Taskmaster The Podcast - Ep 44. Phil Wang – S4 Ep.6

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

This week on the podcast Ed is joined by Series 7 legend, Phil Wang! The pair discuss Phil’s choice of TM outfit, his prize tasks and the origins of his ‘best noise’. They also chat through Series 4, Episode 6. There’s a sheep related prize task, football with a plastic bag and a game of ‘what’s in the sleeping bag?’. Enjoy!  Phil’s Netflix special Philly Philly Wang Wang will be available worldwide on Netflix from August 10th https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81161806 You can pre order Phil’s book - Sidesplitter: How To Be From Two Worlds At Once here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sidesplitter-How-Two-Worlds-Once/dp/1529350271Get tickets to Phil’s tour here: http://philwang.co.uk/live/ Get tickets to Ed's Touredgamble.co.uk Pre order Bring me the head of the Taskmaster https://taskmasterstore.com/products/bring-me-the-head-of-the-taskmaster Watch all of the Taskmaster on All 4https://www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmaster Get in touch with Ed and future guests:[e-mail]  Visit the Taskmaster Youtube channelwww.youtube.com/taskmaster  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast. It's with Ed Gamble. It's the same as every week, but it's different every week. We are going to chat about an old episode of Taskmaster with a very special guest. We're going to break it down task by task. We're going to discuss it. So please try and watch along with us. today we're talking about series four episode six so you can go and watch that on all four come back here and listen to us discuss it at length and my special guest this week is phil wang yes philly philly wang wang himself uh wonderful contestant

in series seven i can't wait to chat to him about his experience on Series 7 and also this episode in particular. He's a wonderful man. He's a very funny comedian. He's a great guy. Let's chat to him. Let's get into it. Series 4, Episode 6 with Phil Wang, welcome to the Taskmaster podcast, Philly Philly Wang Wang. And Gammy Gammy Gamble. So good to speak with you. So good to see you. How's it going? Pretty good, man. Gammy Gammy Gamble. I'm not sure I'm happy with that as the nickname. My Philly Philly Wang Wang. Is this something you're going to do to promote your Netflix special? Is like find out your my philly philly wang wang is this something you're gonna do to promote your netflix special is like find out your own philly philly wang wang name

yeah yeah you know how like coke for ages had everyone's name on the can yeah yeah my similarly i'm going to go around everyone's house and ask what the name is and if it's like Joanna Spach if it's Joanna Spach I'll say well you're Joey Joey Spach Spach I mean it's not exactly like the coke thing but it's it's to do with names it's your version of it um just to let everyone know uh how good Phil is at improvising names um the title of uh this episode of Taskmaster that we're going to be discussing is Spach Cocket and that that word is clearly in front of Phil, so he went with Joanna Spatch. Oh my gosh, it is. I Darren Browned myself.

You Darren Browned yourself, which is very difficult to do. It's so hard. Oh man. That's when you're as persuasive as Darren Brown brown but still very mentally susceptible yeah like it's halfway really really clever yeah it's along the way to becoming like him yeah exactly um thanks so much for coming on the taskmaster podcast phil um you of course were a contestant on series seven of taskmaster series heaven more like that's what a lot of people are on series seven of Taskmaster. Series heaven, more like. That's what a lot of people are saying.

Series heaven of Taskmaster. Very popular series. A lot of highlights from your series that you're still remembered for. Are there any, I mean, look, your penis aside, let's push your penis and testicles to one side. I tried to for recording recording i tried to when we

were filming literally and it couldn't be done honestly man i did it's going to sound crazy but i did not foresee the bulge i just thought well bruce lee didn't have a bulge sticking out in game of death i don't see why i'm going to be any different that's a good point have you have you gone back and watched game of death and tried to work out what he was doing was he talking was he using the drag queen situation yeah he must have been talking you know when like there's a movie about i don't know a woman who infiltrates the army and has to strap up her boobs that must be what he's doing with his dick and balls and the thing about you know when i wore when the first day i wore that jumpsuit people because you know the crew on taskmaster they're very nice but

they're not always looking out for your best interest they're looking at it's when they're looking at the best interest of the show and sometimes that is opposed to your best interests that's right and in this case to my best interest would have been for someone in the crew to gone yeah we have to do something about this but it was it was obviously such good value to some people that i was never told and and because i wasn't always looking down on my own crotch, I only really became aware of myself the first group task day. It's only when Rod Gilbert and James Acaster turned up and went,

what the hell? And it was like, I felt like Eve. And I'd just taken a bite of that apple and was for the first time aware of human my own nudity and you can see in the group episodes some of the tasks i'm like hiding i've got my hands over my penis hiding it because i've become aware of it suddenly how much of your like how much of your solo tasks had you filmed all of your solo tasks before the team tasks? I filmed a lot of them, Ed. I filmed a lot of them.

