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00:05G'day folks it's Kenny Smythe here. Now I know what you're thinking. What's your ugly
00:09muck doing on me zombie box? Well some jokers in TV land reckon I know a thing or two about
00:14dunnies and when the idea of celebrating the UN year of sanitation popped into the scones,
00:19guess I got a lot with the job of hosting the show. So come and explore the septic
00:23wonders of the world with me. Welcome to my world, Kenny's world.
00:51New York City, USA. Boy oh boy, I feel like I know this city inside out. Because when I was
00:58growing up,
00:58I saw it on the big screen, the small screen and just about every screen in between.
01:02The majesty of John D Rockefeller's art deco dream is everywhere.
01:09Well if ever I decide to chuck in my job as a plumber, I'll come here and work as an
01:13electrician
01:14changing light bulbs. The Big Apple is totally bananas. Hot dog on a cold night, that's how it works.
01:22What are you from? I'm from Australia. It's a crazy town, mate.
01:26That was a good hot dog. Yep, it's total sensory overload here. And I can't get enough of this.
01:33Sweet loo, New York City. Oh mate, that is fantastic. You know,
01:38old blue eyes got it right when he said it's a city that never sleeps. But sadly,
01:42old fat Gus here has to. Because come morning, I'm going to Pooh Central.
01:49Welcome to New York's answer to Splashdown. Only a little bigger. How much bigger? Well,
01:55if my workplace was a Jack Russell dog, this joint's a woolly mammoth. It'll eat it for lunch.
02:00Yep, the Mr. John Company is the largest port-a-loo company in the world. And I'm
02:05beginning to feel like Alice in Thunderland. How many single toilets have we got all up?
02:09We got about 8,000 toilets. Hello, 8,000? 8,000. 8,000. 8,000? Yeah, 8,000. That's unbelievable.
02:17Clearly, thousands are very popular wood around these parts. We're doing about 12,000 unit services
02:23every week. This is a 21,000 gallon transfer station. We pump about between 200 and 250,000 gallons a
02:31day.
02:31A day? A day. Okay, now mass has never really been my best subject. But using my little number
02:36crunchy thing here, that's nearly 350 million litres a year. That's one million per day. Or,
02:43as we say in the industry, a shitload. And this baby here is the flagship of their fleet. Which means
02:49that boom can pull a bowling ball from 20 feet in a pit all the way up. You're kidding. A
02:54bowling ball?
02:55What the hell are they feeding the people in this country? And their Peterbilt trucks. Yeah,
02:59Peterbilt's like the Mercedes of the truck industry. It really is. They're the highest end trucks that you
03:03can buy. We have five full-time mechanics on staff. I want to give them everything that they need to
03:08get their job done effectively, efficiently, all day, every day. It's unbelievable. It was at this point,
03:13I had to go and excuse myself and use one of Mr. John's johns. Not for mother nature. I just
03:17had
03:17to go and have a little cry. That's it. We're in 50 minutes. Once I finally got over my poo
03:23with me,
03:23I was introduced to the long lost brother I never knew I had. Hey mate, here you going. Kenny from
03:27Australia.
03:28Dan Kelly. So what have they got you in charge of here? Everything. We take care of the chemical
03:32and the water and the sucking of the septic so the vehicle's ready to go out the next day
03:37to suck more septic. Yeah, yeah. Yes, my new brother Dan is just a man to teach any skeptic
03:42the joys of septics. Yeah, you don't want to spill this stuff. And just like Australia,
03:47there's no picking order in poo. And when there is a spill or an accident of any sort, everybody gets
03:52together chips in. Yes, the language of sanitation is global. But unfortunately, so is the issue of
03:58public perception. Do you guys have the same problem with, I guess, the stigma of what you do
04:03with the public? Well, you know, we have all different kinds of customers. We have some customers
04:07that don't appreciate what we do and yell at us and make rude comments to us. But then we have
04:14other
04:14situations like when we responded to the September 11th tragedy, people were cheering for us and the
04:19trucks were rolling down the street. And you could see everybody clapping and very excited that we
04:24were coming in with portable toilets for the rescue effort. We deployed about 500 toilets in 24 hours.
04:30And at the peak, it was 750 toilets on site being cleaned every single day, seven days a week,
04:36weekends, holidays, everything. And that was for the emergency workers? That was for the emergency
04:40workers, Red Cross, rescue and recovery effort, et cetera, et cetera. You know, it's a little known fact
04:46that sanitation is one of the most important things to get onto a disaster site as soon as possible.
