Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 130. Chris Parker - S15 Ep.7

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

Joining Ed on the podcast this week is the brilliant comedian and NZ Taskmaster contestant, Chris Parker. Not only do the pair take a deep dive in to Series 15 they also chat through Chris' highlights from his time on the show. Chris shares his love for Jenny Eclair and sheds light on fish poster-gate. Watch all of Taskmaster on All 4www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterVisit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com Visit the Taskmaster YouTube Channelyoutube.com/taskmaster 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 and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's me, Ed Gamble. I am coming to you from New Zealand. I'm in New Zealand. Can you imagine that? In a little hotel room. And that relates to who we're talking to this week. Not in my hotel room, sadly. He's in Australia. But today we'll be discussing on the Taskmaster podcast the wonderful episode, Series 15, Episode 7,

which you should have watched by now. If not, go watch it. Come back to this. And we'll be chatting to the wonderful Chris Parker. Chris Parker, of course, a star of Taskmaster New Zealand Series 3 and a wonderful series it is too. Very excited to talk to Chris about this episode. Hope you're enjoying Series 15.

I'm sure you are. It's an absolute solid gold classic, as always. Make sure you come back every week after Taskmaster, which is on Channel 4, 9pm. This episode has dropped straight after that. And future episodes drop straight after the Taskmaster broadcast on Channel 4. And come and listen to this. But for now, this is Taskmaster Series 15, Episode 7,

as discussed by Chris Parker. Welcome, Chris Parker, to the Taskmaster Podcast. Thank you for having me here. It's so exciting to have you on the Taskmaster Podcast. You are the first of the Taskmaster New Zealand Series 3 contestants to be on the podcast. Yeah, now that feels good. of the Taskmaster New Zealand Series 3 contestants to be on the podcast. Yeah. Now that feels good.

And that feels like the way it should be as well. As soon as I was asked, who from Taskmaster Series 3 New Zealand do you want on the podcast? I said, Chris Parker, straight away. Because at the time of booking this, I don't think I really knew anyone else. But I have since met the majority of the other contestants,

and they're all lovely people, so I just want to let them know if they're listening, you can come on at some point in the future. All but one. And we'll let the fans decide who that person is. Comment below in the Reddit threads, who do you think is the most unpopular member of the task force series

three cast it's josh thompson um awful man awful man real a real bully i don't know if you you actually saw chris you probably did because it's uh it's ripped um new zealand media apart but me and josh did a live interview uh to promote the new zealand comedy Comedy Festival on morning television in New Zealand and there was an article about it about how we caused chaos and welcome to the New Zealand media landscape like really I mean this is not like me bringing down the impact you would have had on TV but it really does not take a lot to become a headline in New Zealand well I'll tell you what happened um we were on on the sofa together chatting to these uh these news hounds uh and it was also the day before the coronation uh and they'd made some Union Jack

cupcakes and they said Edward would you like a Union Jack cupcake because you must be annoyed that you're not there for the coronation and I said no thank you i'm type 1 diabetic and i hate the monarchy and then there was a very awkward silence they would have loved that yeah well kiwis are just like so you know horribly kind of awkwardly polite like even if they were like allergic deathly allergic to cupcakes we'd probably eat them anyway and then apologize but we're not we're not here to talk about how i am the uh the well i'd say joe rogan of new zealand uh we're here we're here to talk down on that about that's my corner of the market before we talk about this this specific episode we're going to chat about taskmaster uk

series 15 episode 7 um let's talk about your time on taskmaster new zealand because you're obviously a fantastic contestant you won five episodes which i think only a couple of people have done in the uk maybe even one i think it's just richard herring who's won five episodes in the series you're an absolute beast at that thing it was such a rush i had such a slow beginning and i was like i thought i was going to do quite well at this and then i just needed to warm up and then suddenly i was just knocking them back like because i'm not used to like well back in the early like in my childhood i never like win things like my brother's very sporty and like really good at games but suddenly now like i've got this huge ego i'm running around like

my buttons done down with my shirt just getting my chest out there did you have any particular um particular task highlights not necessarily ones that you won because they're not necessarily the highlights but do you have any like let's say top three tasks from your series that you absolutely loved and i've seen a lot of it but a while ago and then i've just been today catching up on the later episodes that i've missed so let's let's chat maybe one of my favorites would be when we got to make our commercial for our own cereal and um i shot this like weird like 1950s ad with paul and uh it had some really dark undertones to it but more than that i genuinely think my cereal was such a good idea which is that the milk came in the cereal box like in a little bag and it was

it was so yum like we ate a whole bowl of it afterwards like it was genuinely delicious and they didn't care for anyone for anyone who's not uh seen this particular episode the cereal was called not your beeswax uh and there was a there was a catchphrase that came with it your character was the mother character, of course, and Paul was playing the child. You said to Paul, what do you want for breakfast? He says, not your beeswax. And then what's the catchphrase of the mother?

I raise my hand and say, excuse your fucking mouth, like that. I think it's genius. I mean, I think it would take off. I really do. And I think the milk in the bag within the box could possibly put people off. Yeah, maybe. I don't know, because I'm at a hotel now

and the milk was not in the fridge when I got here. So it's like, you know, fake milk. But was the milk when you got to the hotel in a plastic bag and was it disconcertingly yellow? Yes, weirdly. It's exactly the same. It was yellow because it was the, well, not the flavour of honey, but the idea of honey.