I would say I filmed most of them, yeah. I've heard that in... Because now there's a kid's cut of Taskmaster now. Yes. And they have literally cropped... They've had to go through and crop my dick and balls out of lots of frames to make it child appropriate.

Yeah. Oh God, the hula hooping must have been a nightmare to edit. Oh, yeah. They must have got rid of the, it must just be like a big redacted sign every time the hula hoop challenge comes up. Are there any other, I mean, I was going to call that one of your highlights,

but I guess, is that a personal low light or? Well, I mean, it's really captured the imagination of a lot of people. And it's nice to be, look, the only thing worse than having your balls talked about is having them not talked about at all, right? I think Warhol said that. Yes, I think it was, yeah. It's nice to be known for something.

That said, I have been made aware on Twitter of some dreadful graffiti on my Cardiff tour poster of a huge penis and balls sticking out of my yellow onesie crotch yeah so it's given its take When anyone says to me, Phil Wang on Taskmaster, I always think about a lime. A lime. Yeah.

I'm furious about that challenge. Always. A lime has become a thing. I've done shows and come back on stage after everyone's left. Well, this happened once. I didn't refrain. I came back on stage after everyone's left well this happened once i didn't refrain i came back on stage and there's just a solitary lime just on the stage like a threat from the mob it's more a threat from like the like the mexican mafia isn't it from the

cartel they'd leave a lime to be like enjoy your last corona before we kill you yeah it's a yeah it's it was a threat from a big mojito um here's uh here's the the other thing uh i think about i mean i think about a lot of things but um specifically as well because i talked i think we talked with james acaster about this it's the quick change uh task um where uh they showed a video of you doing the quick change inside the door of the taskmaster house and i think you got changed slower than a normal person would get changed on a sunday morning yeah that that that i think that was in the first episode of the series and it was the first moment where it dawned on me that I might not have done as well on the show as I thought I had.

It was so slow. You just absolutely took your time over it. And is that, I mean, I don't think I've ever seen you rush, Phil. I've never seen you sort of panicked or in a rush. Do you think that's what hampered you maybe in terms of the the series rankings i think so i i do take my time with things and i get very um obsessed with the quality of the final product over the time spent on it as you can tell from that quick change my two outfits are i think it took a leaps and bounds. Oh, yeah, it took a while, but, God, it was amazing. Yeah, the highest quality outfits, for sure.

And so I never really had an eye on the time, which was reflected in many of my scores and results. Yeah, I wish I'd panicked more. I wish I'd... But I was just having a nice time. Yeah, good. As long as you're having a nice time do you have any particular personal uh highlights that you you want to bring up or low lights I was so

proud of my solution to the scale the weight scale task where we had to hit a particular number on a set of weighing scales and I definitely chose the most elegant solution which was to fill a tub of water yes and you can adjust that weight very easily yeah it wasn't faster somehow than james acaster throwing a bunch of random shit on it it was slower than that but it was a better solution and that there we go again that summed up my quality my personality that's right yeah yeah absolute quality um and also also the one with the boxes where i had to guess which box to take in to put a set of glasses in i predicted that it was a trick and that they were drinking glasses not spectacles and i picked the exact correct box first time that's again uh testament

to your technique of taking your time with things because i think a lot of people me included would have absolutely just rushed into that you see the words on the page and you just go for it and then you're absolutely screwed when you get into the room but you thought about it you took your time and it paid off and that's very kind of you to say and i wish i could say i applied that kind of consideration to more tasks because there were still loads that i missed the thing about taskmaster is like sometimes the task is we have no idea how you're supposed to do this you just have to figure it out and sometimes they're like this is a puzzle with

a clever secret answer but it's impossible to know which one it is right excellent impression But it's impossible to know which one it is, right? Excellent impression of Alex there. I'm little Alex Horny. It's uncanny. Your task starts now. I guess the contestants. Yeah, that was you saying that, right?

That was just your normal voice. So it's hard to know when it's a puzzle and when it's like a free for all figure it out. And sometimes I treated it as a puzzle to my detriment, like the weighing scale thing. When a brute force approach would have gotten a better result. But then that mentality really did pay off with the glasses thing. Yes. But then like the blinking one, the blinking task, don't blink for the longest.

And the solution to that being as devised by Alex's son was you just close your eyes, cause you're not blinking. Genius, no one got it though, did they? No one got it. But it would have been so sweet to have been the guy who got it. I think about that a lot, actually.

