( Theme music playing )
Announcer: For the past few years Ricky Gervais,
Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington
have been meeting regularly
for a series of pointless conversations.
This is one of them.
- Testing. - Is that all right?
( Dings )
Hello and welcome to "The Ricky Gervais Show"
with me, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant...
- Hello. - ...And the little round-headed buffoon
that is Karl Pilkington.
Hi.
Sync by honeybunny www.addic7ed.com
I should start by just saying, Karl,
that the natural world is so diverse
that we don't even know
how many species there are.
With plants and animals,
there could be up to 10 million species.
Um, there are 37,000 different species of spider alone.
What do you think of that?
Uh, it's a lot.
- It is, isn't it? - Yeah, lot.
But if there's loads of stuff out there that we don't know about,
and we don't know what it's doing,
is it that important? Is it worth finding 'em now?
Well, yeah.
- Why? - Well, it may give us the key
to unlock other mysteries.
- A spider won't. - Well, it might do.
A spider won't be unlocking any mysteries.
- That's... - What I mean is the police
- know about the gangsters. - Right.
But they go, "Right, we're aware of them.
Let them get on with it. We'll keep our eye on 'em."
And it's the same in the jungle. These spiders,
the deadly ones you're aware of.
The ones that are just puttering out, you go,"Don't even worry about them.
Don't even give 'em a name. They're not doing anything."
Stephen: But what if there's another poisonous spider
they haven't identified yet, lurking in the undergrowth?
- I'd be very surprised. - So you'd be very surprised?
- I'd be surprised if... - It sounds like laziness on your part.
They're discovering new species all the time.
We know about all the dangerous stuff now
- 'cause we have to. We live in a world now... - No we don't.
We do. We know about a lot of the dangerous stuff.
Whenever they find something new now, it's like a new butterfly or...
Well, no! No, look at AIDS.
When I was a kid no one had ever heard of AIDS.
Yeah, but that's not a natural thing, is it? That's not like a spider.
- What do you mean it's not a natural thing? - It's not a natural thing.
It's not something that's... AIDS hasn't been, like,
living under the soil for millions of years going, "I'll wait
till the 1980s then I'll come out and kill a load of people.
- No, but it is a natural thing. - It's a new thing.
- It's new. - Yeah, but loads of animals are new, aren't they?
Not in... not... I mean it... evolutionary terms,
there's new animals in evolution.
I'm sure. I'm sure there's new stuff deep down
that's just like almost like bacteria sat under the soil.
It'll never come to the top, right?
It's like having... having an old woman who's a neighbor.
She never goes out, she doesn't bother ya. Let her be.
- ( Laughs ) What are you talking about? - But what if that old neighbor
could unlock the secrets to...
- I don't think she can. - Just even to us understanding the...
the complexities of the universe or the way things are developed and grown.
- 'Cause we'd know about it. - Why would we know about it?
Because I never understand why is it you want to stop researching and studying now.
Why is it that you're happy to just draw a line under everything else?
What if people had said this back in the 19th century?
We've done this, we've done this!
I think it's someone in the 1900s that said
everything that's gonna be invented has been invented.
And then look what happened in that century.
Yeah, and I've said to you, look at the stuff that is being invented now.
- The frisbee and stuff like that, it's all... - ( Ricky cackling )
It's all stuff that you kinda go, "It's all right.
It's a good idea. But we don't need it."
Yeah, but the frisbee wasn't being worked on
by the top brains of our generation.
That was some novelty toy that some manufacturer made.
But it's like look at the fuss we made over that fella
who came up with the Dyson vac.
Everyone was like "He's up there with Einstein." Well, he's not.
It's a good vac. It cleans up floors well and everything.
Who said he's up there with Einstein?
- His P.R. people did. - In one of those programs
where they did great inventions of our time.
It was easy early on. You got Einstein, you know. Newton did this.
- Archimedes... Dyson. - ( Ricky cackling )
And they started to run out
because it's harder to come up with something new now.
