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.

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Series H, Episode 3 - Hoaxes

Preview clips

QI. Image shows from L to R: Sean Lock, Stephen Fry, Danny Baker, David Mitchell. Copyright: TalkbackThames

Theme

- Each of the panel have a "Hoax card". If the panel think they have spotted something they have been told which is false they can play their hoax card for bonus points. If they get it wrong they lose points.

- One of the buzzers is a hoax, because all of them make the noise of a deer mating call except one. It is Alan's buzzer which makes the sound of a Scotsman saying "Hello, dear".

Topics

- The panel are shown a picture of three men and are asked what they were up to last night. They were in fact made a crop circle in Wiltshire shaped like the QI logo. However, within half-an-hour of the dawn rising people were ringing up asking whether "it was real or man-made" because many people still think crop circles are due to alien activity. People who believe crop circles are because of alien activity are called "cerealogists". Crop circles began in the 1970s with Doug Bower and David Chorley. They are made using a plank with a rope through it called a "stalk stomper".

- Hoax Card: Danny plays his card at the wrong time.

- XL Tangent: Another hoax you can see from the air is the lines in the Nazca Desert which are claimed to be runways for alien spacecraft. The most famous person to claim this is Erich von Däniken, author of Chariots of the Gods?. Carl Sagan claimed in response that if aliens used vastly superior spacecraft to ours, why would they need a runway? The Nazca Desert is one of the driest places on the planet. However, the lines were damaged due to people coming to see them after Däniken's book was published. Some of the lines are only 10cm deep and only survive because there is so little rain. People are now banned from going there.

- XL Tangent: After corn, the biggest crop in the USA is marijuana. Meanwhile, cauliflowers are in decline in Britain. The crop has been reduced from 33,000 acres to 28,000 acres. Mashed cauliflowers are low-carb alternative to mashed potatoes.

- For every argument there is with regards to the Moon landing being faked, there is a perfectly logical argument to prove that it did happen. For example:

- The idea of there being weather in the studio because of the way the flag moves. In fact, the flag was rumpled because of movement, and if you move something with little resistance it will not stop moving for a long time.

- The idea that one of the astronauts is not holding a camera because of the reflection in the visors. All the cameras were actually mounted in the suits so they did not need to hold one.

- The idea that below the lunar module that there was no crater or dust spread. The engines were actually cut of below it landed, it hovered down and it landed quickly. Unlike in sci-fi films, the module does not send out spears of flame as it lands.

- The idea that the footprints are too clear due to moisture. You can create footprints just like them with flour. The ground just has to be very fine.

- Also, astronauts from Apollo 12 put mirrors on the Moon which allow people on Earth to give very accurate readings about how far away the Moon is.

- Lastly, the Americans "Space Race" rivals, the Soviet Union, never once claimed that the Moon landing was faked.

- Tangent: Alan once did an advert with Patrick Moore and Alan asked if people really did land on the Moon. Moore was furious with him, explaining that he helped NASA map the Moon, spent years on the project, helped pick the landing site, and if Alan ever spoke to him again he would be sick in Alan eyes.

- Tangent: Buzz Aldrin got so annoyed with Moon landing conspiracy theorists that he punched one for asking too many questions.

- Tangent: 6% of Americans believe the Moon landing was faked. However, 25% of Britons believe it was faked.

- XL Tangent: 400,000 people were employed to work on the Moon landing, including the 12 astronauts who landed on it.

- You can make your house the most famous in Britain by ringing up as many businesses as you can and get them all to come on the same day. This was done as a bet in 1810 between Samuel Beasley and Theodore Hook that Hook could not any house in London the most famous residence in the city within a week. Actually, Hook prepared over six days and it all happened on the final day. What he did was contact as many businesses as he could to arrived at one house, 54 Berners Street, unbeknown to the resident of the house, Mrs. Tottenham. 4,000 different tradesmen and services came to the house. These included 12 chimney sweeps that arrived first thing in the morning, then 12 coal carts, followed by cake makers, doctors, apothecaries, surgeons, lawyers, priests, undergraduates, hat makers, haberdashers, boot makers, fishmongers and butcher's boys. A dozen pianos were delivered and the governor of the Bank of England came to see the commotion.