So, Phil, let's talk about this, because we're going to talk about Series 4, Episode 6. Before we do, were you a fan of Taskmaster before you did the show? I was, yeah, I loved it. I hadn't seen much. I'd seen the series before ours. I think I saw series six. And I saw bits of others.

I should have watched more. I would have been better, I realise now, on my series, had I watched more, had i got into the headspace of things interestingly though phil you should have sort of been in the headspace because i believe you hold the title of actually being the first ever comedian to do tasks in the taskmaster house am i correct you were yes you were the the the famous task tester I was the task hamster. This is some deep level Taskmaster trivia. Before Taskmaster was a TV show,

I got a call up one day to say, Alex Horne is figuring out a new TV show. Can you come to this tiny cottage in the middle of a golf course? And I was like, this was 2015. I was like, yeah, I'm not doing anything. And so I was taken in a car. They put a hood over my head and tied my hands around my back with those white plastic things.

And when I got there uh they ran they made me do some tasks it was like i was in a psychological experiment amazing um and yeah so we did some i remember still some tasks that ended up in the real show like um smashing a watermelon with um a baseball bat so is that the the task would have been eat as much watermelon as you can in this time. And is that what you did? Did you smash it open with a baseball bat?

Yeah. Yeah. I've projected myself onto everyone else there. That's what I did. That wasn't actually the task, but I found a baseball bat and I just smacked this watermelon

because the whole room had been lined with plastic. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I was like, well, I guess something has to be murdered here. And it was the watermelon. So I busted open with a baseball bat and I started eating.

The one I thought was the funniest and the most excruciating to do was ordering a pizza, a pepperoni pizza, without saying any of the words. Yes, which I think ended up in series two two i think yes yeah yeah joe wilkinson did that one yeah you found that excruciating did you i was just so embarrassed to speak on the phone to someone and say um what do you sell pizzas i'll have one of them please that's a good technique though that's a really good technique.

What do you sell? Imagine how they felt. Just like, what the hell is this guy? Just calling around random businesses and asking what they sell and then just saying, yes, I'll have one of those. And for pepperoni, I had to say, do you have any sausage?

Do you have any sausage there? Do you have any sliced sausage? I mean, but the danger is they have more than one type of sausage, right? Yeah, that's the danger. So I actually think then you should have been in the mindset. It sounds like you did quite a good job there. I did. And you know what?

While I was doing these crazy things in this random little house, I thought, this show is never going to get picked up. This is insane. I thought, this show is never going to get picked up. This is insane. What a weird sort of Guantanamo Bay kind of show is this? Are they just going to torture people in a tiny house? Make them beat up fruit?

So, fairly, fairly wang wang. Let's talk about Taskmaster Series 4, four episode six it's a really strong episode it's a very strong series uh overall i'd say so let's let's kick off with uh with the prize task um and i've got a little stat here for you phil um because you were actually particularly you were actually particularly good at the prize tasks uh in fact after kerry godliman was the top scorer in your series obviously in general and in the prize tasks but then you were the second highest scorer in series seven when it came to prize tasks now that really goes to show just how bad i was at everything else that was enough to offset being second in prize tasks yeah you got 29 points from from prize tasks that's pretty good that's pretty good

i think yeah absolutely um did you enjoy doing the prize task was that something you you enjoyed preparing uh yeah i i went a bit weird with a couple of them this is another thing that i discovered about myself doing the show is just how i thought it's quite a normal guy but i'm fucking weird man like some of the choices i make are fucking weird uh a lot of it was just looking around the house a lot of it was trying to cheat the system you know trying to second guess greg or trying to win on a technicality i think i did that with a like just a picture of Grace Kelly yeah uh for like the most beautiful thing or something yeah and uh yeah so I was trying to cheat was essentially the I was trying to win on technicalities and towards the end I think Greg was letting me win those tasks out of

pity more than anything but I've always been good at homework and I like being set homework. Yes. Yeah, no, exactly. And I, I feel the same about them.

