QI. Image shows from L to R: Alan Davies, Sandi Toksvig. Copyright: TalkbackThames
QI

QI

  • TV panel show
  • BBC Two / BBC One / BBC Four
  • 2003 - 2024
  • 312 episodes (21 series)

Panel game that contains lots of difficult questions and a large amount of quite interesting facts. Stars Sandi Toksvig, Stephen Fry and Alan Davies.

Episode menu

Series E - Entertainment

A Children In Need special, with Jeremy Clarkson, Jo Brand and Bill Bailey.
Little Tich (Harry Relph)

Theme

- Pudsey Bear sits in Alan's seat. He manages to spot an "Elephant in the Room" - Alan wearing an elephant head costume. Alan beats Pudsey away using his trunk. Alan's elephant card depict Elmer the Patchwork Elephant as opposed to the normal grey elephant.

Topics

- The panel have to identify the owner of an unusual pair of shoes, which are very long and flat. They belonged to 'Little Tich', a man so popular in his time that his name is now used to describe short people. Born Harry Relph, he stopped growing at the age of 10, had 12 fingers, 12 toes and webbed hands. He was an influence on Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

- Roland the Farter was a flatulist to Henry II, farting for the King on Christmas Day. The King gave him 30 acres of land as payment.

- Tangent: Le Pétomane and Mr. Methane are other famous flatulists. Le Pétomane was the biggest star of his day, earning 20,000 francs a week. He could smoke and breathe through his bottom. He gave himself an enema every morning so his farts would not smell.

- Tangent: Turold and Taillefer are jesters that appear on the Bayeux Tapestry. Taillefer juggled his sword to entertain the Normans - he cut off an Englishman's head when a sword came down. One scene on the Bayeux Tapestry says, "William comforted his troops" and shows William sticking a spear up a soldier's backside. However, "Comforted" meant "Encourage" at the time.

- The only athlete to get a personal mention at the Olympic Games closing ceremony was Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards in 1988. However, the "Eddie the Eagle rule" now bans amateurs from taking part; saying competitors have to be in the top 30% in their field.

- Tangent: Another famous amateur is Eric "The Eel" Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea. He was a swimmer in the 2000 Summer Olympics who had never seen an Olympic sized swimming pool until the games.

- Heffalump in the Room: A picture of a ballet and some music is played. They have to guess what is wrong with the picture. The answer being that none of the dancers are elephants. The circus polka was a ballet designed to be performed by elephants in Madison Square Gardens, New York City.

- Tangent: Ballet dancers suffer several hardships, such as not knowing which part they are going to play until the night of the performance, and damage to their bodies.

- Questions on e-commerce. The panel are given a website with an embarrassing name and have to guess what the site offers.

- Jo: whorepresents.com ("Who represents": A site for finding agents for celebrities).

- Bill: expertsexchange.com ("Experts exchange": A networking site where experts exchange information).

- Jeremy: therapistfinder.com ("Therapist finder": A Californian site to help people find therapists).

- Alan: penisland.net ("Pen island": An online shop selling pens).

- Tangent: Other embarrassing websites include "Speed of Art" which is "speedofart" and "Powergen Italia" which is "powergenitalia".

General Ignorance

- If you shaved a lion and tiger until they had no fur left, you can tell the difference between the two because tigers have strips on their skin.

- Tangent: Bill went to a zoo in Brazil where he was told to approach a jaguar from the front. He kept getting closer until the zookeeper told him he made a mistake, and you should NEVER approach a jaguar from the front.

- The largest squid in the world is the colossal squid. Believed to be the biggest invertebrate in the world, its eyes are 1 foot in diameter.

- If you found you goldfish floating on its side, it is suffering from swim bladder disorder from being fed too much. To make it better, do not feed it for a few days. (Forfeit: It's dead)

- Tangent: Jeremy bought his father some ghost koi for his goldfish pond, which killed all the other fish in the pond.

