Tonight's episode of the Best of Race Around the World is rated M for mature audiences and contains frequent course language.
Loveable, cuddly and kind, a nice Jewish boy from North Borewen.
Yet, during the course of race around the world, he came as close as anyone has to destroying liberal democracy in this country.
John Safran remains for most of us an enigma.
A fervent believer in romantic love, yet he placed a voodoo curse on an ex-girlfriend.
A product of one of the finest religious educations, yet he committed sacrilege on an almost weekly basis.
A passionate AFL fan, yet he's clearly no good at sport.
We came to Melbourne's beauteous botanical gardens to find the John Safran underneath all the John Safrans.
John, you won the popular vote, yet you came equal last in the judges' points. How can you explain this?
I feel like I'm almost like the Ray Martin of the race.
It's kind of like, you know, making a real connection with the battler, the common man, and, you know, these critics, you know, they're just, you know, all self-righteous with their Fellini films and, you know, and their documentary making.
And, you know, they just don't understand what the public wants.
They're sitting up there in their ivory tower, aren't they?
Indeed.
Well, you're on the side of the little guy. The battlers, the people who live on Struggle Street.
What did you think of the general judging of the race, anyway?
Oh, I didn't really, I really didn't care about it.
Like, everyone seems to be far more cut up about it because either I hated the film I made with the judges' pan.
So if the judges panned a film I hate, like I was on the side of the judges.
And if I liked my documentary and they panned it, I just didn't care.
Like, you know, like who cares?
The first tour we're going to is the infamous Ivory Coast Voodoo story.
You said on the phone to me at the time that it was the first place you went to on the race that wasn't like Melbourne.
You seemed to cope quite well with it, though.
Yeah, but it was weird. That's why I made such a point of it.
It's like everywhere you go in the world it really is just like Melbourne.
And then I rocked up here and there was like real straw huts and, you know, and people dancing around and stuff like that.
Just like it's meant to be in a documentary.
So why leave Melbourne, I suppose, is the answer.
Exactly. I'll know better next time.
Had you planned to place the curse on your ex-girlfriend before you left?
Oh, yes, yes. There's no way I can really get around that because, yeah, it's like I had the love letter on me.
I had the photo on me. It was almost like my whole life since the breakup had been leading up to that point.
And I thought there was closure in the whole tension in the relationship as soon as I did that.
So it was a very kind of... it was a good thing to do. And I kind of recommend that other people do it too.
Most people.
Yeah.
You might start a tourist boom in the Ivory Coast for demented lovers.
OK, we'll go to John Story now in the Ivory Coast.
Here's a photograph of my ex-girlfriend.
Here's a love letter from my ex-girlfriend.
Let's go visit an African voodoo priest, shall we?
MUSIC
Um, I was wondering if you could put a curse on my ex-girlfriend.
MUSIC
I was wondering if you could put a curse on my ex-girlfriend.
MUSIC
He's not the chief of the village, but he's the chief of the fetish.
That's only him.
While the priest places the curse, he concocts a paste of soup and human spit, which I must later rub on my face.
What's he saying?
He said the girl is very beautiful.
Geez, rub my face in it.
Oh, she's so beautiful. She's so pretty.
Whose goddamn side is he on anyway?
Got some African voodoo priests can be jerks.
I don't even believe he put the goddamn curse on her.
She's too beautiful to put a curse on.
I'm going to go get another one.
MUSIC
OK, I'm at the chicken market at the moment because for the curse that I want to put on my girlfriend,
apparently I have to sacrifice an animal and I can either sacrifice a chicken or a goat or even a dog,
but I know if I did a dog, you'd just all cry there at home and I couldn't face standing that.
So I'm just going to do a chicken.
And don't judge me.
What, you don't eat KFC?
Listen, can I just point out that after the chicken is sacrificed, that the priest eats it with his family.
So in reality, if you strip away all this animus belief and stuff,
I'm actually what I'm doing is providing a poor black family with a meal for the night.