The little box is one that I remember the confusing little box. The most confusing thing. Yeah. Yes. My, my little sister had given me this puzzle box that is right. It took me a genuinely a year to figure out how to open. And I, it was very confusing to me and um and in the episode in the studio greg picked it up and couldn't figure

it out and they didn't tell me they'd bought an extra one but he picked it up and he just threw it at the ground and smashed it to pieces and i thought that was the gift from my sister i think we all did i think because obviously they didn't say on the show no they didn't but it's amazing they didn't tell you looked heartbroken when he did i did i was like wow this show isn't fucking around and i i kept saying i can't can't believe you destroyed my sister's box which did not record it that would be the kids version no they've had to crop that out just love the idea you watch the kids edit and you're not in it at all

just occasionally a close up of your face all like pixelated because they've had to zoom in so much I look like I'm in witness protection the whole time well great for this task I thought that so let's talk about this because this is the best sheep related item

of course it is let's chat about what people brought in um lolly adafope uh sponsored a sheep this is a great idea this has got the five points how do you feel about this one phil hey you know sometimes with a task instead of trying to be trying to be like obtuse or overly clever about it you just got to walk in through the front door and lolly thought what's more sheep than a sheep what's more sheep than a sheep there's no there's no answer to that is it well there's nothing more sheep than a sheep nothing more sheep related than a sheep

and so sponsoring a sheep was yeah yeah i deserve the five points greg easily won around by the picture of the stupid sheep um looking all weird yeah i think i think that was a really a really good shout from lolly um i thought that actually to be fair i think everyone apart from mel did quite a good job because no fielding i love the thinking outside the box and going with the wool uh and the wool and dull uh of himself very funny anyway and then pull the trousers and pants down something that uh and the wool and doll uh of himself very funny anyway and then pull the trousers and pants down something that won't be in the kids edit yeah the old wang formula yeah the wang formula that's exactly what it is really like that um i he didn't say

where the doll came from i don't think i'm assuming it was made by a sort of crazed Boosh fan. Definitely. That's instantly what I thought. I thought that was handed to him in a panicked rush after a show. I'm so sorry. I made this. Please don't pull its trousers down. I don't know why I gave it a ding of balls.

I don't know why I did that. You can tape it up around the back if it's weird i was gonna cut it off i'm scared it was it's voodoo i'm scared i'd made a voodoo one and i didn't want to cut off your actual ones you know i'm sorry um hugh dennis another example of uh from hugh of insisting on bringing the prize task with him into the studio so he can demonstrate it he's done that most episodes everyone else just has it on the screen Hugh feels like he has to hold it I mean he has been consistently bottom of this entire series with prize tasks so I think he gets he panics and thinks I've got to show it I've got to demonstrate what it is and he did look smashing in that hat I thought i thought it was a very nice

hat when he put it when he brought it i was like come on man but he put it on his head i was like that's cool that's a really works really cool you yeah it's really good i wonder why that is i wonder why there's such a disadvantage to having it physically and i think there's just something to having it like big on screen nicely photographed yes i mean yeah totally totally i think it just looks desperate that he has it in his head so he's like look i can do this with it i can do and he's on such a losing streak yeah exactly he's on such a losing streak with these uh these prizes two points it's practically a five pointer for you um joe lysette lamb shank bang i love this yeah yeah delish and i wanted

one straight away actually i've not had a lamb shank in ages phil it's it's it's maybe my favorite cut of meat actually yeah slow cut lamb shank yeah i know exactly what you mean do you um it's got a handle it's tasty meat yeah do you suck the bone at the end yes suck the bone there's a little jet jelly bit you gotta suck the bone um it's actually it's severely influenced me i am gonna i think i'm gonna make a lamb shank soon yeah i'm suddenly thinking actually that joe was sponsored by by the shank by big shank by big shank yeah yeah oh do you think anyone left a shank for him on stage after his shows after taskmaster definitely a sewing bee fan has has done that at some point yeah a knitted lamb knitted in a lamb shank with a cock and balls a bit weird

and mel gedroych definitely the worst one raw wool. She really absolutely dropped the ball on this one. I mean, talk about someone who probably thought they were normal then finding out they were really weird. Giving the raw wool and then referring to it as, and the fun thing about it. She thinks this is fun. I missed how she got hold of the wool. Did she say she was in a farm?

She just found it lying on the ground? Yeah, I think she found it. And you can see her halfway through the story lose confidence in it. It's great when you see someone, it's the first time she said that out loud and she clearly just losing massive confidence in the fact she'd found some raw wool

and brought it onto a television show. And it's so heartbreaking with Mel because she's so upbeat and so positive about everything yeah to see it dawn on her that that she's made a bad decision yeah it's heartbreaking um did you when you were watching this did you did anything occur to you straight away what you would have brought in for best sheep related item phil oh that's a good question um i i mean the honest answer is no i was just i was just like wow yeah lamb shank that's that's a good idea

yeah um i do that as well when i watch it and i go lamb shank that's a really good idea i would have thought of that no absolutely not i was you know what i actually was struck by was that this is series four and the prize tasks are already down the surreal end of bring the best sheep-related item. Like in our series at seven, one of them was like bring the best belt. Yeah. And I was like, hmm, this must be, I guess at this point of the show, they're having to get a bit weird. In series four,

there was already bring the best sheep related item. Yeah, this is the tipping point. I mean, I think we occasionally get the, like something like most beautiful item or something now and again. But yeah, best sheep related item in series four. I mean, by the time it got to us in series nine, we had best thing to find in a field.

