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Rewind to 22 Jan 2006 to 28 Jan 2006

🎤 High school musical rewires your personality
Disney drops a made-for-TV movie and accidentally creates a global tween religion. Zac Efron becomes your entire emotional support system, Sharpay steals every scene and ‘We’re All In This Together’ is suddenly being belted at school assemblies by kids who previously refused to raise their hand in class.

🕵️ Fake rock, real spies
Russia accuses British diplomats of spying with… a hollow rock full of electronics. Agents crouch to ‘tie their shoelaces’ while secretly uploading data. The UK denies everything. Everyone pretends this is normal diplomatic behaviour and not the plot of a rejected Bond film.

📧 Spam king gets wrecked
AOL sues notorious spammer Christopher Smith for clogging inboxes with miracle pills and ‘urgent business proposals’ and wins US$5.3 million. The CAN-SPAM Act finally swings into action and somewhere a Hotmail inbox breathes a small exhausted sigh of relief.

🦷 Grillz go mainstream
Nelly’s Grillz hits #1 in the US, officially turning dental jewellery into a cultural event. Suddenly everyone knows a guy who can get them ‘done cheap’ and your cousin is Googling ‘gold teeth near me’ on dial-up.

🧛 Leather, lore and Kate Beckinsale
Underworld: Evolution rules the US box office with slow-mo gun fights, ancient vampire drama and industrial blue-grey vibes while Memoirs of a Geisha enchants Australia with sweeping tragedy, Oscar buzz and very complicated cultural conversations.

🎬 Disney buys the future
Disney announces it’s buying Pixar for US$7.4 billion and accidentally sets up the next decade of Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Inside Out and Frozen. Bob Iger chooses the smartest cheat code in media history.

📚 The book everyone pretends to like
The Hostage tops the charts and delivers 700 pages of government meetings, diplomatic intrigue and one-star reviews begging for mercy. Thrilling if you love bureaucracy.

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🧻 Wikitorial wipeout. The LA Times tried letting the public edit their editorials. What they got instead? Porn, profanity and chaos in 36 hours. A short-lived democracy, quickly replaced by Ctrl+Alt+Nope.

🦇 Batman begins again. Christopher Nolan ditches the bat-nipples and gives us trauma, ninjas and a Batmobile that could eat your SUV. Christian Bale growls, Katie Holmes dodges bats and superhero movies grow the hell up.

🧢 Ned Kelly gets heritage listed. Glenrowan, site of Ned Kelly’s final standoff, gets heritage status and an unofficial side hustle in car decals, mailbox toppers and calf tattoos that say “such is life.” Iconic outlaw, small-town merch king.

📻 Open up the boombox! We dissect the old addage, 'if it's not one thing, it's another!' as we air your boomer complaints.

🎮 Xbox 360 arrives. And so does Sid, the kid! Launch day chaos as the 360 sells out in hours. HD gaming, Xbox Live 2.0, achievements — and soon the dreaded Red Ring of Death. Microsoft’s win… with a billion-dollar asterisk.

🧪 Two Aussies, one Nobel and a beaker of bacteria. On a snowy Stockholm night, Dr Robin Warren and Professor Barry Marshall rewrite medical history — and humiliate decades of gastro dogma — by winning the Nobel Prize for proving stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress or spicy food. Marshall seals the legend by drinking Helicobacter pylori like it’s a schooner at the pub, getting sick, then curing himself with antibiotics. It’s the most chaotic, iconic, unbelievably Australian science story ever told.

🐸 A Frog is born (and it feels good, man). November 2005 saw the debut of Matt Furie’s comic Boy’s Club — and with it, the birth of Pepe the Frog. Back then, he was just a chill stoner amphibian with bad aim and good vibes. Twenty years later, he’s meme history — proof that even frogs can’t escape the internet’s chaos.

🐥 Chicken Little takes flight. Disney went fully digital for the first time without Pixar and served up Chicken Little, starring Zach Braff as the sky-is-falling featherball. It made $315 million, confused adults, delighted kids, and marked the moment Disney said “we can animate on our own!” (spoiler: not quite yet).

