Wikipedia:

List of QI episodes

(A series)

This is a list of episodes of QI, the BBC comedy panel game television show hosted by Stephen Fry.

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" (such as "arthropods", "Alans" and "astronomy"). A second series of 12 programmes started on 8 October 2004, with subjects beginning with the letter 'B' (except in two special episodes, one about music and one about colour). The C series started on 30 September 2005 and the D series started on 29 September 2006 and the E series on 21 September 2007.

The dates in the lists are those of the BBC Two broadcasts. The episodes were also broadcast on BBC Four, generally a week earlier (as soon as one episode finished on BBC Two, the next was shown on BBC Four).

Disclaimer: Some facts stated during the series have since been found to be incorrect, in some cases due to a mistake and others by becoming outdated. Where possible these entries have been highlighted.

Pilot

Broadcast date
  • Unbroadcast on television but released as an extra on the Series 1 DVD. This is also the only episode in which the scores are announced after each round. On the broadcast episodes, the scores are only revealed at the end of the game.
Panellists
Topics
Names
  • Bobo Fing is a language spoken by 10,000 people in Mali. Not to be confused with Bobo (a language of Burkina Faso) or Gogo (spoken by 10 million in Tanzania).
  • King Arthur's lance was called Ron, short for Rongomynad. His helmet was named Goosewhite, his armour was called Wygar and his war cry was "Clarence!"
Tangent: Paul Daniels performing a magic trick based on the legend of King Arthur.
  • 'Butter hamlets' are small tropical fish which can be found in 10 different colours.
  • Tim is the 6th most popular name for a baby boy in Germany. (Forfeit: Adolph - because Stephen's card was spelt like that and Alan who said the answer was thinking "Adolf" as in Adolf Hitler, the penalty was reduced to -8 points)
  • Richard Gere's middle name is Tiffany. (Forfeit: Gerbil)
  • Scores: Bill - 15, Alan - 25, Eddie - 31, Kit - 35
History
  • William Huskisson, the first person killed in a rail accident, had previously escaped death after a horse fell on his head during his honeymoon.
  • The bones from penises of badgers were used by Victorian gentlemen as tie clips.
  • Rectal inflation was an old method of blowing tobacco smoke through the rectum as a means to resuscitate the drowned.
  • Victorians who could not afford chimney sweeps would drop a goose down to clean it instead.
  • Scores: Alan - 45, Eddie - 46, Bill - 68, Kit - 80
Lingo
  • Guessing the meanings of Dutch words.
    • Pronk - Flaunt
    • Sloot - Ditch
    • Kloof - Gap
    • Lonk - To Ogle
    • Oog - Eyes
    • Wanklank - A discordant noise
  • "Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog moesten vele Nederlanders tulpenbollen eten," is Dutch for, "During the Second World War, many Dutch people had to eat tulip bulbs," which is a true fact.
Tangent: If dogs eat toothpaste, they hallucinate. Alan admits he heard this fact from someone from the pub. (Although on an episode in Series "B", it is revealed that this fact is true) Another kind of dog hunts deer by biting off the testicles.
Tangent: In Greece, the word for bread and lavatory seat are the same word, kolóura.
  • The word "Thespian" means "Awful" in Greek, as in "Awe inspiring." It also means, "Divine".
  • Scores: Alan - 77, Kit - 95, Eddie - 96, Bill - 107
General Ignorance
Tangent: Mount Kilimanjaro is higher than Mount Everest because it raises straight out of the African plain, whereas Everest is just one mountain on top of lots in the Himalayas. Also, as Kilimanjaro is on the Equator, it is further away from the centre of the Earth as it is an oblate spheroid.
Tangent: In Greece, the word for lifebelt is also kolóura.

A Series (2003)

Episode 1

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: Sheep are castrated without breaking the skin.
Tangent: Discussion of Prince Albert's libido and the Prince Albert piercing.
Tangent: Kiwifruit use up more than their own weight in aviation fuel getting from New Zealand to Europe.
  • Actor John Barrymore regretted not being able to see himself perform on stage.
Tangent: A drunken Peter O'Toole once went to see a play, having forgotten that he was supposed to be in it.
  • Young Giant Anteaters indulge in 'bluff charging'. Their claws are sharp enough to eviscerate a human.
  • Anteaters have sixteen-inch tongues, but mouths as narrow as a pencil.
Tangent: The average graphite pencil can write for thirty-five miles.
General Ignorance
Tangent: A ship's captain cannot marry people, and lemmings do not jump over cliffs: both are urban myths concocted by the film industry.
Tangent: The Romans believed that buggery caused earthquakes.

