he isn't wearing a red t-shirt!!! 😲😲🤯 Put a ton of dip to white colour dissolves in this one - taking a page out of the Matt and Tom's Park Bench book...
For context, University Challenge is a cultural institution, and has been running in pretty much the same format since 1962. The teams are normally comprised of current students, but they let celebrity graduates on for the Christmas specials. It is very dry and very difficult, but given how many flashy quiz shows there are on British TV, that makes it a bit of a tonic. The host, Jeremy Paxman, is probably the most famous and revered journalist in the country. He's known for his sharp wit and relentless interview style - if you want a crash course, watch his interview with Conservative politician Michael Howard, or the brilliant news satire The Day Today, where Chris Morris is basically doing a Paxman impression. Parkinson's disease has unfortunately robbed him of the wry barbs and sharp tongue he used to inflict on contestants - he's stepping down from the show next year.
Thank you for the educational, albeit somber, bit of knowledge. I am glad to have watched at least one of these shows hosted by such a man as Mr Paxman
You're right. I always thought of it as awkwardness but that's a better way of putting it. When he knows he's right he can hardly contain the satisfied smirk lol.
@@BlueZirnitra there is a reason he is the one who had to figure out why other where lying and not himself. as he admits he is terrible at deceiving others.
@@deyadeeznutz sounds like a breach of protocol on wikipedia's part if true, aren't they only supposed to reference "legitimate" company sources, not be used as a source reference by those "legitimate" companies. or is that a breach on the shows' part? I'm confused now
@@5ilver42 As for the wikipedia thing, the reason he has an article in the first place is because he is (or was) friends with a Wikipedia admin, so they might have gone a bit overboard just to embarrass Tom
@@5ilver42 Wikipedia is supposed to only reference reliable sources, there's no general rule that says other sources can't take information from Wikipedia. Yes that does mean there's a risk of circular referencing - this is just something editors have to watch out for and try to avoid case by case.
It was really cool to watch, the teams were "professor, professor, professor, and also Tom" and he not only held his own, he really stood out. I get that some of that was honed quiz show technique, but as a fan I was a little proud of him all the same
@@kyle-silver diodes that do not emit (visible) light. A diode is a device with an anode and a cathode that passes current in only one direction - originally in the form of a vacuum tube (other popular tubes are triodes and pentodes), later in the form of semiconductors. The LED is a special variant. The schematic symbol shown is a diode with two arrows next to it, the arrows signify light, you can also sometimes have components where those arrows go inward (like phototransistors and photodiodes), which vary their function depending on light being present.
It's still got nothing on the seriousness of "Mastermind", though. Sat in a spotlight, on the "interrogation" chair, with the theme of "Approaching Menace" (yes, that's what the Mastermind theme tune is actually called).
university challenge is known for being one of the oldest, stuffiest, and weirdest gameshows in existence, and most people in the uk have never even watched it, but know it through parodies like the famous young one's "scumbag vs Footlights".
I love how, on a team of 50+ year-old professors, Tom is not only the captain, but a worthy leader of his team, a man seemingly tailor-made for quiz show success. The only limiting factor is, I suppose, memory, because he does so many videos (and writes so many scripts), that I would imagine some of it is bound to go in one ear and out the other, as it were. Still, being in his late 30s, that shouldn't be an issue for at least a decade (likely longer). I was, however, expecting him to turn in his red T-shirt for a red velvet suit (straight outta the '70s)...no such luck.
Ah yes, being a professor doesn't mean you have broad knowledge per-se, I worked in science (biology) and frequently explained my hobby (astronomy) to professors and PhD candidates who had no clue whatsoever. I always thought working in science, means you have a broad interest, but that's definitely not always the case.
@@VincentGroenewold working in science often means that you'll hyperfocus on a niche to stand out in that field. Standing out is sadly necessary to survive in that career, so it doesn't seem to be weird to me that they have deep but limited knowledge
He's 50+ is his heart 🤘Which is great, generation that is 30yo now are idiots (although not as bad as zoomers, of course, but compare to zoomers anyone is renaissance person)
@@BigChiken44 you must not know a lot of people younger than yourself if you talk like that. You can only completely disregard 2 whole generations like that from a perspective of ignorance. But it doesn't matter what I tell you, I'm just a worthless, no-good "zoomer." Happy Holidays to you. I hope you're not this bitter all the time.
