QI XL Series 9 Episode 00 -- Making QI

September 8, 2022 7:47 PM

Originally broadcast in September of 2011, Making QI is an hour-long look at the beloved show. From its genesis to behind the scenes to favorite moments to lots of interviews and insights, this is a delightful look at a series which continues to continue even today.
posted by hippybear (40 comments total)

I absolutely love QI. Thank you!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:51 PM on September 8, 2022

Since it was made in 2011, the documentary doesn't have Sandy Toksvig as host, and I like her better than Stephen Fry.
posted by Peach at 7:53 PM on September 8, 2022 [7 favorites]

QI is one of TWO shows from the UK that need to be available in the US.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:03 PM on September 8, 2022

the documentary doesn't have Sandy Toksvig as host

But it does have her as one of the very many people they interview.
posted by hippybear at 8:10 PM on September 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

QI is one of TWO shows from the UK that need to be available in the US.

Do you mean aired or adapted? My understanding is that John Hodgman was pushing for it for a while, but was met with blank stares and shrugs from American networks and production companies. Of course, I saw (a bit) of what Taskmaster looked like filtered through American sensibilities, so we may have dodged a bullet here.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:32 PM on September 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

Good lord, no. I couldn't imagine an American version of a show where people might have to know (or learn) things (Alan excepted, of course, unless the answer is Blue Whale).
posted by Ickster at 8:51 PM on September 8, 2022

I don’t think the British Panel show format works in the US. I love these shows but it is kind of unique to how the UK has this gaggle of tv comedians who do the panel show circuit and seem to have hung out since doing footlights at Cambridge or some other tangential connection. They end up with this kind of chemistry when you put them together that doesn’t exist in the US.
posted by interogative mood at 9:39 PM on September 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

I love these shows but it is kind of unique to how the UK has this gaggle of tv comedians who do the panel show circuit and seem to have hung out since doing footlights at Cambridge or some other tangential connection. They end up with this kind of chemistry when you put them together that doesn’t exist in the US.

I dunno, I think Dropout, formerly College Humour, does an okay panel show kind of vibe with their series Breaking News, Game Changer, Make Some Noise (a Game Changer spinoff), and the soon to be released Play it by Ear (another spinoff based on the Zach & Jess episode of Game Changer). It's more a kind of panel show by way of whose line is it anyway, so less erudite and more improv hijinks I guess?
posted by juv3nal at 9:56 PM on September 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

I should note that "less erudite and more improv hijinks" is not, for instance, a million miles away from Josh Widdicombe & James Acaster's Hypothetical.
posted by juv3nal at 10:04 PM on September 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think "Would I Lie to You" is the British panel show most likely to succeed in a US version. We've got plenty of comedians, actors, and so on that can handle telling a rambling story -- they keep the Jimmy Kimmels in business. And it requires less chemistry between the contestants as long as the host and team captains have some. Get Craig Ferguson or Conan O'Brien to host and you're halfway there.

I'd love to see an American "Richard Osman's House of Games" but the fact is Jeopardy is the only trivia show that has worked here for years.

(QI is probably the second worst candidate after "Only Connect". I know I'm mixing up game shows and panel shows but my god, Americans' heads would explode.)
posted by mmoncur at 10:47 PM on September 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'd like to see Sandy Toksvig own Taskmaster.

I watched a few seasons with Stephen Fry, whom I love—but this just didn't feel like his gig, I just have liked him in other "roles". And I burnt out on the show pretty quickly, but I was glad it introduced me to so many of that Alan-Davies-generation of UK comics.

I do like the newer QI better though. Still got Alan Davies, too!
posted by not_on_display at 10:56 PM on September 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Since it was made in 2011, the documentary doesn't have Sandy Toksvig as host, and I like her better than Stephen Fry.

I adored Fry as host but I can just never get into Toksvig. Maybe it'd be different if she'd been hosting from the beginning but as it is I just keep waiting for her to leave and Fry to come back.

