Twenty years of twaddle: Why an old Ricky Gervais podcast is still topping charts

Twenty years ago, three blokes got together to launch a nonsense podcast about man moths and little monkey fellas going into space. 

People loved it - so much that it set a Guinness World Record for the most downloaded podcast at the time, marking the advent of what would become one of the most popular mediums of the 21st century.  

Called ‘The Ricky Gervais Show’, it featured British comedians and co-writers of The Office Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant encouraging the hilariously inane ramblings of former radio producer Karl Pilkington. 

The trio first met in 2001 while hosting a weekly show on the alternative UK radio station XFM, where Gervais quickly realised that Pilkington was an untapped comedy genius. 

“I liked him instantly, as he wasn't impressed by who I was,” Gervais told the Independent. “I think the first words I said to him were, "Why have you got a round head?" and he replied, "What shape's a head meant to be?" I laughed straight away, as he didn't go, "How insulting!" 

“As humans, we use humour to see if someone's on our wavelength and I felt Karl was the funniest man I'd ever met.”

Ricky, Steve and Karl - their collaborative content commonly referred to online by their initials ‘RSK’ - gained a cult following for their off the cuff and unorthodox broadcasting that included segments like ‘Freak of the Week’ and ‘Monkey News’, where Pilkington would share spurious stories he’d read on the internet about chimps performing human endeavours. 

This content was later offered as a podcast series by Guardian Unlimited, all five series totalling 300 million downloads by 2011 and made into a popular Hanna-Barbera style animated show.

A lot of the content has, admittedly, not aged well, with outdated comments on race,