It was, oh, so what was the yellow component in the milk then? Because Josh suggested it's breast milk. That's his first thought, that what was the yellow component in the milk then because josh um suggested it's breast milk that's his first thought that it must be breast milk in the bag i it was food it was yellow food coloring look we were on a limited time like i mean ideally you know you would once you go through the process and you get the right people involved you have the think tanks you get you know you get your health ticks and everything and everything's all tickety blue you're using natural colors turmeric whatever but under the time limit we you know it's just it just had to be a yellow food coloring and i thought you were going to say you take your time you have a bit more time and you

manage to source a lady who's willing to give you some some of her brass melt also a good idea for cereal um other task i really enjoyed would have been, probably that I love the longevity of the best friend challenge where we had to hide our best friend from Paul after we had brutally killed it. Yes, so that went over three episodes, right? So you had to make a best friend from a sort of like a mannequin, like a sort of soft like a mannequin like a sort of soft uh sack type mannequin and then uh try and knock an apple off its head with a series of weapons and then obviously they died because of that and then you had to hide the body

yeah and i it was one of those moments where and that's the beauty of the show where you're like i don't understand the like the limitations of this like what's possible here and then i just turned to the producers it was like can i go um and i think it just so happened to be the last um challenge of task of the day and so i just got an intern who was working on set to like get the car ready and i loaded saki figure, into the boot of the car. And we just hoofed it out. Like we just boosted it. And what was so weird is it was like this double task where I'd also found a secret task

where I had to make myself entirely wet. And so I had to drive back from the Taskmaster house soaking wet in this poor intern's car, but then held on to my best friend Saki for, I think, like 70-something days. Yeah, I think it was. I think it was 72 days. And then the genius of it is the prize task that day is a mystery, right? You had to bring in a befuddling mystery.

I can't remember what the wording was, but you just brought a box in with question marks on it, and it turned out later in the episode that that contained the body that Paul had never found. It was like ninja-level Taskmaster playing. Well, I had Saki in my house for so long, and Paul genuinely every day was asking me where it was, and I just kept saying, it's in the lake.

And even though it was never in the lake, but I just just kept saying it's in the lake and even though it was never in the lake but I just wanted him to get back in the lake and then I was like um I hope this solves itself somehow because otherwise I'll just have to sort of weirdly bring it to the studio records and then I saw one of the prize tasks was a mystery and I was like this is it's perfect gift sent from heaven yeah it was timed up so beautifully. It's one of those wonderful, like, stars aligning moments. So with that sort of thing, I feel like you must have seen a lot of Taskmaster before. If you're sort of, like, getting into the minutiae

and using a prize task for a later task, had you seen a lot of the UK one or, you know, the previous NZ series? I obviously watched all the NZ series because, like, every season there's, like, three of my best friends on the show. Everyone from your improv group. And a relative. And then, yeah, I'm a big fan of the UK seasons as well. And so I started, you know, watching that from the get-go. seasons as well and so started you know watching that from from the get-go um and so yeah it was already like could understand what you could get away with in terms of you can be pretty ambitious

it's such a test of creativity which i i that's what i love the most about the show because you know i always find like you always think or that i'm never having another idea ever again after you've had one good idea. And then under the right pressures and circumstances, you'll always find a new roof to hit in terms of your own creativity. And so I genuinely found that quite thrilling. Like it's sort of, it almost breaks you.

And then it gives you like an inch of reward. And you're like, no, it is good. It is good. And then it'll test you like that like an inch of reward and you're like no it is it is good it is good and then it'll test you again that's really interesting i don't think we've actually ever had that angle on the podcast before god knows how many episodes we're in now that a lot so i speak to a lot of the british contestants and a lot of the uh overriding feeling is oh i hate the creative ones because that's my job and then what if people think i'm shit like that's that's the the genuine sort of like feeling in the uk but i've never heard that thing like it's it's like the creative struggle it's like coming up with an idea and you're like well that's it i'm never

going to come up with another one and then when you actually have to you find new sort of new heights in your own brain that's such a positive way of looking at it chris well it's not like they're like write an hour or so that will guarantee you a reward at the Edinburgh Fringe. Like, it's like, you know, they're stupid tasks, but I do like that you can, it does like push your creative capabilities.

And I'm so used to making stuff like videos and just like throwing it on the internet. And my attitude to throwing stuff on the internet is like you're throwing something in the rubbish. You know, it's just like, oh, shut that out, you know? And then you sort of move on like I just

I do think like you know you're always capable of more creativity more ideas but like and I like that

something like Taskmaster is a gives you like constraints and really like you know pushes you in these really

unique ways but that being said I do think I like this sort of like simpler tasks, like, you know, like catching the egg from the top of it. Like I really like those really,

like there's like a hack or something to sort of fix, to getting the task versus the creative ones. Cause sometimes, yeah, you do. I mean, I'd enjoy them more, I'd say. Yes. I think you should be a motivational speaker, Chris, is what I think. I think that's your next calling

for people with creative mental blocks. I can definitely see you doing that, wearing your scalp uniform. Imagine that advice. Just have another idea. Well, let's talk about this episode of Taskmaster UK, Series 15, Episode 7, entitled Schrodinger's Egg. To talk about eggs again, they do tend to pop up. And the other thing that pops up is the prize task this week,

the most brilliant thing that pops up. the prize task this week the most brilliant thing that pops up as soon as you heard that chris did you have any initial ideas did you were you thinking what would i do what would chris parker do i know i i truly when that happened i was like thinking about my immediate response because i always do feel like the first thing that pops into your brain is like the is the line of inquiry you should go down and i don't know why but i was like people like pops up i don't i really fumbled me slightly but i was surprised there were no jack in the boxes yeah no jack in the boxes that that feels like a first line of thought i think with this one this is the one where you shouldn't follow your first line of thought because i think

jack in the boxes and then i thought of this toy that i'd seen once that you can buy in like the seaside like those rude toys where it's like a man and then you squeeze it and his um and a dick pops out of him yes honestly my first line of thought for all the prize tasks in the uk one were some rude like picture of a dick or a model of a dick so i always had to go with my second line of thought but sometimes i feel like that goes down so well because you just you haven't tried to be like whimsy or wonderful with it you've just gone like this is the most like effective and simplest answer to it which is why i thought greg was pretty harsh on the old like toasters because i felt like you know like if there is a way to play around on a toaster, like it's totally valid. Like it's a delightful pop.