📚 Outlander gets extra saucy. A Breath of Snow and Ashes drops, and readers drown in time-travel, romance, and kilted chaos. Critics beg for fewer butts, more plot. Claire and Jamie? Still can’t keep their hands off each other.

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🐶 Who’s a cloned boy? Snuppy the Afghan hound becomes the world’s first cloned dog, born after 1,000 embryos, 123 surrogates and more ethical debates than a philosophy major on Red Bull.

🎤 Mariah's not-so-comeback. The Emancipation of Mimi drops and Mariah Carey reminds us she never left — she just needed a minute, some stiletto cardio and 14 guest producers. We Belong Together = world domination.

🚋 Tram Boy’s joyride. A 14-year-old Melbourne teen hijacked a Yarra Tram and drove it like a seasoned pro—manual track switches, passenger pickups, even PA announcements. His smooth run ended in a high-drama arrest and he became an instant folk hero.

🧢 Jay-Z drops luxury time bombs. Hov teamed up with Audemars Piguet to launch his own Royal Oak watch line with only 100 made. If you snagged one in 2005, it came with a preloaded iPod and a truckload of clout. Today? You’re sitting on six figures, easy.

Tatts all folks! Tattoos from the early 2000s are making a comeback and we're wondering if they ever went out of style! 📣 B-A-N-A-N-A-S.Gwen Stefani clapped back at Courtney Love with a cheerleader chant for the ages. Hollaback Girl hit the charts and took over high school halls everywhere. You couldn’t escape it — not in gym class, not at prom and definitely not on your Motorola RAZR ringtone.

⏳ Flashback within a flashback... within a 'best of' episode! T minus 20 gets meta as we throw back to a time when we were babies on the radio with none other than the man who inspired the character of Kramer from the hit show Seinfeld.

📺 Logies, lies and live TV glitches. The 2005 Logies were the chaos we deserved. Rove won everything (again), Chris Hemsworth got his moment and Channel Nine lost the broadcast right before announcing the Gold Logie winner. Also, shout-out to the whitegoods prize pack from voting - nothing says Aussie TV like a blender with your ballot.

🐕 And do kids even get chased by dogs anymore? We tackle the big questions when we open up the boom box.

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🧃 Belle Gibson enters Mel’s comments section

In one of the most unexpectedly cursed timeline moments of the year, Mel gets fact-checked by Belle Gibson — yes, that Belle Gibson — after she jumps into Mel’s Instagram comments to correct something she said. A wellness grifter policing accuracy is peak internet irony and a reminder that sometimes the comments section really is the wild west. No green juice was harmed but Mel’s disbelief absolutely was.

🐊 The internet’s first viral earworm (thanks, Schnappi)

Before TikTok, before YouTube ads, before your sanity… there was a dancing cartoon crocodile singing in German. We revisit Schnappi, the accidental global hit that proved the internet could launch nonsense into the stratosphere — and never look back.

🎧 Boomer ASMR: guess that nostalgic sound

From dial-up tones to Windows error dings, we play the most chaotic game imaginable — identifying tech and pop culture relics by sound alone. It’s soothing, triggering and wildly humbling for everyone involved.

⚛️ Did we almost create a black hole?

Remember when the world briefly panicked that a particle collider might end existence as we know it? Same. We revisit the week science headlines went full apocalypse and somehow lived to tell the tale.

💔 Delta, Brian McFadden and peak tabloid side-eye

A sharp rewind to the moment Australian pop culture turned extremely judgmental, as Delta Goodrem found herself unfairly labelled a homewrecker. A reminder that 2005 tabloids had absolutely no chill.

🕊️ A pope dies, smoke rises and the world watches

White smoke, black smoke and global anticipation as the Vatican farewells Pope John Paul II. A rare moment when the entire planet paused to watch a chimney.