Episode 2

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: The national animal of Croatia is the weasel.
  • The best way to escape from a polar bear is to remove one's clothing, leaving items of clothing on the ground while backing away.
  • An alligator can be rendered helpless by placing a rubber band over its jaws.
  • The Earth has two moons. (Forfeit: One) Cruithne is an asteroid sometimes described as Earth's second moon.
  • Ninety per cent of the Universe is unaccounted for; it is believed to be made of dark matter.
Tangent: Claims that Ikea stores have no windows to decrease customers' awareness of the passage of time.
Tangent: William James' exchange with a woman who believed the Earth was balanced on top of a giant turtle.
General Ignorance
  • Krung Thep is the proper name for the capital of Thailand. (Forfeit: Bangkok)
  • Brides do not walk down the aisle of a church; they walk down the central passageway. The aisle is down the side of the church.
  • The earliest known soup is made from hippopotamus.
  • No man-made objects can be seen from the Moon with the naked eye. (Forfeit: Great Wall of China)

Episode 3

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: Lord Mackay of Clashfern and his apparent meanness with honey.
Tangent: Hans Christian Andersen is ranked less annoying than Clive Anderson on AmIAnnoying.com.
General Ignorance

Episode 4

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: Charles Dickens despised Chelmsford, describing it as "the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the Earth." He also invented the word 'boredom'.
General Ignorance
  • King Henry VIII technically had either three or four wives, depending on the source. (Forfeit: Six) His marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled, the Pope declared his marriage with Anne Boleyn to be void as he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, and the marriage to Catherine of Aragon was declared void by Henry himself as it was illegal to marry the widow of one's brother (Catherine had previously been married to Henry's older brother Arthur). After his death, the king's body swelled in the heat and exploded.
Tangent: Hans Holbein the Younger painted various royal portraits. His painting 'The Ambassadors' contains the image of a human skull, which can only be seen properly when viewed from an angle.
Tangent: Their eyes can swivel independently, and it was once believed that they lived on air.

Episode 5

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: Strand cigarettes' "You're never alone with a Strand" advertising campaign was a spectacular failure. Queen Victoria smoked when in Scotland, in order to keep the midges away.
Tangent: The chief architect of the London Eye shares a birthday with Gustave Eiffel.
  • The Toyota MR2 provoked much amusement in France, as "MR2" sounds like merde. The Ford Pinto is equally amusing to Brazilians, as "pinto" is Brazilian slang for a small penis.
  • Playwright Brendan Behan was asked to devise an advertising slogan for Guinness. He came up with "Guinness makes you drunk." (Forfeit: "Guinness is good for you"—actually written by Dorothy L. Sayers)
Tangent: Alec Guinness allegedy predicted James Dean's death.
Tangent: Subbuteo was named after the Latin word for 'hobby'.
Tangent: Discussion of the (legendary) Pope Joan.
Tangent: Michael Portillo's exploits as a young Conservative candidate.
General Ignorance
  • A centipede has between 30 and 382 legs. None has ever been found with 100 legs. It always has an odd number of pairs of legs.
  • In 1994, 35,000 Americans insured themselves against alien abduction.
  • Purple rhymes with 'hirple' and 'curple'. (Forfeit: Nothing rhymes with purple)

Episode 6

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
  • Physicist Niels Bohr hung a horseshoe on his wall as "I understand it brings you luck whether you believe in it or not".
Tangent: Edith Evans purchased a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and hung it low down behind a curtain simply because "there was a hook" there.
Tangent: Discussion of the Schrödinger's cat problem.
  • Barbara Cartland, when asked whether British class barriers had broken down, replied "Of course they have, or I wouldn't be sitting here talking to someone like you". She also invented the aeroplane-towed glider.
  • When asked by a priest if he forgave his enemies, the dying Spanish Captain-General Ramon Blanco y Erenas said "I have no enemies, I've had them all shot".
  • Pliny the Elder:
    • believed that epilepsy could be cured by eating the heart of a black jackass, outside on the second day of the moon. Alternatively, lightly poached bear testes, a dried camel brain with honey, or gladiator blood.
    • suggested incontinence could be cured by touching the tips of the genitals with linen or papyrus. Alternatively, drinking a glass of wine mixed with the ash of a pig's penis, then urinating in your (or your neighbour's) dog's bed.
    • also suggested haemorrhoids could be cured with a cream made with pig lard and the rust from chariot wheels. Alternatively, swan's fat or the urine of a female goat.
    • thought that headaches were supposedly cured by a fox's genitals tied to the forehead.
    Tangent: British bees died out after World War I – new bees were introduced from Mexico.
    • claimed that choking on a piece of bread could be cured by placing pieces of the same loaf in the ears.
    • died investigating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
  • Twenty four people every year are murdered by the Swiss Army, due to the relatively free availability of handguns.
  • During the Vietnam War, the US Military prevented wounded soldiers from swallowing their tongues by pinning the tongue to the cheek. More soldiers committed suicide after Vietnam than died in combat.
  • Costa Rica has no army: it was disbanded in 1949. The constitution now specifically forbids the country from having an army.
  • Alsatians are forbidden from serving in the Spanish Army, as they have an IQ of 60: an IQ of 70 is the minimum required.
General Ignorance