It's so dangerous when Greg does that because he's done that a couple of times in the past where before, because he doesn't know what they're going to be, but before he's seen them, he immediately says, if anyone's brought in this, they're getting one point. And you just, you can see like the colour drain from May's face because obviously their prize is Professor Brian Cox on a pop-top,

which it's not a toaster, but it's toaster related. And I think because Greg associates it with a toaster, I think he wildly underscores May's prize. Oh yeah, absolutely. No, because what gained the most points? I was shocked by it. Frankie's sinister painting that he said keeps popping up in his house,

which I think is a nice angle on popping up, but it's not a brilliant thing. They all agree it's a horrific painting, which is why he keeps trying to get rid of it. And I'm going to say this. I don't know how many of the episodes you've seen, Chris, of this series. This is the fourth piece of art that frankie's brought in as a prize task is is he just flexing that he's got this credible incredible art collection or something i do think clearly i do feel like sometimes you know there is

a last minute scramble to the prize tasks which you can always you can always see the ones who have sat down gave themselves a week of time to sort of think about it plan it assemble and get it all together and then the ones who've gone i haven't got that yet and then ran out and organized it i remember even in the new zealand taskmaster we had to have a um doppelganger for one of our episodes and one of the contestants was sorting their doppelganger like half an hour before the record, just like running out into the streets, finding anyone. This doppelganger, let's talk about that quickly

because it wasn't a prize task, it was just a regular task and it was find a doppelganger and they have to come to the studio. And the way, I was sort of gutted that the way that it was shot in the studio was it came back after an ad break and all the doppelgangers were sitting there because i did want to see them revealed one by one brought out by you but it's probably took too much time and i'd say i'd go as far to say chris as i thought it was a good task but i thought all of the doppelgangers were dreadful dreadful dreadful and like it was the energy backstage to have like a drag queen and a stripper and like ray o'leary

all backstage it's like no one could relax like everyone was just like there was like no common interest like we didn't know how to like spark conversation with our doppelgangers because they were just like all so different yeah a real motley crew of people and your so your your doppelganger was uh a hunky metal stripper dressed as a as a fireman which was it was great and it would have been even funnier if anyone else had tried it was i don't know it was a real odd one like i think everyone it was that's a good example of everyone just like not going for the obvious of just finding someone who actually looks like him and trying to get clever on it and then suddenly you end up with like what almost appears to be like a freak show of doppelgangers

or just like with their weird skills and like all these like you know it was a who's a very who's who of like occupations and backgrounds it was so wild I loved it though I mean it was very funny when they came back from the ad break I was just like hang on that can't be the doppelgangers no one but not anyone my joy was actually what because we all like Justine

dressed up as her doppelganger as Buckwheat the drag queen so she was in this like glamorous dress for the first half of the episode and could not explain to the audience why she was dressed like that but they all just thought

she had lost the plot and had just got the dress code totally wrong for the episode record So look we agree that the painting was an odd odd bit of scoring with that getting the five points but you know you can't you can't argue with the whim of the taskmaster sometimes because i thought maze was excellent i thought they put they put thought

into it they put work into it there's a double meaning it pops up there's the brilliant bit of it is the picture of brian cox um i also thought ivo put in a lot of work for the taskmaster themed whack-a-mole and he's clearly i like his he has a lot of genuine enthusiasm on this show on the rare occasions he's done well because it's not been a great run for ivo there's been a lot of disasters he's won some episodes but this he's clearly very proud of this chris what did you think of this well i think you can yeah make or break your prize task in in the cell of it and it's hard because it's right at the top of the episode so you're just you're really trying to gauge how you're feeling that day and then you know you

are starting to have your doubts about what you've brought in and then you've got that choice whether you underplay it or come in really really strong i thought it was beautiful i thought it was clever it was whimsy and it reminds me of those like um we've got this like alligator game at time zone in in new zealand where like these alligators slide out and you wet them and i you know it is it is nostalgic and i think nostalgia yeah you know it's it's it's charming do you think he perhaps oversold it because even when greg they discussed it and greg was about to move on iva then started reeling off uh facts about the invention of whack-a-mole that he clearly had in the chamber because he'd learned them all

and then just kept going and that might have almost cost him the five points because greg doesn't like people to be over enthusiastic it's almost like there really are like two games you can play at this in taskmaster which is like you know sufficiently meeting the brief of the task and then how do you play that in the studio and the mind games of greg because yeah yeah like if you come in confident like he's just gonna personally take offense and mark you lower yeah he does like to do that i don't feel like jeremy's like that jeremy seems a bit a bit more chill sometimes i can't work out why jeremy scores things the way he does he's a bit more of an enigma you truly sometimes i think he has no idea and then we'll just give it a number um but or like maybe he forgets like midway through

or i don't know but he's honestly so attractive so who cares um let's talk about jenny it's nice to look at yeah he's a gorgeous man um jenny brought in a bauhaus ballet pop-up book she played played this straight down the line. There's no sort of invention or twist. She's just thought, I've got this book. And that pops up. You know what? It was so beautifully earnest. And it's like, you know,

and what I liked about Jenny is you really felt like she had sort of been alone in her house and just sort of thinking about it. And we thought, oh, I think that book. And sort of like put the book out of the bookshelf put it in her bag drove to the taskmaster studio feeling quite positive about it and then sort of immediately all the regret of like not bouncing that idea off someone yeah but then also also i think she was i don't think she regretted it like i think she was

genuinely like here's the history of Bauhaus and how it relates to David Bowie and all of this. And everyone seemed quite interested, but it didn't feel like a normal Taskmaster Prize, did it? It just felt like a nice thing. It was just a very tender, sweet moment. But then I think, honestly, it scored her up. And I feel like that's the second game of the studio records

when you're playing with Greg. It's like, you know, her approach was like, she didn't come in confident or like in denial about it. She just sort of plainly put it out there. And we all learned something, which was kind of strange. Yeah, if you can teach us something, then maybe that's worth a couple more points. That got three points.

