8 out of 10 Cats
Genre	Comedy
Format	Panel game
Presented by	Jimmy Carr
Starring	Team captains: Sean Lock Dave Spikey (Series 1–4) Jason Manford (Series 5–10) Jon Richardson (Series 11–present)
Theme music composer	Mat Osman
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	12
No. of episodes	111 (to 23 December 2011) (List of episodes)
Production
Location(s)	BBC Television Centre
Running time	22 minutes
Production company(s)	Endemol
Broadcast
Original channel	Channel 4
Original run	3 June 2005 (2005-06-03) – present
External links
Website

8 out of 10 Cats is a television comedy panel game made by Zeppotron (a subsidiary of Endemol) for Channel 4. It was first broadcast on 3 June 2005. The show is based on statistics and opinion polls, and draws on polls produced by a variety of organizations and new polls commissioned for the programme, carried out by company Harris Poll. The show's title is derived from a well-known advertising tagline for Whiskas cat food which originally claimed that "8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas".^[1] The first advert ever screened during the show's commercial break was for Whiskas.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Overview 2 Current rounds 3 Retired rounds 4 DVD 5 Other Specials 6 Podcasts 7 Guest appearances 8 Transmissions 8.1 Original series 8.2 Specials 9 References 10 External links

Overview

The show is hosted by comedian Jimmy Carr and features two teams, consisting of a regular team captain and two celebrity guests each. Sean Lock has appeared as the first team captain since the show's inception; the opposing captain was originally Dave Spikey, who left after series 4 to pursue other projects and was replaced by Jason Manford.^[2] Manford departed following series 10, and has been replaced by Jon Richardson in the current series.^[3]

Every week, the captains are joined by two celebrities from the likes of David Walliams and Alan Carr. Often, topical celebrities appear on the show, for example Ruth Badger following her appearance on The Apprentice.

The show is recorded at BBC Television Centre, typically the day before transmission. However, in the past few years, due to Jimmy Carr's stand-up schedule, certain episodes are pretaped and broadcast later as "special" episodes dealing with a particular subject.^[4]

Current rounds

These are the current rounds featured on 8 out of 10 Cats^[5]:

• "What Are You Talking About?" - The polling organisation asked the public what they were talking about during the week. The teams have to try to guess the top five.
• "Pick of the Polls" - The teams are given 4 pictures to pick from and are given a poll based around that picture.
• "Believe It or Not" - The teams are given a statistic and try to guess if it is true or false.
• "And the Winner Is..." The teams are given a question from a poll and then they try to guess what came on top of that poll.
• "The Poll With a Hole"- each team is given a statistic but it is missing one piece of salient information. The teams have to guess what that piece of information is.

The points often do not add up correctly, but this is because the show has to be edited to fit in its 26 minute slot. From series 9 there is a longer version of the episode called "8 Out Of 10 Cats Uncut" broadcast a few days later.

Until season 8 there were four rounds during the game, but now it has been limited to three.

Retired rounds

These rounds only featured in Series 1 and the Big Brother special shows:^[5]

• "Face Off" - The teams have to guess who from a list of famous people came top with respect to a particular topic.
• "Word Association" - The teams view a clip illustrating a word and have to guess the top three things people thought of when they heard that word.
• "What's the Poll?" - The teams are given five famous people, picture by picture, and they have to guess which poll they appeared on.

DVD

8 out of 10 Cats: Claws Out is a ninety-minute collection of highlights from the past few series which features deleted scenes considered too offensive to be aired. It was released on 20 November 2006.^[6]

Other Specials

In January 2012 a special episode of Countdown aired as part of a special "mash-up night" celebrating Channel 4's 30th birthday. Jimmy Carr took over as host alongside Rachel Riley. Sean Lock and Jon Richardson competed as contestants and Joe Wilkinson joined Susie Dent in dictionary corner. The show consisted of 4 letters rounds, 2 numbers rounds and the conundrum, interspersed with 8 out of 10 Cats style banter.^[7]

Podcasts

A series of podcasts have also been released on iTunes, with material directly from the show for several episodes. Each podcast is typically the "What Are You Talking About" round from that episode.

Guest appearances

The following have made more than one appearance on the show as a guest (up to 23 December 2011):

Transmissions

Original series

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	3 June 2005	5 August 2005	10
2	10 February 2006	24 March 2006	7
3	26 May 2006	14 July 2006	8
4	20 October 2006	8 December 2006	8
5	15 June 2007	20 July 2007	6
6	13 June 2008	18 July 2008	6
7	4 September 2008	27 November 2008	13
8	5 June 2009	17 July 2009	7
9	8 January 2010	19 February 2010	7
10	17 September 2010	15 October 2010	5
11	17 June 2011	19 August 2011	10
12	23 September 2011	25 November 2011	10

Specials

Date	Entitle
12 August 2005	Big Brother Special
18 August 2006	Big Brother Special
15 December 2006	The Best of Series 4
30 August 2007	Big Brother Special
5 September 2008	Big Brother Special
26 December 2008	The Best of Series 7
24 July 2009	The Best of Series 8
11 June 2010	World Cup Special
21 August 2010	The Best of Series 9
9 September 2010	Big Brother Special
23 December 2010	Christmas Special
5 March 2011	24 Hour Panel People Comic Relief Special
26 August 2011	The Best of Series 11
9 December 2011	The Best of Series 12
23 December 2011	Christmas Special

References

External links

• 8 out of 10 Cats at channel4.com
• 8 out of 10 Cats at TV.com
• 8 out of 10 Cats at the Internet Movie Database
• 8 out of 10 Cats at the British Comedy Guide
• 8 out of 10 Cats at EpisodeWorld.com