Jack Dorsey put his tweet posted in 2006 offer auction. It merely reads, just setting up my Twitter. The highest offer is from the CEO of Bridge Oracle for 2.5 million US dollars. 

I think it ended up going for 2.9 million in 2021. 

I still don't understand the concept of an NFL. Like how do you get, you can't just reach in and grab that little tweeted, tweeted thing and I don't get it. But didn't that go well with NFTs? Where are NFTs today? What happened with that? So what would have happened with your $2 million setting up my Twitter? Nothing. 

I don't think those guys use like $100 notes for toilet paper. And they're starting to talk about that. That's what I call you money. They've got you money, those people. I've got money and you, because I can, because I've got my, wouldn't it be nice to have you money? That'd be good. 

Just to have random NFTs on your wall. 

Oh, money doesn't solve any problems. I reckon if you've got you money, it's It solves heaps of problems. It solves one problem at the very least where you can say to the rest of the world, **** you, because I've got **** you money. How many times do you reckon I could say **** in this segment? 

Well, I don't know, but you have to do a lot of beeping. I know, Future you is going to be really ****** ***. 

Yeah, I really am. And you know, what a waste of characters. 

Early users were mostly tech nerds in Silicon Valley, of course, they were. And social media is still relatively new. We've just had Facebook starting to open up beyond universities. But Twitter was a little bit different in that it started to become political. A lot of journos were on the Twitter as opposed to Facebook. And that's... where they would find out about things. And again, when you talk about these big moments and things that were happening in the world, people started using Twitter as the primary vehicle for getting information out quickly. Like I remember the storms over in the US, that really bad flooding. Like how you found out about what was going on was predominantly through Twitter. 

This is a game changer. This completely changed the news cycle forever, forever. And like you said, like Facebook's still just coming out of the university type whereas Twitter is mainstream and it's out there and journalists are using it and they're giving you updates in real time so you can follow on as news literally as it happens while the person on the scene is just smashing out their little 140 character updates. And as a consequence, I remember a lot of times like seeing some pretty horrible things on there, like the Boston Marathon bombing, for example. Extremely graphic images being shared directly to Twitter in real time, uncensored And in some ways, I think, yes, that's absolutely terrible, but it was also the most visceral, real interpretation that you could get of something that was happening because there was no censorship whatsoever. 

But it was also the start of not fact checking as well. Like thinking about the things like the retweets, people would put things out there as fact. And the idea was to be the first one to break the news through Twitter. So often you weren't checking the facts. It was all about things first. You weren't validating. You were just getting it out there. And then suddenly when it got picked up through the retweets, it was fact. And I remember again with the storms in America, people were sharing a lot of video footage and photos. And a lot of them ended up being fake and people just getting grabs from movies and things and sending those out. And nobody was checking and people like, my gosh, the Statue of Liberty underwater and it suddenly became. 

I could have sworn that flying cow was in Twister. You know, stuff like that. They did do that. And so there is the, and this is also the beginning of what I'm talking about now, that cycle where we feel like we're in constant crisis because the news cycle never stops now. it's 24-7 and it is just coming at you like a freight train relentlessly. And it's like, how do you filter that stuff out? Well, you don't go there in the 1st place. So you put your phone down, don't you? But this was a game changer. And I guess now I think for me anyway, personally, Twitter has become a lot less relevant. And I think that's probably got to do with the fact that it was sort of bought and sold. And my values aren't probably necessarily aligned with the values of the person who bought and sold or who bought The company and took it over, and I certainly don't wanna be having to... validate myself through a paywall, like paying money to say that I am who I am. 

Well, that was the other thing too, because you used to get the validated ticks. And that would be because you had some sort of credential, whereas now I think you just pay for them. 

Yeah, maybe. 

I'm trying to see what my first tweet was. Oh, no, it's not loading because I'm still on the Twitter. I'm not on the X, but I joined in 2012. And No, it's all gone until I update. What was your first? Is your first tweet? Are you still on there? 

I can't remember. I think I checked into somewhere on Foursquare and linked, because I just linked everything. I was like, let's do it all through the one thing. 

So if you did something on LinkedIn or if you did a post on... Yeah, or Instagram, you used to share your Instagram posts. 

You could share that across all the platforms. So I could be, I could be asinine on several fronts. You could know that I farted. All in the one fell swoop through one platform. Like, what a time to be alive, hey? What's the comparisons? 2006 versus 2026. 

So 2006, as we mentioned, it was mostly used by tech geeks back then. Now it's a global platform with hundreds of millions of users. It did drop the vowels it was T.W.T.T.R. back in 2006, obviously rebranded, yeah, rebranded X. in 2023. 140 characters back then. Now it just depends on how much money you pay. Depends on your subscription. 

Oh, so you can pay for a bigger character? 

You can pay, yeah, depending on your subscription. 

I think that was the beauty of it, was how succinct it was. 

It really forced you to, yeah, it really forced you to be concise. 

I know, but it kind of didn't, because then people would tell stories across multiple threads, and if you missed one chunk of it, you didn't know where. Then it was like getting up and going to the toilet in a pivotal scene in a film. 

There was also that phenomenon, 'cause I started using it for my voice-over business and started. following other voice actors. And there was this thing that you'd do on a certain day. I can't remember what day it was. And you would do a shout out to people that you were following in your little group. And then they would retweet it. And then they would read like, it was a way to get your name out there. So you would do a shout out to say 5 people. And those five people would retweet it. 

It's like a chain letter. 

It was. Yeah, it was really weird. It was really weird. 

That is weird. 

I don't know why I did it, but I enjoyed it at the time. Back then in 2006, it was status updates like eating lunch or farting or wondering where the water bottle came from. At the same time. Now it's. All at once. Politics, breaking news, memes. You can even do live streams on there as well. 

Yeah. 

No algorithm back in the day. It was mostly chronological. Obviously now it is the algorithm driven feeds like with everything else. I didn't realize this, but hashtags weren't there at the start. 

Is that right? 

No. I thought they came with hashtags. 

No, they weren't. You're right. 

The users of Twitter actually invented them. So it was a Twitter user thing. That's where hashtags came from. 

So at least now we know who to blame. That's good. 

Now we've got hashtags, trending topics, communities. At the start, you couldn't quote. There was no threads or reactions or anything like that. But now we've got quote, posts, spaces, live streams. It did start mainly on desktop or SMS. Now it's primarily mobile. There is video, audio. You can, I didn't know this, but you can actually buy things through it. 