04:52Even though it's a shitty job, we still want to make sure we do it the right way.
04:56Mate, it shows, mate. It really does. I thought you might be interested to see this. You can see
05:01a police officer here looking for a transvestite bank robber in one of our portable toilets.
05:08Well, shall I go and fill in a form? So if next time I come from America, I'll come and
05:12do a bit of
05:12overtime. That sounds good. Mate, I work for two beers. Wait until the boss finds out,
05:16I'm moving to America to work for you. You want to move to America? You got to go.
05:19And I'm just going to jump into one of these Peterbills now with the keys.
05:22I'll sign it up for you. If you could, that'd be great. All right, let's go.
05:29Did you know the FBI have a branch called ToilSec? Their sole role is to follow the president
05:34around wherever he goes collecting his crap to check his health, diet and to make sure he hasn't been
05:39poisoned. I kid you not. Now, ToilSec aren't the only people that handle high-powered dunnets.
05:48Here in Oklahoma at the Biklahoma Biker Rally, there's one portal there that stands out from the pack.
05:54Now, this Thunderbox is well and truly heavy on the thunder and it's the pride and joy of a one
06:00Paul Hot Rod Stender. And to call him a jet setter is an understatement. I've got a Jet Sea Dude,
06:06Jet Dragster, Jet Funny Car, got a real big giant jet beer truck, a jet pickup truck, fastest truck in
06:12the country, 392 miles an hour. Found a J79 engine. I have an F-16 fighter jet. Found a bus,
06:17got to make
06:18the two together. Next thing you know, we're going to have a jet school bus. All kinds of hot stuff.
06:22It's all powered by jet engines. But the hottest shade of the meat is this bike. Let me give you
06:26a quick
06:27tour of this thing. As you can see, I'm sitting on a toilet seat, which on turn is sitting on
06:31top of a
06:31Boeing turbine engine. And around me, I'm kind of surrounded by fuel. My urinal I use to fill it up,
06:37my propane here for my big stack fire. And over on this side, I've got a compressed air tank that'd
06:42be
06:42for the big parts to smell the back. What all that means is this nugget bucket can travel over at
06:47110
06:47kilometres per hour.
06:56And when Paul's not on the runway, he heats things up with a couple of donuts on the grass.
07:02Yep, this little shitty, shitty bang-bang puts on a smoking hot show. And didn't our cameraman know it?
07:12If the crowd thought they'd seen it all, they were mistaken. Paul had one last trick up his sleeve.
07:25Now that's what I call a burnout.
07:30You know, it takes a brave man to set a motorbike on fire at a biker rally. Let me tell
07:35you.
07:35And if he ain't brave, well, he's just gotta be crazy. People call me crazy all the time. I guess
07:40they're
07:40probably right.
07:44So it's up, up and away from the US of A, and we're on our way to Rome. Land of
07:50pasta,
07:50pizzas and popes. And which one? Which one means death?
07:55Italy. Land of gladiators and popes. This is the Vatican City. And measuring in at just two square
08:02miles makes it the smallest country in the world. Good place to come if you want to get married on
08:06the
08:06sea. There's priests everywhere. You know, the Pope's headquarters here is often referred to as the
08:13Holy Sea. And I can certainly see why.
08:17Oh, I didn't hear that. Look at that. I don't know whether someone's just blasphemed or, you know,
08:25used God's name in vain, but that was a hell of a thunderclap. And to hear that right here,
08:30I reckon that might be the phone of God. I was beginning to think God's tears were hitting the
08:38deck because of me. Because as soon as I cleared Italy, so did the clouds. Either that or it's just
08:44God's way of keeping the area clean. Who knows? But I was grateful anyway, because I was on my way
08:49to
08:49the Coliseum to check out some man-made water management. It's just hard to believe that this
08:53here was built in the seventies. And I'm not talking about the seventies with the flared trousers,
08:57the bad facial hair and the wacky haircut. So I'm talking about 70 AD. And this is where
09:02people used to come and watch all the Christians playing hide and shriek from the lines. And if the
09:07lines didn't kill them, my good mates here, Parry, Toby and Trevor here used to come and
09:11make a big meal off them. So, it's all good here.
