# The First 'Ahoy'

An episode of [Hamish & Andy Plus +](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1616749262), 26 Oct 2020, 16 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/gwfny33c04ol4o9fov5tlb4w.mp3

Hamish & Andy recall having a porn star on the show during the early days and whether that was a good idea at all. It leads them to discuss why they made their friend Wippa, now a breakfast radio host himself, get his nuts bronzed and we hear a pivotal moment for the show - the very first time it was suggested that all callers should greet the show with the word ‘Ahoy’. Hamish & Andy's Remembering Project. Season 1, Episode 6.

## Transcript

[0:02] A listener production.
[0:06] Wilhelm, this is our remembering project.
[0:08] Yep, where a random day of the year is selected and we look up the run sheets from all our shows from across the years to find any we did on that day.
[0:17] Over 20 years, that's about 2,500 shows and roughly 26,000 talk breaks.
[0:22] Today, we pick one.
[0:24] One talk break only and try to remember what happened based on what was written down on the run sheet from that day.
[0:29] As always, we've got podcast Mike with us here for any technical stuff.
[0:32] Hello.
[0:32] Mike, what date was randomly chosen today?
[0:35] It's the 20th of July.
[0:37] Okay, then.
[0:38] It's Hamish go.
[0:39] Let's kick this off and find out what years Ham will take us back to and see if we remember anything from those years.
[0:47] This is Hamish and Andy's Remembering Project.
[0:54] And 20th of July, we did shows 2007, 9, 10, 12, 15 and 16.
[0:57] And the supplementary number.
[1:00] Supplementary number as always is 2006.
[1:05] We don't know if we did a show that year.
[1:07] We're still piecing it together.
[1:09] Yes.
[1:09] We certainly don't have any details.
[1:11] One thing I tried to get again from 2007 and it's just...
[1:15] It's lost.
[1:17] As at this stage, it's lost.
[1:19] We did probably one of my favourite phone topics of all time, which was early days.
[1:24] But I remember this was a big point in our career because we were like, geez, can you, you know, this feels a bit fun.
[1:30] Can we do this on radio?
[1:31] And then everyone went, yeah, you can do that.
[1:33] And we basically did what file name do you keep your porn under?
[1:38] On your desktop.
[1:39] But if I remember correctly, we were all panicking and falling over ourselves, calling it naughty pictures or growing up photos.
[1:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:45] Because we were so worried at times.
[1:46] Although we were much edgier.
[1:48] Like, of course you soften, but there's some things I've listened back to from a long time ago.
[1:53] I'm like, oh, gosh, we probably wouldn't say that now.
[1:54] I think we were super young.
[1:55] Well, we were definitely ignorant.
[1:57] Yeah.
[1:57] Like, I mean, you're very naive as a kid.
[1:59] You don't have the sensibilities that you have.
[2:02] Yes.
[2:02] You know, because we were like 24.
[2:04] So you just think – you basically think everyone –
[2:06] is seeing the world the way you're seeing the world.
[2:08] Yes.
[2:08] So there was definitely that, but I think we were like really worried about, you know, breaking a code of conduct or something.
[2:14] By saying, we would never have said the word porn, no way.
[2:17] No.
[2:17] So we were like, you know, what's the file name?
[2:20] But I remember people going, yeah, like one guy's tax receipts.
[2:24] Tax was a big one.
[2:25] And then one guy just said a folder that said Adelaide.
[2:29] Because he's like, no one's opening that up.
[2:32] No one's opening up Adelaide.
[2:33] I like it.
[2:34] Great memory too.
[2:35] I mean, I guess this is back in the days where people were downloading stuff and going, I'll keep it on the desk.
[2:40] You had to keep it.
[2:40] You would share it, Mike.
[2:42] Like your mate would go, hey, like I mean, obviously we're from magazine days.
[2:46] I mean, we're here at Andy's house.
[2:47] Go upstairs, but he's still got his crate of Zoomags.
[2:50] Well, there's a point where you found, like I found my dad's and then he had to get rid of them.
[2:55] Andy took them out of the plastic so they'd lost their resale.
[2:57] Yeah.
[2:58] But at school, if you found one, you would hide.
[3:01] There would be a hiding spot at school.
[3:02] We had one underneath the portables where, you know, you could go and look at it at recess and be very scared of it all being caught.