Really? You can shop on Twitter. 

I do not want to be shopping. Sounds legit. Oh my goodness. 

Yeah. 

There was not a lot of moderation early on. 

Yeah, I'd argue there still isn't. 

And you probably didn't need to if you're just talking about your gas movements. But Now there are a lot of debates around free speech, moderation, misinformation. There was also the AI element recently with what was doing the nudes. Remember that. 

Oh, yeah. Look, it's funny because the conversation around free speech always seems to come around Twitter. And I think that's got to do with a certain president of the United States who spends a lot of time on there as well. Everyone's always on about the free speech on Twitter. But I would argue that that's an example of why maybe we shouldn't have free speech. Maybe we need to get into a bit more of an oppressive regime. and stop some of these people from talking. But I mean, again, like I said, what a time to be alive. Like, it's either moving from crisis to disaster to completely false information to people just talking about asinine things like farting. Sorry, twarting. Let's escape all of that. Let's escape all the doom and gloom. It's been a bit of a negative start to the show. I'm sorry about that. It's just my world view has been shaped by that constant information cycle. I'm feeling tired. 

You know what time it is. 

It's your cold time. Well, you can get delirious if you take life too serious. 

It's your cold time. You can get delirious if you take life too serious. 

It's your cold time. That Chico, he was actually a visionary. 

He's off to something. You get delirious if you take life too serious. Get off the Twitter. 

Let's get delirious. 

Stop following the news cycle. Have some Chico time. 

And in spite of the fact that we said Chico might be a little bit problematic, I just feel like he's kind of the answer to our problems this week. 

That felt nice. It did. That was a nice little break. 

It did. Because. It's Chico time. Indeed, indeed you can. 

That's a very good message. 

That's #1 in the UK charts again this week. 

Yes, and here in Australia, we're getting our bits out. Go on it, go on it, what your mama gave you, let my bassline rearrange you, this track's designed to make you cringe. Go on it, go on it, what your mama gave you, nobody ever gonna tame you. 

Gonna make you dance till you bleed. Go on it, secure your drinks, ladies. 

I can smell Lynx Africa from here. 

Yes, please. Secure your drinks at all times. I think between Chico Time and Flaunt It. 

I think I prefer Chico Time. 

I feel like there's a dual headline tour. One of those nostalgia revival tours. Who did Flaunt It? What were they called? What was the name of that group? 

Is it TV Rock or something? 

Oh, TV Rock. That's right. Yeah, TV Rock. Yeah, that's it. Flaunt it, TV Rock, number one in Australia. 

Yeah, look, I'd go if they did it. 

Would you? Would you flaunt it? 

No, one needs to say that. 

Like your mummy gave you, Huh, but my baseline, something you, Huh, this track's designed to make you crave. Is that what it was? 

I don't actually really know what the words are. 

Gonna make you dance to you bleed. We've discussed how clumsy you are on the dance. The blister. 

No, I lost when I lost my toenails. That's right. Yeah, we had too much alcohol. 

Yeah, please, we're trying to. Let's go to the U.S. 

U.S. 

Number five. 

Stop on a zippy poppy talk and stop and check on me the night Ooh, boy, you're looking like you like what you see, what you come along And I can't sleep without you, baby And I'll be waiting up until you get home 'Cause I can't sleep without you, baby Oh, man. You're beautiful You're beautiful You're beautiful, it's true. 

I got the right temperature to shelter you from the storm. 

Hold on, girl, I got the right tactics to turn you on. And girl, I wanna be the papa, you can be the mom. I'm so sick of love songs, so set and slow. So why can't I turn off the radio? 

Why can't you indeed, Neo? Don't know. I don't know either. But he's there at #1, a new number one this week, Neo. 

Oh, he is new number one. I was doing box jumps to Neo the other day, not that song. 

To that. Bloody slow box jumps. 

What's the other one? Closer? That was Neo. 

Yeah, that's also quite slow, isn't it? 

Yes. 

And you're box jumping to that. 

I'm not very good at box jumps. 

Maybe you need a bit more of an upbeat tune. Maybe you should be like. That'd make me jump to jump on a box. 

That's dangerous. 

Yeah. Or if you're talking about jumping onto boxes. 

I might pull something. 

I might do an ACL or something like that. I hope that I pull something if I'm listening to Flaunted and I'm out on the dance floor. 

Number 2, Shauna Ball. All I can think of is that guy slapping his belly. Geez, that was good. 

Hear me now. Yes, indeed. 

That was very good. I might tweet that. 

Sure. 

Number 3, your beautiful James Blunt. Number 4, be without your married J. beyonc�, all the way back at #5. 

Yeah. James Blunt was one that was good on Twitter. We've spoken about that as well. 

Oh, very funny. 

And yes, And of course, beyonc� being edged out. So, you know. It's about time. She's been up there for a while. We've got an album that I think is far more poignant, worth celebrating as well. 31 albums. This is 31 albums from this particular person. I'm talking about, is he, he's not the king of pop because he's the prince, but I'd argue that he's far better than the king of pop. A black sweat. That was Prince. His new studio album, 3121, came out. in March 2006 and it debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 album charts. His first chart topping album in almost 20 years. That was the single Black Sweat. I like that one. It's got an industrial, almost 9 inch nails, prints, crossover feel to it. A bit of studio jiggery pokery happening there. 

Yes, a little bit of things. 

With a little different sounds and a little things behind the beat and stuff, just sort of dragging or getting ahead of the beat. I love it. I like it. It's really cool. 

And I think people commented because it's first really big album in almost 20 years. And the style reminded fans of his more 80s sound. It sort of went back a little bit further than what he'd been doing more recently. 

I just think he mixed it up and did whatever the hell he wanted to. There's a lot of variety in there. One of my favorite tracks is Ti Amo Corazon, which is him, there's some guitar playing in there. He actually sings along with his guitar. It's like just, it's a great track. Yeah, very smooth. It's that nightcap style tune, that one. 

Yes. 

Come up to my apartment for a drink. Yeah. 

He's so cool. The album title, 3121, was the address of his LA mansion, and he believed that number had spiritual significance. 

Really spiritual significance. 

He was, he was a Jehovah. Wasn't he? 

Was. 