So unless you're a vegetarian who doesn't wear leather shoes, shut the hell up.
You give the picture.
Give the picture to who? To this man?
So I talk to the chicken.
Yes, you talk about your case.
Oh, so I've got to like say like why I think she's OK.
Chicken. Does the chicken have a name like the name of a goat or something?
No, just a chicken.
It's just a chicken. And I can speak in English.
Yes.
The fetish spirit understands.
Chicken.
I'd like to put a curse on my ex-girlfriend because she's a...
You heard that Dire Straits song, Romeo and Juliet,
because there's this line in that song and like just whenever I hear it, it just seems to like sum up everything.
It's when Mark Knopfler sings, you promised me everything.
You promised me thick and thin.
But now you say, hey, Romeo, yeah, I used to have a scene with him.
And that's basically my case.
Please put the curse on her.
Chicken?
No, you can give her the man.
I give the chicken to the man.
You know what I do?
He said if you can help the man to get happiness in your case, he gave you, give me the sign.
Do you think it was fair to do something like that on national TV?
Well, I didn't like identify her in any way.
And I'm not sure I quite have the powers with the higher forces to actually, I mean, I hope I do,
but to actually like for the gods to be listening to me to make a person suffer just because I say so.
But I hope they did.
And that's another, that's an example of like looking at ethics in a vacuum.
I just say, you know, no one, you know, I just say she was like totally awful to me and then I just do this one awful thing.
It's like no one's seen everything that's gone on beforehand.
Just this one little minor little thing.
Yes, yes, yes.
Like sticking pins into a doll.
Okay.
You say don't judge me in that film, but you do seem to invite that response in your stories.
Yeah, I guess so.
I just wish like it wasn't like judged in a vacuum, like implying that everything else that goes on around,
like for example, the other seven races, like it's just a given that everything they do is ethical and therefore.
See, I think I've caught you out here because you did apply for the race saying you were going to be the whiny guy.
If you refuse to whine on your own behalf, that's the thing.
Like if you should have whined and sort of built your case up a bit more perhaps.
Oh, yeah.
What do you say?
I was a moral or a ethical.
No, no, I just think you didn't want.
I didn't.
Yeah, no, no, I did.
I kind of like I try to, you know, go a bit basey, a bit more kind of Barry White as that kind of race went on.
I didn't.
I really didn't want to be kind of I am aware of that kind of little in my voice.
I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to mellow out a bit.
I wasn't talking about that at all.
I was actually talking about you speaking up in defense of yourself and and explain the moral context of your actions.
That's right.
But I kind of I kind of like intentionally didn't because I just thought it make it a bit kind of self-righteous.
I reckon I could have got off the hook for so many of the docos, like for especially the religious ones.
If at the start of it, I said, oh, isn't it bad that the church is or, you know, the church is homophobic or the church is sexist.
Therefore, I'm going to do this as a kind of, you know, revenge thing and then everyone will have gone, oh, yeah, I can understand, you know, why I did it.
But I just can't give a fuck, you know, being kind of self-righteous like that.
So I just kind of do it.
You were by a long shot the most accident prone racer.
I can I interrupt?
Yeah.
Can I interrupt?
I really don't think I was.
I reckon I reckon at the start, kind of like they're in the race around the world kind of production office.
So kind of like trying to give us all characters like, you know, from the young ones like, oh, he's the punk and he's the hippie and, you know, or, you know, like the spice girls or something like that.
You know, there's baby spice and there's posh spice and stuff.
So, you know, I was, you know, I was accident spice or whatever.
And like everyone else screwed up so bad.
I can't tell you there were so many screw ups, but they kept them, you know.
A secret from the office.
Yeah, they kept it kind of like a secret.
They didn't announce them on camera.
It was with me kind of fitted in with being accident spice to kind of announce, oh, John, he's lost another limb in a landmine.
OK, we'll have a look now at John getting baptized in the Ivory Coast.