[3:13] Use the cotton glove, you know, just like we're touching the Melbourne Cup to not damage the pages.
[3:17] But that was an interesting – I just remember that being an interesting day because we were like –
[3:23] It had that feeling too of we, you know, there's some pretty standard stuff that people talk about on radio, like, you know, what silly things happened or whatever.
[3:31] I just remember being one of those days where we were like, oh, that felt a bit different because it blew up.
[3:35] Like people were just, one of those ones where we went, I don't think anyone, does anyone do this?
[3:39] Yep.
[3:40] And then people really did it.
[3:42] And it was a, I just remember professionally it was an interesting turning point because you were like, okay, well, that really connected.
[3:48] Yes.
[3:48] That really connected with people.
[3:50] I also recall that we had an adult, you know,
[3:53] film entertainer on Jenna Jamison or something.
[3:56] Yeah, we did.
[3:57] For Sexpo.
[3:57] She was promoting Sexpo.
[3:59] Which was such a peculiar thing to do, I think.
[4:03] But like… Yeah, we did a lot of… It might come up in one of the days.
[4:08] Yeah, for a family show.
[4:09] We were a pretty family-friendly show and I remember her…
[4:13] Talking about her dad finding out what she did.
[4:15] Did for a living, yeah.
[4:16] And I think that was a stage where we were like, are we Howard Stern?
[4:19] Yeah, what are we doing?
[4:21] We're probably not Howard Stern.
[4:23] I think we're just come some like… I remember being really nervous.
[4:26] Suburban guys that this is not our show actually.
[4:29] We've made a big mistake.
[4:31] We shouldn't have done this.
[4:32] But remember, we sent, just while we were on Sexpo, when we did Saturday mornings, so we used to do like, what was that, 2002, 2003 Saturday morning?
[4:41] 2004, 2005.
[4:43] And Whipper, our mate Whipper, again, Fitz and Whipper on Nova, now currently he was our like go and do crazy things guy.
[4:49] Yeah.
[4:50] Like, you know, street dude.
[4:51] And we made him get a bronze cast of his testicles to give to his mum.
[4:56] To give to Christine.
[4:57] She's still got them.
[4:58] I talked to her about them recently.
[5:00] Did you still have Whipper's balls in bronze?
[5:02] Yeah, I do.
[5:04] Yeah.
[5:05] Keep the mail down.
[5:06] Because that was at Sexpo.
[5:08] Sorry, he had to go to Sexpo.
[5:09] There was a stall there where you could get the...
[5:12] Get your nuts bronzed or anything bronzed.
[5:14] Yes.
[5:15] If one of those, we've actually found, Mike, this is a revelation, we've found old CDs.
[5:21] Now, we need someone to go and transfer them all.
[5:23] It's going to take a while.
[5:24] But I think a lot of those shows, those Saturday morning shows are in there.
[5:28] We may, in the future, if we do this again, we may have some of that whipper being our street dude stuff, which would be quite intriguing.
[5:35] In 2009, on the 20th of July, all it had done were people were angry at the MasterChef finale.
[5:40] Oh, right.
[5:41] Now, I know I never watched MasterChef.
[5:45] No, you did.
[5:45] And I doubt you did either.
[5:46] No.
[5:47] So this feels 2009.
[5:49] Do you remember?
[5:50] First season, I think, and it would have been the Julian Poe dilemma.
[5:54] Was that a debacle?
[5:55] I believe most people wanted Poe to win, but she didn't.
[5:59] So it would be that.
[6:00] I just gave me a wry smile because I went, yep.
[6:03] That's one of those ones where you've been told people are talking about this.
[6:06] Yes.
[6:07] You've got to talk about it.
[6:08] Yeah.
[6:08] And so it would have just been, again, I don't have the audio for us, but I know what it would have been.
[6:13] Two guys.
[6:15] Trying to pretend.
[6:15] Trying to pretend that they were as incensed as the public.
[6:19] And they were here as trusted friends to help guide Australia through this injustice.
[6:24] Did you watch that, Mike, in your family?
[6:25] No, I just know a lot of stuff about people.
[6:27] reality TV, I think.
[6:29] When we first went to drive, like, radio and becoming national, our producer was like, you have, like, these are the shows you have to watch, like people are into, and we have to divvy it up.
