Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 1. Alex Horne

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

Taskmaster the Podcast is officially open and on the first episode, host Ed Gamble is joined by The Taskmaster’s assistant, Little Alex Horne. The pair dissect and discuss the first episode and put the spotlight on each contestant from the new series. As well as this Alex gives some behind the scenes goss and answers your questions! Get in touch with Ed and future guests  [e-mail] Visit the Taskmaster Youtube channel www.YouTube.com/Taskmaster For all your Taskmaster goodies visit www.Taskmasterstore.com Sales, advertising and general enquiries:[e-mail]  Taskmaster Series 10 starts on Channel 4 on Thursday 15th October at 9pm. The family friendly version can be found on E4 on Sunday 18th October at 5.45pm. Taskmaster The Podcast is Produced by Daisy Knight for Avalon Television Ltd. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hello, welcome to the official Taskmaster podcast. First episode, hooray! Fireworks.

My name's Ed Gamble, you should know who I am if you're a Taskmaster fan. I was the undisputed champ of season nine. I won, I won baby! and you would have thought that would be my dream complete i've won my favorite television show but no i couldn't let go that's why i've asked to host this podcast i am clinging on by my fingertips uh like i say this is the official taskmaster podcast i'm going to be chatting to a special guest every week after the main show on channel four uh to go through what happened really to sort of dissect and discuss it a little bit uh chat about how people are doing what they did wrong what they did right all of that sort of

gubbins uh after the main show on channel four at 9 p.m it's on thursdays 9 p.m channel four starts on the 15th of oct, but you should know that already because you should not be listening to this if you've not seen the first episode. This podcast is made to be listened after you've seen the episode. There will be spoilers. We will be drilling down into the detail,

into the minutiae. This is for nerds who have seen the episode already. Thank you. And if you're overseas and you can't access the episodes, but you can access this, I would advise, and you won't hear podcast hosts do this very often, don't listen to it.

Don't listen to it. You're going to spoil your favourite thing. And it won't make any sense, a lot of it. It's just going to be a bizarre Lynchian type thing where you're going, why are they saying that? Why are they talking about this? What do they mean about those eggs? See, even then I've said eggs. that's a bit of a spoiler for this episode

tying it off don't listen to it go and listen to another podcast off menu with ed gamble and james acaster something like that just go i'm right i'm gonna give you a second go okay good they're gone right we can crack on uh what a first episode that was very much looking forward to speaking to our special guest and i should tell you as well uh if you are in a family or you have young kids and you love taskmaster but you're worried there's too many swears and bottoms in it uh don't worry a family friendly version is going to be on e4 every sunday after the channel 4 transmission so the sunday after the thursday it goes out normally. 6 o'clock E4 is the family friendly version. Apart from this first episode.

Which is on 5.45 on E4 on Sunday. That's the family friendly version of episode 1. Right. A lot of admin to get through granted. But we're going to crack on now. If you want to get your questions into our special guests. Not this one coming up. Because of course we've already done this hence you listening to it email taskmaster podcast at gmail.com a lot of our guests are former taskmaster contestants you can ask them

anything about their time on taskmaster anything about the show in general there is no question too specific but let's crack on very excited first guest, which you'll probably know, it's probably in the subject of the podcast or something, is Alex Horne. Of course it is. The Taskmaster's assistant himself. Who better to kick off this podcast and give us all the secret behind the scenes goss than Alex Horne. Let's crack on. Welcome to the official Taskmaster podcast. Alex Horne. Let's crack on. Welcome to the official Taskmaster podcast. I declare this podcast open. That's the mayor of podcasting popped in there. Thank you, mayor. Welcome Alex Horne slash little Alex Horne to the first episode of the official Taskmaster podcast. Thank you very much for being our very first guest.

Woohoo. Hi, Ed. it's lovely to be here. Thank you for the woohoo as well, what a start. We're going to find out what this podcast is as we go through it Alex. We'll probably overanalyse it to the point that you're not enjoying it. How do you feel about that? Yeah, sounds great. So we want it to be a fairly dull podcast, is that the idea? Yes, very. Well, if you feel like it's dull it's not dull uh to the taskmaster nerds but as you know what you might think is boring about taskmaster the minutiae people love to hear about it yes i i don't find any aspect of it boring actually but i'm just

conscious that um i am a boring person or i have the potential right we've we've factored that in okay that's let's. Let's go. That's why I'm hosting it. I'm sort of the fun one to sort of keep you going. Yeah. It's another show that I'm not allowed to host, which I'm fine with. It's a real shame. You've got to this level now, finally, with Taskmaster, and you're still not allowed even

to host the offshoot podcast. Can I host the podcast? No. No. We're going to get Ed to do that. good idea yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah fair enough so we kick off uh first first prize task of the series um the nicest thing to put in your mouth now initially i was slightly worried that you'd gone saucy now you'd gone to channel four you thought the whole episode was going to be. You thought the whole episode was going to be blue?