- XL Tangent: During the Regency period there we many strange bets on which huge sums of money were gambled. Clubs such as Brooks's and White's had such bets. For example, there was a £3,000 bet between Lord Alvanley and a friend of his on raindrops. In comparison, a servant cost around £10 a year.

- The Nobel Prize winning biologist Stephen Jay Gould concluded after a lifetime's studying of fish that there is no such thing as a fish. He reasoned that while there are many things that live in the sea, most of them are not related to each other. For example, a salmon is more closely related to a camel than to a hagfish. A similar argument is that there are lots of things that fly like bees, vultures and flying lizards, but they are not all insects, birds or reptiles.

- Tangent: Starfish do not have brains.

- XL Tangent: Elasmobranches are a subclass of animal which includes sharks, rays and skates.

- XL: The panel are shown a picture and are asked how many fish are in it. The answer is one. It looks like two, but the other "fish" is muscle from a shell below it. They explode, eject larvae which are breathed through the fishes gills, and they are spread. (Forfeit: There's no such thing as a fish)

- The only thing we know for certain that Nostradamus got right was his recipe for cherry jam. Apart from his predictions, Nostradamus (born Michel de Nostradame, 1503-1566) was also an apothecary and read lots of books, including one about jam. He wrote a recipe for cherry jam and it is known to be just as good today as it was back then. He also attempted to make aphrodisiac jams.

- Hoax Card: Alan and Sean play their cards wrongly.

- The most famous person ever to have been beaten at chess by a machine was Napoleon Bonaparte. While Garry Kasparov is the most famous chess grandmaster to lose to a computer (Deep Blue), Napoleon lost to the Mechanical Turk, an automaton. However, it was a hoax. The doors would first be opened to show it was empty, but then a chess master would sneak inside and control the machine. Benjamin Franklin and Charles Babbage also lost to it as well. The Mechanical Turk was destroyed by fire in 1854.

- XL Tangent: In 1989 American magic trick maker John Gaughan made a working replica of the Mechanical Turk costing $120,000. The maker of the original Mechanical Turk was Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734-1804) who did to impress Empress Maria Theresa.

- XL: The best way to make a squad of American soldiers panic in a plane is to make them think it is crashing. For example, you can get the pilot to cut off one of the engines. To show how disturbed the soldiers are, you then give them forms to fill in, for example asking who to leave their money to after they die. The soldiers just wrote rubbish. This was done to see how people react under stress.

- XL Hoax Card: David plays his hoax card wrongly.

- XL: A human being can lick their own elbow. Danny originally claimed in Series A that it is impossible to lick your own elbow, and that there was an old folklore saying that if you can do that you would live forever. However, a member of the audience demonstrates that she can lick her own elbow, proving Danny wrong. (Forfeit: It's impossible to lick your elbow)

General Ignorance

- You can tell someone is lying by how they talk. You cannot tell by the way they move, sweat, rolling their eyes etc. but you can by the way they speak. A test with over 20,000 subjects being shown videos of people lying and telling the truth found that people performed no better than chance, including so-called experts such as polygraph operators, police investigators, judges and psychiatrists. However, people are more accurate on sound alone, as it is done at 73% accuracy. (Forfeit: It's in the eyes)

- Tangent: One Dr. Ekman claims that 50 out of 20,000 can tell if people are lying just by looking at them. He calls them "Truth wizards".

- Most oranges are not orange, but green. They are "de-greened" by supermarkets because shoppers prefer to see them as orange coloured. The word "orange" comes from the word "Naranja" which comes from Sanskrit. In English it lost the "n" and it became "an orange". Other words similar to this are "adder" which was "a nadre", "apron" was "napron" and "nickname" was an "ick name". (Forfeit: They're orange)

- XL Tangent: Sean worked in an orange grove in an Israeli kibbutz and he claims that the oranges grown there were orange coloured. Sean got the sack for sleeping on the job when he was meant to be working on irrigation pipes.

- Swimming pools smell of chloramines which are formed by sweat, urine and faecal matter. To get rid of it, you add chlorine which does not smell of anything. (Forfeit: Chlorine)

- Hoax Card: Stephen reveals that the hoax cards where themselves the hoax. All the questions were true and the panel were tricked into using them.

