The Worst Celebrity Ads Of All Time

8:37Marina Hyde:And they had to build everything for that because it's kind of like astrolabes and things like that. But I always say that if I would love to have worked in production design, I find it absolutely, the craft of it is so beautiful. And when you're on set and you see these worlds and you see the level and the depth of detail that you're like, that is never even going to be in shot. And it is just, and Simon is like a master of it. I absolutely, I'd love to see all his things. And this is it. Anyway, have a look at the primate trailer and realize it's all in Elstree.

9:05Richard Osman:yes I remember I remember being given a tour of the Thursday Mailer Club sets before filming started it's an amazing production designer called James Merrifield who did this and yeah you wouldn't in so the main bit of it is a is in a big stately home the outside of it is a big stately home and so he then recreated the inside of that stately home including you know painting the huge walls of Shepparton the exact views you would have seen from the windows of that stately home but oh my God, the detail, the beautiful things that he, I mean, I said, do you do private houses? Because you're amazing.

9:41Richard Osman:He said, I'm quite busy. And just the, you know, the carpenters working on it and the electricians just like making it look like just like real apartments. I mean, it was absolutely extraordinary.

9:53Marina Hyde:And it's almost all MDF. And they just can make MDF like in the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter, where this is kind of, it looks like these incredible sort of green, black glass bricks. and it's just all MDF.

10:03Richard Osman:I mean, and watching the scene painters and it's just watching cross people at work is just an absolute joy. So as you say, it's lovely when you can use real houses because it puts money into the community. But when you watch someone actually make a set, like making something out of nothing, it's absolutely extraordinary.

10:22Marina Hyde:This really interests me and terrifies me about Skyscraper Live. Abby Crow says, I have a lot of questions about the legalities of Netflix's live stream of Alex Honnold climbing one of the world's tallest skyscrapers. How did Netflix get insurance for this? Would they be liable for corporate manslaughter if Alex died? What are the ethics of this?

10:41Richard Osman:Alex Honnold, who has previously made that documentary Free Solo, where he's climbing El Capitan. So he's one of the greatest free climbers in the world. So he's climbing up this enormous tower, yeah, with absolutely no safety equipment. So a lot of people are saying, I mean, what are the ethics of doing that? And Alex Honnold says to himself, I got paid by Netflix. He said, I don't get paid like a big sports star. But I got paid by Netflix. I did not get paid to climb the building. He said, I was going to climb the building anyway. I got paid for the spectacle. I got paid for them being able to cover me climbing the building.

11:16Richard Osman:So that's where Netflix is sort of, there's a legal loophole, which is essentially, Alex is going to do this anyway. And he's shown that a million times before. He's always doing these challenges. is so netflix is just covering what he is doing so he is insured for various uh types of things they have they're on a 10 second delay which is not insurance but you know there's a there's a 10 second uh delay on the live stream if netflix had done something wrong so netflix when they're putting that together because they're filming him alex honnold has to you know be cognizant of where the cameras are and so if they do something wrong if one of the drones falls out of the sky and hits him or something or that their due diligence on weather is wrong then Netflix are liable because that's their part in the proceedings but everything apart from that is on Alex Honnold he's saying like Netflix are not inducing me to climb this building you know this is the thing you do anyway but Netflix knew I was doing it so they say we would love to cover this and it's you You know, they got, I think, 6.2 million people watching this live.

12:22Richard Osman:So it was a big deal for him and a big deal for Netflix. If Netflix had gone to Alex Honnold and said, climb this building, we're in a very, very different place and all sorts of things would have to be in place and the insurance, it would all be on Netflix. But that is not what was happening there. Alex is doing it anyway. And Netflix is saying, we would love to film you doing that. In the same way that, you know, if someone is injured at a football match, you know, if a player is injured, match of the day doesn't get sued. You know, that's on the people putting on that event. And in this case, it is.

12:50Richard Osman:It's Alex Honnold. So, yeah, it feels like one of those things where you think, well, this is absolutely crazy. But the principle is he was doing this anyway. We are just pointing cameras at it. If something goes wrong with the cameras, if something goes wrong with the filming, that is on us. If something goes wrong with the climb, that is on Alex Honnold. But fortunately, nothing did go wrong with the climb. And it's an extraordinary sort of TV event. Do you remember in the 70s when there were when Evel Knievel and Eddie Kidd were kind of jumping double-decker buses? I always thought I was always trying to pitch like a new big stunt motorcyclist.