I thought the whole series was going to be blue. I thought you turned it into a sort of naked attraction style show. I thought the Channel 4 execs had started meddling with it and gone like, oh, we need it to be sexier. Was that a note you got at any point? No, it wasn't. But it is sexy, isn't it? The idea of putting something in your mouth.

Oh, especially nice things. Wow. When you come up with a prize task, do you think about what you would pick for the prize task? Or do you just enjoy asking other people the question? So the Andes, one is a producer, one is a director. Andy Cartwright and Andy Devonshire. We have a little chat about them.

And if Andy Cartwright is worried about one, he will say Alex what would you put in yeah but until he does that I don't think about it at all because I sort of trust that five comics will come up with stuff and they won't come up with the similar thing to me but if I can't think of anything at all then maybe maybe it's not right now when you say you trust the five comics will come up with something that didn't necessarily happen on the opening episode, did it? No. Greg was very disappointed with the responses.

I was absolutely blown away that that's what they came up with. Daisy, immediately, Daisy May Cooper, picked white wine. She went very route one. Just white wine. Just white wine. Okay. And we're off route one. Just white wine. Just white wine. Okay. And we're off, Greg. Feel the rush!

I thought, well, this isn't in with a chance of winning the prize task this week. And then it sort of steadily went downhill from there. Yes. So, a differently produced show, we would have told them told them look really make an effort with these prize tasks it's the first thing that's going to happen on this brand new channel

but i always think it's funnier when people are bad and also it's got to be real so um that's what daisy did bottle of wine and it is nice to put in your mouth yes no she's absolutely right she's absolutely right but i i liked as. It's very funny to start off like that and very funny that sort of across the board, it was a bit like that. I really enjoy watching people panic at the prize task because having done the show myself, I didn't realise until we started filming

that the prize task is the most stressful bit of the studio records because you think about these things for ages or I certainly did. And then the first first I can't even remember what the first one was that I had to do but you present it and if it sort of doesn't get much it's then real it's real stress you just suddenly think of the nine you've got coming up across the series and really panic about it yeah people do change their items quite often as the

course of the series unfolds um but also this was different because there was no studio audience so in terms of them not getting much reaction it was just not getting much reaction from greg yeah and that happens every time um with the with the no studio audience i think i mentioned this to you another time but um it seemed like everyone had lost their minds in the first episode it was wonderful it was wonderful and joyous to watch but it seemed like everyone had lost their minds in the first episode it was wonderful it was wonderful and joyous to watch but it's like well people sort of had been locked down for months so to be able to see other people and have a laugh there were tears in everyone's eyes immediately yeah everyone's very giddy definitely and i think we were scared the first five minutes greg and i were very worried about no laughter in the room uh from the audience but the weirdness stopped almost immediately because

daisy and johnny laughed so loudly it felt it felt like there were 400 people in there also a little glimpse of uh the personalities of the contestants straight away i think uh in that richard herring is the last to present his prize task and immediately says well i've decided to go with what was what was actually asked for. So we're beginning to see a glimpse of sort of competitive stuff from Herring. Is that fair? Is that something that shines through

for the rest of the series? Because I'd like to sort of have a little spotlight on each of the contestants for this first episode. Spotlight on Richard. Thank you. A couple of things shine through from that. First is that he's watched the show before, which can't be said for everyone all the time, he said he's watched every episode more than once i think

it's determined to win yeah and i really like it when people talk about the other things that have been brought in instead of just presenting their own i really want people to react to what everyone else has brought in so i was very pleased by richard's reaction he also looked a bit um like you say over competitive and a bit annoying i quite like that someone who's early doors winding people up including greg so um yeah i think he thought he was going to be punished more than he was by greg he thought he always felt like a beating was around the corner from greg and he's got a bit of badil about him as well he's old he tries to do things in a straightforward way there wasn't a lot of

lateral thinking and really and and really wants to win he really wants I think maybe more than anyone but anyone ever or anyone in the series uh no I say maybe more than anyone ever in terms of just wanting to win. So we move on to the first task proper of the series. One of your tricksy tasks. It starts off as a coconut shy and turns into, of course, having to carry pints of squash to a caravan while holding a teddy bear. Yes, so we thought we'd be fairly brave with the first one and surprise, hopefully, viewers who hadn't seen it before by thinking this is fairly ordinary, but there's a twist.

And I think it's nice to start with something a little bit more off-kilter. I mean, fans of the show will be expecting it, I think it's nice to start with something a little bit more off-kilter. I mean, fans of the show will be expecting it, I think. When you see not that coconut off the stick, they'll think there's more to this. And Katherine Parkinson was very pleased with herself for thinking, I'm not going to throw the balls, I'm just going to knock it off. Yes, of course. Whereas I think, yeah, Herring knew there'd be more.

