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, Episode 4 - Exploration

Preview clips

Mount Everest

Theme

- Everyone is dressed in jungle exploration gear, with the set covered in jungle themed regalia.

Topics

- When the Pilgrim Fathers met the Native Americans, the first thing said by the natives was: "Can I have some beer?" in English. This was said by Samoset, who learned his English from fishermen and another Native American, Squanto.

- Tangent: Squanto travelled the Atlantic Ocean six times. He was kidnapped, sent to England, brought back to America, kidnapped again and sold to slavery in Spain. He then escaped to Newfoundland, but as it was too far to walk home he took another boat to England and then sailed back to New England. Squanto brokered a peace between the Natives and the Pilgrims that lasted for 50 years.

- Elephant in the Room: On one map of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), a British Army man drew an elephant on the map using contours.

- The quickest way to get to The Eiffel Tower from The Louvre without seeing any Frenchmen is to go via the sewers, which echo the streets above Paris perfectly.

- Tangent: There used to be an excursion in the sewers that lasted up until 1975. The Paris sewers are cleaned by a large ball pushed by a jet of water.

- The best place to put a ladder or a lift if you wanted to get into space would be on the equator because it the fastest part of Earth. Some people believe that such a lift would have saved the space programme a lot of money. Arthur C. Clarke was a fan of the idea.

- If a member of your space crew goes mad, you should bind their wrists and ankles with duct tape, tie them down with a bungee cord and inject tranquilisers into them.

- It is hard to have sex in space because the penis would be smaller due to lower blood pressure, and staying together in zero-gravity is hard. Also, semen would fly around and could get into parts of the machinery.

General Ignorance

- The first words spoken on the surface of the Moon were "contact light" by Buzz Aldrin.

- Tangent: Buzz Aldrin's original name was Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. but his sister called him "Buzz" because she could not pronounce "Brother", calling him "Buzzer". His mother's maiden name was "Moon".

- The moonwalk was invented by the African-American tap dancer Bill Bailey. (Forfeit: Michael Jackson)

- Tangent: Other famous Bill Baileys include Axl Rose and the last man to be hung in the United States.

- Tangent: The manakin bird is the only animal that can moonwalk. It is also the only bird that sings with its wings.

- The first person to put two feet on the top of Mount Everest was Bengal mathematician Radhanath Sikdar. He was the first person to identify Everest as the world's highest mountain. He measured it to be exactly 29,000 feet. However, he thought no-one would believe him, thinking he just rounded the number off, so he added two feet to the measurement to make it look as if he was incredibly precise. So 29,002 feet was the official measurement, although it is now known to be 29,028 feet. (Forfeit: Sherpa Tenzing; Edmund Hillary)

- Tangent: Mount Everest is named after George Everest, Surveyor General of India. However, he always pronounced his name "EVE-Rest".

Vodcast/Quickie

(Presenter: Stephen Fry, through a thicket of plants)

- Tangent: Stephen and the panel mess up the "Elephant in the Room" bonus.

- Whilst astronaut Lisa Novak did not go mad, she did try to murder a fellow astronaut. She drove to her indented victim wearing a nappy so she would not have to stop to go to the toilet.

- Tangent: Las Vegas sells more adult nappies than baby nappies because people do not want to stop their gambling. In one casino in Melbourne, the carpet had to be changed after a week of it being put down because people refused to go the lavatory, and were instead urinating onto the floor.

Scores

- Rich Hall: 8 points
- Bill Bailey: 3 points
- Alan Davies: -8 points
- Sean Lock: -16 points

Broadcast details

Date
Friday 5th October 2007
Time
10:30pm
Channel
BBC Four
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Saturday 29th May 2010 11:00pm Dave
Tuesday 20th July 2010 9:00pm Dave
Wednesday 4th August 2010 10:00pm BBC2
Wednesday 20th October 2010 10:15pm Dave
Friday 12th November 2010 9:00pm Dave
Saturday 20th August 2011 11:00pm Dave
Tuesday 18th October 2011 11:20pm Dave
Wednesday 4th January 2012 10:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Thursday 5th January 2012 12:55am Dave
Saturday 6th October 2012 8:00pm Dave
Saturday 6th October 2012 11:20pm Dave
Sunday 27th January 2013 2:00pm Dave
Sunday 27th January 2013 6:00pm Dave
Saturday 11th May 2013 7:30pm Dave
Saturday 11th May 2013 11:40pm Dave
Sunday 27th July 2014 12:35pm Dave
Wednesday 3rd December 2014 11:40pm Dave
Friday 23rd January 2015 11:40pm Dave
Thursday 30th April 2015 3:30am Dave
Thursday 30th April 2015 11:00pm Dave
Monday 8th February 2016 11:00pm Dave
Tuesday 9th February 2016 8:00pm Dave
Thursday 26th May 2016 2:25am Dave
Thursday 26th May 2016 11:20pm Dave
Tuesday 9th August 2016 1:40am Dave
Tuesday 9th August 2016 8:40pm Dave
Thursday 15th December 2016 12:00am Dave
Monday 13th March 2017 2:40pm Dave
Wednesday 19th April 2017 12:20am Dave
Thursday 15th June 2017 1:40am Dave
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 11:20pm Dave
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 1:20am Dave
Wednesday 1st November 2017 1:20am Dave
Friday 10th November 2017 1:00am Dave
Saturday 11th November 2017 12:10am Dave
Thursday 7th December 2017 10:20pm Dave
Thursday 1st February 2018 11:00pm Dave
Friday 2nd February 2018 1:00am Dave
Wednesday 14th November 2018 10:40pm Dave
Wednesday 30th January 2019 11:40pm Dave
Thursday 31st January 2019 1:40am Dave
Thursday 6th June 2019 11:40pm Dave
Friday 7th June 2019 8:20pm Dave
Thursday 3rd October 2019 11:00pm Dave
Friday 4th October 2019 8:20pm Dave
Monday 27th January 2020 11:40pm Dave
Tuesday 28th January 2020 1:40am Dave
Tuesday 7th July 2020 8:20pm Dave
Saturday 18th February 2023 11:20pm Dave
Thursday 15th June 2023 10:40pm Dave
Saturday 25th November 2023 1:10am Dave
Saturday 25th November 2023 8:35pm Dave

Cast & crew

Cast
Stephen Fry Host / Presenter
Alan Davies Regular Panellist
Guest cast
Bill Bailey Guest
Rich Hall Guest
Sean Lock 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

Videos

The Manakin Bird

A quite interesting bird that is able to moonwalk.

Featuring: Bill Bailey, Alan Davies, Stephen Fry, Rich Hall & Sean Lock.

Share this page