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 7 - Espionage

Preview clips

Harry Houdini

Theme

- Stephen and the panel are all dressed in trench coats, hats, sunglasses, and false moustaches (where appropriate). Jo also has a magnifying glass, Clive a pair of binoculars, Vic a hearing horn and Alan a periscope.

Topics

- You can beat a lie detector by having exciting thoughts, clinching your anal sphincter without clinching your buttocks, or relaxing completely when being asked control questions such as your name and address. You cannot use lie detectors in UK and USA courts. The FBI claim they are just as useful as astrology and tea leaves.

- Tangent: The lie detector was invented by Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston.

- According to Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo, the best way to trick a female spy into revealing herself is to get the woman pregnant. When giving birth, they cannot help but swear in their own language.

- Tangent: Müller was one of the few Nazis who escaped completely without trace. He was last seen hiding in the Führerbunker. He escaped and was never seen again.

- Elephant in the Room: Harry Houdini hid an elephant behind a mirror as part of a stage illusion. He used to debunk psychics, but this cost him his friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Some people believe he did not die of a punch to the stomach, but of appendicitis aggravated by the punch. Although some believe that he was murdered by spiritualists.

- Tangent: As a trick, Conan Doyle sent a letter to five friends that read, "We are discovered. Flee immediately." One of his friends disappeared and Doyle never saw him again.

- Tangent: Houdini could pick up pins with his eyelashes.

- You can tell you have run out of invisible ink by covering paper with lemon juice or milk, then heating it up to see what was written. Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, better known as "C", founder of MI6, discovered that semen could be used as invisible ink.

- Tangent: Several paintings by Marcel Duchamp contain semen in them because he mixed his semen with his paint whenever he thought of the woman he had an affair with.

- Tangent: A bank robber from Pittsburgh in 1995 thought that by covering his face with lemon juice, he would become invisible to cameras. He was caught by the police.

- Toilet paper helped win the Cold War because the Russians had a shortage of it. Instead, the Russians used official documents that they put into bins rather than sewers. As part of Operation Tamarisk, spies searched the bins to collect the documents. The spies also searched hospital bins, and complained about having to go through amputated limbs. When the complained, their masters asked them to bring back the limbs as well so that they could tell what sort of shrapnel was being used by the Russians. Operation Tamarisk was very successful according to one book. Without it, we might still have Communist Russia.

- You can use gummy bears to rob a bank by melting them down, making a mould for a fake finger to leave false fingerprints.

- Tangent: An enzyme found in pineapples called "Bromelain" destroys fingerprints. It was used as a plotline in an episode of Hawaii Five-O. This enzyme can also get rid of mouth ulcers.

- The best thing to do in a falling lift is to cushion the fall by lying on top of a fat person. It is very unlikely for a lift to fall, because multiple wires support every lift and they are fitted with emergency brakes. Lift shafts also have springs at the bottom. (Forfeit: Jump)

- Tangent: In 1945, a B-52 bomber flew into the Empire State Building. Propellers severed all the wires on an elevator but the brakes worked and so the passengers inside were saved.

General Ignorance

- You are more likely to see a tornado in the United Kingdom than any other country. (Forfeit: America)

- Tangent: On 21 November 1981, 104 tornados hit Britain in a single day.

- There is nothing you cannot do twenty minutes after lunch. (Forfeit: Swim)

Vodcast/Quickie

(Presenter: Stephen and every member of the panel)

- The Jury of Matrons decided if a woman was pregnant or trying to escape hanging by "Pleading the belly".

- The Nazis were worried that people would not like them if they went forward with the plan to destroy the British economy by flooding it with counterfeit money made in concentration camps, so they backed out of it.

- Tangent: Adolf Hitler was put on a vegetarian diet to help his flatulence problems, but he was not a vegetarian.

- Tangent: The Nazis were against fox hunting because they thought it was cruel and immoral.

Scores

- Clive Anderson and Vic Reeves: 5 points
- Jo Brand: 4 points
- Alan Davies: -8 points

Broadcast details

Date
Friday 26th October 2007
Time
10:30pm
Channel
BBC Four
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Friday 23rd July 2010 9:40pm Dave
Saturday 18th September 2010 9:40pm Dave
Sunday 10th October 2010 11:00pm Dave
Friday 17th December 2010 9:00pm Dave
Thursday 14th July 2011 11:45pm Dave
Friday 15th July 2011 1:55am Dave
Saturday 22nd October 2011 3:20pm Dave
Saturday 22nd October 2011 8:20pm Dave
Thursday 29th December 2011 10:20pm Dave
Sunday 17th June 2012 10:00pm Dave
Saturday 6th October 2012 3:00pm Dave
Saturday 6th October 2012 10:40pm Dave
Sunday 24th February 2013 1:00pm Gold
Sunday 24th February 2013 5:00pm Gold
Sunday 18th May 2014 6:00pm Dave
Sunday 27th July 2014 3:20pm Dave
Sunday 27th July 2014 11:20pm Dave
Wednesday 17th December 2014 11:20pm Dave
Thursday 18th December 2014 2:15am Dave
Tuesday 27th January 2015 11:00pm Dave
Thursday 20th August 2015 2:20am Dave
Thursday 20th August 2015 11:20pm Dave
Monday 15th February 2016 11:00pm Dave
Tuesday 16th February 2016 8:00pm Dave
Tuesday 31st May 2016 3:35am Dave
Tuesday 31st May 2016 11:20pm Dave
Thursday 11th August 2016 1:00am Dave
Thursday 11th August 2016 10:20pm Dave
Thursday 16th March 2017 2:40pm Dave
Friday 21st April 2017 12:40am Dave
Friday 23rd June 2017 12:20am Dave
Saturday 1st July 2017 1:20am Dave
Friday 25th August 2017 11:00pm Dave
Saturday 26th August 2017 1:00am Dave
Wednesday 15th November 2017 11:20pm Dave
Thursday 16th November 2017 1:20am Dave
Friday 2nd February 2018 11:40pm Dave
Saturday 3rd February 2018 1:40am Dave
Friday 20th April 2018 12:40am Dave
Friday 20th April 2018 2:40am Dave
Monday 2nd July 2018 11:20pm Dave
Tuesday 3rd July 2018 2:20am Dave
Friday 1st February 2019 11:00pm Dave
Saturday 2nd February 2019 1:00am Dave
Wednesday 12th June 2019 11:40pm Dave
Thursday 13th June 2019 8:20pm Dave
Thursday 24th October 2019 3:00am Dave
Thursday 24th October 2019 11:20pm Dave
Wednesday 29th January 2020 11:00pm Dave
Thursday 30th January 2020 1:00am Dave
Tuesday 26th May 2020 10:00pm Dave
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 10:00pm Dave
Thursday 23rd February 2023 12:40am Dave
Thursday 22nd June 2023 10:40pm Dave
Friday 23rd June 2023 2:45am Dave
Thursday 23rd November 2023 1:40am Dave

Cast & crew

Cast
Stephen Fry Host / Presenter
Alan Davies Regular Panellist
Guest cast
Clive Anderson Guest
Jo Brand Guest
Vic Reeves 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

Video

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