QI Totally Explained

Everything about Qi totally explained

QI, standing for Quite Interesting, is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. New episodes are broadcast initially on BBC Four on Friday evenings at 22:30 and repeated on BBC Two the following Friday at 22:00. Syndicated episodes of previous series are shown on Dave. QI has the highest viewing figures for any show on BBC Four and Dave.
It is distinguished by the awarding of points not necessarily for correct answers, but rather, for (quite) interesting ones. Many of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given. Points are deducted from a panellist who gives an obvious but wrong answer, typically one that's generally accepted as true but is, in fact, false.

Format and conception

The panel consists of four panellists: three rotating and one regular, Alan Davies, who has the seat to Stephen Fry's right. Davies has appeared in every episode, except for one that was themed on "Divination": he was present at the beginning, but "teleported" away during the buzzer demonstration. He was at a football match instead but was still able to play as communicated "from beyond." He has only won six times: since he generally offers up most of the "obvious but wrong" answers, he usually finishes last. The show's other panellists mainly come from a stand-up comedy background, although there have also been guests from other fields, including Richard E. Grant, Jeremy Clarkson, Gyles Brandreth and Roger McGough.
   Questions are sometimes misleading or very difficult. Providing an "obvious but wrong" answer results in a sequence of klaxons. In the first and second series, Fry produced the answer on a card to show the panellists, while it also flashed on the large screens behind them (except in the pilot episode and the first show of the first series, when only the cards were used). In the third series and onward, Fry's answer cards were dispensed with altogether, leaving only the screens as proof that the answers given had been predicted.

   Because of the show's expectation that hardly anyone would be able to give a correct answer without significant prompting, it instead encourages sheer interestingness, which is how points are mainly scored. As such, tangential discussions are encouraged, for panellists are apt to branch off into frivolous conversations, give voice to train of thought, and share humorous anecdotes from their own lives. Fry once said:

"Now, the rules are simple. Scoring is my business. Points are given and points are taken away. They are taken away for answers which are both obvious and wrong, and they're given not so much for being correct, as for being interesting. Their level of interestingness is impartially determined by a demographically selected customer-service focus consultancy, broken down by age and sex - for example me. Because there's no-one more broken down by age and sex."

John Lloyd, QI's creator, has admitted that not even he's any idea on how the scoring system works, but there's someone who is paid to check on the scores. Guests are allowed the right of appeal if they believe their score is wrong, but no-one has done this so far. In one instance in Series A, rather than a comical buzzer, Davies set off the forfeit alarm, meaning he started the show on -10 points before a question was asked.

General Ignorance

In a parody of ubiquitous general knowledge quizzes, the final round is off-topic and called "General Ignorance", focusing upon seemingly easy questions which have obvious but wrong answers. Whereas in the main rounds of the show, the panellists' use of buzzers isn't usually enforced, the "General Ignorance" questions are introduced by Fry's reminder to keep "fingers on buzzers".
Due to the large number of "obvious but wrong" answers, panellists usually incur the greatest point losses in this round. In the second series' Christmas episode, Davies stated his refusal to participate in General Ignorance, saying that he "will not be humiliated at Christmas". In response, Fry offered to switch places with him, to the delight of the audience. Despite the seeming spontaneity of the swap, it was undoubtedly planned (at least on the part of Davies and the producers), as evidenced by the fact that Davies, in turn, produced his own set of questions on loose-leaf paper (most of which he directed at Fry), and also by the photographs and obvious-answer graphics which accompanied Davies's questions. At the end of the show, Fry announced that the game's loser was, in fact, Fry himself, as a result of his falling into many of Davies's traps.

Extra tasks

In some episodes, panellists are given an extra task to complete during the course of the game. Those who do the best are often awarded extra points. Past tasks have included drawing contests (in which John Sessions has shown a particular talent); or looking for a specific hidden thing over the course of the show, such as a squirrel or a cuttlefish. Panellists were also once given a card covered with magnetic letters with which to create words over the course of one show. Jimmy Carr successfully used all of his letters to create, "Put Smarties tubes on cats legs, make them walk like a robot." In the fifth series, all the episodes have the same extra task — "The Elephant in the Room". In each episode, at least one of the answers is related to elephants, the panellists being required to wave an elephant on a stick when they believe it's the appropriate moment.