This next documentary is interesting in so much as my parents will be committing suicide at some point during its screening.
This is me walking down the street carrying a crucifix.
Let me explain how it happened.
Two days ago, I was trekking to a forest in the Ivory Coast.
And in the middle of nowhere, I stumbled across this Protestant church.
Bingo, I thought.
Now I can do one of those blah, blah, aren't black people interesting documentaries that always win big points?
I approached them and purely to break the ice, I jokingly asked them whether they'll baptize me.
They asked me whether I'm serious.
And in one of those split second decisions, that can change your whole life.
I can't believe it.
I'm going to become a black Protestant.
OK, we're taking this van down to the river where I'm going to be baptized.
Baptized.
Baptized. Are you going to be baptized too?
Yes.
This is the pastor.
He's going to be dunking us in the water.
This can't be the river.
I don't know what I was expecting.
Yes, this is the river where you'll be baptized this morning.
Yeah.
You have to take off your gown before you're baptized.
You're going to take an oath now.
No, the right hand.
You're going to repeat exactly what he's saying.
What are you going to say?
Seigneur, Seigneur, Seigneur, Seigneur, Seigneur.
John is going to be the one who's going to be baptized.
John is now being led to the cross in the water.
John, be flexible. Don't be stiff.
John.
John, I baptize you.
John, baptize me.
In the name of the Father.
In the name of the Son.
In the name of the Holy Spirit.
John has just been baptized.
John has just been baptized by the Father.
John is going to be getting off the water.
To perform his sermon.
Yes, John.
Now finish with the sacrament.
Thank you.
I'm a black Protestant.
John, the pastor is saying that you have accepted to be baptized in that church.
And I search for a member of this church until death.
Maybe you go back to Australia.
We'd like to form a branch of this church there.
You know?
Amen.
There were a few complaints about that story, but there seems to be a genuine underlying
religious curiosity at work there.
Do you think that's true to say that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, basically I'm about the only person under, you know, 35 in Australia who is even
interested in religion.
So, you know, I don't see how, like, religious people can hassle me.
And, but I kind of do.
Like, but it is a curiosity.
Like, I am questioning.
I'm not, usually I'm not dismissing, like, anything.
I'm just, like, bringing it up for, you know, exploring it myself or whatever.
But, but, like, I'm not like an atheist or anything.
Like, I wasn't there going, oh, these Baptists are totally wrong.
And I'm here exposing them.
Like, maybe they're right.
And I mean it genuinely.
Maybe they're right.
And it's just to kind of question it.
It'd be great to see some Compass specials from you, I think.
I think so.
Or maybe, yeah, shooting a few Christian Television Association commercials.
There's lots of Switzing.
Oh, how's my Yiddish, by the way?
Is it OK?
Switzing.
I mean, you've got the river water in there.
Were you genuinely worried about that?
I kind of was, yeah, because it burnt, like, it really burnt like petrol.
Not that I know what it's like to be covered in petrol.
But, like, it wasn't like just the eyes or the cuts in my skin that felt the kind of the pain.
It really was like my whole body felt kind of tender.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, it was like, oh my God.
And of course you were an olive skinned brunette before you went into the Baptists as well.
To be used as a seventh layer.
Yeah.
And I went for showers afterwards and I just couldn't wash it off.
And now every time some kind of like gargoyle grows on me, I'm going to think it's some kind of latent thing going back to that.
And it's Baptist God being very angry at me.
And now we're going to see the famous exposed mixed grill story from John in Jerusalem.
Growing up Jewish in Melbourne, there was one Jewish miracle I was told about on more occasions than any other.
For geographical reasons, the overall Dismal St Kilda Football Club is huge amongst Melbourne's Jewish community.
And when they won their one and only grand final back in 1966,
the Jews claim it was because in that year the grand final fell on the same day as Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
The theory being there were so many Jews in synagogue praying that day, how could we not win?
This was always presented to me as some sort of irrefutable theological proof that God was Jewish.