Because everything that's needed... Remember the things we've invented
are things that we sort of go, "We could do with that."
Inventors don't sit there going, "What can I make?
Oh, I need a toaster." They've sat there,
they've burned the toast under the grill and they've gone,
"I need some sort of device here I can put bread in."
Yeah yeah yeah, necessity is the mother of invention.
- Yeah. - However there are, uh uh,
people who sit around going, "Where's, you know, a loophole in the market?
Where's a little... where's the niche?"
Well, here's something: About a year ago,
I came up with a see-through toaster
so that you can see how much the toast is cooked.
- Ricky: Right? - I found it about two months after that.
Someone had done it,
so I'd just been beaten to the post.
( Laughs )
I met a bloke on a conference once
who sent a drawing to "Blue Peter."
It was their design a car of the future and he sent them
a drawing that was a car and the only innovation
was that you could have a shit while driving.
- ( Laughs ) - And then he put,
"Shit goes down pipe which becomes fuel."
They must have looked at that and gone, "What a maniac."
I think that's a brilliant...
I mean, I've driven a long way.
I drove to cornwall recently and I would have loved
- a lavatory built into... - But I think he did it when he was about nine.
And he must have thought, "Oh, I'm being driven to school.
I need the toilet. Wouldn't it be good if..."
- But why hasn't that been done? - What?!
Like Steve says. I've been in the same situation when you're driving
and you go, "Oh where's the service station?" You see a sign saying, 36 miles.
- You're in agony. - So you suggest, pull your trousers down
and shit down in the seat that's a toilet?
- Ah, what's wrong with that? - Well, you got your nan in your back...
- She's got one as well. - So you are going to cornwall all shitting?
- ( Flatulence ) - Karl: Not all the time.
But it's more useful to me than a lighter.
- So also what... - Where do you wash your hands?
At what point to you wash your hands or wipe your ass? At what point does that occur?
- At the end of the journey. - Oh God.
So you get in, you have a shit at Deptford
and you wipe your ass at Polperro?
Yeah, but like I've said to you, this isn't like just people going,
"Oh, I think I'll have one." "You need one?"
"Not really. But it's something to do, isn't it?
I'm sick of playing I spy. I'm having a shit."
You have it when you really need one.
When you have to pull off a motorway, it's a lot of messing about.
There's probably gonna be a queue at the toilet.
- No more queues at toilets. - 10 minutes, that takes, doesn't it? 10 minutes.
- Pull off, have a quick shit. - It's 10 minutes. Driving along.
It's just going on, don't even know about it.
- ( Dings ) - The radio is on, everyone's happy.
It doesn't matter. I don't know... I mean, we all do it
as well. That's the thing.
Anything else you'd come up with?
There's so many things... Chocolate fountain.
Anything like that, I just go, "What are these?
Who's invented these? Who's okayed this idea?
"And yet I can't have a shit on the motorway."
( Cackling )
- Think of computers. - Yeah, computers are a good thing
and it baffles me as to how they came about.
When you think a computer chip is just made out of sand.
Now for someone to come up with that, you go,
"This... there must have been some sort of alien involved here."
What do you mean? Why do you think that?
So I love it. So the frisbee... rubbish.
Anything too clever... "Well, it wasn't an invention. It was an alien."
So there's nothing between frisbee and computer chip?
What I'm saying is it's not even an idea, is it?
- What do you mean? - A computer chip...
Where does that come from?
That is amazing. It's astounding, yeah.
So you think it was an alien. What are you talking about?
- It's great. - Because I can't believe
that someone would go, "Right, I want to make something that will hold information
and be able to... "I know, let's use some sand. We've got loads of that."
- You'd go... ( Stammers ) - That's what genius is though, isn't it?
But, Karl, there's no alien involved.
No, but when I say alien, I don't mean an alien came down here
and said, you know, "Oh, do you wanna buy this?"
- There could have been... - ( Crashes )
...Uh, a spaceship crash. Right?