Kyle, this again, very straight down the line, p pogo stick he doesn't mess around with price tasks it was a pogo stick i now actually i don't think chris is sure about this one you did enjoy it you look you look really worried there for a second i was just so thinking well immediately my mind went to the photo of alex on the pogo stick and the amount of joy that was on his face. And I was like, you know what? It is sort of simple and fun and straight down the line. And in a sense, I would probably score it about midway. I don't think it was.

Did they score Kyle second to bottom? It was second to bottom. Yeah, it was two points. I would say it's better than the book yeah it probably is better than the book it's more fun than the book but then also what i'd say if i was being really pernickety chris which i am um i'd say it pops up and then it pops back down again where i don't i don't think that's what was up we were after i think you need things that pop up and stay up i would say that's very finicky. Like,

because as soon as it pops down, it pops back up again, you know? I guess it ultimately ends, it ultimately ends down. Now, I'm surprised no one brought one of those tents

that you used to be able to like throw out and then they would immediately assemble. They were phenomenal. Yeah, they were good. Yeah,

no one thought of that. There's so many pop-up wallets. They roll up into a disc and then you, you you know and i love the idea of going camping you know with your surly dad and then the only moment of joy he has is throwing the tent to the sky and a two-bedroom sleep out this immediately appears before your eyes like mid-air it's phenomenal stuff i don't think any surly dad is using one of those tents i think surly dads are all about building their own old school tents in the wind and like they'll wait for bad weather

stay in the car we're waiting for some higher gale force winds um it was sadly oh by the way the pogo stick i'm glad kyle brought the pogo stick in if only just for may's story about their parents buying them the pogo stick uh'm glad kyle brought the pogo stick in if only just for may's story about their parents buying them the pogo stick uh and when when they said why have you bought me this what should i do with it their parents said to bounce around with your friends a great window into how may is the person that they are yeah those that's your parents approach to birthday presents yeah and i do think do you forget the pogo stick was given as an adult like they were given the that's that's the adult yeah that's that's the impression i got that it was a recent

gift yeah yes honestly yeah i feel like birthday presents become things that you need once you get to about 25 and up. And I think they should really, like, at 25, it's when they should really become really joyful, fun things that you don't need at all, but will be fun for a little bit. Yeah. Like a pogo stick. I would like a pogo stick, actually. So maybe it should have been higher.

I'd like it. That's what I'm saying. Just the joy it brought in the room. And everyone's looking at it thinking, hmm, I wonder how I'd go on one of those. Well, I used to have one. And a lot of curiosity. Yeah, I used to have one.

And some of the best times of my life, bouncing on that pogo stick, trying to beat my own records. I was an only child, Chris. I think they do feel very British, weirdly like because i would i wouldn't say i've seen anyone in new zealand on a pogo stick and i think if you saw someone you'd be like what are you doing like chill out mate you know yeah but i just feel like peter i'll come inside you know like i could sort of see that all playing out but you know when you say

you've never seen you've never seen anyone on a poker stick you know in britain we're not like bouncing down the street with them this is it tends to be in my mind you're like i just have to get the butter from the corner store boing boing like down you go you see policemen on them at big events. Yeah. I would love that. It was one point for May, two points for Kyle, three points for Jenny, four points for Ivo, and five points for Frankie. You remember what you said about toasters? What's that?

Bear with me. OK, I've brought a Pop-Tart, but no, wait. Yeah, this is May's most brilliant thing that pops up. On the Pop-Tart is the most brilliant mind of our time. LAUGHTER My man, Professor Brian Cox. Look at his hair and... OK, Wackermole's looking more attractive.

Are you a fan of Professor Brian Cox? I think he's fit, yeah. No, I respect his mind. All you're going to see is my burning face. Why have you never had an impression, Shem? We can 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. York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Task one, rotate the pulper wheel without pulping the egg. You must not move from this spot at any point.

If you pulp the egg, you are disqualified. Most rotations wins. You have a maximum of 10 minutes. Your time starts now. An absolutely classic task of them getting a location finding this amazing machine there and coming up with a task based off the back of it and i thought it was a very good task i what i loved about it is that it really tested how people deal with like caution and curiosity like do you run at things head on or do you take a little bit of time and feel it out and get a bit nervous um and i sort of you know i like the ones

that just sort of like grab the wheel start turning and hope for the best how would how would you have been in this situation i think i as soon as i saw it i thought how do you look inside it's immediately where i went which is where ivo went as well like there must be a way to have a peep inside and i was kind of thinking i initially read the task i was like oh you can't leave like where you are and i thought i thought maybe like finally they'd figured out a way to write these tasks that meant that you couldn't move the dot um and i'm i'm hoping one day they stick that dot down and you just cannot move it because i would love to see a sort of you know smarmy comic who's seen the show before be like i know what i'm gonna do yeah i'm gonna move the

dot that's gonna get me closer and then it is permanently sealed to the ground yeah i mean i i think i i did the same thing as you and uh i think my first thought was you've got to shuffle that you've got to shuffle the dot you've got to go and have a look at it you never know what what you'd think under those uh pressurized circumstances so it was wonderful let's talk about ivo because he's the only one who thinks to do it i was surprised the only one who thinks I'm going to move the spot I'm going to shuffle over there he gets the egg he shuffles back it is beautiful Chris but tell me this and I again I think this is me just being myself there is a clear shot where one of Ivo's feet I believe leaves the spot but I don't think and I texted Ivo with a screenshot of it

straight away and he got quite angry with me he said why can't you let me have this please this was a big moment for me and I don't think it was argued in the studio it says you can't leave you can't move from this spot would you say one foot off the spot which I think I can see there is one foot off that spot partially even is that leaving the spot i would say if i was to leave a room and one of my feet was still in the room i have not left the room yet oh that's if i was to leave the spot then you'd have to entirely leave the spot right oh you, you've absolutely done me there. You've stitched me up there.