09:22Have a look at this shot, will you? What would it have been like? You know,
09:26people packed to the rafters watching lions and tigers chewing on bits and Russell Crowe
09:31screaming and slashing that it would have been actually, it sounds bloody horrible.
09:35But, you know, the plumbing system here was more than impressive. If you can believe this,
09:40they equipped this stadium with a plumbing system so sophisticated, they could actually
09:45flood the whole arena here so they could stage real life boat battles.
09:52See all that there? That's all the underground tunnels. And over there, they've actually built
09:56a little bit of the arena floor to give you an idea of where that would have been. But that's
10:00where all the lions and Christians would have run around underneath. Run around it, right? If you've got
10:04a line behind you and stuck in a tunnel, you'd do more than run.
10:07You know, with all that sophistication, it's interesting that one bit of plumbing they didn't
10:12organise was the public toilets. Wouldn't that ride your sandals? You race off to splash your boots,
10:17come back and you've missed out on Leo the lion's feeding time. Thank you all. Thank you mate.
10:21You know, the Coliseum is amazing. It was originally built by Vespasian back in 70 AD,
10:25but he didn't live long enough to see it finished. It was actually finished by his son,
10:30Tidass, er, sorry, Titus. But Vespasian did have one of the claims of fame. You know,
10:35the Romans used to have a thing called urine tax. It was originally the idea of that little bloke Nero.
10:41Pots from people's homes were emptied into big cesspools. That urine was recycled for
10:46tanning leather and dyeing cloth and bleaching laundry. Then, Vespasian came along and extended
10:53the tax to the use of public toilets. Not a popular boy. In fact, his political career
11:00nearly came to a crashing end when he fell asleep during one of Nero's concerts.
11:09Hey, what's the matter for you? Why do no one ever remember me as the guy who rebuilt Rome after
11:13the fire? Or constructed the first aqueduct? Why is everywhere I go? Oh, look, here comes the sleepy
11:19P-tax guy. That guy ain't driving me crazy. It would appear some things never change.
11:26I've dropped in for a squiz at the bars at Caracalla. Thousands of bathers at a time could
11:30enjoy the public facilities here. All 13 hectares of it. Huge pools, gardens, exercise rooms and even
11:37a library. This place used to use over 20,000 cubic metres of water per day. All delivered from
11:44its own special aqueduct. I reckon if I'd have been around 2,700 odd years ago, I would have been
11:48flat out.
11:49You know, there'd be a lot of work for plumbers back here. And for slaves as well. Kept in the
11:53basement,
11:54putting charcoal into huge ovens to warm the water. You know, one interesting fact is that many toilets
11:59were located in Roman kitchens. I guess that way you could probably bake two different loads in two
12:03different ovens at one time, if you know what I mean. Did you know that social interaction was a
12:08big thing in Roman times and many official senate meetings were actually held in communal toilets,
12:13with everyone doing a group hook? Gives a whole new meaning to Parliament is sitting. All right.
12:20The Romans were the first to use metal pipes to plumb water throughout a city,
12:24but unfortunately they chose lead. And lead happens to be a neurotoxin. Some scientists
12:29reckon this may have created mass poisoning and even contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire.
12:34What you're effectively looking at here is the world's first lie detector. Now legend has it,
12:39you put your hand in its mouth and if you tell a lie, it bites your hand off. And what
12:44people don't
12:44realise is they're being braver than they think because what this statue actually was originally,
12:48was the lid off one of Rome's sewers. Anyway, let's give it a go and see if it works.
12:52Was that a true story? No, it is a true story. Effectively, they're putting the hand in the toilet.
13:00Later I visit a gallery in Luxembourg to see an art exhibition that literally stinks.