[6:41] And so there was a list at the start of the year, and he, like, who's watching Desperate Housewives, who's watching Lost, and I was like, I… It's funny you mention that.
[6:47] In 2007, there was also something on the thing that said Desperate Housewives giveaway.
[6:51] Yeah, so I watched that.
[6:53] I had to watch Just for Sales, Haym was lost.
[6:54] There was a bunch.
[6:55] We had like three or four each.
[6:57] By the next year, I think we'd done away with this.
[6:59] By halfway through that year, we went, this isn't really working.
[7:02] We're not vibing this.
[7:03] Because someone would come in and go, hey, this thing happened on Lost last night.
[7:06] And then the other person would go,
[7:07] Who cares?
[7:08] I don't watch that.
[7:08] Yeah.
[7:09] And then you go, yeah, well, I didn't really, I'm being forced to watch it.
[7:12] So I'm not really that into it either.
[7:14] But we thought early on, we thought we had to do this.
[7:16] This is what you had to do on radio.
[7:18] So it was kind of fun.
[7:20] In 2010, on the 20th of July, I found out at that stage my housemate at the time, John, was very into Twilight.
[7:26] Oh, wow.
[7:26] I vaguely remember that.
[7:28] But it wasn't, it hasn't stuck.
[7:29] I mean, I've.
[7:31] still good mates with John and we don't talk about the Twilight movies much.
[7:34] So again, another kind of moment in time.
[7:36] Yeah, for him.
[7:37] Big at the time, 2010, that was middle of Twilight Fever.
[7:40] Yep.
[7:40] I think there's a new Twilight book that came out this year as well.
[7:44] Do you reckon that's… Oh, he missed the train a bit, hasn't he?
[7:46] Is that a bit tough for them to try and regenerate the excitement, do you reckon, Mike?
[7:50] I don't know.
[7:51] Just a girl that I know was reading it for a bit.
[7:54] No, I mean, I'm not sure it's still good.
[7:55] It's fans, but I don't think it'll be a global phenomenon.
[7:57] No, I'm with you.
[7:59] And I think… Who was the guy?
[8:02] Edward… No, Rob Pattinson.
[8:04] Rob Pattinson.
[8:05] Batman.
[8:06] Is he Batman now?
[8:06] Yeah.
[8:07] He's moved on.
[8:08] Yeah.
[8:08] So he knew.
[8:08] Yeah.
[8:09] He knew.
[8:09] Yeah.
[8:11] I think he was waiting for 10 years hoping they'd call him back.
[8:15] Possible because he would have just gone, hey, I'm not interested in any other franchises.
[8:19] I'm here.
[8:19] And he's taken on Batman and just when they've released another book, he's damaged.
[8:23] He's going to call DC and go, something else has come up.
[8:25] In 2015.
[8:26] Is this where we're going?
[8:27] We are in 2015, although...
[8:32] It's not quite this.
[8:34] At the start of the show, I look at the run sheet and it was the day, 20th of July 2015 was the day that Mick Fanning punched the shark.
[8:41] Oh.
[8:42] In Johannesburg, in South Africa in the surfing contest.
[8:45] And I see, you know, because the run sheets from 2015, I don't know if this is the same when you look at your run sheets, but they're quite small, the font.
[8:52] Yeah.
[8:53] And when it goes Mick Fanning on phone, I was like,
[8:56] Did we talk to Mick Fanning that day when he punched the shark?
[8:59] No, we talked to Kelly Slater though.
[9:00] Yeah, right.
[9:01] So you know what we did at the start of the show?
[9:02] We were trying to get Mick Fanning and we couldn't.
[9:04] And then we talked to people called Mick or Fanning.
[9:09] Someone with the first name Mick or the last name Fanning.
[9:11] But for a second in the run sheet I thought it was Mick.
[9:14] And then at the end of the show we talked to Kelly Slater.
[9:16] This was a weird day as well.
[9:17] Obviously it was a shocking incident and, you know, brilliant that Mick… He was all fine by the way.
[9:22] I think everyone was just kind of like shocked but jubilated that he was okay.
[9:26] But it was the first time we'd kind of used social media to reach out to someone.
[9:30] Normally you go through publicists and so on, but Hamish and I had done the celebrity grumpy with Kelly Slater and he was a nice fellow.