Production

Writer and former BBC producer John Lloyd devised the format of the show, and it's produced by Quite Interesting Limited, an organisation set up by Lloyd. QI was originally seen as being an "Annotated Encyclopædia Britannica… the world's first non-boring encyclopædia."
Unlike many similar comedy-quiz programmes, the makers of the show insist that the answers are not given to the panellists beforehand. The panel are given a list of questions set to be asked just about an hour before the show, for preparatory purposes, but the guests are forbidden to ask for preparatory materials or other help.

Research

The research for the show is mostly carried out by seven people called the QI Elves, a team which currently includes Justin Pollard and Vitali Vitaliev and previously included Molly Oldfield, daughter of the musician Mike Oldfield. The "elves" devise the questions, and are able to contact Stephen during the show to provide and correct information. Other people involved in researching questions and compiling the scripts are John Mitchinson and Piers Fletcher, known (along with Justin Pollard) as the Question Wranglers, The QI website also has a large forum that currently has over 3,000 members. The forum contains several sections including the "Quite Interestrings", for general topics, the "Series Talk" section which are dedicated to different series, indicated by a letter of the alphabet, and "The Forum of General Ignorance", dedicated to things that are often misunderstood by most people. Some of the material written in the forums is used in the TV series.

Theme tune

The theme tune was composed by Howard Goodall, who has twice appeared as a panellist on the show. The theme music was originally going to be the song "Wonderful World", sung by Herman's Hermits, which was used in the unbroadcast pilot. However, the producers were forbidden the use of the song, and the DVD recording of the pilot now uses the theme music composed by Goodall. In 1820, it became a coffee house, and between 1945–1998 was the popular Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant (with several other businesses running on different floors, together with 'Staircase 15' of Exeter). When QI took over, they bought the entire building, uniting all floors and restoring its Georgian appearance. The building itself consists of a bookshop

, a café-bar

and a vodka bar

, as well as a number of rooms devoted to use by the private members club

. The bookshop arranges the books in whimsical, loosely defined categories that mingle fiction and non-fiction, thus meaning people come across books at random, making it more interesting. The bookshop staff have also been known to respond to stock suggestions made on the QI forums.

Episodes

In QI, every series is themed around a different letter of the alphabet, starting with the letter "A". Series are therefore referred to by letter rather than number. The first series started on 11 September, 2003, and consisted of topics beginning with A, including a round on people called "Alan". Series D differed from the previous three as all episodes focused upon a single "D" topic. Series E and F also deal with single topics. A video podcast was also planned, but this was instead turned into a set of "Quickies" featured on the BBC homepage for QI, although are still referred to as "vodcasts" by the panellists introducing them. Two episodes have the distinction of being won by the audience: "Death", a special Halloween episode in series D and "England" in series E.

Corrections, mistakes and retractions

Although most of the answers presented on the show are correct, some have been disputed and shown to be incorrect. For example, in Series A, the show claimed that the longest animal in the world was the lion's mane jellyfish, but this was later corrected in Series C, saying that the longest animal in the world is the bootlace worm.
Members of the public and members of the QI website contact the show to correct information. The error that has attracted the most complaints to date was made in Series B, when it was claimed that the Welsh language has no word for "Blue". In fact, there's a word: "". In one case, a letter was read out when another episode in Series B claimed that language spoken by children's TV characters Bill and Ben was called "Flobbadob" and was named after the sound made by creator Hilda Brabban's younger brothers having flatulent moments while in the bath. Fry then apologised and corrected the fact, saying, "Their language is called 'Oddle poddle'. 'Flobbadob' means 'Flowerpot' in Oddle poddle. I can't believe I just said that", at which point he started laughing in disbelief. Viewers however, wrote in to say that the triple point of water is in fact 0.01 degrees, and so the 2 points awarded Dara in the previous series were revoked and he received a further deduction of 10 points for saying a now obvious answer. Dara humorously retorted with, "How many people sat at home watching that and said, 'It's just a comedy show, but I'm not letting that fecker get away with that!?'"