- Ricky: Right yeah. - And there's all them rumors, isn't there,
in that hanger? They've got the spaceship, they take it apart.
They go, "Yeah, wheels, we've got them.
Yeah yeah, steering wheel."And then they go, "Hang on, what's this here?"
And they find the chips
and they break it down and they find it's sand.
Karl, but the fact that sand makes computer chips
is not the interesting thing.
The interesting thing is how the human being discovered that...
What am I talking about, sand makes computer chips?
That silicon can have information, uh uh, put on it.
But we're made out of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon.
- Yeah. - Do you know what I mean? And hydrogen.
- It... that... the... - But that's nature.
You see, nature is amazing. You can't beat nature. Right?
- No. - It comes up with some amazing things.
But man is nature. Don't forget that we are... we're an animal.
We're a brilliant ape.
We're actually 98.6% genetically identical to a chimpanzee, Karl.
Think of that.
We only differ
on 1.4% of our genetic makeup.
That... that must be the ass.
( Laughing )
'Cause that's a lot different.
Animals rights is a... is a hot topic.
- It's a big issue. - What rights should they have?
We test drugs on animals and we're basically saying
if they die, they die. We'll learn something from them.
People do make distinctions between animals, right?
They... they know that it's probably more acceptable
to kill an ant,
- than, uh... - Punch a cow.
- Ah, exactly. - I told you, didn't I,
about me... me dad's mate who had a monkey and he had to thump it?
- What? - What-wh... Well, there's two things there.
One, why did he have a monkey? Two, what sort of discipline is thumping a monkey?
- What was the monkey doing? - It kept... it was annoying his wife a lot.
And sort of pinching her ass and stuff like that.
- That's not true. - Wait a minute, we've never heard this before.
How have we had all these years of monkey news and we've never heard this before?
I'm sure I told you about it ages ago.
Your dad had a mate who had a monkey?
- I'm sure I've told you. - Why did he have a monkey?
- Just for a laugh? - It was back in the day when you... people did.
- They all had like odd sort of pets, didn't they? - Ricky: When?
- Karl: In like about '68. - Stephen: Oh 1968?
When... oh, when everyone had a monkey.
But he had to thump it. Now the weird thing is...
- No, that's weird enough. - Is this the... this is all the story?
- This is the entire story? - No.
All the information you've got is he had a monkey and he had to thump it?
Yeah, me dad told me about it. When he found out that I was into monkeys,
he said, "Oh, Benny thumped one."
( Cackles ) Benny thumped one!
Oh, my son's into natural history, particularly the simian variety.
"I've got an interesting fact for you, Karl. Sit down."
"What is it, Pater?" "Um, Benny thumped one."
- "Brilliant." - But what was interesting is
the way that people are thumping other people all the time.
No one bats an eyelid. Thump a monkey,
people go, "You thumped a monkey!"
Yes! Yes, they do.
They do go... "You thumped a monkey."
So that's what's weird, isn't it?
This chimp doesn't wanna be caged and kept in a fucking council house in Manchester.
- No, it was quite happy. - It wasn't happy!
I mean, in the '70s, there were all the tea bag adverts and all that,
- and they were loving that. - No, they weren't loving it.
People go, "Oh that's unfair." Now they're in like a cage in a zoo.
"It was better when I was pushing a piano up the stairs."
They weren't really... they weren't really...
They weren't really
- sitting down and having a cup of tea. - It wasn't a documentary...
"A week in the life of the monkey deliverymen."
Oh, I love that... chimps in a zoo now going,
"Fuckin' hell. At least we were... at least we were free."
"Remember when we used to drive a van for a living?"
- Ricky: "And we were on 58 quid a week." - Yeah.
They're not meant to be kept in a house in Manchester.
It's cruel to keep a person in a house in Manchester,
so it's fucking cruel to keep a monkey. ( Laughs )
When I was about 13, 14,
I once tried to improve the animal kingdom
by making the hardest animal ever,
the most perfect animal.