Is that a Jehovah's Witness number or was it? 

Spiritual significance in. I guess it's 3121 would have been a door that he knocked on. Is that is that spiritually significant? 

I don't know. He had secret house parties at his mansion to promote it. How's that promoting it if it's a secret? 

Yeah, I don't understand that. Just with other celebrities. 

Oprah went there. 

Oprah Smith went there. 

I think his secret party. 

Yes, I think they sacrificed a few. No, I don't think he bathed in virgins blood and all of that sort of stuff. I don't. 

Witnesses do that. 

Celebrity parties. I'd like to think that Prince was a bit more exempt from that sort of debauchery, but I dare say, I mean... 

It was probably ping pong. Oh, really? Remember that story, the ping pong story? 

Yes, I don't know. Imagine walking into a house and seeing Oprah and Will Smith playing ping pong. That'd be good. That'd be a thing, wouldn't it? Be weird, They go into the lounge room and, I don't know, some of Prince's other celebrity friends are just out there with a game of, I don't know, Pictionary or something. 

Yeah. 

Just having a game night over at 3, 1, 2, 1. Maybe. Spiritually significant game night. What other things would Prince play at his game night? Connect 4? I mean, that's a really simple one. 

Battleship. I reckon he'd like Battleship. 

Battleship. 

Yeah, I reckon he'd be good at it too. 

Yeah. he probably would be. I think Prince is pretty much good at everything. Yes. 

He was performing and touring heavily. 

Except for observing the instructions on his medications. 

Okay. 

Sorry. 

Obviously, yes, in 2016, tragically died age 57 from an accidental overdose. Global tribute and renewed appreciation for his catalogue, which I think that happened to you. got renewed appreciation for Prince more recently, didn't you? 

I love everything that he does now. I can't get enough of Prince tunes. And it's been a really nice thing to be late to the party and just discover all of his albums now because there's just so much variety in there and everything is different. The guy's a genius. And I mean, everyone else is like, Well, we've known it for years, and I'm like, Well, I'm sorry I'm a bit late to the party at 21:21. 

Yeah, the Prince Secret party, but that's all right. 

And Oprah finished their ping-pong game ages ago, you know. 

But the table's free, up you go. 

Yeah, so I might be able to, I might still have a chance at Monopoly with Samuel L. Jackson or something, I don't know. Yeah, so I'm late to the party, but God, I love the guy. I love his music. It's a joke about the medication. It's a tragic loss. 

Yeah. 

They always are. They always are these musicians when they pass away. And I think that he's easily probably one of the most talented musicians of our generation. 

And I reckon if he hadn't died, he'd still be putting out albums today and they would still be amazing. 

I think about collaborations too, because Prince launched a lot of careers as well. Like in 2026, like imagine if Prince was still alive. Who would you like to see him collaborating with? 

Oh, like a, I reckon Prince and Gaga would be amazing. 

Prince and Gaga. I feel like that's too many egos in the one room. 

Too much, too much. 

Yeah. I'd like to see Prince collaborate with like, Because, he is a great guitar player. Like he's a fantastic guitar player. And I think, like you listen to that Tiamo Corazon song, for example, and he's got like a lot of that sort of Spanish guitar stuff going in there. I'd like to see him do something with a band. I'd like to see him do something with a band. So I'd like to see something really unlikely. You know, like how, like when Chris Cornell joined Audio Slave and it was like the guy from Soundgarden and the guys from Rage Against Michelle. I'd like to see Prince do a mashup with Rage Against the Machine. 

Oh, okay. 

Especially given that he's from Minnesota, because I think he'd be very unhappy about the current situation in Minnesota. So I could see a Prince Rage Against the Machine. F*** you, I won't do what you tell me if I give you diamonds and pearls. 

Very big number one movie at the box office in the US this week 20 years ago, V for Vendetta. 

I love this film. 

I wish I wasn't afraid all the time, but... 

I am. People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people. Gentlemen, I want this terrorist found. And I want him to understand what terror really means. We're working on several leagues. Her parents were detained when she was 12. It was like those black bags erased them from the face of the earth. You have one chance. You must tell us the whereabouts of Codename V. If our own government was responsible for the deaths of 100,000 people, you really want to know? Those who are responsible will be held accountable. does the extraordinary film from an extraordinary graphic novel by Alan Moore, which I absolutely love. The graphic novel was great. And then V for Vendetta comes out this time 20 years ago with Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving, produced by the Wachowskis, the creators of The Matrix. And Alan Moore, who created the graphic novel, is generally a pretty cantankerous guy. He also wrote Watchmen. I don't think he was very happy with the film adaptation. And he never has been. But we'll get to that. The movie and the story is set in this dystopian future Britain, which is ruled by a fascist government. So think of Britain overtaken by fascists and the masked vigilante V is this terrorist who fights against the government in that iconic Guy Fawkes mask, which you would recognize the hacker group Anonymous adopted that mask as well. 

It was very pivotal and there's a lot of elements to it that today you still recognize. So obviously there is the Guy Fawkes mask. But also Natalie Portman shaving her head for the role was so talked about at the time and still talked about because it was firstly like, wow, she's gone for it and she's done it and nobody could believe because she was quite a big star at this time. 

Yeah, well, because of Star Wars, she was massive and she'd really, I think in this film, broken away from that. 

Yeah, and just to do that, firstly, but secondly, they had to film it in one take. And, you know, she was really happy to do it. she agreed to it early in the process of the film. So she knew that it was going to happen. It's not like that she, it was surprise, you've got to shave your head. And she said that it was really important for the character's transformation and she wanted to feel really authentic. 

Yeah, well, it did. 

Obviously, they could only shoot it once. So imagine the stress of having to get that right. Because it's not like you could reattach her hair and do another take. So they had to get the lighting and the angles and the timing and her reaction. It all had to be perfect. So they obviously rehearsed it multiple times to get everything right, the positioning of the cameras and to capture the emotion. And during the actual filming... Her head is shaved live while the cameras are rolling. And her reaction as well, there's the scene where she looks in the mirror and she cries in reaction to seeing herself bald for the first time. It was all real. 

It's legit. It's real. It actually happened. Yeah. Conversely, while Natalie Portman is sort of doing this and baring her soul, Hugo Weaving spends the entire film behind the mask. You don't see his face in it at all. And they actually had another actor slated to play that role, but they were replaced by Weaving because because the mask made voice acting so difficult. But weaving is very elocuted. And I think that's why it suited the character. 