A simple analogy has completely done me. Yes, of course. If someone's foot is still in a room, has Chris left the room? No, there's his foot sticking through the door. Why is he doing that? I don't know. He's giving a point.

He's getting the butter. He's got the pogo stick. I don't know. Oh, yeah. Well done, actually. actually no i deserved five points for over there is nothing worse though than when you feel like you've done really well and you're all sitting there smarty laddy da pants and then you get pulled out on like a minor technicality and i do like that sometimes they're like come on like you know at the end of the day, this is all just ridiculous. Like even in my task with the Saki, when I had to wet myself entirely, that sounds like I pissed myself, but, you know, like drenched myself. Tell us a little bit more about that because you found an extra secret task in the house, right?

Yes. And the writing of the task is like complete the task this way. And technically for me to complete the task soaking wet to get the extra five points, I would have had to have been soaking wet for like 72 days. Because you found it when you were doing the body task. the body task yeah and then i drove away soaking wet but then obviously naturally i dried up and then got what about my normal life not soaking wet and then went to the studio and then revealed saki dries a bone and so therefore you know you could argue i didn't complete the task soaking wet because i he saki was found i was dry no but i don't that's not the completion of the task i don't think i think the completion of the task on your end is hide the body which you did well ed can you please go into the reddit threads and fight with everyone

there then please look they'll all be listening to this. The task was hide the body. The task was not hide the body and then Paul finds it. The idea is for Paul not to find it. You don't want Paul to find it, so that's not the completion of the task. Leave Chris alone. And leave Ivo alone. It doesn't matter that his foot left a spot. Think about people leaving a room, please.

Exactly. Think about me leaving a room with my foot still in there. Exactly. Yes, do that. I'll think about that every day. A lot of people were more cautious than I, though. That gung-ho approach, but also the clinical nature of the way he does it. Perfect.

Perfect. 56 rotations. Everyone else stayed on the other side of the pulper. Did you think it looked heavy? Yeah, it looked a bit it looked a bit tricky to move yeah look like i like when there's sometimes like they're quite difficult tasks to do like you know like you're a bit sore and comedians aren't you know used to sort of you know pulping manually comedians aren't used to manual pulping i think we've got people for that

Comedians aren't used to manual pulping. We've got people for that. That's a little peek behind the magician's cloth of entertainment. We're not used to manual pulping. We've got apps for that nowadays. Yeah, we've got apps. We've got assistants. May's attempt gutted me because they were doing so well and were right near the end of the time limit,

but they couldn't help just do one more little rotation and smash the egg. It was like, I mean, it's real television, isn't it? Because you're just sitting there. And what a beautiful mechanism that, because I thought the basket was going to fling around the thing, but it was like a little bulldog clip that pulled out. So kudos to the designer of that. But but i yeah i it's just one of those moments you just leave you're just yelling

like leave it leave it leave it yeah yeah i mean i guess they don't know what they don't know even may must have been thinking that though right because it's that odd situation where you're watching yourself back and may didn't know whether they saved the egg or not because they didn't get to look in it afterwards. So they must've been sat there going, do I do it? Do I do it? Please stop rotating, stop rotating.

It's almost like May was sort of connected to what was going on behind there in a weird way because they were very sort of like sensitive with the motion of it. And I love the sort of almost like pantomime level of sound effects that were happening behind that thing like sort of like the saucepans and the it almost sort of stressed me out slightly i was i'm trying to think who was the most stressed by it all well kyle was very stressed about it because he seemed to want to get it straight on what a pulper was and uh all of these things and exactly what was going to go on and where the egg was uh and then there were loads of other words he didn't know and i think everyone

else i know in the world if they don't know a word they sort of they sort of try and work it out in their head or they accept they don't know it and move on kyle is angry when he doesn't know something and he's angry at the word not himself why does that word even exist what's the point of that word if i don't know it um so it's i mean it's fun i can watch him do anything to be honest he makes me laugh so much uh and he yeah only two and three quarter rotations i think he gets pretty spooked by it um frankie is spooked by nothing frankie just decides to rotate it as fast as possible but i don't think the speed helped did it it was just no i mean that i wonder if that also would come into play slightly as like how you attack this thing versus just also as many rotations as you can do like if you're kind of vigorous with your pulping yeah then i do feel like you could upset that

very fragile bulldog clip that's holding the egg in the basket quite possibly but i mean he doesn't he doesn't break the egg eight and a half rotations very calm about the whole thing jen i mean this is pure jenny eclair energy in this task because we've seen it before in this series where there's a piece of industrial equipment that she's not seen before she's very excited to do it and she just goes for it she doesn't care she's just enjoying using a pulper this is the moment I fell kind of head over heels in love with Jenny Eclair like I just thought this this is the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with like i just from that point on i was obsessed with her like just the right attitude

and then you match that up with like the book you know and i'm just like she is just looking at life as what's in front of her and just like no judgment just running straight at it it was beautiful there's a there's a task that i i think you've probably not seen which is quite early on in the series where they have to drive a barge um and get uh and get rubber rings on a pole that's in front of the barge and jenny claire driving a barge is you just want to watch it all day no sense of i could crash this thing. She just screams, brace, brace, before she goes into a wall every time. Just perfect energy.

I want to see her on a pogo stick. Yeah, for sure. Sadly, it was nought points for May and nought points for Jenny because they both smashed the egg. It was three points for Kyle, four points for Frankie, and a well-deserved, as it turns out,

I've just found out now, five points for Ivo. Obviously, it's very tempting to go, ha ha, he's lived his whole life in cotton wool, he's never used a pulper wheel. But even much more practical contestants than me, this is their first time doing this, I think.

Can I say I don't know what a pulper is? Have you said your time starts now yet? No. I wouldn't dream of it. You're going to have to say your time starts now. Your time starts now. Task two. Completely free yourselves and have a team hug.