Now, just to clarify, you didn't in sort of frankenstein-style
- try and bolt various bits of animals together? - No.
It was a drawing that I sent to "Blue Peter."
There was no competition going on.
You just thought they would be appreciative.
I thought they'd look at that and they'd go,
"This is... He's a genius. This like Da Vinci."
- Sure. - And this is the animal.
This is what I thought the perfect animal...
I mean when I say perfect, I meant the hardest animal.
This animal, it could take anything.
It was just the strongest, hardest, fastest. Right?
- So I started with the head of a lion. - ( Roars )
- Of course, that makes sense. - No, I mean, roar! It looks good.
I'll bite you, right? Okay,
I popped that on the body of a rhinoceros.
Okay, so it's got the toughness and the armor if you like.
Oh, it's full of strength. Head of a lion... think of that.
So you've got this picture: Head of a lion, body of a rhino.
Okay? Hold on though.
Pop some arms on it.
The front arms were the arms of a gorilla.
- Stephen: The arms of a gorilla? Okay. - So it could punch and grip.
It could make stuff. The lion, I mean, that's where
- the lion falls down because it can't make stuff. - Sure.
- You think that's got enough weaponry? - Stephen: Sounds like it.
No.Pop on the tail of a giant scorpion.
- ( Whip crack ) - A giant scorpion?
- Yeah yeah. - So a scorpion that's the size of a rhinoceros?
Exactly. So the tail was as long as that, right.
So now this is a scary animal. And this is where the animal fell down.
Uh, I thought, "Right, legs."
- Well, the fastest animal is the cheetah. - Stephen: Cheetah.
Popped on four cheetah legs, it would have collapsed.
Crushed under the weight of the rhinoceros.
It would have collapsed immediately. So, uh...
- And you drew this, did you? - Drew it, yeah.
- Did you show it to anyone... - My mates went,"That's brilliant."
- Right. - They said that's brilliant.
And then just sent it straight to "Blue Peter." Any reply?
- No reply at all. - Really?
- No reply at all. - I'm surprised.
What do you think of that, Karl?
If you wanted to make the ultimate fighting animal, what would come up with?
If you had the power like the fellow in "Arabian Nights,"
size of a chimpanzee, you could change into anything,
but you could change into, you know... like that?
I don't think I'd go for strength and that. I'd go for survival.
What would you do? Cockroach?
No, I'd have, uh...
I'd have like an armadillo's body.
Ricky: Right okay.
I'd have
- the head of an owl. - Right.
- The head of an owl? - Yeah, why... why come up...
What does that bring to the table?
The head's thereto sort of make it look friendly to the human race.
- Ricky: Okay. - Because if you look half decent to the human race,
- they'll look after you. That's the way it works. - Right.
Like the cat and the dog and all that.
- So the owl makes it look nice. - Right.
I'd have... I wouldn't have legs.
I'd go for, like, the slug juice.
( Laughs ) What do you mean? So now
you're a really slow moving, legless armadillo
- with the head of an owl? - Stephen: Slithering along.
How is that gonna be friendly?
They'll see the beautiful face,
- but be terrified by the sludge. - ( Screams )
Karl: No, because the head's that nice,
that they'll forgo the sludge.
But hold on. But wait a minute.
So it's got this thing that's stuck, right?
Going 0.1 miles an hour,
going "Hoo," right?
You come over, you kick the head off. How is this survival?
No, 'cause the head can go into the thing like a tortoise.
- Ricky: Can it? - Yeah.
Of course it can. Into the armadillo body.
Well no, an armadillo doesn't do that. It just curls up into a ball.
- No no, it isn't an armadillo, is it? - So it's... ( Groans )
Why has it got the slug... Why is that so attractive?
Because what I'm thinking is an armadillo,
they're good when they're on their feet.
Flip them, they get stuck like a tortoise.
- Stephen: Right. - Slug stuff keeps it down.
So if anything attacks it, it's like a limpet that can glop to stuff.