I don't think the US really has enough of the right kind of celebrities to make an American QI work. There are a few people who could host it but who would the guests be? They need to be really witty and reasonably famous, but not so famous that they wouldn't be on a show like this. Brainy comedians like Tig Notaro, Kumail Nanjiani and Pete Holmes could do it, but are they enough of a draw to keep the show on the air? Stars like Tom Hanks, Paul Rudd, Aubrey Plaza and Bill Hader could be great, but they're busy enough that it's hard to imagine them showing up with any regularity. I have a feeling it'd end up being hosted by Jimmy Fallon, the guests would be starlets and football players who'd giggle a lot about how they didn't know any of the answers, and it wouldn't last a season.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 11:12 PM on September 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

@ricochet biscuit

Aired or adapted? There is no way something like QI or 'Only Connect' could be adapted by US television executives. There would have to be someone winning a car or something. Plus it's frequently filthy, lots of religious gags etc.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 1:28 AM on September 9, 2022

A mix of Fry and Toksvig QI seasons are available in the states on Britbox (not free).
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:03 AM on September 9, 2022

Making QI, is it? Their QI Talk Forum, whc started in 2003, is a bit like Metafilter but leaning UK, as Metafilter leans US. Over there I am The Venerable User #29 and here Total Noob #303439. Back in the 00s, I posted some stuff that got incorporated into the QI script. [shows leg, sweeps off hat, makes gracious bow]
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:26 AM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]

> QI is one of TWO shows from the UK that need to be available in the US.

Do you mean aired or adapted?

Aired. Part of the appeal of QI for me is the exact mix of chemistry they've got already - yes, we do have comedians here, but only QI has that unique mix of elements that would lead to a moment with Ross Noble daydreaming out loud about wanting to spend an afternoon on the moon of Titan, throwing Ewoks into a lake of methane.

The other show I was originally thinking of is The Last Leg, which would be entirely too sentimental and heartwarming and inspirational if it were an adapted-for-US production. Adam, Josh, and Alex have their own unique chemistry, but also have a strong no-bullshit field that gets people over the sentimental approach quickly.

I also forgot the Graham Norton Show, which wouldn't be able to be reproduced here because there is only one Graham Norton in the world.

Those saying that the US doesn't do panel quiz shows like the UK does - we do have one, actually. It's just on the radio - Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. You've got the rotating stable of comedians, you've got the in-jokes, and you've got the riffing. And they also figured out how to square the circle about "prizes" - the contestants are playing on behalf of listeners, and the prizes are token things like a t-shirt or a personally-recorded message for your voicemail.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:44 AM on September 9, 2022 [5 favorites]

I think "Would I Lie to You" is the British panel show most likely to succeed in a US version. We've got plenty of comedians, actors, and so on that can handle telling a rambling story -- they keep the Jimmy Kimmels in business. And it requires less chemistry between the contestants as long as the host and team captains have some. Get Craig Ferguson or Conan O'Brien to host and you're halfway there.

How about Aasif Mandvi as host? And Matt Walsh and Sabrina Jalees as team captains? And what if it was on the CW? Spoilers on which team won which episode. And what did we discover? 22 minutes isn't long enough. It should have been on a streaming service.
posted by dannyboybell at 4:39 AM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

I suspect the big problem with making a US version is the relatively large amount of ribald humour (and particularly gay ribald humour which Sandi Toksvig has wonderfully leaned in to).

Stephen Fry was wonderful, but frankly Sandi has really blossomed, and she has obviously brought in more women panelists, it all just keeps getting better
posted by mbo at 5:01 AM on September 9, 2022 [6 favorites]

I'm also a big fan of Taskmaster, I avoided it for years,but finally realised that yes the world does need more surreal game shows and it's brilliant (the version here in NZ has also done really well)
posted by mbo at 5:04 AM on September 9, 2022

I also forgot the Graham Norton Show, which wouldn't be able to be reproduced here because there is only one Graham Norton in the world.


True. I recall decades ago when I was basically totally unaware of UK TV (besides seeing the occasional Monty Python marathon on PBS (and one station in southern Ontario that seemed to be cursed with playing lots of On The Buses), a schoolmate of mine who was an Anglophile and child of UK immigrants told me about Jonathan Ross’ late night show. He described Ross as “the English David Letterman” which does a huge disservice to both.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:04 AM on September 9, 2022

Remember back when BBC America had programming nearly entirely drawn from shows from the UK that we'd never see otherwise here? Now the criteria seems to be "if someone credited higher than "key grip" is from the UK, it can be on BBC America".
posted by hippybear at 6:07 AM on September 9, 2022

In the US you had Hollywood Squares and Match Game, shows that went on for decades, letting has been chuckle-miners retire in style with a cocktail on stage and a chance to riff with their peers. Paul Lynde, Nipsey Russel, etc, etc, etc.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:11 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm also a big fan of Taskmaster, I avoided it for years,but finally realised that yes the world does need more surreal game shows and it's brilliant (the version here in NZ has also done really well)

It has been adapted in several countries. I have seen a bunch of the NZ episodes as well as a passel of the Norwegian ones. It’s odd because the celebrities involved are all strangers to me, but the spirit seems to translate*.