I think what you were doing there as well is, because obviously the quicker you knock it off, the bigger the bear, right? So you're punishing people for being clever in that. Well, we're rewarding them with a lovely big bear, Ed. Ah, okay, you're sticking with this, are you? Well, that was the logic to it. If you knock the coconut off straight away, you should get a big beer.

Yes, okay. But also, I think what you're doing is you don't like it when people try and find tricksy ways around it, like not using a ball or just running and knocking it off with their hands because you think that ruins the fun, which I sort of agree with but sort of don't agree with. So you're trying to punish people for thinking they're clever by knocking off with their hands.

Yes. I think that's all correct. And also punishing people who throw a ball and hit it first time because no one likes that guy. No. Who's really good at throwing a ball at a coconut. What an idiot.

I think I would have been the guy running and knocking it off with my hand. Yeah. Yeah, you'd be the smug guy. Mawans was my favourite technique because he threw six balls at once and knocked it off immediately but no one has ever thrown a ball like that before no whereas Johnny was just sad dad and then well sad dad for Johnny we why don't we why don't we focus on Johnny briefly spotlight on Johnny spotlight on Johnny thank you sad dad is uh

is definitely a good description of him, especially for this first episode, I'd say. He's a sad dad to imaginary children as well in this first episode. Yes. And quite a few times it's a motif throughout the series, actually. Joy as well, plenty of joy. He's got the right levels of everything, but he's quite in touch with his sadness.

And that's always been the case for johnny vegas that's why i was very much looking forward to seeing him on taskmaster is i mean he's sort of built for it isn't he i think a lot of people have requested him in the in the past just because he throws himself into things with with abandon so the so they had to hold a bear getting the getting the drinks from the phone booth to the caravan did you pick this as the first one because because it was a surprising one how how in general across all of the series of taskmaster do you decide on which task is going to be shown first so one thing we never do is plan it according to the points we never try to work out who's going to win it because that would

be tedious so we pick the tasks yeah we're just trying to make a balance and the opening task of a series is quite delicate because you want everyone to stand out you you don't want anyone to have a an invisible sort of task you want everyone to show their personalities a bit i suppose there is i mean there is a fairly spectacular moment uh in the tasks especially uh in that task with daisy um is quite an amazing way to kick her taskmaster journey off um of basically spilling the majority the majority of the drinks from what i could see it turned into a scene from some mothers do have them well what i did in the wording so i come up with the wording for the tasks and i think i regret this now i put in you may not spill a single drop yeah and she spilled a single drop and then many many more pints so she was punished the same amount as somebody who

spilled just one drop well Greg's obviously let the uh let people get to him so he's he's often called out for not being harsh enough in his scoring and he's obviously let that get into his head it keeps him awake at night. So he's really kicked off this series by punishing everyone for everything. And I think he's right. And again, I think it's funny that no one did the first task of the series.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's not an impossible task. So there's plenty of ways. I don't know how you would have done it, but you could seal the pints. Yeah, you could seal the pints. I mean, Mouan's idea initially was good of pouring them all into a bucket well his first idea was to try to drag the whole phone box oh yeah sorry no he tried to move move the phone box uh my one idea to fill a

bucket and then bring the bucket there i think that would have counted that would have been fine yeah that i think i might i mean it's so easy to sit watch it, come up with what you would do because in the moment, God knows what I would have done. But filling, I don't know why he chose to fill the bucket through a series of pipes interconnected. He could have gone in with the bucket and just poured them in. No, and he wasn't trying to be funny or clever. Well, he was trying to be good.

Also watching it, you realise if you'd just done it very, very slowly, you would have won. And that's often the case in Taskmaster, that the slowest person does win because everyone else infringes the laws. Should we do a spotlight on Mawaan then? Spotlight on Mawaan. There we go. An amazing first episode for Mawaan, I thought. It's always good to see slightly newer people introduced via the medium of the show. And again, he seems, I mean, everyone seems perfect for it

because you picked the right people. But how did you come to get Mouan for it? Have you seen his stand-up in the past? Have you worked with him before? So everyone who goes on it, I have seen before. I mean, that's the beauty of being a comedian and a producer on it because it's a very small industry, our industry. So you do tend to know

everyone and if i don't then i've got spies like tim key who he's still got his toe in the circuit much more than me um so with my one i saw him on the harry hill itv late night show have you seen that as his which is another good show for introducing new people yes and he was by far the funniest in the episode that I saw. And then I went down a little Mawaan Rizwan wormhole on YouTube. He's got some brilliant stuff at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Yeah. Songs and dances and jokes.

He's an all-round package, Ed. Yes. And I just, I really like the idea that he might be able to bring some of that to our show. That's always good when you see people have got sort of musical skills or can dance and sing and things like that. You think, well, they're almost certainly going to be able to bring those skills to Taskmaster. And you knew I couldn't.