The voice was great. 

It really did resonate post-9-11 with these debates around surveillance and government power. And I'd argue that a lot of those themes really stand up today as well. That line at the start of like, people shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people, I think is particularly powerful. And of course, the Guy Fawkes mask being that protest symbol now, worn by the character V. Around, and I think the way Anonymous picked that up, if you look at around 2008, they all started wearing them during protests and stuff, and it became really visible. during Project Chinology, which was the protest against the Church of Scientology from the anonymous guys. And it was really, because it gave protesters that anonymity, but also that shared identity. So when you see a group of people all wearing the Guy Fawkes mask, it's like they're all unified. It doesn't matter who's underneath the mask because the movement and the morals and the message all remains the same. 

It's very powerful, isn't it? 

Yeah, it's a big symbol of rebellion and it's kind of like one for all for one type. 

Yeah, it appeared in protests during Occupy Wall Street. Lots of anti-government demonstrations worldwide. various internet activism campaigns as well. You do see, I can just visualize it in the little profile pictures and became one of the most recognizable protest symbols of the 21st century. But interestingly, the mask is sold commercially by, and I don't know which company it is, but they own the rights to the film. So meaning everyone who's protesting and buying the mask is technically sending royalties to that particular studio? 

Well, and this is where I really love Alan Moore, the creator, the comic book artist. and write, or he's a writer, Alan Moore. And he wrote Watchmen, he wrote V for Vendetta, he's written Swamp Thing, he's written The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He's a fantastic writer, an incredible creative mind. But he's also really guarded about his franchises. And he, even though he wrote the story, he hates Hollywood. He hates movies, especially about his stuff. So he, distances himself. So obviously, his story gets bought by a mainstream comic company like DC. I think V for Vendetta might have been Vertigo. I'm not sure. They then on sell the rights, the publishing rights to the movie studio and stuff. And Alan Moore gets a kickback, but he's like, do not credit me. I don't want to have anything to do with it. I'm sure he still gets a cut somewhere, but he refuses to be credited. And he also said that the movie softened the political message of the comic, which is probably true in a lot of ways, but I still think it's good that message is out there in the form of a film because more people can consume it. 

Yeah, that's true. 

And there were lots of edgy teenagers quoting lines from the monologues that V would make in the film. The mask is everywhere. It's probably created one of the most iconic pop culture costumes. of all time. And everyone wanted that Guy Fawkes mask at the time, but it was just, it was just a sensational story. I do prefer the graphic novel, but I did enjoy the film. I thought the film was great. 

Natalie Portman was incredible. And this is where she really starts to. to come into her own in a lot of movies. 

To get out from under the shadow of Star Wars. 

I mean, she was brilliant in that as well, of course. 

But you've got to remember, she cut her teeth in that film, Leon the Professional, when she was quite young as well. Which I went back and watched that movie recently, and I don't know if that sort of stands up to today's. 

And when was Black Swan? That was after this one. 

Black Swan was after this one, yeah. But she'd kind of really gone into that ********. She's a, I mean, she's a fantastic actor. And this was certainly no exception. Actually, yeah, I'm going to go and watch this one again. I feel like there's a bit of a theme here. we're talking about all of our discontent and stuff and the doom and gloom cycle of the news and disaster and disaster and then all of a sudden V for Vendetta comes across the podcast this week and it's like maybe it is time to just watch that movie again. 

Yes, on to some other incredible acting. The Real Housewives of the OC debuts on the 21st of March, 2006. 

I think that's what they call a change of pace. 

Life is different in a gated community. The land here is a million an acre. The average price house is a million, eight, two, two. Once people come through this gate, there's a sense of being Teflon. Nothing sticks to you. Image is everything in my world. When you're not behind the gates, you don't know what you're missing. It isn't just a place to live. It's a lifestyle. 

I don't want to know what I'm missing. 

Did you say the price is a million and eight? 

Yeah, which is just standard these days. 

It's like an average. 

It's like a three-bedroom house, potentially. 

So 20 years ago, you could have been living in a gated community in the OC. 

Wow. With all of those heads. Doesn't that sound exciting? 

Wealthy women living in the OC, they weren't just random influences, though. mainly wives of wealthy businessmen or ex-athletes. The concept was this whole peek inside the gated community life. And it was, I guess, desperate housewives, but real life. Kind of like what they did with, you know, the show, the OC, then becoming the real OC with Laguna Beach. 

But these guys are the OGs. 

These is the real life desperate housewives. 

The OGs from the OCs. Yes, it was. And I think because of the way it was set up. Like they didn't really have anything to lose. They didn't need fame and fortune. They already have fortune. Maybe they wanted fame. I don't know. But they could have quite easily blissfully gone about their lives and prospered. 

Being rich. 

Yeah, without having to ram their lives down other people's throats. But apparently people wanted to watch it and they really enjoyed it. They sure did because it's still going. 

It is. And we've had Australian ones. We've had the Melbourne Melissa de Koutz. 

Oh, was she a real housewife, wasn't she? 

Housewife, can you believe that? I think we need to do a deep dive on her at some stage, actually. 

Oh, yeah. Oh, you mean from the podcast? 

Yes, sorry. 

I said deep dive on Melissa Gautz and I was like, oh, if you want to wait till later, hands off my detonator. Sure thing. 

The cast of the OCOG housewives included Vicky Gunvalson, who was married to Don. He was a construction home improvement guy. Gianna Keough was married to Matt Keough, who was a former a major league baseball pitcher, Laurie Peterson. She was divorced and later married a real estate developer called George Peterson. And Joe De La Rosa was dating a wealthy businessman by the name of Slade Smiley. 

Slade Smiley. 

Slade. Hi, I'm wealthy businessman Slade Smiley. 

What sort of business are you in, Slade Smiley? 

I don't know. I don't think. I could ever date someone called Slade Smiley. 

No. 

That's just, I don't know. But she was dating him and I think she provided a lot of the drama in the show. 

I'm not surprised. 

This was obviously the first in the series, then became, it was on Bravo over in the States and actually became Bravo's biggest franchise. 

It ended up being their flagship show, which is concerning. 

What were the other ones? I think there was Atlanta, Georgia. 