Scores

- Sean Lock: -1 point
- David Mitchell: -13 points
- Danny Baker: -14 points
- Alan Davies: -38 points

Broadcast details

Date
Friday 1st October 2010
Time
8:30pm
Channel
BBC One
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Saturday 2nd October 2010 10:30pm
45 minute version
BBC2
Wednesday 3rd August 2011 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Wednesday 3rd August 2011 11:40pm
60 minute version
Dave
Tuesday 20th September 2011 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Wednesday 21st September 2011 12:00am
60 minute version
Dave
Saturday 10th December 2011 8:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Saturday 10th December 2011 10:50pm
60 minute version
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Monday 20th February 2012 8:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Monday 20th February 2012 11:20pm
60 minute version
Dave
Tuesday 29th May 2012 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Tuesday 29th May 2012 10:00pm BBC2
Tuesday 29th May 2012 10:00pm BBC HD
Wednesday 30th May 2012 1:00am
50 minute version
Dave
Monday 4th June 2012 12:00am BBC HD
Monday 18th June 2012 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Monday 18th June 2012 11:40pm
60 minute version
Dave
Wednesday 15th August 2012 10:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Thursday 16th August 2012 1:45am
45 minute version
Dave
Tuesday 13th November 2012 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Wednesday 14th November 2012 12:20am
55 minute version
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Thursday 3rd January 2013 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Friday 4th January 2013 12:30am
55 minute version
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Tuesday 12th March 2013 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Wednesday 13th March 2013 12:00am
60 minute version
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Sunday 21st April 2013 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Friday 7th June 2013 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Saturday 8th June 2013 12:00am
60 minute version
Dave
Monday 2nd September 2013 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Tuesday 3rd September 2013 12:10am
55 minute version
Dave
Thursday 7th November 2013 8:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Friday 8th November 2013 12:40am
60 minute version
Dave
Thursday 30th January 2014 8:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Friday 31st January 2014 1:35am
60 minute version
Dave
Thursday 24th April 2014 8:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Thursday 24th April 2014 11:40pm
60 minute version
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Monday 11th August 2014 9:00pm
60 minute version
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Friday 18th November 2016 9:00pm
60 minute version
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Saturday 25th February 2017 12:00am
60 minute version
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Monday 8th May 2017 2:50am
70 minute version
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Wednesday 4th March 2020 9:20pm Dave
Wednesday 15th July 2020 7:40pm Dave
Wednesday 17th February 2021 12:40am Dave
Wednesday 17th February 2021 8:40pm Dave
Wednesday 7th July 2021 8:20pm Dave
Thursday 8th July 2021 1:20am Dave
Tuesday 5th October 2021 8:20pm Dave
Wednesday 6th October 2021 2:15am Dave
Saturday 8th January 2022 11:20pm Dave
Sunday 9th January 2022 10:40pm Dave
Tuesday 5th December 2023 9:00pm
60 minute version
Dave
Wednesday 6th December 2023 1:00am
60 minute version
Dave

Cast & crew

Cast
Stephen Fry Host / Presenter
Alan Davies Regular Panellist
Guest cast
Danny Baker Guest
Sean Lock Guest
David Mitchell Guest
Writing team
John Mitchinson Question Writer
Dan Schreiber Researcher
Mat Coward Researcher
Justin Pollard Question Writer
James Harkin Question Writer
Molly Oldfield Question Writer
Will Bowen Researcher
Andrew Hunter Murray (as Andy Murray) Researcher
Arron Ferster Question Writer
Production team
Ian Lorimer Director
Piers Fletcher Producer
David Morley (as Dave Morley) Executive Producer
Ruby Kuraishe Executive Producer
Nick King Editor
Jonathan Paul Green Production Designer
Howard Goodall Composer
John Lundberg Cerealogical Motif Wrangler
Wil Russell Cerealogical Motif Wrangler
Mark Barnes Cerealogical Motif Wrangler

Video

The QI Crop Circle

Find out how QI made a crop circle.

Featuring: Alan Davies, Stephen Fry, Danny Baker, Sean Lock & David Mitchell.

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