Culture

QI has stated it follows its own philosophy, which is that everything in the world, even that which appears to be most boring, is quite interesting if looked at in the right way. The website states that:

"We live, they say, in The Information Age, yet almost none of the information we think we possess is true. Eskimos don't rub noses. The rickshaw was invented by an American. Joan of Arc wasn't French. Lenin wasn't Russian. The world isn't solid, it's made of empty space and energy, and neither haggis, whisky, porridge, clan tartans nor kilts are Scottish. So we stand, silent, on a peak in Darien: a vast, rolling, teeming, untrodden territory before us. QI country. Whatever is interesting we're interested in. Whatever isn't interesting, we're even more interested in. Everything is interesting if looked at in the right way. At one extreme, QI is serious, intensely scientific, deeply mystical; at the other it's hilarious, silly and frothy enough to please the most indolent couch-potato."

Reception

QI has been received positively by viewers. It is the most popular programme of any kind on BBC Four, and one of its books, The Book of General Ignorance, reached Number 1 on amazon.co.uk's best-seller list. QI has been supported by nearly all critics. Peter Chapman said, "When the schedules seem so dumbed-down, it's a delight to encounter the brainy and articulate Stephen Fry. He excels in this format, being both scathing and generous."
Another critic, Laura Barton said, "QI and its canny coupling of Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, which manages to condense tweedy goodness, cockney charm, pub trivia and class war into one half-hour." An American critic, Liesl Schillinger described QI as, "Jeopardy with Stephen Colbert as host, with Steve Martin and Ellen DeGeneres as guests, working off a game board loaded with unanswerable questions."
Critics have questioned the way the show is edited. One critic said, "At one point in tonight's show, Fry (normally urbanity itself) yells an obscenity at Rich Hall, the result of, I guess, a long interchange between the two but, as most of it appears to have been cut out, the outburst comes out of the blue, making Fry look as if he's flipped his lid."

Awards

In 2006, Fry won the Rose d'Or for "Best Game Show Host". The British Sitcom Guide gave QI the Best Comedy Quiz Show of 2006 and Best Panel Show of 2007. In 2008, the series won the Royal Television Society award for "Entertainment". It was also nominated in the "Entertainment Performance" category, but lost. QI has been nominated for four BAFTAs. Fry has been nominated for "Best Entertainment Performance" three times, in 2004, 2005 and 2007. John Lloyd and QI's director Ian Lorimer were nominated for the Lew Grade Award in 2005.

Media releases

QI has entered a number of different media, and has seen an increasing number of tie-in DVDs and books released since 2005.

Books

UK

The first QI book was 2006's The Book of General Ignorance, published in hardback on 5 October by Faber and Faber. (ISBN 0-571-23368-6) Written by producer and series-creator John Lloyd and QI's head of research, John Mitchinson, it includes a foreword by Stephen Fry and "Four words" by Alan Davies ("Will this do, Stephen?"). Most of the books facts and clarifications have appeared on the programme, including its list of 200 popular misconceptions, many of which featured during the "General Ignorance" rounds. On 8 December 2006, the book "became a surprise bestseller over the Christmas period, becoming Amazon's number one Global bestseller for Christmas 2006." By the end of January, 2007, it had sold more than 300,000 copies (and subsequently over half a million), paving the way for subsequent (projected) annual book releases to capitalise on the UK Christmas book market. The Official QI website notes that it'll soon be published in 23 countries.
A second book, The Book of Animal Ignorance, was released in the UK (in the same hardback format) by Faber & Faber almost exactly a year after General Ignorance, on 4 October 2007. (ISBN 978-0-571-23370-0) It promised to be a "bestiary for the 21st century," and contains almost completely new quite interesting facts. The book includes "400 diagrams and cartoons by the brilliant Ted Dewan", another Foreword by Stephen Fry and a "Forepaw" by Alan Davies. QIs first annual, The QI "E" Annual or The QI Annual 2008' was published by Faber and Faber on 1 November 2007. (ISBN 978-0-571-23779-1) It is intended as the first of a series to continue with subsequent letters. The cover was produced by David Stoten, one of Roger Law's "Spitting Image team" who also contributed to the annuals contents. The cover is very much in the style of the Beano comic (and The Bash Street Kids strip in particular), and features schoolboy caricatures of (from l to r) regular QI panellists Sean Lock, Vic Reeves, Phill Jupitus, Bill Bailey, Stephen Fry, Arthur Smith, Rob Brydon, Dara Ó Briain, Clive Anderson, Alan Davies (with Jimmy Carr as the worm in his apple), Rich Hall, David Mitchell and Jo Brand, all of whom are credited with contributing content to the annual. Other contributors include fellow QI regulars Jeremy Clarkson and Johnny Vegas, comedian Rowan Atkinson, and cartoonists Newman and Husband from Private Eye, Viz's Chris Donald, Geoff Dunbar, Ted Dewan and The Daily Telegraph's Matt. Whether 'prequel' annuals for the letters A, B, C and D will subsequently see print is as-yet unknown.

