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.
- Continues on Tuesday on BBC2 at 9pm with Series U, Episode 14
- Catch-up on Series U, Episode 13
- Streaming rank this week: 543
Episode menu
Series B, Episode 11 - Beats
Topics
- Snakes do not find any music particularly nice. When someone plays a music instrument, they enjoy the sight of the instrument being played, not the tune that comes out.
- Cats have got nothing to do with violins. Sheep gut is used to make strings, and the people who dominated the market at the time put a myth around that it was made using cats because it was bad luck to kill one. (Forfeit: Catgut strings)
- Tangent: It was discovered in New Zealand that sheep have morphic knowledge.
- Spiders like to listen to classical music.
- Tangent: The huntsman spider is the only spider with lungs. It also does not build a web.
- Tangent: There is a type of music called "Tesco". It is a mixture of disco and techno.
- When spiders are given drugs, their webs are designed differently. On LSD, they're more geometric. On caffeine, there is no pattern. On marijuana, it is between the two.
- "Synesthsia" is a condition where you see colours when you hear sound. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov suffered from it.
- In 1988, Warner Communications paid $28 million for the rights to the song "Happy Birthday to You". They currently own the copyright. If you sing it in a public place, you owe Warner Brothers money.
- The worst compilation by Mike Batt (creator of the Womble songs) was a song called "A 1 Minute Silence", which he stole from John Cage, the creator of "4'33"", which is also total silence. Batt also wrote the campaign song for William Hague's 1997 election campaign.
- 10 minutes of light piano music was needed on Good Friday (18 April) 1930 because there was no news. The announcer came on BBC Radio and said, "Ladies and gentlemen there is no news tonight, so here is some music." The only news event aside from football matches was the start of the Chittagong Rebellion, but it was too late for the news in London.
General Ignorance
- The panel are shown a piece of sheet music written in a dance notation called the Bennesh movement notation. It is the Hokey-Cokey.
- The first invention to break the sound barrier was the whip. The noise that comes from it is a sonic boom, not leather hitting leather. (Forfeit: Cannonball)
- When you listen to the waves in a seashell, you are hearing air. (Forfeit: The sea; Blood vessels)
- The theme tune to Alan's buzzer (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) was written by Mozart, who wrote variations of it when he was 5-years-old.
Deleted scenes
- Bach and Handel had their sight stolen from them by the same Taylor - John Taylor. He was a fraud who claimed to be an oculist. He gave both of them cataract operations that resulted in them losing their eyesight.
- Tangent: Alan tells a joke about mass murderer Dr. Harold Shipman. The joke goes that Shipman has a curry for his last meal. When asked if he enjoyed it, he said, "Yeah, but I could murder a nan." The joke goes down badly.
- Tangent: Alan talks about a whip display he saw at a theme park where a child was blinded. These leads into a rant about anti-smoking adverts and debt adverts. Stephen then mocks Alan who did an advert for Abbey National. Alan gets his own back because Stephen did an advert for Alliance & Leicester.
Scores
- Linda Smith: 2 points
- Mark Gatiss: -4 points
- Sean Lock: -8 points
- Alan Davies: -13 points
Broadcast details
- Date
- Friday 10th December 2004
- Time
- 10:30pm
- Channel
- BBC Four
- Length
- 30 minutes
Repeats
Show past repeats
Date | Time | Channel |
---|---|---|
Saturday 2nd November 2013 | 7:00pm | Dave |
Sunday 3rd November 2013 | 2:00pm | Dave |
Saturday 21st December 2013 | 1:40pm | Dave |
Saturday 21st December 2013 | 11:35pm | Dave |
Sunday 9th March 2014 | 12:20pm | Dave |
Sunday 9th March 2014 | 7:20pm | Dave |
Tuesday 20th May 2014 | 12:40pm | Dave |
Tuesday 20th May 2014 | 5:40pm | Dave |
Friday 30th January 2015 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Wednesday 22nd April 2015 | 11:40pm | Dave |
Thursday 23rd April 2015 | 3:30am | Dave |
Thursday 23rd April 2015 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Tuesday 24th November 2015 | 12:10am | Dave |
Tuesday 24th November 2015 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Saturday 26th March 2016 | 1:00am | Dave |
Saturday 26th March 2016 | 11:30pm | Dave |
Tuesday 19th July 2016 | 12:00am | Dave |
Tuesday 19th July 2016 | 9:20pm | Dave |
Wednesday 7th September 2016 | 11:20pm | Dave |
Thursday 8th September 2016 | 2:20am | Dave |
Wednesday 1st February 2017 | 6:40pm | Dave |
Thursday 2nd February 2017 | 2:40pm | Dave |
Saturday 25th March 2017 | 12:20am | Dave |
Thursday 13th July 2017 | 1:20am | Dave |
Thursday 13th July 2017 | 11:40pm | Dave |
Friday 22nd December 2017 | 1:20am | Dave |
Thursday 25th January 2018 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Friday 26th January 2018 | 1:00am | Dave |
Tuesday 18th December 2018 | 7:20pm | Dave |
Thursday 23rd May 2019 | 11:40pm | Dave |
Tuesday 17th December 2019 | 8:20pm | Dave |
Monday 10th February 2020 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Tuesday 11th February 2020 | 1:00am | Dave |
Friday 5th June 2020 | 8:20pm | Dave |
Saturday 4th July 2020 | 1:20am | Dave |
Cast & crew
Stephen Fry | Host / Presenter |
Alan Davies | Regular Panellist |
Linda Smith | Guest |
Sean Lock | Guest |
Mark Gatiss | Guest |
Sophie Johnstone | Researcher |
Molly Oldfield | Researcher |
John Mitchinson | Question Writer |
Piers Fletcher | Question Writer |
Kate Staples | Researcher |
Garrick Alder | Researcher |
Dan Schreiber | Researcher |
Ian Lorimer | Director |
John Lloyd | Producer |
Mark Freeland | Executive Producer |
Simon London | Executive Producer |
Nick King | Editor |
Jonathan Paul Green | Production Designer |
Howard Goodall | Composer |