Games - QI

	Games - QI

QI, standing for Quite Interesting, is a comedy panel game television show shown on BBC Two and BBC Four and hosted by Stephen Fry. It is distinguished by the awarding of points not necessarily for the correct answer, but rather for an interesting one. Many of the questions and answers are extremely obscure. Points can also be deducted, but, quite interestingly, not for wrong answers, but only for obvious but wrong answers; this often results in a negative points score at the end of the game. The first series started on 11 September 2003.

Format

The format of the show was devised by the writer and former BBC producer, John Lloyd and is produced by an organisation set up by Lloyd, Quite Interesting Ltd.

The panel consists of 4 panelists, one of whom, Alan Davies, appears as a panellist in all episodes. He is the butt of many jokes throughout the series, and normally gives most of the obvious but wrong answers; thus usually finishing with a negative score and finishing last. Most other panellists come from a stand up comedy background, although there have been musicians and actors including Richard E. Grant.

Each of the panel have a buzzer which makes a noise when pressed which are often based along some sort of theme. Alan Davies' buzzer usually contradicts the other panellists' buzzers in some amusing way. For example, in one episode, the first three panellists had sailing-themed buzzers, and Alan Davies' buzzer had a sexy sounding woman saying "Ahoy! Hello, Sailor!". He has also had to put up with a buzzer of a woman having an orgasm and the ying-tong theme from The Goons. The noises produced are usually humorous although there have been musical buzzers (to which each buzzer played a famous piece of classical music, Alan Davies' however, played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") and other such non-humorous themes (with the exception of Alan's).

Providing an obvious but wrong answer results in a sequence of klaxon sounds, followed by Stephen producing this answer on a card to show the panellist. This has resulted in fans referring to one of the panel (usually Alan Davies) as being klaxoned. From the second series onwards, the answer also appears in large letters behind them.

In some episodes, panellists are given an extra task to complete during the game. For example, they were given paper and pens, and were asked to draw a wigwam in the style of a given artist; in fact all contestants incorrectly drew a teepee (except for one, Clive Anderson, who twisted the challenge by drawing Wham! wearing wigs).

Things frequently get bizarre during the show. For instance, the very first episode of the B series (see below for more information on this episode), during a question about what rhymes with the word orange, Fry piped up with the fact that his prep school tailors went by the name Goringe - bringing forth much insanity on the subject of wearing a cravat on cross-country runs, or a cummerbund for geography.

In a parody of "general knowledge" quizzes, the final round is off-topic and called "General Ignorance". This round focuses on seemingly easy questions which have obvious but wrong answers. Other rounds vary between having the contestants buzzing in, or by asking individual questions to each of them.

Episodes

The first series started on 11 September 2003. Although most viewers did not notice at the time, all of the questions (with the exception of the final 'general ignorance' round) were on subjects beginning with "a" (e.g. "arthropods", "Alans", "astronomy", etc.) A second series of 12 programmes started on 8 October, 2004. In a continuation to the established theme, subjects began with the letter "b" (except in two episodes, one about music and one about colour). Series three started on 30 September 2005, and all subjects begin with the letter "c".

Frequent participants

Alan Davies, permanent panellist, to Fry's immediate right
Jo Brand
Bill Bailey
Rich Hall
Sean Lock
Clive Anderson
John Sessions

Many of the frequent participants are managed by the Off The Kerb Productions comedy group.

Criticism

The questions are as in many comedy panel games, mainly there to set up jokes or discussions, rather than for any serious competition. Certain questions are purposely contradictory to established doctrine for the sake of entertainment. To take an example; to the question "How many planets are there in the solar system?", Alan Davies gave the answer "nine" and lost points for an obvious and wrong answer, the explanation being that at the time a debate was occurring over whether Pluto was indeed a planet (a debate that has continued to date - see definition of planet). As the International Astronomical Union still defined Pluto as a planet at the time of questioning, the answer "nine" would be a "correct" answer, if one accepted the contemporary IAU definition.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for QI ]

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