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 B, Episode 3 - Bombs

Dog bomb approaching a tank

Topics

- In World War II, the US planned to attach napalm 'waistcoat bombs' to Mexican free-tailed bats so they would destroy Japanese towns. However, when the bombs were tested, the wind blew the bats towards a US army base which blew up.

- Tangent: "Kamikaze" is Japanese for "Divine Wind".

- Tangent: As all aeroplanes are fuelled to only go one way, all planes are Kamikaze planes technically.

- Zeppo Marx helped to design the clamps that held the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima from Enola Gay. Zeppo joined the Marx Brothers after Gummo (also known as "Who-o") left. He appeared in five films, the last being Duck Soup. When he left, he became an agent for an engineering and design company. Amongst his other products was a wristwatch that contained an alarm that would go of when you had a heart attack. Groucho believed that Zeppo was the worst actor in the Marx Brothers, but most people are in agreement that, of the brothers, he was by far the wittiest off-screen.

- Tangent: Harpo Marx could actually talk. This was great help to him when after-dinner speaking. It allowed him to start: "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking...". In his autobiography, he writes that for the first 15 years of his life he and all the other Brothers stole stuff for a living.

- In World War II, the Russians trained dogs with bombs strapped to them to go under tanks and blow them up. This was done by putting food under tanks. However, in battle the dogs ran towards the Russians tanks, thinking they had food under them and blew up their own tanks. All the dogs were eventually shot by the Russians. Correction: The main photographic evidence (pictured) which features a tank that was used after the "Dog bomb" was scrapped. Therefore, either the photo was faked, the bombs were used later that was first thought or the dog is doing something else.

- The first postcard ever sent from Antarctica has a picture of a bagpiper playing to a penguin.

- Tangent: 50% of bagpipers suffer from repetitive strain injury.

- The common name for the Ursus Arctos is the "Grizzly bear". Ursus is Latin for bear and Arctos is Greek for bear. (Forfeit: Polar bear)

- Tangent: The Arctic region gets its name from the constellations The Great Bear and The Little Bear.

- Tangent: The easiest way to tell Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly (Ant and Dec) apart is that Ant always stands on the left.

- Polar bears disguise themselves by hiding in something white like snow. There is a misconception that they cover their noses with their paws, but this is false.

General Ignorance

- Is this a rhetorical question? No, it isn't.

- There are 46 states in the USA. Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are commonwealths. (Forfeit: Fifty)

- Tangent: Hawaii is the only US state with no straight lines on its borders.

- During World War II, the only six Americans to lose their lives on home soil did so on a church picnic in Bly, Oregon. They were killed by Japanese fugos - balloon bombs. They were hard to detect on radar because they were mostly made out of paper called washi, which radar does not pick up. Most of the bombs were made by schoolgirls who didn't know what they were building.

- The fugo should not be confused with the Fugu fish. In Japan between 30-100 people a year are poisoned by fugu, and half of those die. It is believed that most Japanese people are daring enough to eat the fugu, but there are always traces of poison left and if you eat enough you can get high, so you have to be an expert filleter. Japanese restaurants have lanterns outside with fugu skin, to show that a trained fugu filleter is inside. Part of the training involves eating the fugu that you have cut.

- Tangent: Rich objects to Stephen saying that a bomb is most likely to land on "wasteland", claiming that Birmingham is a wasteland (both the one in the UK and the one in Alabama).

- Penguins will be living at the North Pole soon because the North and South poles flip.

- Tangent: Penguins and polar bears never meet because they live at opposite sides of the Earth. Lions and tigers never meet because they live on different continents.

- The panel are shown a picture of Saturn and are asked what is wrong with it. The answer is that it was shown upside-down. Alan answered correctly, but he actually thought it was meant to be on its side, possibly confusing it with the Uranus.

- The connection between Boy Scouts and Poles is the salute. A Boy Scout salute has two fingers tucked in, whilst the Polish salute has three tucked in, presumably after a war hero who had three fingers shot off.

- Tangent: The Boy Scout movement is now believed to be an American invention, due to Ernest Thompson Seton who created the Woodcraft Indians.