Which actually has a lot of crossover with most sheep-related items. Yes, it does. Yeah, I should have brought some raw wool. So it was one point for Mel, two points for Hugh Dennis, joint four points for Noel and Joe, and the big five for Lolly. Joe? I thought long and hard about my favorite sheep related item and I brought you a lamb shank

It's on a bed of mash with a bit of gravy and a Jew on a bed of mash with a bit of gravy and a jus. You know what a jus is, right? Not a clue. Not a clue. It's religion. Task one, an absolute classic task. Get this camel through the smallest gap. You have ten minutes.

Your time starts now. It's a real good one, I think. Yeah, and this is one where i i i instantly came up with a thought and i was like huh no one's gonna think of this and then both hugh and joe tried to blend it yes i i think i also had that exact thought the first time i saw this i try and blend the camel and i think i think this proves that sometimes i have an idea in my head that is absolutely not realizable in the real world because it turns out it's impossible to blend a soft toy even if you put i think you'd have to do it bit by bit in a full thing of water yeah and like with an industrial scale blender like a pulverizer i mean like lolly brute force approach did quite well

actually surprisingly well the technique paid off that she just i mean she really it was very sweet watching her wedge the camel through everything she was genuinely having a good time i think just like pulling a camel through a handle that's like because the physical structure of a camel is such that the the smallest space you can get that material through blended or like torn up is not actually going to be that much smaller than just as a whole because it's all very squishy, right? Yeah, that's true.

But that said... Depends how much you blend it because I was thinking blend it and pour it through a funnel. That's exactly what I was thinking, yeah. Blend it, pour it through a little hole in a funnel. But yeah, it's the stuffing that's the hard bit because it will just expand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah, it gets wet and it expands. Yeah, very tricky. I think... Go on. I did also think before Mel did it to take it through a small shop gap. Yeah. But specifically to pick up Baby Gap,

I was like, ah, that's the genius stroke. Yeah, really, really clever. I've got to say, production-wise, I sometimes get a bit suspicious with Taskmaster. I'm like, hmm. Oh, really? You have 10 minutes, your time starts now, does it? And she went to a baby gap, did she?

Hmm, I can't see there being a baby gap within 10 minutes drive. It takes 10 minutes to get on the golf course. Yeah, surely not. And then the sad tosser that I am, I looked it up on Google Maps and it is possible. So there is a baby gap in richmond um so well done mel i mean she must have been so excited when she worked that out

when she was like had the idea for baby gap looked at it on google maps get in the car go she must have been buzzing because it's such a funny idea yeah yeah and and very me in the sense is like technicality get it on a technicality yeah yeah i mean it's genius but i mean if you're looking at the the actual task she came last well this is the thing and this is what drove me there's another word for it insane doing taskmaster because it was impossible to predict if greg was going to allow you the wordplay, allow you the technicality, or go, no, the door to Baby Gap is three meters wide.

It's impossible to predict. So you're really gambling with it to making a decision like that. Absolutely. It's such a funny thing to do, Baby Gap. And it is glorious but it would have been almost funnier if he'd then gone but it's not points because the door's massive exactly what would have been good would be for to run through it then blend it inside baby gap

push it through a tiny hole and then run back out just to be sure yeah and then i definitely would have liked to have seen the security camera footage of that um he broke the blender this is hilarious that he broke the blender and then joe tried to blend the camel and it didn't work at all and we found out he did it after here they hadn't fixed the blender yeah i would have been livid unseen factor of taskmaster is that there are some legacy effects from previous depending on where you are in the in the scheduling credit to joe for being calm about that i would have kicked the hell off this is as a whole they're very calm group they don't they don't kick off much i swear in series seven

we were i was we were kicking a fuss all the time yeah you had a very argumentative group i think do you reckon well you i think you were probably the calmest um yeah i got and even i got a bit furious a couple of times with especially the um 50 different things task'm still livid about that. James put in 50 pebbles or whatever. Not different things. Yeah. Sorry to bring this up again, but not different things.