All of you are talking about how cool and amazing it is to see Tom on here, I'm just amazed to see him wearing something other than a red t-shirt or grey hoodie!
Always loved University Challenge. Unashamedly clever - no gimmicks, no real elements of chance, no huge prizes - just a quiz stripped down to its utter basics. Anyone who's watching this and thinking it's hard should bear in mind that this is the easier Christmas special series. If you get an answer on a typical quiz, it means nothing. If you get an answer on this, you feel like you've achieved something - especially if the contestants don't get it.
I was going to ask. I could hold my own on this and got quite a few right. Seems very dumbed down from the normal show where I'm happy to get 2-3 questions right all show 😅
My dad has been playing along while watching for as long as I can remember. I'm going on 29 soon & he has always kept note of his score on any paper at hand. He often does quite well, sometimes even comparable to the teams themselves. He takes it quite seriously too, getting annoyed & angry when you distract him while he's watching it. I used to play alongside him a little bit, but at most I would get two or three of the answers right throughout the episode. Maximum I ever scored was 35 from a smattering of random knowledge I'd picked up.
My partner and I watch and try to play along, I get barely any right but the feeling when you _do_ get one is just pure dopamine. I'm happy if I get 3-5 right in an episode. However failing to answer correctly for questions about the discipline I studied is absolutely crushing.
I get that it’s a much more sophisticated and serious quiz show, but that doesn’t mean it has to be devoid of all life. Bit cringe to hear the “no”s from the quiz master that just sound like insults.
British stereotype at least. Do watch a regular one, you spend most of it with a "what the heck was that question?" impression on your face, and the rest screaming "how did they know that??". I'm not even joking. British stereotype = elderly well-dressed gentleman drinking tea with a RP accent British people = the bunch of cheerful students I came across on the London Underground, dressed as pirates for probably someone's birthday, on their way to a pub. (though in retrospect there's a tiny chance that was on the Talk Like a Pirate Day)
I raise you another game show Tom Scott has appeared, Only Connect. Very stereotypically English, dry, serious and intellectual. In fact, we would just call it very BBC2.
The introduction is so awkward, I love it. I realised while watching it that I didn't know what year he graduated and was curious, but I guess he decided that he doesn't want us to know...
Considering Paxman has Parkinson's he nailed it, he will be missed on this show and I hope he can continue to boost awareness for it in his remaining years.
I'd not watched it for a couple of years, and when I saw a recent episode was shocked by how much Paxman had changed. I didn't know he had Parkinson's, but thought it must be something like that. Good on him for doing the show for so long.
@@jaapsch2 A new host has been lined up for the main show but he has done these specials for Christmas I guess as his final goodbye to University Challenge. Hope he can still find bits of TV to do moving forward
He did do the very important job of team management well too though. He was constantly checking in with the others, trusting others instincts, and keeping them measured.
Everyone talking about how this show is dry and serious, but as someone who is watching this for the first time I want to say this is invigorating. I could watch people doing trivia with no interruptions for hours, love this, and obviously, its always a lot of fun to watch Tom flex his endless pit of knowledge
Well if you want a back catalogue of it, University Challenge has been running since the 60s (except for a small break in the late 80s/early 90s). Paxman has unfortunately lost some of his edge due to Parkinson's but has hosted it since it started again in 1994.
Lots of people in the comments are lowest common denominators who need a 'quiz' show with flashing lights, gimme questions and more attempts at humour than actual questions set than this. They'd rather watch The Wheel with 10 easy questions per hour.
I know next to nothing about anything so I can't really comment on the show but I just love how animated Tom is compared to the rest of them. That's one of the things I like about his videos too, he's just so lively and enthusiastic.
He's the team captain, it's his responsibility to answer the bonus questions on behalf of his team. That often makes the captains appear more animated or dynamic.
@@alexmckee4683 oh I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't mean it as a criticism of the rest of the team btw. It's just something I've noticed about him that I appreciate.