Episode 7

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
  • Australia was discovered by the Chinese. (Forfeit: James Cook)
  • Aborigines - the term comes from the Latin meaning "from the origin" and was first used to describe a pre-Roman people.
Tangents: The scrotum and sperm
Tangents: Stupid answers given in trivia games
General Ignorance
Tangent: Charles Goodyear with his invention of vulcanised rubber.

Episode 8

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: A "blowjob" is a type of cocktail, made with either Drambuie or Bailey's, whipped cream on the top and is served in a shooter glass. You are not allowed to use your hands to drink it.
  • C. B. Fry held the world long jump record in 1913, could jump backwards on to a mantlepiece from a standing position without losing his balance, and after the first world war, was offered the throne of Albania, but turned it down.
Tangent: Jumping backwards
Tangent: The philtrum
Tangent: Frankin was not allowed to draft the American constitution, because people thought he might have put jokes in it.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Banana plants walk up to 40 centimeters in a lifetime.

Episode 9

Broadcast date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: Syllogisms, Queen Elizabeth and Kylie Minogue and J.Lo.
Tangent: Marc Bolan was dyslexic but obsessed with The Lord of the Rings novels
Tangent: The Common cold.
  • Auricle is another name for the outer part of the ear.
  • Vincent van Gogh, after cutting off half of his own ear, presented it to the prostitute that had spurned his affection.
  • Snakes do not have ears.
  • The okapi can clean its own ears with its tongue.
  • Galileo discovered "ear-like growths" – the rings of Saturn.
General Ignorance

Episode 10

Broadcast date
Panelists
Topics
Tangent: Julia's time working in Hokkaidō, Japan's northern island. The island is known for having good milk due to the grass.
  • It was a bad idea to ban smoking on aeroplanes, due to companies saving money by using both fresh and recycled air, which increases the threat from viruses.
  • The Alans are a tribe of people who live on the Russian border, since the Huns drove them there in the 4th century.
Tangent: "Alan" means "Rock" or "Pebble", as does "Peter". Alan and Stephen argue as to whether his "Alan" is either a rock or a pebble. Stephen's father is called Alan.
Tangent: The Australian version is Reg Grundy's, undies. Listerine was an example of rhyming slang that has moved on one. If you are "Listerine", then you are an antiseptic, and septic is rhyming slang for American (Septic tank, yank).
General Ignorance
Tangent: The first modern helicopter was invented by the French.

Episode 11

Broadcast date
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Richard: Trumpet fanfare
  • Linda: Harp
  • Bill: Bagpipes ending in dischord
  • Alan: Donkey heehaw
Topics
  • Pigeons do not like going to the movies, because they see the world ten times faster than humans. To them, a film is a slow slide show.
  • It was once believed that a pigeon's arse could be used to suck out the poison from an adder's bite. Pigeons are the only birds that can suck.
  • The ant has the largest brain in comparison to its body size. (Forfeit: Human)
Tangent: Alan's problem with an ant infestation.
  • There are 8,000 species of ant.
  • Soldier ants were used in Ancient India as stitches after operations.
  • In Thailand, red ants are poured into open wounds, and they secrete an acid which acts as a pain killer and an antiseptic.
  • A greasy butcher, a hog snout and Gene Pitney are all kinds of apple.
  • Apples and a game played with headless goats both originated from Kazakhstan.
  • Both Ulysses S. Grant and John Prescott were both arrested for speeding and both won unusual prizes. Grant won a prize for taming a pony in a circus. The Prescott family came second a competition searching for, "The most typical family in Britain," in 1951, but he should have won because the winning family was discovered to be distantly related to the organiser of the competition.
General Ignorance
Tangent: A hippopotamus breath is so bad, they use it as part of their weaponry. George Washington had hippopotamus false teeth.

Episode 12 – Christmas special

Broadcast date
Panellists
Theme
  • The general theme of all the questions was Christmas, with the panellists asked to draw a Christmas tree. Alan Davies drew a traditional childlike portrayal of a Christmas tree – a triangular style tree showing (incorrectly) that the branches point downwards.
Topics
  • A Gripple is a gripping device made in Sheffield. Thousands of gripples hold together the Dingo Fence, the worlds longest