US

On 7 August 2007, The Book of General Ignorance was published in America by Harmony Books. (ISBN 0-307-39491-3) It features a sparser cover necessarily downplaying its links to the TV series, which has yet to be broadcast in the US. The book received glowing reviews from both Publishers Weekly and the New York Times, which recommended it in its "Books Holiday Gift Guide". (It subsequently entered the New York Times' "Hardcover Advice" best-seller charts at #10 on 9 December, falling to #11 two weeks later where it stayed until mid-January, before falling out of the top 15 on 20 January.)

France

A French edition entitled Les autruches ne mettent pas la tête dans le sable: 200 bonnes raisons de renoncer à nos certitudes was published by Dunod on October 3, 2007. (ISBN 978-2-100-51732-9) It is released as part of Dunod's "Cult.Science"/"Oh, les Sciences!" series, which also includes titles by Robert L. Wolke, Ian Stewart and Raymond Smullyan.

DVDs

A number of DVDs related to QI have also been released, including interactive quizzes, and complete series releases.

Interactive quizzes

On 14 November 2005 an interactive QI DVD game, called QI: A Quite Interesting Game, was released by Warner Home Video. A second interactive game, QI: Strictly Come Duncing followed on the 26th November 2007, from Warner's Music division. Both games feature Stephen Fry asking questions, and then explaining the answers in full QI-mode.

Complete series releases

‎A DVD release for the first series was the direct result of an internet petition signed by 1,821 people, which persuaded the BBC of the interest in such a move. Series "A", was therefore released by the BBC's DVD division, 2 entertain on 6 November 2006. It contains a number of outtakes as well as the unbroadcast pilot, which features the only appearances to date of Eddie Izzard and Kit Hesketh-Harvey as panellists. Sales over the Christmas period, however (in stark contrast to The Book of General Ignorance, which topped the Amazon.co.uk best-seller list), were not as strong as hoped. A lack of adequate advertising is thought to be to blame (and subsequent episodes of QI have since trailed the DVD), and may have factored into to the label change for Series "B".
The second and third series' ("B" and "C") have been announced for release in 2008, on the Warner Music label, rather than 2|entertain. Series "B" was released on 17 March 2008. According to Amazon.co.uk, Series "C" is currently expected to be released on September 1, 2008.

Other media

A QI feature has appeared in BBC MindGames magazine since its fifth issue, and revolves around facts and questions in the General Ignorance-mould. On 10 February 2007, a weekly QI column began in The Telegraph newspaper. 52 columns were planned, but this has since expanded. QI also has an official website, QI.com, which features facts, forums and other information. It also links to QI's internet show QI News, a parody news show which broadcasts "News" items about things which are "quite interesting". QI News stars Glenn Wrage and Katherine Jakeways as the newsreaders, Bob Squire and Sophie Langton.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Qi'.

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