And thanks for still getting me involved. You sang. Your musical tastes were at the fore of quite a few of your attempts. Yes. Well, it's because I've only got two things, Alex. I'm diabetic and I like heavy metal, so anything that I do in comedy, I have to mention. You've got your pretty tattoos.

I've got my... That's part of the heavy... That's under the heavy metal umbrella, isn't it? No, you're right, that's it. Task two. Task two. Task two. Make the largest object properly vanish. Yeah, another fiddly wording there, properly.

And there was an argument in the studio about whether anything can properly vanish. Yes. But you know what I mean. You've got to properly vanish. Now you see it, now you don't. Yeah. And with no editing trickery being the key wording. Yeah, we're looking for sort of old school magic, you know, hiding an elephant,

or some more lateral thinking. And we've got a combination of both of those things, I think. I think so. I mean, you really didn't do any editing trickery uh to the point I think it screwed Catherine over a little bit because while she was doing her presenting to the camera you can hear a sofa just being dragged I'm not a magician but um I've worked out a way of making the largest thing I could uh find in this room disappear vanish um so when I've done it I'm gonna not click my fingers because

i'm not very good at doing that um but my hands so where's that large sofa gone vanished like there wasn't even any sound editor the sofa wasn't dragged out this is the but it was moved so that's the sofa wasn't moved at all is the but it was moved so that's the sofa wasn't moved at all the the oh the the cabinet thing was moved yes so greg thought the sofa was moved so in a way she did trick him yeah into making him think a different method was used but that's not what that's not like magic is it like if a if a magician did a card trick and you were like i know exactly how you've done that he's like no i did it this way well i don't know i quite often watch fool us with pen and

teller yeah and they will say well i think i know was it the sofa that moved and she would say no and then they would go ah you've won a spot in vegas with us ah so she would win a spot in vegas i think parkinson is now on the pen and teller show in Vegas. Yeah, that was part of it. That's one of the secret prizes on Taskmaster that you never see. She's not on next week's episode because she's in Vegas. No, she was not. Well, she was, throughout the series, convinced you couldn't leave the room unless it said, leave the room.

So she thought it would make the largest thing in this room vanish. Right. So she was hampered by the fact that had to be the sofa. She's a lovely, strange lady. Yes, I really, I didn't know what to expect. Spotlight on Catherine. Spotlight on Catherine. I didn't know what to expect from Catherine, but I really like her and I really like her in the studio tasks and just in the studio chat. She looks like she's constantly on the verge of either laughing or breaking down in tears.

Yeah, she was quite bewildered by herself a lot of the time. Confused why she made these decisions. Yeah, I really like her because she's very poised in real life or on screen because she's normally acting. Obviously, you never really see Katherine Parkinson being herself, but she was still poised

whilst being rubbish consistently yeah especially in the first task as well the idea of doing tippy toe running no one else decided to change the meaning of walk to try and get on the grass which is an interesting way of doing it no one else did it

now that's an example of looking at the wording and changing it that we would be fine with if she hadn't walked. Yeah. But walking on tiptoes is still walking. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to seeing her for the rest of the series as well. Is she going to become more unhinged?

Can you let us know that? Is she going to unravel? She unravels. There's one particular task, which is maybe my favourite, she and richard herring have moments which stay with them for the rest of the series you know when someone does something in a task which becomes their calling card throughout and we're yeah we used to never refer back to previous tasks in in in a different episode but these two do something so so off that we have to keep mentioning it so catherine might unravel more during the series. Johnny had unraveled before the series started

because he did a video of a chicken destroying a paper London. So that was very Johnny, very peak Johnny. So he's very artistic, as we know. He's a proper artist. He trained. He's got a degree in fine art. He's a potter. And he's an amazing drawer.

And all those things, none of the production team helped, all the little buildings that he made. And he really spent hours doing it. And I was expecting this to be, this is going to be amazing. I don't know what he's an amazing drawer and all those things, none of the production team helped, all the little buildings that he made. And he really spent hours doing it and I was expecting this to be, this is going to be amazing. I don't know what he's going to do. He's got something up his sleeve because he started it immediately. Normally people, when they get straight into a task, it means they've got a plan. You know, something's landed in their brains. Like when you did your mermaid task, which was maybe your finest moment.

So with this one, Johnny immediately launched into making these origami buildings from London, including Starbucks and Big Ben. Yeah. And they look great. And there was cartoons. There's a bit of satire about the corporations in London. Yeah. But in terms of the thing disappearing.

Yeah. There was a massive chicken. And then he put a piece of paper in front of the chicken. Bash! The killer chicken made his rampage across London. Do you know what we knew? That the armed forces were alerted. Just when we think our home is lost,

it disappears. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. Disappear. wait for clean water solutions or we can engineer access to clean water we can acknowledge indigenous cultures or we can learn from indigenous voices we can demand more from the earth or we can demand more from ourselves at york university we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. I mean, we'll talk about the points afterwards, but I think he was, for me, he felt over-rewarded for that. It was very funny, but it didn't seem to stick with the task.