[9:35] And we were following, like Hamish and Andy was following him on Twitter.
[9:39] And so we said to Jez, hey, do you want to direct message him, our web guy?
[9:43] Direct message him on Twitter and see if he wants to come on, which just seemed a strange thing to do because it was always through publicists and so on.
[9:51] And so we messaged him and he was like, yeah, cool.
[9:53] Do you want to do it now?
[9:54] Yeah.
[9:55] And so suddenly he was on to talk about Mick Fanning, which was kind of weird.
[10:00] But in the middle of that show came the thing that I want to talk about today.
[10:05] Now, before we get to it, again, it's I think I've stumbled upon something that was the genesis of something that became much more ingrained in our fabric.
[10:13] And I hope it's what I think it is.
[10:15] But before we do get to it.
[10:16] Oh, yeah, we need to take a quick break.
[10:17] Yeah.
[10:19] And in 2015, just before 5 p.m. on the 20th of July,
[10:25] I believe we were discussing something that would give birth to the fact that now whenever someone calls up and says hello to us on the phone, they say ahoy.
[10:36] I think it was the start of ahoy.
[10:38] I don't want to say much.
[10:39] Get into it.
[10:41] The 20th of July, 2015.
[10:46] Hey, Mr Andy, delighted to be driving you home, him.
[10:48] And here's a history fact for everyone.
[10:50] And look, on this show we use the phone a lot.
[10:52] I mean, everyone uses the phone a lot.
[10:54] So it's relevant to everyone.
[10:56] And I would almost say, we were having this chat the other day, without in-car Bluetooth, the phone call was a dying art.
[11:03] Yes.
[11:04] In-car Bluetooth has 100% saved the phone call.
[11:07] Now everyone just waits until they get in the car and speaks for half an hour.
[11:09] Yeah, exactly.
[11:10] Well, I may as well.
[11:10] Obviously on hands-free, but that's a great... In-car Bluetooth.
[11:13] It's a great... And not between 4 and 6.
[11:16] That's when the good stuff's on the radio.
[11:19] Mum, I'll call you back at 6.01.
[11:22] But it has... We now are...
[11:24] Especially between you and I, Evan.
[11:26] Maybe it's just a guy thing, but because you're not...
[11:28] It's not weird to call for a bit of a chat.
[11:31] We need some news in there.
[11:32] Yeah, yeah.
[11:33] But then you just do like a loose catch-up on the phone.
[11:35] Yeah.
[11:35] Exactly.
[11:35] And a guide chat involves normally who's playing what in sport this weekend.
[11:41] The odds on this were quite interesting for about 30 seconds before you can just go and have a chat.
[11:45] You can't just ring for nothing.
[11:47] Here's the thing.
[11:47] So when the phone was invented, Alexander Graham Bell, he realized as well, like, so when they invented the phone, this is an article I was reading over the weekend.
[11:54] You've invented the phone.
[11:55] Well done.
[11:56] I mean, early adopters.
[11:58] Well done, mate.
[11:59] Stop turning up for a pat on the back.
[12:00] No, seriously, we appreciate it.
[12:02] But early adopters, I think, were like, oh, there's something in this.
[12:05] This could – we could see an application, personal and business.
[12:09] But with the invention of the phone came the invention of how to answer the phone.
[12:14] No one had answered.
[12:14] No one had picked up a machine and there was a human on the other end before.
[12:18] So everyone was like, what do we say?
[12:19] Like, what's the – And it didn't come first nature to them just to be normal –
[12:24] I mean, yeah, I guess eventually it evolved to like, hello, because he didn't know who was on the other end of the line.
[12:29] Alexander Graham Bell was pushing hard for Ahoy.
[12:32] Instead of Hello.
[12:33] That's what he wanted.
[12:34] He wanted Ahoy to be the internationally recognised... Because I think at the time maybe...
[12:41] Now I'm making it up.
[12:43] I was going to say...
[12:45] He spent a lot of time on ships.
[12:46] Ships on their radio would start with ahoy, but I don't know if ships had radio before the phone was invented.
[12:53] Probably Morse code would start with ahoy.
[12:55] They would say ahoy a lot when they arrived at places.
[12:58] I guess it was the thing you said when you were yelling out to someone and you weren't sure who they were.
[13:03] Yes.