13:24Richard Osman:That feels like there's a gap in the market for it, right? But, you know, people climbing buildings, I guess, is the same thing.

13:30Marina Hyde:Well, there are people who do things on YouTube and who do extreme sports on YouTube and they do their own. And I was actually, yeah, there are lots of people who do things like that. And you hope to get sponsors and you hope to get whatever. But they're sponsoring your clothes. It's very carefully done. Exactly.

13:47Richard Osman:If Evel Knievel wants to jump the Grand Canyon, that is on him, we will happily sponsor his helmet or film it from afar. We are not encouraging him.

13:58Marina Hyde:Nothing to do with this.

13:59Richard Osman:Yeah, to jump the Grand Canyon. But I would have thought if someone wanted to jump the Grand Canyon, then that would be a good Netflix show. But what do I know? But yeah, so Alex Honnold takes all of that responsibility. It was unbelievable. I mean, it's absolutely.

14:14Marina Hyde:I love my Tommy's going just thinking about it.

14:16Richard Osman:Yeah, I know, right?

14:17Marina Hyde:I couldn't look. I'll have a look. I'll have a little look.

14:21Richard Osman:Even though I know the ending.

14:23Marina Hyde:He survives. I find it quite hard to watch.

14:27Richard Osman:Marina Robin has a question. Robin said, I've been wondering why is it that many Australian soap styles have been successful in Hollywood when I can't think of anyone who's had a major role in a British soap that has ever cracked America. The obvious big success stories include Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce, Isla Fisher and various Hemsworths. Is it British snobbery that stops certain actors going to soaps. Is it that there are more options in the UK so actors are more likely to stay here?

14:51Marina Hyde:It's interesting. That's a good question because obviously the pipeline is incredible from Australia. They have a great hit rate. And even people who just did little things like everyone has been on one of those soaps. Russell Crowe's done a four-episode arc. Heath Ledger, I think, had a few episodes on Home and Away. Anyway, some of them have done both. Both the Hemsworths have done both Neighbours and Home and Away. By the way, we're all talking about those soaps. Soaps are often seen as stepping stones. I would say they teach you great things, soaps. They teach you stamina and professionalism and just being one of those things.

15:24Marina Hyde:You've got to remember that there's a far, far smaller TV market in Australia. And so in a sense, they are always thinking about getting on a plane for the next level of their thing. And they might come here.

15:35Richard Osman:And also all Australian actors will have been on a soap before they make that move. It's not like I'm going on a soap. Now I'm going to go to Hollywood. I'm going to go to Hollywood. but in the few years I'm working in Australia one of the things I would do is be on Neighbours or Home and Away.

15:48Marina Hyde:Yes absolutely it's just a much smaller market and you are always thinking that when you're making a jump you are and it's Hollywood I guess because it's obviously regarded as bigger and better you're quite right that we have our own sort of ecosystem here and we have a much bigger, bigger market so there's lots more things that they can be involved with I would also say that we have had something like Ricky Whittle who was in EastEnders and he went and he was in you know he's like the leading American Gods. Sam Hugon who was in River City I want to say that Scottish soap and now is in Outlander and it's like a huge you know so there are people who've made it.

16:28Richard Osman:Colin Farrell was on Bally Cassangel which I know is not a soap.

16:31Marina Hyde:Yeah I don't feel that's a soap so I can't yeah but yes.

16:34Richard Osman:Also Colin Farrell not British but you know what I mean that's a British TV show.

16:39Marina Hyde:Yes. I would slightly say, this is maybe a slightly controversial thing, that there's something about those all Australian looks that even when they're playing a boy or a girl next door, they're really good looking. And there's something about that kind of, you know, that Margot Robbie, the Hemsworth, whatever. Like you can be in Neighbours and look like that because we kind of think that that's what Australia's like. It's like, oh yeah, they're gorgeous surf chicks and gorgeous surfer guys. And they're kind of more already an idol, even though they might be kind of dowdy down and have a mullet like Guy Pierce used to on Neighbors or whatever, you can suddenly see them making a jump.

17:11Marina Hyde:Whereas we cast much more sort of, there's always a couple of heartthrobs on our soaps, but predominantly they are like authentic kind of people like you might actually know.