Same thing. No, this is what the podcast is for, Phil. Are they different things, though? Because obviously they're different shapes, different colours, all of that sort of stuff. If you think about it, an existential yeah sort of platonic i i don't know if that's the right philosophical word but they are the same thing in that they have the same properties and serve the same purpose and are called the same if i held one up to you'd say it's a pebble if i held up another to you you'd say it's a pebble yes linguistically I guess you could you could have a point but then also they don't it's not

like they all occupy the same they can't occupy the same space at the same time so they are separate objects so right but the word thing denotes a conceptual um object not not a physical object and a conceptual object can be repeated and see this is why this whole bit didn't make the cut and sorry to bring up water again but if I just

poured in a bit of water and said there are 50 molecules of water in there, would I have won? Because there'd be even more than 50 molecules in there Yeah, try making a picture of that um just trying to make a point by pouring water and then going oh fuck i'm gonna make a picture out of it um no that said james's picture with the pebbles was incredible that worked out so well for him and the ukulele yeah just breaking it up perfectly and doing it yeah almost as if they weren't different things things and in fact just like a continuum um so mel does get the five points

noel that we haven't talked about noel didn't do very well uh he only got eight percent of the camel through a four centimeter gap sometimes with noel in the series if it's not playing directly to his strengths which is sort of artistic creative stuff you can see him absolutely just go oh fuck this um and just piss about um but the way he sawed that camel up he sawed its mouth off which felt particularly harrowing when he just sawed it sort of snout off does the camel have a snout yeah i really you really feel that when they when they're tearing it apart because i was like, when I was doing tasks, sometimes the solution would be to destroy the thing.

But I felt so bad destroying these things that they bought and prepared and placed in front of you and put in your care. Really? See, I love that. That was always my highlight, having free reign to smash stuff up and knowing that you weren't going to get into trouble for it.

I don't like breaking things. I liked smashing up that watermelon when I was the task hamster, but that's because it's a watermelon. It's meant to be broken up. But to break something that's been made as a whole, like a soft camel, I would have found hard, I think.

Very sweet, Phil. I am a sweet guy. I'm a sweet guy. Sweet guy with your cock and balls out. 0 points for Noel, 1 point for Joe, 3 points for Lolly, 4 points for Hugh and 5 points for Mel. Well, I've got to ask the question, is there a smaller gap than Baby Gap? Nope.

Baby Gap's the smallest in the brand. And therefore, she took the camel through the smallest gap possible. Yes, and the security cameras will have recorded Mel Gedroych running in with the camel and running out again with the camel. Well, I've got to say, I thought it was awesome. And I'm going to make Mel the winner. I'll tell you that right now. Thank you.

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Task two, score the best goal with this plastic bag. You may not handbag the bag. Fastest and fewest kicks wins. Most skillful goal gets a bonus point. There is a five second time penalty for every kick. Your time starts now. Interesting, because I think everyone had the same idea initially, didn't they, pretty much,

which would be to put the ball in the bag. Yeah, a red herring. Taskmasters sometimes put these red herrings in. Yeah. And that suggestion of that ball was like, yeah, just put the bag over it, and you're essentially just playing normal football. put the bag over it and you're essentially just playing normal football but plastic bags are

precocious and unreliable things very much mechanically speaking and they fly off and this is one of those tasks i think where you you look at it and you go oh that's easy you know exactly how you do it yeah but i'm watching the tough time people had doing what you'd have thought it's very simple thing you realize okay i think i would i think i actually would have been really hard yeah because i would have done that i would have put the ball straight in the bag i think the key would be to try and not the bag over the ball at that point but you would have to try and do it with your feet yeah which is very tricky that's a brutal thing not being able to prepare the bag i mean yeah hugh who was the most successful i like to think i would have put my foot through the handle that feels like yeah you know that feels pretty

intuitive to put your foot through the handle then you're not even kicking it yeah and then running and the the fact that hugh organized like a crowd situation and then did try to do some spins and did all that he was doing did he get the crowd i think i mean i'm guessing so i mean alex made a joke about giving him a crowd but i don't really know to be honest because none of the rest of them had a crowd so i was wondering if he in an effort to get the most skillful goal and create an atmosphere then he yeah he got the crowd there and he was doing all the spins and things like that and i just i thought it was great from hugh i thought it was really really good he got zero kicks yeah which is really impressive surprisingly agile the little roll at the end

the roll into the goal oh the roll into the goal i mean at this point uh where we are in series four episode six we are not surprised he's agile because he's he's done some nifty forward rolls uh uh in another episode up until this point and you know he's a he's a he's an agile uh nifty nifty little guy hugh dennis um yeah he's in he's a nippy nifty guy um very very good effort from hugh uh and got zero kicks Mel basically had the same idea uh of dragging the bag to the goal but then panicked right at the end and felt like she had to kick it kick it over the line for some reason rather than just running across the line so I think she's very close to doing as well as Hugh um and tied it to her shoe as well at one point but again she's having the best time of her life.