I mean, they've been everywhere. New York. I think though, this is the premiere. These are this is early days, not quite as dramatic. 

It was not so many drinks being thrown. 

No, less conflict, more like just check out how the other half live, which was okay for a time. But once you see how the other half live, you're kind of like, okay, that's right. 

Can you have a meltdown, please? 

Let's have a look at what's on the other side. And it's all perfect. And I don't I need something to keep me going. So can you just pit them against each other? Maybe make them have a bit of an argument or a fight. Give me some drama here. 

Yes, I think one of the most memorable moments from season one was Jo and her boyfriend Slade Smiley. She wants to be a singer instead of settling into the wealthy OC housewife lifestyle. Apparently there was a tense dinner with Slate and Jo talks about wanting to chase her musical dreams. 

Go in LA. 

Yes, and Slade Smiley says she should stay home and focus on being the perfect partner. which gets very awkward very quickly. 

I can imagine. I mean, this was modern reality TV here. This is conflict, luxury, big personalities. Some would say big personalities. I'd say people that are either annoying enough for you to enjoy hate watching them or just, you're just really amused at how absurd it all is. There was lots of spin-offs, like we were saying before, New York, Atlanta, Beverly Hills, Melbourne, Georgia, all of those places. Season one, though, wasn't, I don't think they had any intention of really launching a franchise. They just wanted this documentary series about wealthy suburban families. And it took off. 

It did. 

It just took off by accident. And that's what usually happens. It's that lightning in a bottle thing. And then, of course, and then we go, oh, let's do Atlanta, New York, Beverly Hills, Melbourne, Georgia, et cetera. 

It also created the rise of the confessional interviews. This is where that started. Remember that in Jersey Shore where they'd do the piece to camera and be ******** about each other and crying and carrying on? This is where that all started. 

That's right. So she's like, you know, I made a lovely little, they're sitting in the confessional and they're going. 

I just want to be a singer and frickin' Slade Smiley just wants me to be a housewife. 

What's a girl to do? I don't know. I guess it's that whole, it is that whole gated community, you know, fly on the wall type of thing, seeing how the other half is. 

Well, we've got, we've got a bit near us that's behind the gate and I'm busted to go through that gate. I'd love to see what's on the other side. 

Well, yeah, and I don't think there's anything super exciting on the other side. 

Well, the other day the gate opened and I thought, I wonder if I could run fast enough to get through the gate. And then I thought, I probably could. And then I thought, how do I get back out of the gate? 

I won't lie to you. That thought has crossed my mind as well. I've been like, geez, I could just race in there and see what's have a look. I mean, even the even the quality of the bitumen on the other side of. 

The gate is better, isn't it? 

They've got nice st lights down there, more ornamental st lights. 

Yes. And the gate, it's on tracks and it just runs so smoothly. And it's a well-oiled gate. 

It's on an island. It's like, it's on a... 

See, that's where I'm like, if I get stuck and I can't get back through the gate, I'm going to have to swim. 

Swim for it. 

Just, I don't know if I can be bothered. 

And water quality around that island is not so good. So I mean, you can have a gated community and be as exclusive as you like, but if you're still in the middle of an ocean of **** You're in the middle of an ocean of sh*t, regardless of how nice that gated community is. 

We had another big premiere this week, 20 years ago. Oh, game changer and the launch into the stratosphere for one Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana, 24th of March 2006. Every night on Disney Channel, Miley Stewart is rocking high school. Oh yeah! She's kicking it in gym class. I know I'm not good, but I'm not horrible. Love and Biology. Stuart. And AC, Guys 101. I am scary good. Now if she can just keep her secret. Somebody knows I'm Hannah Montana. I want to go to school like a normal kid. What was I thinking? 

Catch Hannah Montana every night on Disney Channel. Look, this show wasn't terrible. 

It was fun. 

It was very much, it was great for the kids. 

But she was funny. She was really funny. Because we used to show this was one of the cartoons on the show that I used to host. 

Yeah. 

And I used to get caught up. It was a cartoon. 

It's a live action show. 

Well, it was a cartoon. Yeah, well, usually they were cartoons, but they started showing this. 

Oh, right. Okay. 

This is great. 

Yeah, so the kids have got a live action sitcom that they can watch in the middle of the cartoons, just like the adults. Yes. It was just as funny, if not funny, you're in parts. 

And she's living with Miley Stewart. was her name in the show, Secrets, Double Life as a pop star? 

That's right. 

And her dad, Billy Ray, was in it as well. Yeah, and he was quite funny too. I was pleasantly surprised. 

We were riffing off each other. Miley was great. She was hilarious. She had great comedic timing. Very good comedic timing. It was very Disney though, so it had the canned laughter and all of that sort of stuff. It's just a comfort show. A comfort show. 

Yeah, when you've got that laughter. Yeah, like Reba. Did you ever watch Reba with Reba McEntire? I love. 

It wasn't funny. None of it is probably as funny as what they want you to believe it is, which is why they put the laugh track in there. 

So you know when to laugh. And that's okay, because that's good, that's helpful. 

It's just comforting. 

Yeah, Reba's like a crocheted blanket. 

Yes. 

But Miley, back to Miley, the premiere drew about 5.4 million viewers, which was one of the biggest debuts at the time for the Disney Channel. It runs until 2011. Yeah, that's a long time. And one of the biggest franchises. So it wasn't just the show, there's also the soundtrack. 

It was marketing gold. 

The two are, the best of both worlds, two are sold out instantly pretty much across the US. And launches Miley Cyrus into global fame, but it's the merchandising as well. There was so much Hannah Montana merchandise. Of the show bags. 

You remember the Hannah Montana show bag? 

At the show, yes. You get a little. 

Novelty cowboy had in it and maybe a karaoke microphone and stickers. 

But you could buy the official merch as well, not just at the show. It's like a big W. You buy the wig so you could transform into Hannah Montana or her secret. 

Oh, that's a terrifying thought. Imagine if I bought one of those wigs. 

Clothing. There was a lot of clothing for the tweens that came out. Dolls, school supplies. Hannah Montana pencil cases. 

Sharpeners, pencils. 

Erasers. 

Yeah, all scissors. Safety scissors, perhaps for the youngins. Everything, the whole thing. Notebooks. Lenticular rulers. The ones where you move them and it might have the Hannah Montana logo and then you change the angle and it's got Molly's face. I don't know, but it sounded good. 