Well, I'm going to put it to the test.
Round 22 St Kilda versus Port Adelaide.
Can I use Jewish prayer to determine the outcome?
These are Tefillin boxes which religious Jewish men wrap around their arm and head for morning prayers.
I'm outside the Western Wall, which is the holiest place of worship for the Jewish people.
As you can see, they stick on little messages in the cracks, which is meant to be some sort of direct line to God.
Anyway, here's my round 22 footy tips.
I'm going to be putting them in the cracks and I hope God's going to be listening.
When you're a little kid, there's nothing worse than when you accidentally kick the ball over the fence
and then the bastard who owns the place won't let you go over and get it.
Well, can I just say some things just never change.
I was here playing kick to kick at the Israeli border.
I've accidentally kicked the ball over the fence into Lebanon
and now those grouchy little Israelis won't let me go over and get it.
I was just playing kick to kick near the border and I kicked it and it went over.
Someone will shoot you.
I've always thought that the ultimate test of a fan's support for their team is the streak.
I have no fucking idea why I'm doing this.
This is quite scary. This is possibly silly.
Okay, just give me a moment.
Okay, I'm going to do it. Just give me a minute.
Oh my God, why am I doing this?
This is really silly and it's quite lowbrow also.
It's not clever.
Fuck it.
Oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing this.
You got busted by some soldiers. Tell us what happened.
I reckon I kind of half chickened out or something and I turned around and they just go, stop.
And stuff like that and they start screaming.
They say like every single swear word in a sentence.
They were just going, you're a fucking fuck face, shit head, fuck, fucker.
You know what I mean?
When people who like English doesn't flow correctly, they just don't squeeze every single swear word in.
I was just going, I'm just pranking and stuff like that.
And they're going, you shit head, shit face, fucker, shit, shit, fuck.
And stuff like that and just screaming. I'm just naked.
I probably didn't think it through quite as much as I should have.
I imagine they get all kind of like weirdos there and to them it could have been,
I'm distracting while someone else is planting a bomb or whatever.
With this next story you're stooped to polluting the name of the great Walt Disney,
a man who's brought so much pleasure to millions of little kiddies.
How do you sleep at night having done that, John?
This was actually the one I felt kind of not guilt about, but I just thought,
oh man, this is like classic kind of ABC target, attacking American imperialism and capitalism.
I actually was thinking that if I did all my stories with all the usual suspects,
like just saying Americans are dumb and making fun of Americans and stuff like that,
no one would have criticized it even if they felt exactly the same stories.
Like that baptism one I would have done in America with this deep south kind of Baptist group or whatever.
You don't want to go, oh there's him, yeah, he's showing us that Americans are stupid,
but you know, you do it with any other culture and therefore it's not typical
of the usual kind of fun Australians make of people overseas.
Are you honestly trying to tell me that there may be double standards in Australian media?
I think so.
You're putting that to me.
And particularly on race around the world.
John, do you want to take the opportunity to apologize to the kiddies of Australia?
I am.
In the next story.
I'm really sorry and I don't know what came over me.
If this is the happiest place on earth, how come I'm so miserable?
Oh!
Hey, I'm thinking of becoming a make-believe character.
How much do you get paid an hour for being a make-believe character?
Well, you think I make-believe?
No, no, I mean I personally believe you, but there'd be sin.
You do? Well I think I'm pretty real.
I hope, I hope it's home from Earth we go.
I hope, I hope...
Okay, this is the It's a Small World Ride presented by Mattel,
which lovingly presents little dolls from all nations of the earth.
Except oddly Iraq.
I couldn't find any Iraqi dolls there, so I thought I'd rectify this little oversight.
I've made myself up a little Saddam Hussein doll, which I'll be placing on the ride.
Now this exhibit called The Walt Disney Story tells the life of Uncle Walton,
but according to this biography by Mark Elliott,
it glosses over a few uncomfortable facts about him.