It's very difficult to criticise anything Mel does. Yeah, it really is. You're just pleased for her. Yeah, exactly. Living her best life. Again, this is another one with Noel where I think he thought he was going to be really good at it and then realised he absolutely wasn't.

Because he was applying normal... He's a good football player, wasn't. Because he was applying normal... He's a good football player, he says. But he was applying normal football ideas to an inappropriate situation. To a bag. And also he was wearing cowboy boots. Yeah, that's always going to hinder. Not ideal.

Joe, you've got to love Joe's attempts. 77 kicks and then the best celebration by far out of anyone. Absolutely lost it. And we got to see that in the studio as well. And a great attempt by Lolly as well. I mean, I think everyone did pretty well. The 77 kicks from Joe were difficult,

but he got the bonus point for most skillful goal. Phil, tell me, do you agree with that? Do you think Joe should have got that bonus point, or do you think it should have gone to someone else? I'm not going to make any fans here. Well, I mean, I'm not going to win over any Joe Leiser fans,

but I think Hugh should have got that point as well. Hugh should have got the point. You're absolutely correct. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry because it was more stylish, skillful goal, not most exuberant celebration. Correct. That is absolutely correct.

I mean, look, I love Joe. I think he did a great celebration, but it wasn't best celebration. As you say, Phil, it was skillful goal and that was all about Hugh. It's not like Hugh's doing so well for points you can just start giving out his bonus points to other people, he's doing very

badly in this show yeah, so I thought that was wrong, I thought that was the wrong decision and I hope they review it and launch an investigation. Well this is what this podcast is basically trying to right the wrongs of all of these previous episodes of Taskmaster so we might hopefully see some

new champions in the future. Please ask me back to speak about all of my episodes. Oh, Phil, you will be back on this podcast in a shot to settle some scores when we get to Series 7. Justice must be served. 50 different items. I think we'll be on Series 7 in about 2025. So clear your diary.

Genuinely impressive. For me, I wish I could give extra points for the celebration. You can. Oh, okay. Yeah! I love the tasks that are given to just one person, but for some reason I always forget about Mel's, which is hide this ball from Alex.

You may not damage the ball. You have five minutes. Your time starts now. She's so angry immediately, which is odd because you're like, okay, well, it's this weird task. Yeah, but why is she so pissed off so quickly? Yeah, because it's funny.

Why isn't she finding it funny? Yeah, why isn't she really enjoying it? This is exactly the sort of thing Mel would really enjoy and yeah she's done badly at it she basically ends up standing in front of it saying no don't look at this uh and then to see just snippets of what they filmed before of making her inflate it and then score it in a tiny goal i think it's the only time in taskmaster history that you've only seen a tiny clip of a task right which must be really annoying it's been so annoying for Mel that she went through all of that

and is not even on screen for very long. All I thought about while she was doing that was the time it would have taken. And it looked quite dark, so at the end of the day, she'd have been tired. She'd have been exhausted, blowing this thing up. It looked like with her mouth. And then undoing it, putting it through the door.

And then being confronted with it again. This white whale. By surprise in a football field. And it only happening to her. It was very funny though. I laughed a lot. Oh, it was very, very funny. With the task of hiding it,

I kept thinking like, can you deflate it? And this again was when I started getting philosophical. Are you damaging an inflated ball by merely deflating it? You are not. First thing I would have done was deflate it? And this again was when I started getting philosophical. Are you damaging an inflated ball by merely deflating it? You are not. The first thing I would have done was deflate it. You're not damaging the ball by deflating it

because you don't damage a fold-up chair by folding it down, do you? That's very good. That's a good argument. Yeah. You're just sort of putting it away for another time. But if you're deflating a ball so it's no longer the shape of a ball,

is it still a ball? Interesting. But you're not... I guess you could apply the same challenge to the folded chair because technically it's no longer the shape of a chair, but... Yeah, but this is exactly the kind of fascinating conversation

that would emerge in a studio. Well, she didn't do it she got nought points bad luck Mel come on come on oh bollocks bollocks

this is horrendous come here there it is oh I can see it. Come on, my beauty. Nothing to see. Nothing to see here, Alex.

You'll know. You're off your head. That annoys me. Oh, you. Task three, work out what is in the sleeping bag. You may not look in the sleeping bag. You may not take items out of the sleeping bag. You may not look in the sleeping bag. You may not take items out of the sleeping bag. You have five minutes.