The wobble ones. 

If you don't question it, people will think I know what I'm talking about. 

I thought you were talking about the triangle one. Set square. 

Oh, that's a prism. Oh, no, you're talking about the sets. Oh, like a Hannah Montana geometry set. Yes. 

I thought that's what you meant. 

Yes, you could. 

It's like a prism. 

You could get your lead pencil and get your Hannah Montana. lead pencil and grind that up and then use the spike from your Hannah Montana compass to give yourself a Hannah Montana prison tattoo at school. 

Perfect. 

Yes. 

Video games, betting. You could have the Hannah Montana doona cover. 

What did you do in the Hannah Montana video game? 

Probably singing, I don't know. It must be like a karaoke thing. Yeah, there were microphones and guitars and things. 

Yeah. 

Maybe it was like rock band Hannah Montana. 

Yeah, probably something like that. 

Guitar Hannah Montana here. 

Yeah, a karaoke thing. It'd be a Disney sing thing or something, I'm sure. 

I wouldn't hate it. 

No, you could sing your favourite Hannah Montana songs. 

Of course. 

Till your heart's content. 

All of that, the wigs and the bedspread and the protractors and the compass, over 1 billion in product sales. 

And this is before. 

1 billion. 

This is before Miley Cyrus even becomes Miley Cyrus' global superstar. 

Yes. 

I mean, heavy is the head that wears the crown, as I say A lot. It's a lot for a young kid to be responsible for. And that's what I actually think was the beauty of the show, too, the secret double life. Trying to live a normal life as a normal kid whilst being this global superstar. 

And you're a global superstar. 

There's so many layers to this. There's so many layers to this when you step back from it and you look at the trajectory of Miley Cyrus's career and then you put the Hannah Montana thing in with it, all the art imitating life, life imitating art, lenticular rulers, Hannah Montana prison tattoos. 

Oh my gosh, it's all too much. She originally auditioned for the role of Hannah's really? Yeah, but then I think it was the tours, the Hannah Montana tours, that then kind of blurred the lines between Hannah Montana versus Miley Cyrus. Hannah Montana finishes and then she goes off on her own. And you could argue when you look at some of those Disney stars that sort of came of age in the early 2000s, There were controversies with Miley over the years, but I guess you look at her trajectory comparatively to a lot of the other stars that may not have landed so well after their Disney lives. 

I love the way she did it. I love the way Miley did it. I'm a huge fan of Miley. 

Me too. 

Even when she went through her annoying phase, where she went from being the teenager to the full sexual awakening. 

Oh, the twerking with Robert. 

Yeah, like that was just like, I was like, oh God. 

But hello, no, the twerking wasn't even a thing. We invented twerking. We can thank Miley for twerking. 

Thanks, Miley. 

But, like, and the wrecking ball when she was swinging on the big ball, that was great. 

For starters, like, aside from all the racy stuff. a sensationally gifted singer and has done some really great songs. But I liked the fact that she didn't go through, like she went through it all the same way a lot of the other Disney kids did, but she seemed to take the bull by the horns a little bit. 

I think she tried to own the story, own the controversies. 

Because one of the things that was happening around this time, like it's not around this time, it's because she's quite young when this show debuts, but over the course of the next few years as she gets into that like young adult phase, there's still that paparazzi upskirting, trying to catch them out, nude photos, the internet's getting bigger and bigger. And so it's like, it's all about those leaked photos online and catching them in candid moments and sex tapes and all of that sort of stuff. And the first thing I remember, and this is, I have so much respect for this, for her for doing this. Remember she did that full nude photo shoot. 

That's right. 

And released the photos. 

Yeah. 

And as a consequence, she and she did completely own it and she did it under her own sort of steam. And I feel like it might have been a preemptive strike, in which case it's like, that's a little sad. It's like, is that how bad the world is now? But in doing that, she stripped all the power away from everybody else who was trying to take a piece out of her and just went, yeah, here they are. There's me naked. Now you've seen that. Can we move on and can I start doing the other stuff? And she did. And I thought that was fantastic. I think she's a better role model than a lot of people would allude to. I mean, I know she's had her ups and downs. She might be going through a few ups and downs at the moment. I don't know. I don't check in regularly with Miley Cyrus to see her. she's going. But I have followed her through the years and seen her career and her musical trajectory. And I think she's wonderful. 

She's a great, great singer too. And I remember she was practicing, it was either for a concert or a performance that was going to take a lot out of her. And she was running on a treadmill and singing at the same time to get her cardio up and make sure that she could give a flawless vocal performance while she was running around on stage. And she wasn't just jogging on the treadmill. She is sprinting on the treadmill. and singing at the same time. It was phenomenal. 

She's just got that voice. She's got the voice that I really love. Like I like my female vocalist to sound weathered. I like them to sound like. 

She does have that gravelly voice. 

Pack-a-day bottle of Jack Daniels kind of voice. 

Does she say that was, remember the story that she told about how she was on the back of a, was it a quad bike with her dad? 

Yeah. 

And she knocked herself out, hit her head on a tree or something. And was that when her voice changed? 

Did that change the way she sang? 

I feel like there was some moment that changed her voice. So maybe she had, she had that accident and, or maybe it was nodules or something. I don't know. There was something somewhere in her history in the law of Miley Cyrus. It was either a head knock or nodules. 

That phenomena, you know, where people can undergo like traumatic head injuries or whatever. 

And then they pick up an accent. 

And then they wake up and they either pick up an accent or start talking in a different language. Yes. I've never heard the phenomena of being hit in the head and then waking up and starting to talk like Tommy Radonicus, that famous NRL coach, look after you. Your bloody body's playable, your body's a temple. All right, let's get into books we didn't read. I certainly didn't read this one. Can't say that I'm A Danielle Steel fan. 

Danielle Steel, is that like romance? I feel like there's a bit of romance in a Danielle Steel moment. 

So what's this one called? 

It's called The House. 

Right, and it is her 66th bestseller according to the show notes here. So I'm thinking something cinematic and epic. This is some more of that copyright free music I get. This is from Max Co Music and the song, I believe this track is called Nature. You can go and check them out at maxcomusic.com. If you're in search of any copyright free music that you want to use for your YouTube videos or stuff like that, have a look at the descriptions, do what they tell you, and then they'll let you use the music for free. And that's exactly what I'm going to do right now. Thank you, Max Co Music. Okay, so I think that works. 

