I Love Green Guide Letters
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I Love Green Guide Letters

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“I was in a food court on a Thursday,” Saunders explains. “I love podcasting and I was trying to think of something to do. I didn’t want to just have a couple of guys just talking because that would just get lost in the scene, so I realised I needed a good hook: something a bit different that I could build a theme around. And I’ve always loved complaints, like in the local paper where they have the ‘Thumbs Up’ and ‘Thumbs Down.’ What drives people to complain? So I was reading the Green Guide in this food court and one of the letters was so petty and I was like ‘What drove you to write this? I don’t know what your television situation is like but you must have other channels. Watch one of those during that hour!’ And I looked around the food court to see if anyone else was reading the Green Guide because I wanted to go up to them and say ‘Hey did you read this one?’ And no-one was. Then I realised I could get my comedian friends around to talk about them and it’d be a starting point to get some comedy out of it.”

So, delving into the particular quirks of Green Guide letters every week, is there a pattern? “I do know that the ones that are actually posted in are the craziest ones,” Saunders says. “From guys that work at the Green Guide, the ones that are posted in are often unpublishable for their intensity!” Recent guests have included Jane Kennedy, Santo Cilauro, Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia (“That was great because he was so complained-about when he became host of the show), Justin Hamilton, Lehmo, Will Anderson, Lawrence Mooney, Ryan Maloney (Toadfish from Neighbours)… then there was a recent episode from the LA Podcast Festival. “That was amazing because for three days I didn’t have to explain what a podcast was,” Saunders jokes. “That was a real utopia for me. Explaining what my podcast was about as a bit more difficult… but it was very inspiring. Podcast fans are very dedicated and they make fan art, so it’s cool to go to three days of that. The podcasting scene is a lot bigger in America so it was very interesting to see that, and a lot of talk about sponsorships and all these ad rates and stuff. It’s interesting to see it becoming a legitimate media, because at the moment it’s such a free media. There’s no regulation, it’s just up to you to find podcasts you enjoy. Whatever your interest is, type it into iTunes and you’ll find a podcast about it and you can listen to it whenever you want. I listen to podcasts constantly. I’ve had to take a break from podcast-listening to do this interview!”

For the live-on-stage I Love Green Guide Letters 150th episode show, Saunders will be joined by over a dozen friends including Fiona O’Loughlin, Ed Kavalee, Ronny Chieng and a number of surprises guests – but you’ll just have to wait and see who they’ll be. “They’re people you’ll definitely know from the world of television and radio. We don’t mess about. We’ve had a pretty good run of guests. It’ll just be super-fun. Whether you’re a subscriber to the podcast or you’ve never even heard of podcasts before, the live shows are just raw comedy.”

BY PETER HODGSON