Fastest team hug wins. Your time starts now. Now. You and I have done escape. Fastest team hug wins. Your time starts now. Now. You and I have done escape rooms together in the past, Chris, many years ago. That's right. Did we escape the Titanic? I think we escaped the Titanic.

It was certainly a nautical-themed one. I think it was the first time I met you was in an escape room or just before we went into the escape room, actually. In Auckland in 2017. There was a lot of yelling. Like, it was quite a loud escape room, if I can recall. Yeah, because it was definitely me, you, and Rose Matafayo. So that's a lot of big voices in the room already.

That's enough. Actually, maybe Lou. Maybe Lou Sanders. I feel like there was a few of us. is in the room already yeah that's enough you just put maybe lou maybe lou sanders yeah like there was a few of us i honestly can't really like it's like a fever dream like i just remember like in my memory like i was on an actual boat you know like we were like genuinely trying to escape the titanic as it began to sink and like but i think if you put rose alone in escape room you know like there would it would be already so loud shouting at herself i think may does a lot of escape rooms i've said this on the podcast before i'm gonna keep banging this drum that's why they're good at taskmaster i think they have a brain for this and this is this is basically an escape room isn't it the setup of it

there's loads of things that seem unconnected and then you look at them and you realize one relates to the other and that relates to the other and then you can work out this code and pretty like tricksy but fairly straightforward in terms of like that is that and that's the same code twice and then get the key and away you go you're laughing and yet like it's a beautiful to see how just the wrong combination of people can really disrupt that workflow yeah i mean i guess the only tricky thing is the taste you have to have decent enough taste buds to be like that's bacon and kale or whatever and again a beautiful genie a clear moment of just like putting a gummy in her mouth oh that's awful and then having another and then having another gummy like

not like oh i'm not doing that again just yeah because i think i'll just outright refuse like no more eating for me but jenny was like well we have to do this and so i'll put the whole gummy in my mouth and then go oh i'm gonna be sick and then like give another gummy we've seen this um this dynamic in this team already uh may and jenny very keen they work together well as a team they really want to they really want to do the task and kyle just like a petulant child basically like just genuinely angry with them like it's like they're ganging up on him but they're definitely not and i i love like an unspoken tension in a group task and then you know it came out in the studio where they're talking and kyle's like i'm surprised that they cut out me absolutely losing my call i reckon at that point even the editors are like we can't do this to this man no we can't do it

um i mean even the team dynamic in the other team as well this is fairly consistent with what we've seen so far it's frankie saying we should do something and then ivo being too scared to say the right thing it reminded me slightly of me and paul ego who appeared together where you've got kind of a i would say maybe like a you know a younger taskmaster fan yeah mixed with someone who's just like oh well i have a bit of a laugh to sort of do whatever and not really think too much about it and you watch this at a younger taskmaster fan sort of begin to slowly steam out of their ears yeah that's not it's not how we do the show but also know that they're on camera and just being like keep your cool keep your cool but like the camera never lies you can see exactly how i was feeling at that yeah that definitely puts me

in mind of the task where you and paul had to come up with a game show and he keeps suggesting that the punishment for the contestant if they lose is waterboarding and you keep moving him gently away from waterboarding but then when the next idea comes in, he adds waterboarding again. And I just keep thinking, like, Paul, we can't waterboard this guy. Like, we can't actually torture Paul. But by that point, other Paul had, like, lost perspective of what the show was,

that it was TV. He was just like, no, yeah, we can. We can do it. And, like, there was a moment where he, like, taped a book to Paul's face. And it was, like, bordering on violent. And. And like, there's a moment where he like taped a book to Paul's face and it was like, yeah.

Bordering on violent. And I was like, yeah, we've got to call our jets. But yeah, it's a, it's a classic combo of just like, cause I think Paul had seen a bit of the show,

but like he wasn't, you know, he hadn't seen as much as I had seen. And you could sort of see the same dynamic there with Frankie and Ivo. Yeah. It's got like dad and stepson energy to it definitely yeah i think they've been they have been compared to a sort of father a distant father and a and a long lost son sort of situation um so obviously they they don't do great because

frankie keeps on insisting on adding up the numbers. And Ivo very, very smartly says immediately, look, it's a 10-digit number. There's two five-code locks. It's just going to be these numbers in a row and five numbers relate to this and five numbers relate to this. Frankie's going, no, no, no. We've got to add them up.

We've got to add them up. And it would take 42 minutes. I do think the adding of them up would have been a nice elevation to the task in a weird way. Like I could sort of see where his mind was going. And in many ways it would have been so good if it was the other way. I mean, that's the beauty of the task. Like either way that they play it out, the result is going to be brilliant.

But instead we had to watch Ivo just like totally swallow his pride. And not even like, because you could feel i told you so like teetering on his like on his lips like he's so ready to say it but it's such a good wee boy and just like swallows it down and just like gets on with it and the beauty the beauty of this is when they finally do it and then try and hug when they're still handcuffed and the simplest thing in this whole task was was find that key that's hanging right above the thing and it takes them so long so long so long isn't it amazing when it's like because that the other team found the key immediately like it was yeah it wasn't like it was hiding anywhere because when you go into an escape room first thing you do is

look for all the clues you case the joint you touch everything yeah and that's what may would have known they would have said aha yeah i smell an escape room immediately absolutely absolutely and that escape group training is yeah it is fundamental really like if you're going on taskmaster it's like drag race they're like you've got to learn to sew and if you're going on to taskmaster it's like you've got to do bare minimum five escape rooms across movies genres periods of time yeah you've got to do it um but there's some some contestants would you out of all of these contestants who would you most like to be in an escape room with not including May actually because the answer is obviously no the answer

is obviously jenny and claire because we just i think we'd probably stop and then sit down and have a cup of tea and chat and then you know like get back to it we'll be like no rush um it was five points for may jenny and kyle and two points for frankie and ivo which was generous but you know that's fine two points they did they did it both hugs for me adorable the handcuffed hug particularly you felt reticent to point out to Frankie that his system was incorrect well obviously there was a period where there was a very strong chance that Frankie's system might be correct.