Sure. 

Yeah, it's like right in the fields. 

It looks like Danielle Steel's font. Do you know that font? She's got a very fancy font on a lot of her book covers. I feel like this music embodies that font. 

Are you ready? Go. The restoration of a majestic old home provides the exhilarating backdrop for Danielle Steel's 66th best-selling novel. The story of a young woman's dream, an old man's gift, and the surprises that await us behind every closed door. How's it going so far? Good. Great. Good, Perched on a hill overlooking San Francisco, the house was magnificent. See, when I see these houses, I always think they're going to be haunted or something as you walk in and be like, get out. That's not this kind of book. Built in 1923 by wealthy... Oh, ****. I've screwed it up. 

It's all right, just pick it up from the built. 

Built in 1923 by a wealthy man for the woman he adored, for her, and for this house, he would spare no expense and overlook no detail from the endless marble floors to the glittering chandeliers. I reckon it's in a gated community. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. Different sort of lampposts over behind the gate. Almost a century later, with the once grand house now in disrepair. Oh, somebody's taken the gate off. A young woman walks through its empty rooms. Sarah Anderson, a perfectly sensible estate lawyer, is about to do something utterly out of character. An elderly client has died and left her two gifts. One is a generous inheritance, the other a priceless... What? The other to use his money for something wonderful, something daring. And in this old house, surrounded by crumbling grandeur, Sarah knows just what it is. A respected attorney and self-described workaholic, Sarah had always lived life by the book. This synopsis is really long. It's very long, isn't it? With a steady, if sputtering, relationship. I hate sputtering relationships. Get stuff all over the carpet. Yes. And a tiny apartment that has suited her just fine. Look, we've run out of music. Sarah cannot explain the force that draws her to the mansion and to its history. Get out! To the story of a woman who once lived in the home, then mysteriously left it, to a child who grew up there, and a drama that unfolded in war-torn France, and to a history she never knew she had. We're still going. Taking the biggest risk of her life, Sarah enlists the help of architect Jeff Parker, who shares Sarah's passion for bringing the exquisite old house back to life. As she and Jeff work to restore the home's every detail, as one relationship shatters and another begins, Sarah makes a series of powerful About the truth, powerful discoveries I think is what we're looking for there, about the true meaning of a dying man's last gift, about the extraordinary legacies that are passed from generation to generation of future she's only just beginning to imagine in a novel of daring and hope of embracing life and taking chances, Denny or still brilliantly captures one woman's courageous choice to pour herself into a dream and receive its gifts in return. It's a book about renovating a house. It's her 66 bestseller. She's like, I've done all of these things. I'm Danielle Steel. I've got, what haven't I touched? I know, renovation. 

Well, you know, there's renovation and home improvement shows are really big in the early 2000s. They were. So it's good. 

Tonight on Changing Rooms. 

What's the Vanilla Ice one? He does one. 

Oh, that's, yeah, I don't know, because he started getting into home renovation. 

Yeah, he's a home flipper. 

Yeah, he flips houses and stuff. Vanilla Ice. I don't think he's a big Danielle Steele fan though. I don't think those two worlds will ever meet. 

Well, let's find out what people saw. 

Oh, please. 

Hayley One Star. Is this book a joke? 

I thought the synopsis was. It's very long. Catty Polodna. Catty Polodna. That sounds like an activity. One star. Predictable and silly. 

Silly. 

Predictable and silly. 

I haven't had a silly book. 

It's a silly book. 

Stacey, one star. I liked reading Danielle Steele in 7th and 8th grade and giggling about the sex scenes with my friends. Now, not so much. Smiley face. 

She doesn't have friends. 

I don't think she likes to giggle about the sex. 

Scenes in Danielle Steel. 

I told you there was romance, not Danielle Steel. 

You know, Danielle Steel would get passed around the, boys are passing around a stolen copy of Playboy, and these young girls are passing around a Danielle Steel book. It's a bit odd. Stephanie gave it one star. The best part about this book was the house, because it had personality. Well, yeah, I'd argue that's probably correct. Based on the synopsis, I think I could probably attest to that as well, even though I'm never going to read the book. 

Kathrina, one star. I obtained this book as a strip from my bookstore. It was free. 

Right. 

She didn't strip for it. She got it for free. 

Okay, yes. That would have been exciting. 

No currency was exchanged. But I'm missing the best part of this book, which is the cover. A lady named Danielle Steele told me this story. I did not experience it. was told to me. Apparently the show don't tell philosophy does not apply to this genre. Not only was I told the story, it was told to me as if I were a four-year-old with ADD or an amnesia patient. Someone who could not remember 1 paragraph to the next. just what a scuzz she was dating or how long it had been going on, open bracket, four years, close bracket. 

I feel like in spite of the one star, she's quite emotionally invested in the book though, which is a. 

She's got feelings. 

Probably get an extra star. 

She's got feelings. 

Alex, one star. Got this book from my library. A lady named Danielle Steele told me this story. I did not experience it. was told to me. Apparently the show and tell philosophy does not apply to this genre. Not only was I told this story, it was told to me as if I was a four-year-old with ADD or an amnesia patient, someone who could not remember from one paragraph to the next just sort of scuzz she was dating, or how long it had been going on, open bracket 4 years, close bracket. 

What? 

Alex Monstar stole the Katharina's Monstar. He plagiarised. There's plagiarism in Goodreads. This is a revelation. This is controversy under itself. 

This is more exciting than the renovation book. He got it from the library. She got it as a strip from the bookstore. 

These stories don't add up. 

This is interesting. 

I think it's time for a deeper dive. 

On Alex and Kathrina. I don't know actually. What's going on here? 

Let me tell you something. Like, this is books we didn't read. Next week. Next week on the podcast, we are going to talk about a book that we did read. 

We both read. 

We both read. Not only that, we're going to talk to the author of the book that we both read. And I can tell you right now, it's not a Lois style book. book. It's not one that's going to get a bad review on Goodreads. It is a banger. It is an absolute banger of a book. And I don't say that lightly, but we'll talk more about that in the show next week. So make sure you stick around for that while we do this. I'm so excited about that. I forgot about it until we just did the thing. And I'm like, oh, next week is the week where we're going to do, we're going to air the interview. That's really exciting. But right now we're at the Hatches Matches and Dispatches segment, which means it's time to do this. A celebrity birthday. They said this. Do you want to know what I see when I look in that ring? Honestly. 