17:23Richard Osman:Yes, they're much more likely to be under the arches than surfing.

17:28Marina Hyde:Yeah.

17:28Richard Osman:As soon as you see someone in a soap surfing, you're like, oh, you could be at Hollywood.

17:32Marina Hyde:Like filmed in Palm Beach and the Northern Beaches and they look like Margot Robbie or whatever it is. Well, she was in Neighbours. But, you know, as soon as you see those people, you can slightly see, yeah, I can see you transplanting, whatever. But as I say, we just have so many more things that our soap actors can go on into. By the way, the dream, obviously, lots of people just dream of going to Hollywood because it's the biggest and best. But not that many do try and do it.

17:59Richard Osman:Yeah, if you think about who the most successful British soap actor has been in the last 20 years, probably Sarah Lancashire. but she can just do starring role after starring role after starring role on British TV and do these incredibly huge things and be massive and win every award going without really having to go to Hollywood. One good example would be Ben Hardy. He was Peter Beale in EastEnders, went on to do X-Men, he's in The Conjuring. He was Roger Taylor in Bohemian Rhapsody. But it's very, very rare. Let's go to a break afterwards. We'll see if we ask Gary Lineker's question, which is about the traitors.

18:33Richard Osman:and also whether celebrities have ever done adverts that have harmed their career. See you in a bone.

18:39Marina Hyde:See you in a minute.

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20:20Marina Hyde:Welcome back, everybody. Now, as trailed, Chloe Cohen's got a great question. about ads detrimental to actors' career. She says, if I never see Jude Law again in that awful Uber Eats advert again, it will still be too much. The ad is viscerally upsetting and reminds me that I don't especially like Jude Law on screen or off screen. My question is, has an advert been ever really detrimental to someone's career?

20:48Richard Osman:Wow, Chloe's not holding back Chloe, is she? Yeah, so if you haven't seen those, the Uber Eats campaign, he's sort of Jude Law is pursued through London by a series of potential meat cube scenarios but he wants to get out of them because all he wants to do is eat some barbecue chicken wings and listen Chloe I know exactly what you mean Jude Law, almost worse than doing the adverts is if you do an advert the actors always have to do a little interview for it as well they say this two days filming plus one press interview and so I was just I wonder what Jude Law has had to say about his Uber Eats campaign and I found out he said it was great fun poking fun at myself in this way

21:32Marina Hyde:Oh he loves poking fun at himself, let me tell you about that

21:35Richard Osman:says Jude Law, we've all had moments where we have done enough for the day and just want to relax that's where Uber Eats helps so much they make it easy to enjoy your downtime I can confirm that no one can make eating chicken wings with hot sauce all over your face look charming I mean Jude of course has not written that himself Well we've read some adverts like that But of course we have And listen I absolutely get it And you do wonder sometimes Why they do it but occasionally an actor Will have a bit of down time or they'll think You know what I need a bit of family time I'm going to take three or four months off And then someone says how about half a million For like a day's filming And a quote about

22:13Marina Hyde:Maybe there'll be some prestige version of it At the Superbowl

22:18Richard Osman:Yes exactly in which case yeah and you know because sometimes adverts can you know absolutely be the making of you and you know because if they're fun but listen lots and lots of actors do them yeah that listen doesn't reflect well on anyone but i'm sure it paid well and i'm sure that um uber eats are delighted with it uma thurman did a campaign for schwepps um about 15 years ago where she's sort of on a kind of psychiatrist couch uh and she's every time she says schwepps she it's like she says sex and it's really, it's like icky. And, you know, I don't think that did her any favours, but who remembers that now?

22:55Richard Osman:There's the Kendall Jenner one in 2017, the Pepsi one.

22:58Marina Hyde:Diet Woke.

22:59Richard Osman:Diet Woke. Oh my God, that's epic.

23:02Marina Hyde:That's one of my favourite adverts of all time. I think the premise of that is like Kendall Jenner somehow stops. There's a big protest and I think Kendall Jenner averts a massive incident of police brutality by offering one of the officers a Pepsi.

23:17Richard Osman:She becomes at that point a meme-ified face of tone-deaf privilege. And, you know, this is, oh my God, this is a nightmare for Kendall Jenner. I think she's got over it.