It's co-pilot syndrome, isn't it? You know, a lot of plane crashes happen because the co-pilot is too scared to say to the brash pilot, look, we're going to hit the fucking ground here. And I was that guy. Task three. Part one, write down a number between zero and 100,

a length of time between one minute and 20 minutes, five ingredients, a country, a noun, and an adjective. You have three minutes. Your time starts now. So they pick their things. And then, of course, that comes back to bite them, which Frankie seems like he thinks he's worked out some special system where he's like, I knew it was going to be a trick.

Yeah, everyone does, Frankie, because the task will never be write down five ingredients, a country, and now an adjective, and some times, and that would be it. I knew it was too easy. That being said, we had a task on our season that was just like give the largest amount of money, and then that was it. Nothing else happened.

We just gave the money, and then nothing. I was like, nothing else happened we just like gave the money and then like i was like oh we're gonna see the money again or like nope there's the money was taken and we never saw it again and i think they had like a nice crew lunch or something oh great that's amazing um so of course they had to make the most accurate creations from from those things and in that time and clap that amount of time so kyle uh well kyle gets the five points they just go through them individually uh he now i really obviously you obviously struggle to put yourself in the mind of the contestants if you're getting these tasks if you are asked to write those things down and the length of time between one and 20 minutes first thing i'm doing is writing 20 minutes see i thought about that too but then i was like as soon as kyle did what one minute 20 was it

one minute 21 seconds yeah because he was initially put 21 seconds referencing the so solid crew song and then added added a minute so he obviously knew that it might come back and but come on i was like no there could be an advantage here to like getting this over and done with is immediately where my mind went then i was like oh a fast quick attempt at something under the pressure would do better if i had yeah like a minute rather than just like a middle amount of time like four minutes yeah i think that that's interesting because thinking about myself if i had the full 20 minutes i'd probably try and cook something like gourmet i'd probably really get focused on the on the actual sort of edible nature of it and

really like i'd be you know grating garlic i'd be doing all of this sort of stuff and it wouldn't look like an animal at all by the end of it it's hard in terms of the scoring because i do feel like you score and i i agreed with the scoring in some sense that like you scored more points for something that resembled food more but you could have gone down the other line of just trying to make whatever ingredients you had looked like the animal that you were given but like yeah because yeah it didn't have to be edible right yeah the corn fritters yeah so i think may did a good job but i do think you're right i think maybe some some kudos must be given to kyle for creating what did look like a bench with his hot dog uh in in one minute 21 seconds um jenny obviously uh put loads of chili con carne in a gold shoe how did you feel about that as a as

a as a jenny eclair fan yourself i mean what i would have given to have sat down and eaten that chili out of a shoe it genuinely looked it looks so rich and well cooked were there potatoes like a well-cooked potato at the bottom of it like every step was like beautifully cooked this woman didn't question once her process and just sort of seemingly like julia child's just sort of like waltzed in didn't clap and made a lovely dish and then even lined the shoe with the tinfoil as to not like wreck the shoe i was like she gets it she absolutely gets it i feel like jenny can do no wrong in your eyes yeah would you out of everything that was played in and you had to have one mouthful of it what would you have eaten oh yeah it's the

shoe it's definitely the chili for sure i think you know it was it was a beautiful dish definitely not ivo's feisty french duck i mean obviously the feisty nature came from the way he cooked it because he had a full mental breakdown this is someone who's just at the end of his tether and like is the beauty of this show sometimes where you see um someone so pressed so stressed and totally forget that the cameras are in the room and just genuinely pull a bit of hair out of their head like pulled like quite a bit of hair out of his head. Like, pulled quite a bit of hair out of his head. And, like, I wouldn't act that way. I would only act that way in a room by myself. Yes, absolutely.

But, like, not even around friends would I, like, lose my cool that much. And he did that seemingly, like, happily to the world. It was incredible to witness. It was a real drop-off from we heard him say cannellini beans in quite an upbeat way and then cut to him tearing his hair rubbing garlic all over a rubber duck like really total breakdown well this was a guy who was pretty measured in terms of the setup like i would say his choices of ingredients pretty safe like. Like, you know, basil, garlic. He was like, I'm going to keep this modest.

I'm going to give myself a modest amount of time so that I don't lose my cool. And then, unfortunately, I don't know what happened, but he just had like a full mental breakdown. Yeah, beautiful to watch, though. Absolutely beautiful to watch. And Frankie, seemingly, I don't think he cared about this one necessarily. I mean mean he did

pick flour which is a tricky ingredient to work with but then you know he was making a dog but it didn't really look like a dog I think it had a few few too many legs actually and he just bunged a St Andrew's flag on top of it and just couldn't be bothered to clap a lot a lot of failure to clap actually like and yes if you just, yeah, if the clapping just got out of the way up top, you wouldn't have to worry about it. It's just that it's, or like, I don't know, it was almost quite frustrating

that the forgetfulness of the clap. It was right there and there. You just do it. I mean, I know they don't know it at the time, but if they clapped they would have got point more points because if you clap that's that ended up being the most important thing in this task and that's where you do really want to come down strong and just give zero points you know like yeah and but greg was fairly you know charmed by all of it but i think you know you've got to come down firm there and

say no clap no points no clap no points and certainly for frankie and ivo i mean especially for ivo i'd say it should have been no points because he did just bung all his ingredients on top of the duck and he's salt he should have gone to his room for 10 minutes and thought about his behavior but jenny like you, made a nutritious and delicious looking dish. So it was five points for Kyle, four points for May, one point for Jenny, Ivo and Frankie. It's a slightly undercooked chicken karni. I'd eat with caution and milk.