Hi people. Seeing all the comments about speech and transcription, mainly about Paxman, as well as the unprecedented views the video is getting, and Tom Scott's wise and passionate words about standardised subtitling, has led me to sensibly conclude that the video could do with some subtitles. They are now UP, ENJOY!
Monk should be Munch, and Hoksai is Hokusai. Non-native speaker here just wanna say thank you and thought you’d appreciate these corrections just as Tom Scott himself would.
Heh, I am another non-native speaker who would have written in the exact same corrections. :D Good job on the subtitles otherwise, as far as I can tell!
There’s a difference between just not being flash and being devoid of all life. Tom made it bearable, mostly just the small details about how the quiz master spoke makes him seem like a tosser, and very stuck up.
@@MrRowntree27 as if basically all other british quizzes are either hugely flasy with a big stupid prop, clock, or other thing, or is infact a comedy panel show, or both
There is nothing more delightful than watching this video and knowing that there exists a video of the Tech Dif crew called The Experiments wherein there is a several-minute segment dedicated to making fun of Jeremy Paxman.
A quiz bowl is fairly accurate to how this Quiz show is, it's a no-nonsense fact show with some extraordinarily tough questions with some of the countries brightest people
A bit of trivia: University Challenge is a rare example of a British adaptation of an American TV concept. It started in 1962 but its roots can be traced to College Bowl, which started in 1953. There are lots of British programmes that have been adapted for an American audience but not the opposite.
As someone who does quiz bowl, which is essentially the same format as this show, another buzz a moment before you are expecting your own buzz can be very surprising, especially with how tense it must be to do this on the BBC.
well... unless you read electrical diagrams or remembered your science/ "craftman" (workshop-type) lesson, I think most people wouldn't recognize it for it being relatively new and not often used even in school textbooks. I guess if by process of elimination, you could piece it together...
I knew the Bessemer one at 15:35 purley because it came up in one of the citation needed episodes which I recently rewatched. Was hoping Tom would get it, but guess you can't expect him to remember everything years later.
Like how he talked about postal bees in the Reverse Trivia podcast, but was still surprised that postal bee deliveries were an actual thing in the first Lateral podcast.
I like how passionate tom is about this. he's very excited to press a buzzer as soon as he gets the answer, and if he gets it wrong he just shrugs like "welp, i tried" and if he gets it right he has such a proud smile on his face
Tom is an enormous quiz show enthusiast. This is not the first time he's been on quiz shows on British TV, he's been on multiple different ones before this one. And also he makes his own quiz shows and publishes them on RU-vid and Nebula. I really wouldn't be surprised if Tom ends up hosting a quiz show for the BBC one day. He's already worked on BBC TV shows before, both as part of the crew and as part of the onscreen talent. So he must know some people there. And he's internationally famous as a youtuber. So yeah, he clearly would love to host his own quiz show on TV. And I hope that one day he's afforded that opportunity.
@@no1fanofthepals Which episode is this? (EDIT: it's the second latest xmas special). It's on IPlayer for well over a year, so it isn't getting removed anytime soon.
When I saw the faces of the team, I said to my wife "Hey, it's Tom Scott". And then he shocked me by not recognising a Light Emitting Diode! How will he ever live that down?
I bet Matt Gray will give hime a ribbing about it in the next run of TechDiff. Also, to be fair, as an engineer myself I would've given the 'diode' answer in a rush, not noticing those arrows.
@@LelouchVee Yeah, but when someone asks you to be more specific about a diode, the first thing I'm going to say is "light emitting diode." It's the only specific kind I can think of.
@@ZipplyZane anyway how many kind of diodes are there? i don't suppose it's more than 20... and the more common more than 5... I suppose resistor is a kind of diode?
I'll admit Tom is exaggerates himself a bit but no more so here than normal and I do thoroughly enjoy him, he's an efficient bloke and is smart enough to know this
Yeah like when this question came up I was expecting everone to buzz in. I learnt this pre-GCSE level. Not only that but its quite self explanatory given Tom knew it was a diode.
Apart from Tom, they all seem to be a bit older. It may not have been in their curriculum when they were in school. So unless they’re an electrical engineer they’d have to guess.
Once it happens please post the semi-finals with Tom! I’d love to see any time he gets to be on the show! We wanna see him win! Thank you for immortalizing this from a fan in the USA! Earned my sub to see future videos!