I mean, it sticks with the sad dad thing as well. It's like he was doing a little puppet show for his children and had a breakdown halfway through. And I think Greg always likes a story as well he always one of his catchphrases let's drill down into the narrative here yeah so imagine that being a catchphrase yeah he never would have thought that you told him when he started comedy that is one of his catchphrases was going to be let's drill down into the narrative oh it's so funny I can see the the words forming in his brain and out they pop. Yeah. But he enjoyed drilling down into Johnny's narrative there, I think. Yes, fair.

So Richard obviously did an amazing magic trick and he obviously knew about that magic trick and he did the thing with the mirror. He did it well, didn't he? He did it really well. I was genuinely impressed. But again, you can see how competitive he is. When Greg immediately guessed how it was done,

he couldn't conceal his disappointment. Yeah. Because he was so proud and then so sad. There's a slight wobble in the mirror. And again, a different show probably would have got rid of that because it wouldn't have been hard to lose that. But that would have been cheating. You know, the whole point was there's no editing at all.

And there was a wobble. There was a wobble, Ed. There was a wobble in the mirror. There was a wobble in the mirror. And also, I think most people probably thought there's a mirror involved. Even though you are briefly impressed, you straight away go straight away go well yeah but it must be a mirror it must be a mirror yeah um mouans was genuinely impressive did you see it coming no no i absolutely i absolutely fell for it so we don't show these to greg occasionally greg and i will chat about

what's coming up you don't want him to not be able to say anything at all about anything but more and more we trust that his instincts will kick in and his funniest comments are instinctive I think so yeah he didn't know where that cow had gone he was bemused and a bit frustrated by how bemused he was I think yeah it's brilliant that was a really good one

did Moan come up with that pretty quickly or did it take him a while to sort of formulate that and put that together? I think even given three days, I wouldn't be able to do that. It was a classic hour long task that. So the way, as you know, it works is that when you've got an hour, you do have an hour, but there's a chance if we need equipment, you might think about it for 20 minutes and say, right, I'm going to need this thing. We'll pause the clock and do a different task in the meantime while someone goes out and buys it.

But that one, I'd say he spent 20 minutes thinking about it and 40 minutes making it happen. Wow. He was always going to be replacing a small thing with a big thing. That's the first time that cow's appeared in the show. Lovely cow. Well, the cow also made a disappearance in Daisy's magic trick. Yes.

Which wasn't so much a magic trick as because she didn't show the cow there and then no no it vanished she just put it in a hedge and then started filming right it's one of them where she fundamentally misunderstood the key word i think she thought vanished i suppose vanished she didn't understand the time aspect of when she yeah just thought it meant remove it i suppose it's perfect it's perfect within the narrative of the episode as well that she did that so yeah she brought white wine just straight in there no thought smashed up all the drinks in the first task and then just wanged the cow in the hedge for the second task yeah but but whilst dragging the cow into the bush she was always

thinking well this is great i've made the biggest thing vanish she didn't understand why that could possibly not be seen as a good thing now the points here like i say um i i think for me you know look if i was if i was judging it i wouldn't put johnny's high because it didn't feel like he'd made anything properly vanish as entertaining as it was sure i I think the... I can see why it got some points because he sort of managed to blend the piece of paper into the background. That was the idea. There was some proper logic to it. Yeah.

The execution wasn't perfect. How many points did he get? He got four points. No, that's far too many. That's far too many. That's what I'm saying. He got four points. Moana obviously won.

Moana wins. That was the correct decision. Are we having richard in second me and you uh i would have richard in second i think he it was it was yes a straightforward magic trick but i think he took the task and he uh and he ran with it yeah and also you've got to bear in mind it's meant to be the biggest thing and he made me disappear whereas johnny made a chicken disappear which was a massive chicken on the scale of london but it was just a chicken that's true he played with scale but then within the narrative of the show you're quite little within the narrative of the show are you smaller than a chicken probably yeah so that's actually smaller yeah so but i i would put i would put rich in

second uh i'd put i mean catherine came joint with richard um but daisy is in last place and i feel like that's correct in this instance yeah and I also like that Greg is not necessarily reflective of what everyone else thinks he should be a bit odd with his judgments but it may well be one that he regrets slightly not for long but he has fleeting

regret but I think there is some justification to Johnny's he made the stuff and that should be rewarded so let's move on to the third task the the final pre-taped task of this episode. Getting eggs into a pan below a balcony, but only using the contents of one box. So this is a task that I watch and think, I want to do this. And all the crew wanted to do this. Yeah. Because I think it's doable, but it's tough.