I normally do. It's a cowering Kenyan bench. Please can you show me the Kenyan aspect? It's difficult to seeing Kenyan bench. LAUGHTER Please can you show me the Kenyan aspect? It's difficult to see with the human eye, but on every part of those grilled onions, it says Nairobi. Oh! And cowering. It's hiding from this guy.

It's not really a sort of eating situation, is it? LAUGHTER Very nice. Is it? This might be my perfect meal. Taste of Africa? It's delicious. Let's talk about the live task, which you weren't hugely successful in if you don't

mind me saying in your series it was uh i'm gonna leave the part that's all right i know i was my downfall i don't know what happened the pressure also maybe like my skill set like they are often like um like you, lob a thing as far as you like, like throw a cabbage and, you know, it takes a little bit of physical skill and you can't sort of like make a short movie or have a clever little go at it or, you know,

you have to really just run it head first. Yeah. And so I was always sort of my downfall, though I do, I did enjoy the kind of group. It's the first time you, as a, it's the only time you really, as a group get to do something um and so some of my fondest memories

were hiding in that shed with the cast of taskmaster season three new zealand looking at that fish poster trying to remember them off by heart yes the the fish poster of course uh made famous in the uk for taskmaster series 9, where Rose brought in a fish poster, and it was rightly ridiculed. Yeah, it was horrible to witness, if I'm being honest. Because in Kiwi's eyes, that poster has done nothing wrong. It is beautiful. It's such a cornerstone of like new zealand

nostalgia and then to have it kind of so innocently and i would say rose quite proudly presenting it and we were sitting there like hands on chest singing the anthem as she did that as kiwi's watching back home like we were just so proud to see our culture so like confidently displayed out there and then to have it like what felt like beheaded gutted tortured and then pissed on by the brits in that room just felt like a kick in the teeth well i'm glad that on your series you got an opportunity to resurrect the reputation of the fush poster right and rightly so and rightly so not a bad accent there from me i think uh i do pretty well in this task which is of course uh say the word given to you by the taskmaster in the accent on the card you choose the taskmaster

will guess what accent you are doing highest score after three rounds wins and of course there's different rounds you had to say the word taskmaster then gregory daniel davis and then the third round is doing a walk that's an impression of one of the other contestants which i think is probably my highlight of the series so far the two the two jenny walks and then ivo doing one anyway and just seeing jenny one i mean to understand like for the whole room to know that jenny has a funny little walk and we all love it make is reason number one to love this woman so much and number two the way that she takes it is just like because it is nearing on bullying and yet she's just also laughing so

much and enjoying it so much that I'm like this woman like what I would give to just fly over and sit down and get to meet her and and and i don't know for her to cook me chili in a shoe like i really would give the world for that woman it's such a great moment she does walk like she's got chili in her shoes actually it's a good way of doing jenny's walk is imagine you've got chili in your shoes it's like a funny euphemism for someone being gay. You know, they're a bit light in their loafers. Oh, yeah, he's got a bit of chili in his shoes.

I wouldn't say any of that, Chris. I'm not indulging in that sort of chat. Thank you. I was stressing out about the accents because, yeah, I can't tell the difference. And there's also a little part of me that's like, imagine if I just like your best Chinese accent have a crack good luck you've got yeah you've got this whole room in all the cap in terms of guessing the accents I think it was easier for Greg because he could narrow it down to the white ones I think that was that was definitely slightly easier imagine if they'd done that it reminds you are you aware of the viral clip of uh jesse from i think it's jesse

from little mix isn't it where they ask her to do a jamaican accent and she says beligdala oh it's it's incredible like oh like that's why the internet exists like it's it's actually my alarm on my phone every morning that's how i wake up i feel like they should have chucked one of those in just for people in the know, you know? So it was, yeah, it was two points for Ivo and Jenny and five points for Kyle, May and Frankie, which means Kyle wins his first episode with 20 points. Frankie gets 17, May on 15, Ivo on 14 and Jenny languishing on 11. But May is in the lead by six points. She's on 114, Kyle behind 108 then jenny on 106 frankie on 104 and ivo

quite far behind at this stage on 91 do you have any predictions chris on who is going to take home the series there's only three episodes left well i'm surprised i was doing so badly because he's such a smart little boy but i'm not surprised that may's out in the lead there i think because of their background in escape rooms and they're sort of eyes wide open like heart heart on their sleeve approach to this all i ideally would love to see obviously the taskmaster's head in the hands of jenny but i don't think that's going to happen. Fair enough, yeah. There's fanfic for that.

There's fanfic for that. What I like is that, yes, you're a huge Jenny O'Claire stan, but you're realistic enough to say you don't think that she's going to take home the head. And I think that's what Jenny stans, you know, that's what Jenny would want from her stans, is that they're they're level-headed about it yeah absolutely

um thank you so much for coming on the taskmaster podcast ch Chris. We always ask our guests on the Taskmaster podcast to rate their experience on the podcast between one and five in the style of the Taskmaster. I hope you've had a nice time, but please feel free to be honest in your scoring of your experience. I'm going to give it four points. Four points.

I would have given it five if we were in the same room together. Yes, that's true. We are sort of nearer to each other in the world than i normally am when i interview contestants from the new zealand series i i'm in new zealand i've made the effort and you're sadly in australia it just feels like yeah you're in my room and i'm not there and you're kind of looking through my stuff and like mocking my fish poster yeah i would do that um thank you so much chris uh and you're welcome back anytime of course and sorry about the whole the whole fish poster thing no it's fine it's fine i'll get over it you might not get out of new zealand alive but i'll get over it oh no thank you so much to chris for coming on the show absolutely wonderful guest

wonderful man uh huge fan of his uh go and check out all his comedy and stuff online uh you will love him and go and watch taskmaster new zealand series three i don't know how you would do that if you live in the uk if you live in new zealand you know how to do that uh thank you very much for listening we'll be back next week, straight after the broadcast of Taskmaster on Channel 4 at 9pm with another episode discussing Series 8. Bye-bye.

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