[13:03] Ahoy.
[13:03] Ahoy.
[13:04] And so he really wanted that nautical vibe to take off.
[13:07] And I'm a bit sad that we went with Hello, to be honest.
[13:10] In fact, I would like it to become a Hamish and Andy show staple if we embrace Ahoy over Hello.
[13:19] That'd be nice.
[13:20] I'm not saying we won't answer to Hello.
[13:22] If someone comes on the phone and goes, hello, guys, we won't just go quiet until the emergency tape kicks in that we have at the radio station in case the station goes off air.
[13:30] Yeah.
[13:31] But we'll respond better to an ahoy, wouldn't we?
[13:34] Absolutely.
[13:34] You'll hear the smile just through our voices.
[13:37] Ahoy.
[13:38] Yeah.
[13:39] So 131060, call up now.
[13:41] First of all, actually, Ham.
[13:43] If we were phasing out hello, like let's start – once you start thinking about like so many songs –
[13:49] with hello in them that we would have to go back and rewrite as ahoy.
[13:53] 131060 call us now.
[13:55] What or how can we replace hello with ahoy across the board?
[14:00] Is it a song you can think of?
[14:01] Is there other areas in your life where we think a hello can be replaced with ahoy?
[14:05] We're going to try it now.
[14:07] Joe joins us.
[14:08] Ahoy, Joe.
[14:09] Ahoy.
[14:10] Ahoy.
[14:10] Feels good, doesn't it, Joe?
[14:12] Oh, it feels incredible.
[14:15] Anything that you suggest that should be kind of retrospectively where we replace hello with ahoy?
[14:21] Now, do you need me to sing it?
[14:24] Oh, man.
[14:24] Is it a song, is it?
[14:26] Because if it's not just like...
[14:27] If it's just basic instructions, you don't need to sing it.
[14:29] But if it is a song... No, no, no.
[14:32] The Lionel Richie song.
[14:33] Joe, take all yours.
[14:34] There you go.
[14:37] Is it me you're looking for?
[14:42] Joe.
[14:42] Joe.
[14:43] Hey, Joe.
[14:44] Mate, so good.
[14:46] So unluckily, and this does happen sometimes on the radio, your phone did cut out at the Ahoy part.
[14:53] Seriously.
[14:55] So we only heard the other bit.
[14:57] And we've got to go to the news, so we've got to grab Cara, but, Joe, get the podcast because you will hear it.
[15:03] Cara, do you have a place where we can replace Ahoy with Ahoy?
[15:09] Hello.
[15:10] Ahoy.
[15:10] Sorry, Cara.
[15:11] Sorry.
[15:11] This is getting confusing.
[15:12] What are you doing, Cara?
[15:16] Ahoy, Cara.
[15:17] Ahoy.
[15:18] Okay, so I think we should replace the famous Jerry Maguire movie.
[15:23] So we say...
[15:26] I had you at Ahoy.
[15:27] Oh, that's good.
[15:29] Yeah, great.
[15:30] Wouldn't that be more romantic if you had me at Ahoy?
[15:34] So gorgeous.
[15:35] Let's go to the news, Cam.
[15:37] We'll keep a few more coming in.
[15:38] What is bizarre, though?
[15:39] It does take you...
[15:41] I honestly thought Carol was going to say, show me the Ahoy.
[15:45] And I was like, people aren't getting this at all.
[15:47] But you had me at Ahoy is perfect.
[15:50] Hey, Mission Handy.
[15:54] It's certainly cleaner these days, isn't it?
[15:56] It is.
[15:57] Isn't it amazing?
[15:57] Because now it's been going on for, what's that now, five years.
[16:00] Five solid years of Ahoy's.
[16:02] I would have felt like it was longer than that.
[16:04] That we've been saying.
[16:05] Yeah, five years.
[16:06] Five years of Ahoy's.
[16:07] And Joe, I mean, I'm glad we've gone back to that moment because he was the very first Ahoy.
[16:12] Yeah.
[16:12] And then the very first one we missed.
[16:13] Yep.
[16:13] As his phone cut out right when he was singing the song.
[16:17] We maintain it.
[16:18] If you see us in the street, anytime you call any of our shows, it's part of our life now.
[16:22] We love the Ahoy.
[16:23] I'm glad we found the moment.
[16:24] you

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