Yes. As was crew. It was very tough. I mean i mean obviously in my arrogance i think i could have what was your method i could have got some in well the thing is i couldn't see everything that was available in the boxes right so i i possibly would have gone helium balloons yeah so i think that's a mistake but then but then with a tether with a tether yeah and i think in my head it works so daisy very nearly did it but i think she very nearly did it with a tether. With a tether on it. In my head, it works. So Daisy very nearly did it.

But I think she very nearly did it with a lot of help from me. So I was controlling the leaf blower. She was controlling the balloons. It was still a tragic miss. It was a tragic miss. How do you decide whether to help people or not? Because quite often I would ask you for help and you'd say no. Oh, I see.

Yeah, it tends to be if a woman asks for help, I will help her. So I guess that's sexist, but also polite. I don't know. Yeah. I want to help. You're a polite sexist. No, I think I would have helped you if you really needed the help. Okay.

I don't think there was ever a thing where you couldn't lift something and I didn't help you. No, it was normally, I think you tend to turn down help when it's someone's first instinct to try and get something done so if if there's a if you're trying to work away around something and you go well how about you just do that bit you're obviously going to say no because it's going to be boring right yeah we want to see you struggle a bit but in this case daisy had been struggling for 15 minutes and she simply wanted someone to hold hold a leaf blower yeah so I wasn't doing much wafting. And maybe it was a two-person task. This is my highlight of the episode. And I think probably going to be a lot

of people's highlights is Mawaan trying to put helium in an egg. Yes. Cool. Yeah, something's coming to me. What if I made a hole in the egg and then filled it with helium okay okay i've just wasted an egg now when that seems mad i was so excited when it happened

because i'm seeing these things live and when you see that you think well that's just amazing and also he's really clever but in those 20 minutes, his brain vanished. He didn't understand helium at all. Yeah. Because we should stress this. He didn't do that to be funny, did he? He genuinely was trying to do that. Yeah, and I can see... Can I see the logic?

I don't think I would ever think that might possibly work, that if you fill an egg with helium, an egg that was already full of egg. Yeah. He didn't empty the egg he didn't blow the yolk and albumen out he just tried to put extra helium in the egg yeah

but also what I so if you follow that logic what he thought was going to happen is he put helium in the egg

then the egg can float yes but then surely all the eggs how is he going to get the eggs into the pan they're just going to float upwards

and bob around at the ceiling yeah he literally didn't understand it whereas johnny fully understood how helium worked and beaved away and very nearly did it but no my one was awful so you weren't allowed to throw the eggs either because that's probably your instinct isn't it just lob an egg in yeah but then also the instinct is what's going to be the most entertaining thing and i think quite often what happens is you get confronted by something that seems tricky or you can't think of a way to do it. And the crossroads are try and do something simple and boring or by all means do something that makes you look insane but is going to be entertaining.

Yeah, on this one, I don't think anyone's thinking this is the most entertaining, but some of them were thinking this is going to be the most entertaining for me. So Johnny was always going to uh helium balloons because helium balloons is fun the idea of making a sort of up style contraption to get this egg home yeah yeah exactly but the box that would have worked i think is the one that no one chose which was just cardboard boxes with these little um screws and nuts nuts and bolts that you could you could make essentially a long shoot right they all would have connected they all the cardboard boxes had holes in which is the perfect size for them and you could just made a nice flat shoot like the builders do and just scooted an egg into the pan

i think that would have worked into the pan and also the magnet system which we demonstrate we don't often demonstrate the correct way of doing it but we did demonstrate that i retrieved the frying pan by throwing the magnet at it and dragged it back towards me yeah that would have been the way to do it so it get in bringing the pan to you bring the pan to you but no one even realized very few of them realized that it was a magnet yeah and i guess once you choose a box you can't change your mind so So if it wasn't a magnet, you know, if the pan hadn't been the right metal. Yeah, if it had just been a disc and then you're just throwing that in the pan,

yeah, that wouldn't have worked. But no, it was a great, I think it was a really fun task that. And again, I don't think we've ever had an episode where two of the tasks were unaccomplished. I mean, if you include the prize task, they sort of were all three things slightly unaccomplished, really. Yeah, the prize task they sort of were all three things slightly unaccomplished really yeah and if you think that only two of them really made anything vanish yeah what a way to kick off the show on channel four uh daisy got a bonus point uh for that uh

and i think that was deserved because i really think she nearly got it didn't she yeah the bonus point's interesting i think some people will think it's undeserved because she didn't do it. Yeah. But I think you're right. I think it's all right, isn't it, to be generous? I think it's okay. It's okay.

