What makes Andy Lee one of the nicest men on Australian TV?

There are occupational hazards to being as famous as Andy Lee, and specifically in being famous in the particular way that Andy Lee is. For he has built his celebrity on being the kind of guy you just want to hang out with. On the radio, and in the many TV shows that he and long-time comedy partner Hamish Blake have made, the overriding vibe is a couple of mates mucking about in a reasonably silly manner, and hoping you’ll care to join them. It’s a working method that has been remarkably successful, up to and including this year’s Gold Logie nomination, but it does carry with it the tendency of members of the public to feel like you really are the best of friends – and if selfie-seekers can be annoying, one can imagine they’re even worse when they come bowling up acting like they know you already.

The knack of talking to strangers has made Andy Lee one of Australia’s most adept TV performers.

At least, so was the assumption, but I reckoned without the Nicest Man On Australian TV being so … er … nice. By nature he gravitates towards the fans. “It comes from my dad: I think he just wants to meet everybody and wants to listen to everybody. Just is very quick to make friends. And I’ve always been the same, and Hamish is the same as well. I think that’s what has allowed us to do what we do. And the other part is, I’m so grateful anyone would ever listen or watch. And we ask, we share so much, so to not give that back the other way would be hypocritical.”

Not that there’s no downside. “You know who does get annoyed, and this is in the nicest possible way,” he muses, “it’s some of my friends and Bec (Harding, Lee’s partner), because when I go out with them and I bump into other randoms and we start having fun, I end up talking to strangers sometimes more than my partner and my friends. I do feel for them sometimes.”

The knack of talking to strangers has proven a valuable one, though, as evidenced by the fact that The Hundred, the panel show that Lee fronts and in which he consults a cross-section of Australians for their views and experiences, is coming up to its seventh season, preceded by an Olympic special airing before the Paris Games kick off. In a brutally cutthroat local TV industry, in which countless shows have been torn from the airwaves without even being allowed to see out their first series, it’s a massive success story, and proof of Lee’s crowd-pleasing charm, even when not part of a double act.

“I think one of the things I realise as I get older,” he says, “which is not just the fact that my hair is thinning and my pubic hair is going grey (the interviewer graciously declines to pursue this line of inquiry), it’s the fact that I didn’t realise how hard the industry can be. Hamish and I were just mates mucking around – we were working hard, but the shows got taken up quite quickly, and we had so much fun doing it and we were lost in that excitement. And probably now you realise that it is tough, so for The Hundred, it is an accomplishment to be able to get something to grab (the audience).”

It’s a mark of how well The Hundred has caught the public imagination that it’s been pressed into service for Nine’s pre-Olympics run-up (Nine owns this masthead), in an episode that is, for the host, a pretty big deal for more than one reason. “One thing that’s really cool about it is that in the past it’s been hard to get Olympics-themed things up outside the actual Olympics itself, [not] during the coverage, because the IOC have been very protective of their brand. Beijing was the first one I went to, in 2008, so this is the first time I’ve seen them in four Olympics or five be softer and less protective, which I think is a great thing. And I reckon it’s because they’ve seen how entertainment fused with sport helps those sports.”

Hence The Hundred Olympics Special, in which Kate Langbroek will represent Australia, Mike Goldstein America, and Guy Williams New Zealand. There will also be special guests like swimming legend Leisel Jones, who proves her courage by submitting to The Hundred’s judgement on how many people still recognise her. Overall the episode will be a valuable taking of the national temperature on Olympic issues of import, such as the vexed question of whether walking is a real sport. Where does Andy Lee himself come down on the matter?

Andy Lee has been nominated for the 2024 TV Week Gold Logie.Credit: Getty Images for TV Week

“Originally I said no, but then when I actually saw how fast they walked, I don’t think I could run that fast. Also, I think they’re always cheating. Like, it’s just gotta be. I don’t think there’s enough of those officials out there with those red paddles.”

The deep thought he has clearly put into the question demonstrates why he is the consummate TV professional. But perhaps the best illustration of why Andy Lee has won the public’s heart so effectively lies in his answer when asked for his favourite Olympic memory. Tracks and pools don’t come into it.

Instead: “Hamish and I in 2012, we were broadcasting out of London, and in the second week we had all the Olympians that had finished their events in my house in Islington, broadcasting live. So all the swimmers who have had their first drink in four years, and different people. My brother had a massive night and was asleep next door because our show was early in the morning. And we sent the Australian judo champion in there to wake him up by suplexing him in his bed, and he suplexed him a little too hard and put him through all the slats. It broke the entire bed of the rental company. So that’s my favourite memory.”

Makes you proud to be Australian.

The Hundred is on Nine, Tuesday, 7.30pm.

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