So I've made up a few of my own plaques, which I'll be placing there.
In 1940, Walt became an official FBI informant,
reporting on colleagues he felt were un-American.
Before World War II, Walter, renowned anti-Semite,
attended meetings of the American Nazi Party.
I'm sure they're going to take a few days to spot.
Just enough time for some questions, if anyone has any questions,
or a Disneyland or anything like that.
Just give a little holler and I'll do my best to either make up an answer or...
Do you have a question? Yeah.
Is it true when Walt Disney died, they froze his corpse to thaw out?
Later on, when medical science advances?
Is it true that Walt was frozen for the cryogenics?
A lot of people have heard that, and it is a rumour.
It's not true. How do I say this? How do I say it nicely?
He was cremated. Any other questions, Alfred?
So is it true that Disney employees aren't allowed to have any facial hair?
I'm home, I'm home, it's home from Earth we go.
I'm home.
Walt Disney decided he didn't want to have any facial hair on any of the men.
But he had a moustache.
Unfortunately, he did not want anyone else to have a moustache.
You've got a bit of a goatee going on. I don't know.
I might have to talk to management. You could be in big trouble.
So tell me the truth, Donald. Do you ever just want to eat the crap out of these little brats?
Never. No matter what they do.
Even if they pull at your feathers, kick you in the butt, hurt you, degrade you.
The problem with most travel shows is they don't tell you the stuff you really need to know,
like how to get into Disneyland for free.
Around the back of the park runs a freeway.
Climb into the hole in the fence near the freeway turn-off.
Walk along, climb on through the window to the repair centre, and voila, you're in for free.
Then you go through this entrance.
He was the creator, the inventor. He was the one behind all of the magic here at the Kingdom.
Your story from Rio never went to where because of the use of hidden camera in a confession booth.
How did it feel to finally make unbroadcastable TV?
It was kind of like fun on one level because it annoyed so many people at the ABC.
Logistically, they had to pull the filming of the show, as you well know,
and had to ring up 200 people at the last minute and tell them not to come in for the audience
until management made a decision on whether to run it or not.
From that point of view, I enjoyed it thoroughly and I found it quite amusing
because I was having nervous breakdowns in Sydney and I was just relaxing in Melbourne
and them ringing me up every couple of hours.
Here's for the big, soppy, serious question, John.
How has the whole experience changed your life? Has it changed your life in any way?
Yeah, I think kind of, I don't know, for whatever reason, you know,
putting yourself out and making yourself vulnerable and not particularly showing your best side
kind of really kind of makes you a better person.
I reckon most of the people who got on the race just want to be documentary makers
and they're kind of forced in front of the camera and they didn't really want to be in front
but it's like, fine, I'll do it and stuff like that.
And then they had to deal with all the consequences of that, like people saying,
oh, you've got a fucked personality and it's like they never really wanted to be judged on that.
You know, and I also, I reckon a few of the racers are kind of finding it difficult to hack, you know.
That's certainly true. You do get comments from people where they suggest that,
oh, that person, oh, I hate that person. It's kind of strange, isn't it?
Yeah, and it can be different if they kind of like me where they kind of set themselves up to be attacked.
But like a lot of them kind of didn't, they kind of, and they didn't even really want to be in front of the camera
but you know, people starving in the world, so a bunch of whiny middle class brats complaining that
as well as getting a free holiday around the world, they didn't quite go exactly as they wanted to
because they wanted to be universally loved too. You know, it's a bit rich really.
Yeah, fair enough.
They should just shut up and if any of the others whine about it, just…
They can call you and you'll tell them to shut up.
Yeah.
John, what would you like to be doing in the future?
Well, presently I'm trying, I'm undermining you behind your back by, you know,
trying to get the host slot in next year's Race Around the World.
You bastard.
John, I don't know how to say this mate, but I love you, mate.
I love yous too.
That was the final episode of the Best of Race Around the World.
There'll be a new series later this year.
Coming up tonight, the news.