I once sat behind Richard Herring on a tram. I wouldn't have recognised him, only he'd chosen to sit directly next to a poster of himself that was advertising his tour.
Met Johnny Vegas randomly in a pub once. His TV personality is obviously somewhat exaggerated, but he was really nice. Chatted about going to see a show in a local theatre. Second favourite celebrity interaction behind Ian Mckellen.
I love Mawaan. He does comedy songs like 'Mango' and 'Are You Checking Me Out (Or Are You Just A Racist?)'. He also did a great sitcom called Juice which was recently commisioned for a second series. Not sure where it's available outside UK atm tho.
During Richard and Daisy's team task, Richard used the phrase 'does exactly what it says on the tin' which seemed to puzzle you. This is one of those things that doesn't travel well. It came about in a series of adverts that started in the 90's for 'Ronseal Quick-Drying Woodstain' (I know, such an exciting product), and their tag line was 'Does exactly what it says on the tin'. Somehow this captured the nation's imagination, and it's become a standard colloquialism in the UK for something that does exactly what it says it's going to do. A very effective ad campaign, although these days I'm not sure that many people could tell you what it was originally for - certainly among the younger generations.
that’s so funny i’m british and 21 and had absolutely no idea it came from anything haha it’s such a self explanatory phrase it had never even occurred to me that something specific might have started it
Johnny Vegas is amazing. Watch him on 8 out of 10 cats (regular, not Countdown). Oh my God I've laughed until I couldn't breath. Jimmy Carr brings out the best in him.
They definitely don’t try to arrange things for certain winners. Alex has said they don’t multiple times - and also, frankly, sometimes Greg’s thought process is so insane that it’s impossible to predict what he’ll rate highly
Certain tasks - liked timed ones - they definitely knows who wins....but for the most Alex doesnt know what Greg will decide to score until theyre in studio day of. However, there have been certain ocassions where I feel like they picked tasks based on who was participating. Like during Noels' season (was that 4) they had a lot of art based tasks that season.
16:30 - I don't think that they try to calculate the points ahead of time, but I do think they have a general sense of how Greg is going to score the tasks, and plan episodes accordingly. They definitely try to give each of the contestants an opportunity to win an episode (providing that they weren't shit house in every task), and they've been trying to make the "competition" aspect more of a thing in the last few years. The Australian version was especially obvious about it in season 1: Danielle should have crushed everyone, but some awful scoring decisions meant that it ended up being much closer.
This. That's my thought process, I think they try to give each contestant a good chance to a win an episode provided they don't eff up the prize and live task. (Looking at you, *spoilers*)
Im really enjoying your Taskmaster reactions. Ive got a few animated movie suggestions: Monsters Inc Monsters University Wreck it Ralph Ralph breaks the internet Megamind
Ordering the tasks so that certain contestants are able to win an episode would indeed be tedious, but not really any more than setting up and tidying up after each and every task - especially since a lot are tie-breaks so aren’t ever seen
My thoughts on the points allocation per episode ... if this had members of the public playing, it would be a heck of a lot stricter to ensure fairness and equality for all contestants. Particularly in the UK, there are a lot of regulations for game shows - with some of them getting into trouble for breaking them! But as TM is effectively a comedy/entertainment show, the absurdity of how arbitrarily points are awarded, including bonus points, or when some contestants have argued their way in and out of points, just adds to the hilarity. There's no cash prize at stake, just professionals playing for the glory, so yep, I'm with Alex, not much planning goes into them. It feels very much akin to Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Welcome to the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter
Filming all the tasks back to back has got to fry the brain by the end of the day so most contestants will have some poor efforts were they just want to go home.
It doesn't technically matter who wins an episode though or what order the tasks are shown in if the final result at the end is still a sum total. Regardless of who wins an episode, it won't have changed how the tasks will be scored in the past or future.
And because it doesn't affect the final outcome, nothing is lost by arranging the episodes so that most contestants have an opportunity for at least one smaller victory along the way.