- Why not have a limpet then? - No.
But it can't get any... how... it can barely move. It can hardly get anywhere.
- Just go and kick it. - Karl: What do you mean it can't get anywhere?
But how can it escape from danger? It's gonna move very slowly.
- Ricky: It's rubbish.That's the worst animal. - Karl: It'll lock itself in.
- Ricky: Then I'll just scoop it up... - Karl: You can't scoop it up.
It locks itself in if it's in danger.
I'd give it peacock feathers.
( Laughs ) This is the worst animal I've ever heard!
Why has it got peacock feathers?
- Again, it's just sort of... - Ricky: It's the worst animal I've ever heard.
- Why has it got peacock feathers? - It looks more threatening.
- That's what peacock feathers do. - Ricky: That's the least
threatening thing... peacock feathers. It's like Danny la Rue coming at you.
There's nothing remotely scary about peacock feathers.
To humans. But the humans won't be harming it
'cause they like the owl head.
People will like to have these things in the garden.
Uh, they eat lettuce.
( Laughs ) They eat lettuce. They eat...
Why has it got a beak? They eat lettuce.
He's telling it what's it's gonna eat now.
The owl's going, "Fuck that. I want a mouse."
I love the fact that he's based what it eats
on the fact that... How it moves a bit like a slug.
- Yes yes. - That it'd eat lettuce.
It moves that and it'd eat lettuce.
Like I said, it's not that weird if that existed.
If that was normal that when you went out to empty your bin,
there's one of them sliding up the wall,
you wouldn't... you wouldn't even double take.
You'd be just like, "Oh there's the...
The owl-head peacock-feathered thing."
I don't know why it's climbing walls in an effort to find lettuce.
Why is it climbing up that wall?
'Cause that's the only way it can see properly.
'Cause it's head's coming out like that.
So even though you've designed this animal, you're even explaining its limitations.
- Ricky: Now it's got problems. - It's mainly made to be on walls.
- ( Cackling ) - 'Cause what else is living on walls?
Oh God. Oh fucking hell.
What a useless animal that is.
- Karl I mean. - But nature chucks up odd things, doesn't it?
Don't... Why are we starting on this again?
No, I'm... I'm just saying that is nature.
Now and again you'll get... you'll get stuff that...
- Oh, was he looking at you? - Yeah.
Was he really?
Look at his fucking head. Look at his stupid, round, fucking orangey head and... Oh.
Ricky: Why aren't you a freak?
You've got a little bald head. We're not meant to bald.
Well, I was I think. That's the thing... that's what nature's done.
You see, I didn't do anything with my hair when I had hair.
I didn't style it. I didn't do anything with it.
And it probably thought, "What am I doing here?"
Whereas people who love their hair and they comb it
and have different styles and look after it, they have hair for ages.
- No. It's absolute nonsense. - Nonsense, gobbledygook.
- Absolute nonsense. - It's a little bit weird though, isn't it?
And that's what happens with old people.
- Once they lose their, you know, will to live... - ( Belches )
...Once they lose their job, they get old. "What's me purpose?
What am I doing here?" And it's like nature goes,"You're not needed."
And they die. Maybe that's what happened with the dodo.
What's it doing? It can't fly.
Its wings are useless. Eat it, it tastes horrible.
- Bleech! - Kill it.
- No, they did eat it. - Nature.
- I think they did eat it. - Yeah, but it wasn't very nice, was it?
I think they over-farmed it. I think that's why it was extinct...
- 'Cause they did eat it. - No, but they did eat it,
but they didn't like it. Everybody, you never...
You never saw like a fully-eaten carcass of a dodo.
- It would be half-eaten. - You're making this up again. All conjecture.
No, but they didn't eat it all.
Everybody would try it and go, "It's not for me, that."
- But you don't know this. - You're just making it up.
What's this based on? The people... and also, why would that kill it out?
- Because I'll tell you why. - Ricky: Why?
Because if it's not nice, people go, "Don't get another one then."