A bunch of cheap, interchangeable, expendable, useless women. Women who have turned to reality television because they just weren't gifted enough to be actresses. And they just weren't talented enough to be champions. 

If you said WWE superstar AJ Lee. You would be correct. And a lot of people are like, who the hell is AJ Lee? Well, let me tell you, she is the three-time WWE Divas Champion. She held the title for 295 days, which was the longest reign of the time. And she actually begins her wrestling career a year later in 2007. But it's her birthday today. She was amazing. And she's back. She's back in this day and age. It was a massive surprise. And she's a really strong role model, I think, for young girls. AJ, because she's not your typical diva style wrestler. 

And she, well, she grew up quite poor and was living in motels and cars with her family and grew up as a huge wrestling fan, especially loving Lita. Her dream was to always become a wrestler despite the industry being very male dominated. And she joined the developmental system in Florida Championship Wrestling around 2009, but broke out on TV during the 2020 2012 to 2014 WWE era becoming a fan favourite and known for those storylines where she outwitted the male wrestlers. She pushed it more towards the story driven characters. 

Yes. 

And was, yeah, like you say, not so much the typical diva of the early. She kind of had that wrestling. 

I don't want to downplay it, like cute but crazy almost. Like wildly unpredictable, I think would be the way to go. She used to skip down the entrance ramp with a big smile on her face. And then she'd do these really intense promos like you just heard then, where she'd call out the wrestling industry and the other divas and then proceed to just bash the **** out of them. 

I think she was even known for a promo that she did about saying that the WWE treated female wrestlers as eye candy rather than athletes. Like I think she had a go. 

That's right. Well, she was a pioneer. I mean, if you, and again, like wrestling household, sorry, big fans, guilty pleasure, don't care what you think. Wrestling's real to me. But she really changed the landscape for women in wrestling because you looked at that reality show, Divas, and it was all these like glamorous, surgically enhanced, very fit women who were also very capable athletes, but it was more about the looks than anything. 

Oh, and there were a lot of skin showing in the early days. 

I mean, you know, look at who created the WWE and the Divas Championship and all that sort of stuff. So they had a lot of stuff that they needed to shake to get rid of that image. And there's still, I mean, not that there's anything wrong with being good looking and physically attuned and all of that sort of stuff, but they just added a bit more substance because there was better storylines for them. They were starting to catch up with the guys and better matches, more physical matches that also told stories. And you look at it now, and I still argue that a lot of the women's stuff in the WWE is light and shade more spectacular than a lot of the stuff the guys are doing. Anytime the guys sort of have a bit of a dud match or a pay-per-view, you can be pretty much guaranteed that there's a women's match somewhere on the card there that is going to blow everything else away, that is going to knock them out of the park. And they do it all the time. And it's really great. And AJ Lee played a big part in that. And that speech you're talking about is referred to as the pipe bombshell promo. So CM Punk is her husband now. CM Punk is married to AJ Lee and he was renowned for doing... Promos that he called pipe bombs. So obviously referring to the mic as a pipe bomb. And she was, she got famous in 2013 where she did that big criticism and stuff like that. And she's back. She came back. She married CM Punk in 2014. 

I think she retired in 2015. Yes. She also became a best-selling author and mental health advocate. 

That's right. She's. 

And a New York Times bestseller. 

Yeah, the memoir she's written is called Crazy is My Superpower. She's been very open about her struggles with bipolar disorder. disorder, with her struggles with breast cancer, lots of different things. And the reception that she has had since she came back to the WWE as a part-timer has been huge. So September 2025, as part of this storyline with Seth Rollins, CM Punk starts feuding with Seth Rollins' wife, Becky Lynch. So we've got the married couples going up against each other, which is great. She's attacked CM Punk on multiple occasions. And Punk's not going to hit a woman. That's the whole thing. Oh, she keeps slapping him and picking on him. He's not going to do anything. So he seeks a partner to even the odds. And then on September 5 last year on SmackDown, AJ Lee pops up and the crowd go absolutely berserk. 

It's a big moment. 

Yeah. So her first match takes place at WrestlePalooza on the 20th of September where her and CM Punk have a mixed tag match against Rollins and Becky Lynch. And then she participates in a five-on-five in War Games at Survivor Series. She's still very much a part-timer at this stage, but just recently she won the Intercontinental title off Becky Lynch at the Elimination Chamber, which is a big deal, which is a big deal. Pretty controversial because she's a part-timer. Becky's there working her *** off, but she cut this promo, which is great. 

I'm not entirely sure how we got here. I know that I came back to WWE purely just to ****** the pretty hair from Becky's big *** head. And somehow I ended up snatching her title. But I got to be real, I didn't know. I didn't know if I could still go. 

You can hear the fans in the background. 

It's quite an emotional pro. 

You deserve it. Yeah. So they love her. They love her. And we do too. She's great. Happy birthday, AJ Lee. That is the end of the show for this week. Like I said, big week next week. 

Big week next week. We are speaking to Courtney Cosack, author of Girl Gone Wild. She's released her memoir, which is soon to come out. We have read it and the title actually reflects one of the jobs she held. She actually worked on ***** **** **** the reality MTV show in the early 2000s and has some really interesting experiences to share from that time. Hollywood in the early 2000s, she was an actress, became an author, is also a podcaster and just Just incredible life and times. 

Yeah, so we're going to break format a little bit. We don't do interviews very often. I think the last one we did was Ryan Cabrera way back last year. But Courtney's people approached us and we were more than happy to oblige because it really is a great fit for this show, I think. If you were coming up in the early 2000s as a young adult trying to find yourself and find your way in life as difficult as it was or is or, you know, if you were one of those people, this is absolutely the one episode that I suggest you listen to. to this year. It's a great chat with her. She's a great person and I'm really looking forward to dropping that episode next week. So stick around for that. That's all we've got time for this week though. Come and find us on the socials, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. YouTube will run the full video version of this interview as well. So you'll get to see us all interacting and chatting and some of the banter there. In the meantime, I've already done that thing about the socials. So we'll just see you next week. Bye. See you. Thanks for taking the time to rewind. Join us next time for another week it was 20 years ago. In the meantime, come and reminisce on the socials. Search for T-Minus 20 Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.