I mentioned once before on the blue that there are a finite number of workable tasks that one might air and I have seen more than a few variations on the basic “manipulate these things in the middle of the carpet while not touching the carpet” that always sees people taping together rakes and pool cues and the like. The prize tasks, curiously, seem to never repeat: I have watched five Norwegian comedians each submit “something you didn’t think would be useful but you now find indispensable” and “something you borrowed but have never returned to the owner” — this last was great because two of the players were brothers, and one submitted and item he had borrowed years earlier from the guy sitting two seats along from him.

*Except for the fraught US version.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:13 AM on September 9, 2022

In the US you had Hollywood Squares and Match Game, shows that went on for decades,

In Canada, CBC Radio has had The Debaters on for years, which is within a hairsbreadth of being a UK-style show, but is not quite there.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:16 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

The UK also had an older generation of celebrity quiz shows that went on for decades. They too were full of end-of-career comics, sitcom actors, ageing crooners, and so on. Many of them are still being shown on Challenge - at least those that didn't feature too much casual sexism, homophobia and racism.
posted by pipeski at 6:30 AM on September 9, 2022

As parodied regularly on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: "Leeds galleries and museums may contain countless priceless artefacts, but keen-eyed visitors may also find here certain curiosities of no financial value, remnants from a bye-gone age guaranteed to kill half an hour. Let's meet the teams."
posted by crocomancer at 7:07 AM on September 9, 2022 [4 favorites]

I just realized that when I brought up The Last Leg, that I completely skipped over what it is. It's a news show with one "main host" and two "sidekicks" - think, like, The Daily Show only weekly - and two of the three hosts have limb differences; Adam Hill is an Australian standup comedian, while Josh Widdicombe is an English one; and Alex Brooker was entirely new to broadcasting when the show started. The show started in 2012 as a post-game daily wrap-up show during the London 2012 Paralympics, but the three hosts had such good chemistry that they kept the show going as a weekly news show.

And they have no qualms whatsoever about poking fun at each others' limb issues, or poking fun at themselves. They themselves describe the show as "three guys with four legs talking about the weeks' news." During a recent show, when they were discussing the cost of living increase, Adam Hill took off his own prosthetic leg as part of a bit to demonstrate the difference between "here's what the cost of milk was a year ago, and this is what it is now" (as they wheeled out a 20-foot-tall model of a prosthetic leg).

A show like that in the US would be all disability inspiration porn; and while The Last Leg does occasionally address disability issues in the UK, they are much more likely to riff on general news. Some of the stuff they did during the Trump administration saved my sanity. (Like here: they borrowed the Donald Trump figure from Madame Tussaud's for an afternoon for some scripted schtick.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:25 AM on September 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

My entry into the world of BBC Light Entertainment was watching the UK Whose Line Is It Anyway? some thirty years ago. I subsequently watched the ABC version when it aired. The moment at which I realized the gulf between the hosts of the British and American versions was when during a game where the players had to recount some story in the style of a particular author, Josie Lawrence (ha-cha-cha) announced she was going to do it in the style of Louisa May Alcott.

By was of explanation, she mentioned that Alcott was "notable for writing 'Little Women' and 'Little Men.'"

Clive Anderson added, "Yes, and little else."

Can anyone imagine Drew Carey or even Aisha Tyler pulling that one off?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:48 AM on September 9, 2022

I'm sure there are some American comedians who are as knowledgeable as David Mitchell but can't come up with one.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:32 AM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

I love QI. Tried to get my wife into it, but she skipped right off of it because it's not her form of nerditry. So, instead, I watch it here in my home office over lunch while she's off teaching literature to kids.