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📹 A dating fail that created YouTube

Before it hosted cat videos, K-pop fancams and the entire cultural output of Gen Z, YouTube began as… a dating site. In 2005 its founders uploaded a “hot or not but for love” concept that failed spectacularly, pivoted to “upload anything you like” and accidentally built the biggest video platform on Earth. From grainy webcams to billion-dollar buyouts, we revisit the wild birth of a website that rewired culture — and our attention spans — forever.

🇪🇺 Europe says ‘non’, 50 Cent says ‘go shorty’

The early 2005 EU Constitution vote sparks political meltdowns, referendum chaos and enough diplomatic angst to qualify as its own Eurovision entry. Meanwhile 50 Cent drops Candy Shop, hypnotising the world with a beat so sticky it probably violated trade regulations. It’s geopolitics meets club banger — the moment Brussels bureaucracy collided with the slinkiest track of the mid-2000s.

✈️ 67 hours, one pilot and zero sleep hygiene

Steve Fossett pulls off one of the most jaw-dropping aviation feats of the decade: the first solo, nonstop, nonstop (yes, twice) flight around the world without refuelling. Sixty-seven straight hours sealed in a carbon-fiber capsule with snacks, oxygen tanks and the energy of a man who simply refuses limits. A record-breaker, a headline-maker and pure early-2000s daredevil energy.

📝 The gonzo goodbye to Hunter S Thompson

In February 2005, journalism loses its wildest voice when Hunter S Thompson takes his final bow. The inventor of gonzo reporting leaves behind a legacy of chaos, counterculture, political rage and some of the most electric prose ever put to paper. We look back at the man who turned journalism into performance art — and whose influence still echoes through everything from documentaries to Twitter rants.

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🌴 Summer mode, nostalgia maxed out

We’re hitting pause on the weekly time machine to bring you a sun-soaked sampler platter of the most unhinged, delightful and ‘I can’t believe that actually happened’ moments from this year’s T Minus 20 episodes. Grab a Frosty Fruit, slip-slop-slap and settle in — because this is the year in rewind, but make it chaotic, sparkly and aggressively early-2000s.

🎸 Ryan Cabrera and the reality-TV fever dream

Ah yes, the Ryan Cabrera episode — the one where we discovered the man behind ‘On the Way Down’ was also on his way through some of the most wonderfully bizarre reality-show plotlines of the 2000s. From the Ashlee Simpson relationship arc to the hair that defied both gravity and good products, this was peak celebrity-music-MTV crossover energy. The perfect time capsule of when pop stars doubled as plot devices.

🕴️ Prince Harry’s party-store disaster

Then we revisited the royal scandal that truly broke the internet in 2005: Harry turning up to a costume party dressed as a Nazi. The global outrage, the tabloid pile-on, the palace damage control — every single part of it felt like watching history facepalm in real time. And in hindsight? It became one of the earliest signs of a royal era unravelling.

🍦 Wendy’s: the pink-tiled paradise we didn’t appreciate enough

And finally, a love letter to the Wendy’s of our youth — the hotdogs warming proudly on those stainless-steel spikes, the cheese that defied physics, the Funtime ice creams dipped in sprinkles that stuck to your face for three hours. It was chaotic. It was pink. It was perfection. Australia absolutely fumbled the bag by letting this icon vanish, so we’re officially launching the Bring Back Wendy’s movement. Hotdogs on spikes for all.

🌞 Your perfect summer catch-up episode

Three nostalgia bombs. Zero homework. Peak chaotic energy. The ideal warm-weather listen while you’re at the beach, stuck in holiday traffic or avoiding awkward small talk at a BBQ.

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Rewind to 11 December 2005 to 17 December 2005

🏖️ Cronulla hits boiling point

This week in 2005, Australia watches in shock as long-simmering tensions in Cronulla erupt into one of the country’s most confronting racial flashpoints. Years of beachside friction, talkback radio fury and mass-forwarded SMS hype collide on a scorching December Sunday as thousands gather at North Cronulla. What begins as a “community protest” flips into an alcohol-fuelled mob draped in flags, chanting slogans and attacking anyone who “looked wrong.” Police are overwhelmed, media crews are swarmed and by nightfall Sydney braces for retaliatory violence across multiple suburbs. Australia wakes up the next morning shaken, ashamed and suddenly questioning the myth of the laid-back, sun-kissed, everyone-gets-along Aussie beach culture.