I mean, it shows the sort of two minds of Greg. He suddenly panicked that he's not harsh enough, and then by the end of the episode, he's given out bonus points for doing fine. So let's do a spotlight on Daisy, then. Spotlight on Daisy. That's nice daisy uh amazing first i mean everyone had a very strong first episode i think worth talking about her outfit maybe yes achievement woman so the first time i ever saw daisy i hadn't met her at this point was and this sounds boasty but at the bafters we didn't

win she did win and she turned up in the in a dress made out of a Swindon football shirt I remember this long red dress and she made such an entrance you know you're always jealous of other people who make a better impression than you yeah um but she's into her outfits and this one her achievement woman outfit for taskmaster was made by the same person who made the Swindon dress. And it had lots of details on it. It's got sort of achievement badges all over it, like swimming a metre and stuff like that.

And they all gradually fell off over the course of the filming. But she looks terrific, I think. Yeah, it's a really strong outfit. And just the amount of joy she brings to this first episode in the studio and during the tasks, just that hoarse laugh where it feels like her eyes are about to pop out every time she laughs she made us all feel better about ourselves like greg and i particularly because it just created that energy in the room yeah she's 100 good daisy and does she does she mean did she maintain that sort of enthusiasm throughout the series or did she get so into it that it brings her down a little bit at any point? Pretty much. Occasionally I glanced over and she looked, yeah, very, very glum.

She's sort of 0 to 60 in a second. But no, that energy is there all the time and it's real. She's not, yeah, there's no fake laughing there. And she and Johnny found each other very, very funny. They were a good little team. That would conclude the first episode of Taskmaster Series 10. Very strong start. And obviously, yeah, you've got all the behind-the-scenes goss as well.

But in the future in the series, we're going to be having previous contestants. Oh, it's not me every week? It's not you every week, no, Alex. But feel free to pop on if you want to. I thought maybe you might like a little rest from Taskmaster given it's pretty much your entire life now. No, it's an honour to be your first guest, Ed. But I'm very happy for other people, more interesting people to give their hot takes.

Oh, we've got no interesting people coming. Oh, fine. Yes, good. No, no, no. Very boring. So we've got some questions. Now, we've got a Taskmaster Podcast email address, which is taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com. So if you want to ask anyone any questions coming up, general Taskmaster questions, we'll be announcing who our guest is. But for this one, we wanted to keep the podcast a secret until we released it so uh i asked secretly for some questions on twitter and got an overwhelming response i'd say alex a lot of

questions in for you this is from dave george he says how many general public task suggestions have actually been seen on the screen and i'm going to to add the caveat, if any. None yet. So we do get sent a lot. And actually in the book, which is still available, one of the tasks is to come up with a Taskmaster task, because I really like hearing people's suggestions. And kids send in some really good ones, including a child of a comedian who's going to feature in the show. Wow. The child of the comedian who's going to feature in the show in the future has come up with one of the, perhaps one of the only ones that has made it. There's a studio task. Oh I don't know which episode it's in. It's a drawing one Ed. Okay. And it's a task where Daisy loses her temper more than ever before. It's a great moment. Well I know that feeling. That came

up yeah it's a similar one to your one. That was invented by a child of a comedian. But I have been inspired by people's suggestions. Normally they say something and I go, oh, there's definitely something in that and then go off in a different direction. I'm slightly loathe to take people's suggestions because it feels like you're robbing them and they should be paid. If an idea is good enough, it will go in.

But it will probably be tinkered with because, you know. Also, you do want to make it yours as well. I think you'd feel bad about taking someone's suggestion wholesale as well because you'd be like i should i should be coming up with them really yes yeah and we're not showing signs of running out yet no that's good uh this is from paul jones uh thinking back over the 10 series is there a task uh that when he saw it being undertaken he wished a specific contestant from another series could have attempted it not really i often would like to see lots of people also doing the tasks. There's people I miss, I suppose.

I loved it whenever Bob Mortimer opened the envelope because his eyes lit up. I'd always be excited to see what he was going to do. Same with Lisa Tarbuck. Often the champions were champions for a reason. They were really good at it. I do miss my mates, so Tim Key and watson it's all they are my only mates really and it is amazing having your friends do it because then you spend a day with your mate and you're in charge of them yeah so that's fun but um so everyone's brought something to it without sounding like i'm copying out too much

but we've had 50 people now and i would have any of them back in a heartbeat and it's sort of a shame that we've committed to not doing that it's the right choice I think but you can't suddenly slip Nish Kumar back in the series you know then you'd have to have everyone back I think it'd be hilarious if you slip Nish Kumar back in the series to be honest just suddenly but not have him in the studio just have him occasionally doing a task and not mention it that would be great um what's your most stomach dropping moment when a contestant suddenly asks actually could you do this for me that's from gaz it's probably the most infamous one was lisa tarbuck having to show greg how much she loved him and immediately as one of those instinctive moments said right get me the biggest cake you can

and we didn't know why until we got back oh no we did she just explained very carefully i want the biggest cake because i want you to take your trousers off and your pants and sit in the cake but that still doesn't explain why though does it that it's that's just telling you what to do it doesn't explain why she decided to make you do that really yeah i mean she she argued it was the feeling of the unbridled sort of joy of sitting naked on a cake was how she felt towards Greg but there's about an hour between the cake arriving and her ordering it so I'm thinking well this is going to happen a lot of the ranging the cameras carefully in the shed because yeah not only was I sitting on a cake naked it was in a shed it's quite cold your plan

was to show your love for me vicariously through my assistant and? Well if that was love, turns out I've not been in love before. Have you ever had a task withdrawn due to health and safety slash logistics reasons? That's from Luke Thomas. Every single series a contestant asks to go on the roof of the house. Right. And either jump off or throw things off. And every series, we have to say we can't because of insurance. Every single series. I'm sure you asked to go up. Oh, yeah, I'm sure, yeah.