13:11I'm smack bang in the centre of Rome in a place called the Forum Magnum. And knowing that Gluteus
13:17Maximus is my middle name, I managed to crack it for an interview with the one John Hopkins,
13:21an American expert on all things Roman. This is essentially the hub of the city,
13:26the nexus where everybody would come for the markets, for the law courts, for pretty much
13:31anything. And before the Coliseum was built, this is where they come to watch a nice gladiatorial
13:36spectacle. The thing that got me interested in this is, I don't know how to pronounce it probably,
13:42I'm going to say clacca, but it's cloaca, is it? Cloaca. Now, it's the sewerage part,
13:45and I'm led to believe, is it one of the oldest in the world? It's not the oldest in the
13:49world,
13:49but it's one of the oldest in the Mediterranean. And it's the only one that still functions. This is
13:53sewer that was built 2,700 years ago. 2,700 years. Wow. My dad's tall, it's only 60 years old,
14:02and it's already fallen to bits. But then again, the cloaca maxima did have a bit of help. There
14:06was a goddess named Venus Cloacchina. Now, Venus is the goddess of love. Venus also happens to have
14:12been a goddess of purification. And would that have been a thing of pride? Like, I just can't
14:16imagine in a modern generation, someone going, Britney Spears, we just want to know if you're
14:20keen to be the goddess of silvers. I can't imagine her entering that call, Madonna, whoever. I don't,
14:25I know, I don't think they would. There was a temple for Venus Cloaca. Right. And that was where
14:31people went to purify themselves. The stream ran past, and then that became the sewer,
14:35and then that's how she became the goddess. Exactly. Exactly. That makes more sense to me,
14:40because I actually thought she might have got the raw end of the deal when they're handing out,
14:44you're the goddess of fire, goddess of love, Venus, you get the sewers.
14:50I tell you, she must have been a pretty good goddess, because the sewer is still running today.
14:54Came down here, and sort of takes a left here, and goes straight up this road here,
14:58and you can actually see there's another man all coming right there. Yes, back when Julius
15:02Caesar was still inventing salad, these sewer systems carried around a hundred
15:05thousand pounds of sewerage a day. I mean, Rome may not have been built in a day,
15:09but what they did build stayed built forever. Look at this, this is probably only about five
15:13years old, and this has already fallen to bits, and their stuff has been here for 2700,
15:17they're still standing up. Mind you, without the threat of crucifixion now,
15:22I guess standards were bound to drop a little. Speaking of pain, my stomach had the hungers,
15:26but I had just the solution for that. Hello, sir. How are you? Good, mate.
15:30Special today, ravioli. You know ravioli? I know, but mate, we're cousins.
15:35I was born in Melbourne. Oh, right. My heart, half Italy, half Aussie.
15:42Yeah, it's a small world. I just wish a lot more of it, which like Rome.
15:49Not bad. And so I'm on my way to Luxembourg to follow the Cloaca Trail, but not by sewer.
15:59Yes, it's time for me to get my head out of the gutter and into the wonderful world of high
16:04art.
16:06A world where I would normally feel as out of place as a bike at a beauty pageant. You know,
16:11my dad would never take me to art galleries when I was a kid, because he reckons most art was
16:15nothing
16:15but crap. Well, here in Luxembourg, there's one artist who's quite literally taken that to art.
16:20Welcome to the world of Wim Delvoir. Now, he was nowhere to be found, which is a good thing,
16:25because quite honestly, his work stinks, and so it should. Why?
16:29These machines produce shit. Yes, folks, you heard right. They produce shit.
16:34Laugh and giggle you may, and you probably will, but what you're looking at here is serious art.
16:38Now, what this machine does is it completely reenacts, if you will,
16:43the entire digestive system of an average human being, right from the input stage,
16:48through to the, if you know what I mean. How is in the casino gallery here,
16:54are seven generations of fully functioning Cloaca poo machines. Everything from the prototype,
17:00to this big mama here. And the shit is coming out here.
17:03So the shit comes out here. This is kind of a comment on consumerism.
17:07Yes, about consumption, and our marketing system, and all these things he's using,
17:14as if he was selling a normal product. It's an interesting idea, really. Basically,
17:20Wim feels that we've all become consumer crazy, spending huge sums of money on producing,
17:25manufacturing, and selling shit. And so, he's doing the same. He's obviously got a bit of a sense of
17:30humour. Obviously, over there, he's got the Coca-Cola lettering with the Ford background,
17:34and he's mixed all those logos together. And like all good brands, he has his own line
17:49of products. They've actually got a shop where you can buy souvenirs and stuff. Have a look at that,
17:53it's a whole pyramid. That's fantastic. Clearly, Wim is no struggling artist, but I had to ask,
17:59where does he find the money for all these projects? Besides the shit. People buy the
18:04shit that comes out of the Cloaca machine? Yeah. He's doing a selection of the best sheets. That would
18:09be a heck of a Whitman sampler packet, wouldn't it? Now, you too can own a very important piece
18:15of contemporary art for a bargain price. He wants to make a family pack now. The family pack of shit.