❄️ Narnia brings the winter blockbuster magic

Amid the chaos of real life, cinemas deliver the exact opposite: snow, whimsy and one very dramatic lion. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe continues its global domination, giving mid-2000s kids their own fantasy franchise to obsess over. Tilda Swinton reigns icy and ethereal, Mr Tumnus becomes an unexpected Tumblr boyfriend before Tumblr even exists and everyone leaves the cinema wanting to open every wardrobe in the house just in case. It’s the cosy, snowy escapism 2005 didn’t know it needed.

🎤 Bert Newton signs off and Australia loses its 9am dad

After 13 years of cooking chaos, advertorial mayhem and the nation’s most joyful backstage banter, Good Morning Australia wraps for the final time. Bert Newton farewells his TV kingdom with Belvedere by his side, Karen Moregold reading the stars and a studio full of people who absolutely know they’re witnessing the end of an era. It’s peak Aussie comfort TV — messy, warm and utterly unrepeatable — and its departure leaves a beige 9am-shaped hole in the national routine.

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Rewind to 4 December 2005 to 10 December 2005

🧪 Two Aussies, one Nobel and a beaker of bacteria

On a snowy Stockholm night, Dr Robin Warren and Professor Barry Marshall rewrite medical history — and humiliate decades of gastro dogma — by winning the Nobel Prize for proving stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress or spicy food. Marshall seals the legend by drinking Helicobacter pylori like it’s a schooner at the pub, getting sick, then curing himself with antibiotics. It’s the most chaotic, iconic, unbelievably Australian science story ever told.

💻 Digg goes full Web 2.0 chaos

Before Reddit ruled the internet, Digg was the king of user-driven news and this week it launches Digg Spy 2.0, a real-time firehose of votes, comments and story submissions. Web nerds lose their minds, websites crash from sudden traffic spikes and everyone gets hooked on watching the crowd in action. It’s early Web 2.0 energy at its finest: fast, messy, addictive and very “tech bros in cargo shorts discovering the future.”

🍬 The Laffy Taffy ringtone reign begins

D4L unleashes “Laffy Taffy,” the snap-music anthem powered more by ringtones than radio. Teens pay $3.49 for 14 seconds of sugary chaos, Billboard starts counting digital downloads and suddenly the song is climbing the charts like an acrobat. Minimal beats, finger snaps and a hook comparing women to stretchy candy = peak 2005. It becomes one of the best-selling ringtones of the decade and a pre-TikTok blueprint for dance-driven hits.

🏆 50 Cent and Green Day dominate the Billboard Music Awards

Live from Las Vegas, LL Cool J hosts a night where 50 Cent collects six awards (and accepts over the phone like the king of 2005 he is) while Green Day match him with six wins of their own. Kanye declares himself the greatest, no one is surprised and the MGM Grand becomes a time capsule of mid-2000s swagger, eyeliner and ringtone-rich pop culture.

🎡 Wheel of Fortune spins again… briefly

Channel 7 revives Wheel of Fortune with Larry Emdur bringing dad-at-a-BBQ charisma and Laura Csortan adding glam energy and actual interaction (a revolution for the format). Viewers love them but the ratings don’t. By 2006 the wheel stops spinning and reality TV officially eats Australia’s early-evening game shows for lunch.

🔪 Hollywood gets stalked in the new Alex Cross thriller

James Patterson’s latest Alex Cross novel sends the FBI’s favourite detective into a Hollywood murder spree, complete with chilling emails from a killer named Mary Smith. Critics? Brutal. Readers? Also brutal. It’s the kind of mid-2000s airport thriller designed to be read on a long flight then instantly forgotten at the hotel.

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