It's probably not even a task. I probably just arrived and said, can I eat my breakfast on the roof? Which tasted worse, Lou Sanders' flambéed porn or the Ed Gamble spit tea? Yours tea was fine. It was the thought of your tea. The taste was fine,

but it was the fact that I knew where it had come from. I mean, eating burnt paper is awful. Porn or otherwise. Yeah, it's like having a cigarette, but eating the cigarette as well, I think. Oh, no. Yeah, I mean, definitely that. Yeah.

Hot toothpaste pie is still probably the worst thing I've eaten. It's so confusing. Three more very quick ones. They're barely questions. Shanghai Hannah says, I'm 36. Can I wear driving gloves? Yes, and you should. Sue Perkins, actual Sue Perkins says, how do you like your eggs in the morning?

It's pronounced Sue Perkins, and I like them. I like having three varieties of eggs in one sitting. Fried, scrambled, and eggy pop. Eggy pop? Yeah, so put an egg in a mug, stick it in the microwave for a minute. That's an eggy pop. You put a stick in it, and it comes out like a lollipop. Beautiful.

And one final question from Nish Kumar. How do you like them apples? I've heard that phrase so often since he was on it. It's now the phrase that everyone uses, not because of him, but you just sort of notice it more. I mean, I like my apples like his hair at the beginning of Hello America, his program.

The perfect answer. Alex Horne, thank you very much for being our guest on the first ever episode of the official Taskmaster podcast. Have you enjoyed yourself? I have enjoyed myself. Give the podcast experience points between one and five. Five full points, Ed.

Thank you. Well, there we have it. That was it. The first episode of the official Taskmaster podcast. And what a time we had. Thank you very Alex Horne for coming on Alex might be popping up throughout the series as well on the podcast of course he's popping up throughout the actual Taskmaster series Thursdays at nine on channel four and also the family-friendly version on e4 six o'clock on Sundays apart from episode one which is 5 45 He'll be on that loads,

but he may well pop up on the official Taskmaster poddy again. We didn't talk about the studio task. I just realised we'd run out of time. We got so deep into the other tasks that we didn't even get to the studio task. It was a classic Taskmaster studio task. It involved balls.

It involved panicking. Richard won, of course because everyone else was sort of helping each other really mucking in and richard did what you need to be a winner and just sort of got his head down and got the hell on with it so richard won the episode overall but a very tight episode i'm sure we'll all agree mainly because nobody did very well at anything which was perfect i agree with alex i much prefer that uh so richard won the overall episode uh but everything's pretty tight everything's tight at the top and at the bottom uh it's only the first episode and we'll be updating everyone on the series points as the series goes on of course uh but we want your questions that's what

we want we want you guys to get involved in the podcast. If you email taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com with any questions for me, any general Taskmaster questions, any specific questions for our guest, that's taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com. And now I can announce next week's guest is Nish Kumar. The wonderful Nish Kumar, my best friend and the worst ever competitor on Taskmaster

I've not seen the stats on that but he's got to be down there uh very memorable competitor sure but so many mistakes that we're going to talk to him about I'm sure you've got a lot of questions for Nish I don't think he ever won an episode, which is fairly impressive, I tell you. So do email taskmasterpodcast at gmail.com with all of your questions for Nish. Also, hit up the YouTube channel. There's so much stuff on the Taskmaster YouTube channel, youtube.com as per forward slash Taskmaster. Very, very simple, youtube.com forward slash Taskmaster. And listen, you guys are Taskmaster fans, you've got to check out the Taskmaster store taskmasterstore.com you can buy all sorts of Taskmaster related goodies on there

go and check it out and I would say as well look you've watched the show you've listened to the podcast if you feel like you've not exhausted your love of Taskmaster and let's be honest how can you even do that it's a bottomless well of excitement there are other Taskmaster podcasts out there's one called Mela Buffet there's a couple of other ones just do a bit of digging you'll find more Taskmaster fan-made podcasts so go and look at those as well it's been wonderful it's been wonderful hanging out I can't wait to embark on this journey with you remember this show is going to be out straight after the main show Thursdays, 9pm Channel 4. That's when the main show's on. And we're out after that discussing and dissecting. But for now, thank you very much. Goodbye.

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