His brother, Mat (Suede bassist), wrote the theme tune. Richard Osman is the show's executive producer. Has anyone played this game before? Theme music The Carrot in a Box game on a Christmas special with Sean's masterclass bluffing by trying to act really clueless. The episode in the week that Carr's tax avoidance schemes were splashed across the papers and the suitably gleeful manner with which the panelists ripped him to shreds. But until then, it's a welcome addition to the genre. It's hard for any comedy panel game to avoid living in the shadow of the mighty HIGNFY, and 8 Out Of 10 Cats is probably doomed to death by a thousand comparisons. The grunge guitar theme music is needlessly depressing and anonymous, and the whole thing's been edited together with a welding torch instead of an Avid.Īrguably it's more of a comedy than a quiz (though not to the extent of, say, Bognor or Bust) but it's a pleasant enough diversion despite its faults. One grating aspect is the woeful set, which doesn't really serve any purpose whatsoever other than making it extremely difficult to read the names of the round titles, being projected on huge screens along the length of the studio. Spikey's replacement as team captain Jason Manford meanwhile, has more than filled the shoes of his predecessor. Dave Spikey was less to our taste, wheeling out Victoria Wood-school product naming comedy ("What is Cillit Bang?"), but he did have his moments as well. None of which guarantees a good performance on an unscripted panel game, but luckily he shines in this environment too. His name has been bandied about by the cognoscenti for some years, and his disgracefully-scheduled sitcom 15 Storeys High is a classic-in-waiting. Much of this laughter is prompted by Sean Lock who rapidly emerged as the real star of the show. Just the fact that he laughs at the other comedians on the show helps. 8 Out Of 10 Cats allows his natural personality to come out a bit more, and it's a welcome development. There were hints of this in some of Carr's other appearances, on QI and in Countdown's Dictionary Corner (a show he would later host a late-night version of), when for a few seconds at a time he let his aloof comedy persona slip, revealing a knowledgeable, intelligent and even likable human being underneath. (Oh yes, and Distraction, which is better not dwelt upon.) Fortunately, he's much better here, where he can bounce off other people. Until now, his main TV exposure has been on nostalgic clip shows where he has tended to be snide and hugely unfunny. Jimmy Carr is remarkably bearable as a host. Jimmy Carr with team captains Sean Lock and Jason Manford The show's most obvious similarity to HIGNFY returned after a couple of weeks, though we still think that dropping the round altogether from any future series might not be a bad idea. Making a virtue of necessity, the first show after the London bombings dispensed with the "What Are You Talking About?" round, and actually worked all the better for it. There's a distinctly HIGNFY-esque "fill-in-the-blanks" round, an entertaining game in which six disparate personalities are ranked in order on various questions (who would you rather have to perform heart surgery on you - Chewbacca or the Pope?), guess-the-poll-from-the-top-answers, and inevitably guess-the-top-answers-from-the-poll. The first round is normally "What Are You Talking About", based on a poll of what British people have been talking about over the last week. The whole thing is based on opinion polls and there are various different games played with them. The show does have some good ideas of its own, though. So yes, it's a bit like Have I Got News For You. Even though "8 Out of 10 Cats" involves Jimmy Carr, it's actually quite entertaining.Ĭomparisons to Have I Got News for You are somewhat inevitable given that it's a comedy panel game and the first round is simply an excuse for jokes about the biggest news stories of the week. It's not often you'll see the phrases "involves Jimmy Carr" and "actually quite entertaining" used about the same show, so the following sentence may shock and amaze you. Zeppotron for More4, 8 November 2016 to 1 February 2017 (12 episodes in 1 series) Zeppotron for Channel 4, 3 June 2005 to 29 December 2015 (184 episodes in 18 series)ībc.co.uk webcast, 5 to 6 March 2011 ( 24 Hour Panel People)
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