And they die out. The reason we've got loads of chickens and loads of cows
is 'cause we eat them. If we ate polar bears, we wouldn't be short of them.
Because you'd farm it. You'd take more care of it.
What's a polar bear doing? It's sat on a block of ice floating about.
It's no use to us, is it? It sounds harsh.
Once again, got his information from a glacier mint advert.
- ( Cackling ) - No, it's no use to us.
We know they're there and 's all very sad when you
see them on the news sort of struggling and all that.
But it's gonna make 'em stronger.
I saw this trailer
for this documentary that said
the man who's having a baby.
And I turned it on
and it's a woman
going through a sex change and she's pregnant.
That's not a man having a baby.
That's a woman having a beard.
Having a breakdown.
Uh uh, what... what... why is that... that's a con.
That is pure sensat... it's a man having a baby.
Look, world's first... No, it's a woman.
It's a woman. What do you think of that?
What would you do if you're a doctor and I came to you and went,
"Karl, listen, I'm having a bit of a rethink of these."
Uh, I don't... I... the penis,
"I hate it. I hate this cock."
But what do you mean, you hate it?
I hate... I don't want it there. It doesn't look right.
It just sits there resting
on these fucking awful testicles that I'm gonna get rid of.
I want... I want this thrown away.
Yeah well, it's... you know, they're not a great look.
- ( Ricky snickers ) - I know that.
Everyone knows that. It's just the way they are.
I mean if we're all being honest, they're an odd design.
I don't think anyone likes their own, do they?
That's why we cover 'em. They're not a great thing, are they?
But that's not why we cover them though, is it?
It's part of it, I think. I think deep down.
I mean, even if, like, I know you hate the Adam-and-Eve thing,
but even if back then he was like, "Good God, cover 'em up."
- And he had a leaf on. - Ricky: No, that isn't why.
So are you thinking fundamentally then,
that aesthetically, the testicles and the penis
isn't as good as it could be?
What would you have there instead?
Well, it's designed that way 'cause that's the way it's gotta be designed.
- It's more about function than, uh... - Yeah.
And that's... that's the thing, isn't it? With modern technology...
The thing is the testicles have to be outside
'cause they have to be a few degrees below body temperature.
- Yeah. - Otherwise the sertoli cells die
which sort of feeds the semen and all that.
So they... they... to be functioning and sort of like fertile,
they have to be outside, which is annoying,
'cause I'd put a little ribcage around 'em like that.
I'd pop a rib cage round those, protect 'em, wear a cricket box,
have that built in so you cannot get a kick in...
a swift kick in the bollocks that makes you feel sick.
No, but it'd be better if they could sort of reverse up
in a way that they... they were hidden away.
So that they would just... then you dropped 'em. It's like,
"Right, we need to cool 'em down.
Be at it in about half an hour."
- Yeah. - Zzzzt! Drop 'em down.
Yeah, like the gear on a... on an airplane, landing gear.
Yeah and, uh, "Landing gear down."
And the bollocks in the cooling down.
Or you could just like... just pop 'em in the fridge for 10 minutes.
They could detach and you could pop 'em
- in the fridge, cool them there? - Yeah.
- Can you make me some breasts? - Easy.
Okay, go on. You say easy,
what are you gonna do? What's your plan?
Just...
How do you do that? It's tablets, isn't it?
- No, but... - "Testerone," right?
- Testerone? - No, Toblerone.
I wanna... yeah... I want some Toblerone.
Just some pointy... pointy tits, like Madonna.
( Snickering )
Where do you stop though? Supposing I came to you and said,
"Doctor, listen, um, I like the bollocks."
I like the penis. But I don't like 'em where they are.
I'd... I want them...
I want them in the middle of my chest.
I want breasticles. Yeah?
The ass, I don't like it around the back. I can't see what's going on.
Pop that on the front where the bollocks were.
I want my ass where I can look down and see what's going on.
"Can you do it?"
I think it's just easier to move the head, isn't it?
( Cackling )
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