23:26Marina Hyde:Oh my God, when Martin Luther King's children are going on the record saying this is disgusting.

23:30Richard Osman:Yeah.

23:30Marina Hyde:What about your Pepsi advert? It's not great. But as I say, it's a camp classic.

23:34Richard Osman:Yeah. And listen, she's still a billionaire. So she's done all right. In the 90s, did you remember John Cleese did those adverts for Sainsbury's where he's sort of barking through a megaphone and got very well paid. but that sort of certainly harmed Sainsbury's for a bit, harmed him for a little bit, but again, everything's fine. So I think actors get it. I think it's difficult to see a career that's been genuinely derailed by an advert. I think maybe sometimes it makes you feel slightly less of somebody if they've done an advert, but it doesn't last for long. And that's the whole thing.

24:06Marina Hyde:Less and less now because commerce is so plugged into what the idea of creator is now. Yeah, exactly. I think it's just becoming less and less of a thing that's a kind of sticking point for people, rightly or wrongly, but that's just the way it is because people, particularly young people who spend so much time when you're so used to...

24:21Richard Osman:People doing adverts.

24:22Marina Hyde:Everything is sort of an advert that you don't notice in the same way that people used to.

24:26Richard Osman:You know, the whole plot of Lost of Translation is Bill Murray going out to Japan to do a whiskey advert because American actors would go and do Japanese adverts on the understanding they would never be seen in the UK, which, as you say, doesn't really work now because that amazing Tom Hiddleston ad for Centrum Vitamins, which is designed only to be shown in Japan, but got shown everywhere. It's so awful. It hasn't harmed Tom Hiddleston's career at all. We will put in the show notes the amazing Phil Wang cut of that. Have you seen that? Yes, it's so good. But just because you've asked the question, I know it's from a while ago, the Phil Wang thing, but it's so brilliant, him cutting himself into that Tom Hiddleston advert.

25:08Richard Osman:So, yeah, certainly ads can make you feel less good about certain people and certain celebrities for sure. Hard to find someone who's been completely derailed by an ad. But, yeah, I would think that Kendall Jenner would be the closest, but she seems to have got over it. Oh, great.

25:26Marina Hyde:Anthea Turner having the flake at her wedding with Grant Bovee. This is great taking you all the way back to the late 90s, I think, when they did that on the front of OK Magazine. thing they were biting into the thing and it just went that was like like a complete viral storm before we knew what those things were about the fact that she was promoting a new Cadbury's chocolate bar which I think was called snowflake I think was a snowflake wasn't it it was a white chocolate covered chocolate chocolate bar that now I know can you imagine we didn't know what those were either yes she was ahead of her time yeah and she was destroyed for that and it's really for like oh the terrible commercialization of your wedding even though everyone who sold their wedding was commercializing it that that genuinely derailed her career do you think yes it did it absolutely did and she was just such a and it was the only person whereas so many people were doing commercial activity really comparable but for some reason as we all know like there's no rhyme or reason when the herd moves and it just decides that one person's going to be the pariah for this or that and that was really what happened with that so i think it really it took her a long time to come back and she had to come back via things like perfect housewife and all those kind of

26:32Richard Osman:celeb big brother yeah yeah uh but it's interesting because you know the the converse of that is you know when alessandra armstrong did the pims adverts you know it's pims o 'clock genuinely it was a huge yeah people loved it people like people would shout at him in the street all the time so you know there are you know there's a reason why some people do adverts which is actually they can

26:52Marina Hyde:be an incredibly good calling card oj simpson's sprinting sprinting in an advert for her sprinting across an air in the 70s yeah did so much of his great work in chases but uh leapt over some chairs and in the airport and it was like okay right now you're you've you've stopped being a football

27:09Richard Osman:star and you've become an actor i mean i think the catchphrase was go oj go and lots of people were holding those signs up when when he was riding in that uh that white bronco yeah that's that um that was good for his career yeah less good for hertz a number of years later yeah i mean john lyden doing country butter i kind of get it but you know the whole thing with john lyden is he'll do what he wants to do. And, you know, he had good reasons to want that money. And so, you know, it's...

27:31Marina Hyde:He exists in a place beyond success or failure now in that. I don't know. That's not like someone who's at their TV peak and then or whatever. No.

