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John Safran still a sore point for Ray Martin

More than a decade after their infamous run-in, Ray Martin calls John Safran a "serial pest."

Screen Shot 2014-04-26 at 1.06.28 am.jpgAn interview Ray Martin has given to Fairfax indicates that his run-in with John Safran in the 1990s still smarts.

The incident, in which Safran confronted Martin outside his home, was part of an unaired pilot John Safran: Media Tycoon. It followed A Current Affair‘s branding of the Paxton family as dole bludgers. Safran claimed he was proving Martin was a bludger by being home at 9:30am.

“Where oh where is Ray?” he asked.

But the scene did make it to air on Media Watch, John Safran: The Lost Pilot and via YouTube and has since become TV folklore.

Martin today tells Fairfax it was ”a pissant thing to do at the time” and that a week earlier guards had been called to his house after a death threat following an ACA story on marijuana trafficking.

This is ”context without giving an excuse”, Martin says. ”[ABC chairman] Brian Johns apologised to my wife, sent a bunch of flowers and said … it wouldn’t go to air. Three weeks later, it did. I put my hand up for being thin-skinned about these things, because in this business there are cheap shots and what you throw at people you should cop, but it was just singularly unfunny to come along.

”I thought it was The Footy Show doing something. Andrew Denton tells me I’d like [Safran], but I don’t think so. He’s a serial pest.”

Safran has been performing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this month.

No word if Ray regretted that shirt, either.

14 Responses

  1. I agree with some comments here, he needs to get over himself. There have been quite a number of cases over the years where people have taken legal action against ACA for defamation because the stories presented about them were innacurate & their business & personal reputations have been ruined by it. Yet it doesn’t seem like Ray has cared about those peoples hurt.

  2. Loved watching that video again. Ray and his wife putting their hand over the camera. Great stuff and would of looked at home on ACA. I remember the Paxton story on ACA and was disgusted at the treatment of 18 year old Shane Paxton and his family. If Ray really wants this thing to go away he should apologize to Shane Paxton and his family. Ray seems like a really nice guy but he needs to man up to this if he wants closure.

  3. ACA can sometimes be very pious and hypocritical. For example their new campaign supporting Disability Support Pensioners and the right of people to access the Pension when, in fact, it was ACA which perpetrated the idea of the disabled rorting the Pension with hidden camera exposes. It was largely due to these stories on ACA and the campaigns by the Daily Telegraph that DSP recipients are now worried sick that they will have their pension taken away by Hockey and Abbott. And here is a tip ACA – yes, it is possible for DSP and compo recipients to go to gym and lift weights if they have a mental illness or are intellectually disabled.

  4. A book or a special coming up in the near future perhaps?

    Sorry but my B/S antennas always twitch when ACA is even mentioned, and this is despite the occasional excellent community benefits that come out of ACA.

    For example, one question is, who called/paid for these security guards and were the death threats limited in nature (ie specifically limited to an exact time and date etc), because if this confrontation took place only a week later, just where were these security guards at this time, or were they late because they also worked late the previous night?

  5. “The concept of waiting outside ray’s house for days is funny considering rays show did it all the time to others if they had done something wrong.”

    And who said they’d done something wrong?

    The not-so-subtle point that Safran was making was that shows like ACA and people like Ray were telling you they’d done something wrong – with absolutely no evidence to back it up apart from a manufactured backstory, scraps from their bin, and some grainy slow-mo zoom footage of them entering or leaving their own property.

    And the audience, the suckers, lapped it all up without questioning…

  6. True David ,but then again, if it is him, he is playing a character.

    “Norman” definitely has his moments – I find him amusing in small doses and it’s something John might well have done in his younger days..
    Voice and intonations are uncannily simiiar.

  7. All these years later….really?

    Love John and his pot stirring.

    Have a strong suspicion that John S. is also behind “Norman”, a semi-regular on the John Laws radio show who rings up and abuses Lawsie sporadically.
    Very funny and does wonders for Lawsie’s ratings…

    youtube.com/watch?v=rolbctiYVKs

    Sounds a lot like John. What do others think?

  8. The concept of waiting outside ray’s house for days is funny considering rays show did it all the time to others if they had done something wrong. But Ray had done nothing wrong if he was not out of the house at 9.30am… Given he worked until 8pm every night. According to safran therefore all shift workers are bludgers too. He is an idiot!!!!

  9. Mr Martin should get over himself. Whilst he admits to being thin skinned, he should also own up to whatever you dish out you have to be willing to take back.

    As for suggesting Safran is a “serial pest” well that’s plain nonsense. Safran has four AFI awards to his credit, and two international Rose d’Or nominations.

    Peter Hore is a serial pest.

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