- Tangent: Bill claims the best way to get herons away from your ponds is to use an inflatable crocodile.

Vodcast/Quickie

(Presenter: Pudsey Bear holding a sign reading, "Hello & welcome to the QI vodcast.")

- Tangent: Liam Neeson and his supposedly large penis.

Scores

- Jeremy Clarkson: 4 points
- Jo Brand: 2 points
- Alan Davies and Bill Bailey: -6 points

Broadcast details

Date
Friday 9th November 2007
Time
10:30pm
Channel
BBC Four
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Wednesday 16th June 2010 10:10pm Dave
Friday 16th July 2010 9:40pm Dave
Tuesday 27th July 2010 9:40pm Dave
Thursday 7th October 2010 10:20pm Dave
Friday 26th November 2010 9:00pm Dave
Sunday 10th April 2011 10:20pm Dave
Wednesday 7th September 2011 10:20pm Dave
Thursday 8th September 2011 12:50am Dave
Tuesday 25th October 2011 11:20pm Dave
Sunday 1st July 2012 10:00pm Dave
Monday 2nd July 2012 1:55am Dave
Wednesday 24th October 2012 7:00pm Dave
Thursday 25th October 2012 1:00am Dave
Tuesday 26th February 2013 11:20pm Dave
Tuesday 30th April 2013 10:40pm Dave
Wednesday 28th January 2015 11:40pm Dave
Wednesday 1st July 2015 10:50pm Dave
Tuesday 16th February 2016 12:20am Dave
Tuesday 16th February 2016 9:20pm Dave
Saturday 12th March 2016 2:20am Dave
Friday 3rd June 2016 1:00am Dave
Friday 3rd June 2016 10:40pm Dave
Friday 12th August 2016 1:00am Dave
Friday 12th August 2016 10:20pm Dave
Monday 30th January 2017 2:40pm Dave
Tuesday 18th April 2017 12:30am Dave
Tuesday 18th April 2017 12:30am Dave
Friday 2nd June 2017 12:20am Dave
Tuesday 13th June 2017 3:30am Dave
Tuesday 29th August 2017 11:20pm Dave
Wednesday 30th August 2017 1:20am Dave
Friday 17th November 2017 10:00pm Dave
Saturday 18th November 2017 1:20am Dave
Monday 8th January 2018 11:00pm Dave
Tuesday 9th January 2018 1:00am Dave
Friday 16th February 2018 11:00pm Dave
Saturday 17th February 2018 1:00am Dave
Saturday 21st April 2018 12:40am Dave
Tuesday 3rd July 2018 11:20pm Dave
Wednesday 4th July 2018 2:20am Dave
Monday 4th February 2019 11:00pm Dave
Tuesday 5th February 2019 1:00am Dave
Friday 14th June 2019 8:20pm Dave
Thursday 30th January 2020 11:00pm Dave
Friday 31st January 2020 1:00am Dave
Friday 29th May 2020 3:20pm Dave
Friday 29th May 2020 8:20pm Dave
Friday 10th July 2020 8:20pm Dave
Saturday 25th February 2023 12:40am Dave
Thursday 29th June 2023 10:00pm Dave
Friday 30th June 2023 2:55am Dave
Monday 27th November 2023 10:40pm Dave

Cast & crew

Cast
Stephen Fry Host / Presenter
Alan Davies Regular Panellist
Guest cast
Bill Bailey Guest
Jo Brand Guest
Jeremy Clarkson Guest
Writing team
Molly Oldfield Researcher
Piers Fletcher Question Writer
Garrick Alder Researcher
Mat Coward Researcher
Christopher Gray Researcher
James Harkin Researcher
Justin Gayner Researcher
Vitali Vitaliev Researcher
Justin Pollard Question Writer
Production team
Ian Lorimer Director
John Lloyd Producer
Lorraine Heggessey Executive Producer
Katie Taylor Executive Producer
Nick King Editor
Jonathan Paul Green Production Designer
Howard Goodall Composer

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