18:20Be smart. Buy Cloaca shit now. And so now you can buy your very own Cloaca poo packs with an
18:27initial
18:28investment of 3,000 euros, and you can go on to earn about 1.3% interest, which isn't bad
18:33for crap,
18:34when you think about it. Isn't it funny that my dad said a certificate ain't worth shit? Well,
18:38here's the proof. It is. Impress friends and family. See how this rare product enhances your
18:45inner self and social standing. Look at that. Hey, that's Wim there. So you can have your Barbie,
18:50your Ken, and your Wim. Have a look in there or I'll nut it up.
19:04Did you know the birds, reptiles, marsupials, and amphibians poo and weed from the same hole caused a
19:11Cloaca? Charlie, your baby's got a full nappy, mate. Meet Charlie. He's in charge of this
19:17chocolate factory of sorts. He cares for these babies as if they're his own. In fact, he calls
19:22him his baby. Your baby's got a bigger belly than me, Charlie. But if he's too thin, he cannot be
19:27a consumer and economically he's not a good baby. Right. What sort of baby was I, Charlie?
19:33You're very good. Economically, you're very profitable. Profitable. I like the words you're
19:40using. In Australia, they're telling me I'm fat. I'm very profitable. Very economical. Not fat.
19:45So, Charles, we're heading off to the restaurant now to actually grab the food to feed the machine.
19:50Feeding, all right? We ended up in a five-star hotel. Isn't that unbelievable? We literally walk
19:55into a five-star hotel and they have a meal prepared every morning to feed the machine.
20:00Thank you very much, boys. See you later. Yeah, thank you very much. We'll see you soon.
20:04And you know, I even had a little food suggestion of my own. I just wanted to know if you
20:07could
20:08do me a bit of a favour and add a favourite food of mine. I'd pretty much live on these
20:12things.
20:13Yeah. Come, come here. Here we go. We're away. All right, so when do you know it's time to feed
20:19the
20:20machine? Just waiting for the baby to step ahead. I don't know why the baby should cry. The baby should
20:24be
20:24laughing. You know, there's irony in Charlie feeding these expensive machines these expensive meals. In his
20:30own country, in Africa, there's millions of people who can't even afford this kind of food. I guess
20:34that's the point of it. What Wim's saying is how can we go on making such pointless, huge expensive
20:38machines that produce nothing but crap when around us there are people starving. I'll wait here. I'll
20:44wait here and mind the baby. If this thing starts crying without Charlie being here, I don't know
20:47what I'm going to do. What do I do? Tap it with a screwdriver? All right. Oh, that's the baby
20:52crying now
20:52and Charlie's not here. Oh, Charlie, it's just started then, mate. Just started. Right. In goes
21:00the 4 and 25. Okay, so Charlie's explained to me how the system works and I'm going to have a
21:04go at
21:04explain it to you. So, to be ahead, there's the mouth up here and here's where they chew the food
21:09up.
21:09That's right. So, chews the food up and once food comes in, the machine swallows the food and then we
21:13enter the stomach. It starts to add some acids in, mixes it up through here, different parts of the
21:19stomach here. We eventually get to the part here, which is where they add bacteria to it.
21:24Yeah, you're doing pretty well. And then here is when we start to add the enzymes and ashes here
21:30and then we get to, finally, it comes out here, which is actually the rectum and then once it does
21:35that, the hydraulic piston here pushes it out. And voila, you've got yourself your very own little
21:42bum biscuit, fudge nugget, whatever you want to call it. Now, one thing I am going to do is just
21:46shut this door because I must admit, you've got to admit, that's a little bit funky on the nose.
21:50Funky.
21:51And lucky that thing can't smell. Yes, as funny as Wim's exhibits are,
21:56you do leave with more to think about than just that fair stench.
22:04Well, folks, that's it for now. Join me next time when I travel to the land of pointy buildings,
22:09Egypt, where the least of my problems are visiting mummies. Dad?
22:13Well, who do you think it was? Lawrence of Arabia. Of course it's your dad.
22:17So, take care, be good to yourselves, and hey, give a stranger a smile, eh? Good on yous.
22:26I'm just trying to think whether I'd rather be at the yard pumping 10,000 litres of
22:30the mud biscuits into a sewer or sitting here in Italy having a glass of wine. Just give me a
22:34minute
22:34what you think about that. I'm going to stay here.
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