Deleted Scenes

- There is a polar bear jail in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. It can hold up to 23 bears. Churchill is the coldest town in Canada.

- Tangent: There was a German man who liked eating endangered species. He would telephone zoos whenever animals died and asked if he could eat them. He was found to have a freezer full of endangered animal meat.

Scores

- Phill Jupitus: 4 points
- Rich Hall: 2 points
- Clive Anderson: 1 point
- Alan Davies: -4 points

Broadcast details

Date
Friday 15th October 2004
Time
10:30pm
Channel
BBC Four
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Friday 1st October 2010 7:20pm Dave
Sunday 3rd July 2011 8:20pm Dave
Monday 4th July 2011 12:20am Dave
Sunday 11th September 2011 11:20am Dave
Sunday 11th September 2011 7:00pm Dave
Saturday 12th November 2011 7:40pm Dave
Sunday 13th November 2011 2:40pm Dave
Saturday 31st December 2011 11:20am Dave
Saturday 31st December 2011 4:20pm Dave
Monday 6th February 2012 3:20pm Dave
Monday 6th February 2012 7:20pm Dave
Wednesday 14th March 2012 10:40pm Dave
Tuesday 22nd May 2012 7:20pm Dave
Tuesday 22nd May 2012 11:40pm Dave
Wednesday 23rd May 2012 12:55am
50 minute version
Dave
Wednesday 26th September 2012 5:20pm Dave
Wednesday 26th September 2012 11:40pm Dave
Tuesday 8th October 2013 11:00pm Dave
Wednesday 9th October 2013 2:25am Dave
Tuesday 17th December 2013 1:40pm Dave
Tuesday 17th December 2013 11:40pm Dave
Friday 7th February 2014 11:20pm Dave
Saturday 8th February 2014 2:10am Dave
Sunday 11th May 2014 8:20pm Dave
Sunday 31st August 2014 4:20pm Dave
Thursday 26th February 2015 11:00pm Dave
Friday 27th February 2015 2:40am Dave
Wednesday 15th April 2015 11:40pm Dave
Thursday 16th April 2015 3:30am Dave
Tuesday 21st July 2015 11:40pm Dave
Wednesday 25th November 2015 10:20pm Dave
Tuesday 15th March 2016 12:50am Dave
Tuesday 15th March 2016 9:20pm Dave
Tuesday 12th July 2016 12:00am Dave
Tuesday 12th July 2016 9:20pm Dave
Monday 23rd January 2017 3:20pm Dave
Monday 23rd January 2017 7:20pm Dave
Thursday 20th July 2017 1:20am Dave
Friday 21st July 2017 12:20am Dave
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 12:00am Dave
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 2:00am Dave
Wednesday 4th October 2017 11:20pm Dave
Thursday 5th October 2017 1:20am Dave
Monday 11th December 2017 2:50am Dave
Tuesday 12th December 2017 1:20am Dave
Friday 19th January 2018 11:00pm Dave
Saturday 20th January 2018 1:00am Dave
Wednesday 4th April 2018 12:00am Dave
Wednesday 4th April 2018 2:00am Dave
Tuesday 4th September 2018 11:20pm Dave
Tuesday 1st October 2019 11:00pm Dave
Wednesday 2nd October 2019 8:20pm Dave
Tuesday 4th February 2020 11:00pm Dave
Wednesday 5th February 2020 1:00am Dave
Tuesday 26th May 2020 8:20pm Dave
Wednesday 1st July 2020 1:20am Dave
Wednesday 8th July 2020 1:00am Dave

Cast & crew

Cast
Stephen Fry Host / Presenter
Alan Davies Regular Panellist
Guest cast
Rich Hall Guest
Clive Anderson Guest
Phill Jupitus Guest
Writing team
Sophie Johnstone Researcher
Molly Oldfield Researcher
John Mitchinson Question Writer
Piers Fletcher Question Writer
Kate Staples Researcher
Garrick Alder Researcher
Dan Schreiber Researcher
Production team
Ian Lorimer Director
John Lloyd Producer
Phil Clarke Executive Producer
Mark Freeland Executive Producer
Nick King Editor
Jonathan Paul Green Production Designer
Howard Goodall Composer

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