27:40Richard Osman:I do wonder about Robbie Williams doing adverts for Felix Catfood. That I've always wanted to... In fact, let's try and see if we can do a deep dive. If anyone has any background knowledge on Robbie Williams doing a song for Felix Catfood, that feels like a mismatch. Joseph Vaughan has a question for you, Marina. Will niche platforms like Crunchyroll for anime or Pure Fix for faith-based movies continue to survive and thrive outside of being owned by a big player? Or will they be swallowed up by the likes of Netflix?

28:09Marina Hyde:Good question, Joseph. We know that Netflix and Amazon and Disney Plus are all acquiring things and rushing to further consolidate and have even further scale. Crunchyroll is anime, but it is actually owned by Sony. So it's already part of a major media conglomerate, but it's allowed to sort of exist within it, you know, as quite a sort of self-contained thing. PureFlix, faith-based, I don't know why we always say faith-based. We only mean one faith, the Christian things. PureFlix is owned by great American media and Sony. So lots of these people could divest and go somewhere else, but they aren't now.

28:50Marina Hyde:What is interesting that's happening at the moment, and this is really quite a current thing, is that they're forming kind of these small players. Obviously, you can see how difficult it is amongst all this M &A activity. They're forming collectives. And actually, Pure Flix and Crunchyroll are part of, they've become part of something called Beyond Mainstream. And this is actually an interesting thing. And they're trying to form alliances and sort of collectively bargain and be a more powerful voice banded together. And I mean, I think, you know, they want to stay independent. these people people it's interesting you know you you see people who just want to be acquired these people want to stay independent and actually the best thing in their favor is and what we know about them is that they have um incredibly engaged fan bases and unlike the churn of netflix doesn't have that much churn in subscribers but lots of the other services do you know you become a member to watch the certain things that you're obsessed with or everyone's talking about and then you quickly cancel for the next month or whatever it is but they don't have this because they have the faith-based sort of niche streamers or platforms or whatever have very, very engaged fans and so do the anime things.

29:59Marina Hyde:So I think it's more likely you'll see once they've formed into these alliances that they become part of, they collectively bargain and become part of bundling deals and other sorts of alliances. They'll have separate alliances for all the faith-based ones may go together and lots of sort of anime and other content like that may go together. But what they really benefit from is these incredibly engaged and loyal fan bases who stay with them so i don't think you should just assume that they're all going to be sucked up by somebody because actually they might not and interesting things may continue to happen in those spaces and also that some fan

30:35Richard Osman:bases take against large corporations buying their sort of pet organization as well not always but

30:42Marina Hyde:if you don't need it and you can band together because you actually can rely on a fan base lots of things can be done so i think that to some degree that i would i would think that they're quite sort of safe but as i say in some cases they're partly owned or or they sit under um kind of big entertainment company umbrellas already okay i mean we said that gary lineker on our tuesday episode never decides anything that goes to the podcast immediately uh i'm i'm gonna sort of undermine that because we've got a question from a mr gary lineker that i'm going to ask you it's about the traitors he's on the pulse Gary says do contestants on traitors get paid just to appear how much do they get paid

31:25Richard Osman:it's interesting that you wonder if Gary is interested in popular culture or whether someone has just put in a call to him to be on celebrity traitors he's like how much what are you getting paid to do that thank you he's talking about the civilians he is talking about the civilians thank you Gary for your question they do not get paid there we go that was easy wasn't it no they don't get paid on that i think uh well i know because they're playing for a prize and actually it doesn't take a huge amount of time out of your uh year to be on tracers sort of unlike some reality shows some reality shows they do pay people uh yeah it's unpaid because they're playing for a prize they'll get per diems for food and all that kind of stuff and obviously they're put up and all that sort of stuff but they've got a lovely lasagna laid on

32:10Marina Hyde:You don't have to give them any money for the food

32:12Richard Osman:We see them get breakfast, for heaven's sake So yeah, that one is unpaid But obviously, unless you win In which case it is very much paid But thank you for your question, Mr Lineker Micah Richards, if you've got anything to ask You know the address

32:29Marina Hyde:Members, we will see you tomorrow For a bonus episode on Hollywood's Most Sinful Couples

32:34Richard Osman:Valentine's Day special

32:36Marina Hyde:Otherwise, we will see everyone next Tuesday

32:38Richard Osman:See you next Tuesday

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