Joe Rogan Experience #2361 - Graham Linehan

Graham Linehan recounts how, after a celebrated career writing Father Ted and other British sitcoms, he became a pariah for publicly questioning trans ideology and defending single-sex spaces. He details lost work, a canceled Father Ted musical, police visits, lawsuits, divorce, and an upcoming UK trial, arguing the press and institutions like WPATH, the BBC and Wikipedia have suppressed the story. He and Joe frame the phenomenon as an internet-driven mass delusion akin to a religion or the COVID-era hostility. The back half of the conversation widens out to AI's coming impact on film, writing and society, declining birth rates and microplastics, and a long appreciative riff on Kubrick, the Coen brothers, Phil Hartman and live comedy.

• Linehan says the moment he started talking about women's rights, awards bodies and colleagues stripped 'absolutely everything' from him.
  00:13:25
• He has been fighting and litigating over this issue for roughly eight years and has been visited by UK police multiple times.
  00:21:13
• A Father Ted West End musical he calls his 'pension' was canceled after years of work.
  00:33:05
• Producers offered him 200,000 pounds to walk away from the musical with a 'clean break'; he refused.
  00:39:18
• Cites the 'WPath Files' by Mia Hughes, alleging the trans-healthcare body linked to a site hosting castration fiction tagged as minor.
  00:47:36
• Says he is moving to the US and is on trial in the UK in August over another activist's police complaint.
  01:17:34
• Reveals Rob Schneider brought him to the US to work on film projects, helping him secure a three-year visa.
  02:54:51
• Both Joe and Graham are 57; Graham says he tried stand-up and was effectively blacklisted from sitcom work.
  02:55:52

• The Harry Potter series has sold over 600 million copies, rivaling Bible sales but in one author's lifetime.
  00:28:58
• Linehan explains the historical 'urinary leash' that kept women near home before single-sex public toilets existed.
  00:18:36
• Joe cites Dr. Shanna Swan's research that people carry roughly a plastic-spoon's worth of microplastics in their brain.
  01:08:47
• Joe recounts the Rolling Stone ivermectin/ER hoax story illustrated with a misleading stock photo.
  01:12:24
• Tony Hinchcliffe was 'saved' during the racist-joke controversy because he had a recording of the entire set.
  01:18:36
• Kubrick shot Vietnam scenes for Full Metal Jacket on the London docks because he was afraid of flying.
  02:40:20
• For The Shining, Kubrick had an assistant type the full 'all work and no play' manuscript, plus versions in four languages.
  02:41:22
• Joe describes an AI experiment where a model 'obsessed' with owls transmitted that obsession to another AI using only numbers.
  02:30:03
• Father Ted's lead actor Dermot Morgan died the day after the final episode was shot, while the show was still being edited.
  02:36:44

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