When someone like Tom is passionate and enthusiastic about what he knows and wants to share his knowledge with the world, that is a very welcome and admiral attitude to have.
Even if Tom struggled with geography and the Bolshevik Revolution, Tom's wealth of knowledge remains one of a kind and he definitely carried the team. They were lucky to have fine member of society like him. So the Straits in Straits Settlements refers to the significant Strait of Malacca, with Singapore being the most important Straits Settlement because one who controls Singapore, controls the strait's trade. Singapore was especially important militarily for the British. That's why Singapore's surrender to the Japanese was an embarrassing loss for the British. They believed the Japanese would invade from either the south or the northeast....they invaded from the northwest on bikes.
Always found University Challenge to be rock hard. I got 4 questions right in this video which I'm quite happy with although a few were just punts. Cool to see Tom on telly!
Brave to return to take part as a University Challenge alumni, when you have a reputation as someone who is knowledgeable and informed. Not so bad if you are an obscure author, but when you are well known, it must be daunting. Well done Tom. Well done York.
200 points to 45...didn't know public executions in the UK were still legal! Love the host's charm. Even with Parkinson's, Paxman still gets it done! Seeing Tom wear a different outfit other than a red shirt is so unreal. It's like swapping the head of a Lego minifig to a different body. It fits, but it just doesn't look right. Loved how Tom couldn't stop smirking at the beginning of the video! It was so funny to see him try to keep a straight face and eventually give up. And to be fair for the question asking about the conflict between India and which other country, when in doubt, it's usually Pakistan so I can't quite fault them for that.
And having seen heat 4 on Thursday... Tom and team York are definitely in the semifinals. There are still three more heats, so we won't yet know who they will face.
Genuinely great to see a RU-vidr who is intelligent and not just someone who reels off stuff they find on the Web. Also, I surprised myself on how many I got right myself
I love how Tom has the exact same reaction every time he buzzes in and gets the answer right, like he was bluffing the entire time. And let's be honest, he probably was.
Bluffing may be too strong a word for a competition that tests knowledge; it's "I think I came across this five years ago somewhere and I have no idea how I remember this so there's a possibility I got this wrong but we need an answer and we need it before the other team gets it so here goes."
It just goes to show how knowledgeable he is because he did English Lit at uni, and tbh a lot of the time humanities specialists on University Challenge don’t get much of a chance to shine because there can be a lot of detailed science and maths questions 😅
Thank you for posting this, it’s great to see. I love a lot of his videos, they are educational; and entertaining. Also I love this, yes it maybe dry; but as a person who is interested in learning it is interesting. Not only that, but I love intellectual shows/thoughts.
Tom was great, but Prof. Kind was also on top of it. Was bummed when they didn't catch the Van Gogh, but I couldn't remember the names of Hokusai and Bruegel despite knowing that they were the artists responsible. I don't have a good memory for names. This took me back to Scholastic Bowl in high school. Good stuff.
I love the questions they use on this show so much, the way they are worded lets you draw from multiple different general knowledge topics when trying to find your answer. They're difficult questions but the topics are far-reaching and significant.
I think he is both getting old, but also had trouble not speaking too quickly. He is used to rattling these words at a mad pace for young adults, but here it seems like he is straining himself to speak slowly. Though the getting old part might be more important.
@@tobyk8125 Yeah, I'm sorry. Just age never holds someone back, but there are many diseases that are much more common in old people, so that are 'old age diseases'. I just mean that he is less physically fit than he was years ago, but of course due to his disease not laziness or anything like that.
Wednesday the 28th and Thursday the 29th are the two semi-finals dates for anyone interested. With 200, York will likely make one of the slots. It will be interesting to see this live!
Could we get a pinned comment or something just make reference to Jeremy Paxman being diagnosed with Parkinson’s saves the number of he sounds drunk comments
When the question about the Bessemer steel smelting process came up I could almost hear (everybody's favorite) Gary Brannan shouting about "the hot steel and the boxes of knives" from their Citation Needed show about the SS Bessemer (a ship designed by the same man, that did not do nearly so much to increase his reputation as the steel smelting process did).
![Tom Scott on University Challenge (2022) [CC]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