(Show streams via Britbox here in the States, fyi)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:36 AM on September 9, 2022

I think I read somewhere once that the (or a) big issue with airing the UK QI show on American TV would be the licensing for all the images they show on the screens behind the panelists.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:21 AM on September 9, 2022

You can watch QI on Britbox in the USA fyi.
posted by interogative mood at 1:32 PM on September 9, 2022

I love British panel shows, and QI is my favorite. I don't see it as a good fit for the US, it's too smart and too clever and nobody wins a speed boat. Even 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown is probably too intellectual for the US. We couldn't even make a decent copy of Top Gear, which given it's Fast Cars, Explosions, Light Racism and Misogyny, you'd think would be a perfect fit.
posted by doctor_negative at 4:07 PM on September 9, 2022 [3 favorites]

I'm sure there are some American comedians who are as knowledgeable as David Mitchell but can't come up with one.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:32 PM on September 9

Andy Richter comes to mind as a famously-smart American comedian. His appearances on Celebrity Jeopardy are kind of legendary, like the time he destroyed Wolf Blitzer.
posted by ZaphodB at 10:31 PM on September 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ken Jeong seems pretty smart. Tina Fey comes across as having a brain cell or two to rub together. But yeah, it’s hard to think who among current comedy sorts on this side of the water would fit in with UK panel show sensibilities. There are a few frequent North American guests — Rich Hall, Katherine Ryan, Reginald D. Hunter — but they have largely transplanted themselves to the UK and are not well-known here. I cannot even recall John Hodgman’s single appearance on QI, though I did watch it years ago.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:56 AM on September 10, 2022

I mean I think most of the original cast of Mr. Show e.g. were as *smart* as Mitchell, but I’m really thinking of the breadth and depth of arbitrary information the man seems to have accumulated. Racking my brain. Dan Harmon is a dickhead but he’s a possibility.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:47 AM on September 10, 2022

the UK has this gaggle of tv comedians who do the panel show circuit and seem to have hung out since doing footlights at Cambridge

There's no doubt an element of that, but I think actually the common ground most of them have is gigging on the comedy circuit. By the time you're doing well enough to get a panel show slot, you'll have spent a good few years working your way up from open mics, through 10 minute opening slots, to nights where you're sharing the bill with many other comedians, maybe opening for bigger acts, before finally being good enough and well-known enough to headline yourself.

And, crucially, the UK is small enough that when comedians tour, they cover the entire country, so by the time they've done that for a few years, they'll have met, watched the acts of, and probably got drunk with, a huge proportion of the other working comics in the country. That's where the chemistry comes from.

I liked Stephen Fry when he hosted it, but now when I see his shows repeated, I usually end up switching off. They either have no women, or just one woman, which these days looks horribly dated. And they're full of men making loud jokes about cocks, whereas as soon as the lone woman dares to mention anything funny to do with female bodies, Stephen Fry literally, physically recoils and makes an "eugh" expression, there's a moment of awkward silence while they all look as if someone's done a shit in the middle of the set, and then the boys get back to shouting and drawing cocks and balls.

Watching the transformation as Sandi's brought so many more women into the show has absolutely given the lie to the "women just aren't as funny" theory. Comedians on panel shows need people who are prepared to riff off them, not shudder at them. Even having other people around you whose voice is the same pitch and timbre as yours makes it so much easier to play comedy tennis. Watching an episode with lots of funny women is an absolute joy. Long live Queen Sandi!
posted by penguin pie at 3:39 PM on September 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

Stephen Fry literally, physically recoils and makes an "eugh" expression

Maybe I'm being too generous, but I read those moments as a kind of sarcastic clowning on his own sexual orientation rather than anything sincere.
posted by juv3nal at 1:50 AM on September 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

Maybe I'm being too generous, but I read those moments as a kind of sarcastic clowning on his own sexual orientation rather than anything sincere.

That's how I read that too. And when Emma Thompson was on the show she happily riffed on that; at one point she told a story about how Back In The Day, when everyone was just out of Cambridge or whatever, and she was either still dating Hugh Laurie or was just broken up with him, she would often tease Stephen by flashing him.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:02 AM on September 11, 2022

In Canada, CBC Radio has had The Debaters on for years, which is within a hairsbreadth of being a UK-style show, but is not quite there.

I’d say that Because News is more of a match for the panel-style comedy show on CBC Radio One as compared with The Debaters. Because News has panelists answering questions from the host, whereas The Debaters has two comedians squaring off in mock debates with one-liners galore. (I love both—and QI as well!)
posted by kentk at 1:05 AM on September 12, 2022