Your time starts now. This is another one to argue over. I mean, Hugh tries to... This is one of the classic Hugh Dennis tasks where he tries to find a loophole in the language, but it's absolute bullshit. You know what? I was kind of on his side for most of it i'm still not completely decided

right basically the rules the rules stipulate you can't look inside it and you can't take anything out yes so he didn't take anything out he unzipped it and emptied the bag of items and then he took it out he took he took the stuff out if you pour yourself a glass of glass of water are you taking out water are you taking water you're taking water well as in as in you pour a glass of water from a jug a jug i guess you're taking out water you're pouring it out taking yeah you're taking water away taking water away from the jug you may not take water if someone gave you a jug and said you can't take any water out of that i would think you pour yourself some you can't dip a cup in it and scoop any water out that's

what that means oh that's what you can say is it i think you know that's bullshit as well i always like you for trying these things because if they pay off, they're great. And if they don't pay off, it's very funny that he gets nought points. But no one seemed to, no one opened the sleeping bag or tried to feel inside the sleeping bag,

which you're totally allowed to do, right? Right. So you don't have to just feel it through the fabric of the sleeping bag. Yeah, because you weren't allowed to look in it and you weren't allowed to take anything out but you totally could have unzipped put your arms in or take a photo i mean i hate when people use phones but you could try and take a flash photo inside there smart oh clever because then you're looking at the photo aren't you i mean it's the it's the q dennis technique from a previous task where you weren't allowed to look at someone and you had to ask some questions and paint them and he

used a mirror and said he was looking at the mirror and not looking at the person um which is on the line but i feel like you could use it here and take a photo that's true yeah or or mirror again you could just have like a hand mirror and just like yeah across the back couldn't you yeah exactly or just try and get alex to take them out and get someone else to take out the items smart smart um joe lolly and noel did quite well they guessed two apparently they both got they all got five points um but i think joe got hard hat crime novel and tortoise he got the genre of the novel and also hard hat. And it was a policeman's hat, but he didn't get that point.

But I think he should have got that point for hard hat. He should have got two points for crime novel, and he should have got a point for tortoise. So I think he should have got four or five for that. I think he should have been way ahead of everyone else. He definitely should have got something for adding crime to crime novel. Yes, for sure. I mean, it was obviously just a guess.

Because the others got book right yeah book so maybe they should he should have he should have got that and they shouldn't have maybe yeah yeah i think crime novel it's just that was astounding astounding guessing from joe um mel this is another example of mel just being quite a weird person so she sort of floated around a couple of the right answers but then landed on a YMCA helmet um Roman armor and nunchucks well it started with the YMCA helmet and then eventually that became a Roman legionary's helmet despite those two helmets being very different and then a breast plate and then she was convinced because she was convinced from the start that there was some

connecting theme to it yeah and that was all part of the set. Which is a strange conclusion to jump to straight away. Yeah, that's no problem. She's just settled that it must definitely be on a set. So then she was like, well, it's got to be Roman armor then. And you start projecting Roman soldiers onto everything that you feel. So she got nothing right.

But because he was disqualified, she still got two points. Yeah, I think that's rough. I think that's rough. And she even guessed tortoise. Earlier on, she guessed tortoise, then discarded it, and then went back to, you know, a breastplate and nunchuckers. Well, the Tastuda formation is a Roman legionary formation named after the tortoise, where they all put their shields up.

I see. So it is actually Roman relevant. Phil, if only you were in the studio for that one. You definitely could have brought that up and they would have edited that out as well. Perfect. Yeah, I know we've got a pinch and a punch from Greg for being a nerd. I don't know about that.

Not sure. Oh, I don't know about that. Not sure. Oh, I didn't take your virginity. It just sort of fell out. To be fair, that's putting something in rather than... Let's talk about the live task. Were you a fan of the live tasks when you did them? No, I hate getting out of my seat. I hate being put under time pressure.

You know this. I really, really liked... It was the last one of the series, the sausage a finger. Yeah. Then I was quite good at it. i was quite good at that one because i i had i had the brain wave of like blowing my fingers cold before i pressed them into someone's back so that they felt cold like a like a sausage like a sausage yeah no that was a good that that was a really fun one i think if you asked anyone to talk about their favorite live tasks i think sausage your fingers got to be in there um this is a good one too though prepare these items

some real twists and turns i like the twists and turns in this one yeah it's not normal you get like a little twist and turn in uh in the live tasks they're normally quite straightforward but this one was a lot of fun prepare these items for the second part of the task uh there was an egg an orange some grapes three rubber ducks a bottle cling film glue a stapler and tape um now looking at it now you think oh that's so obvious if there's the tape obviously you just tape them all up into one big ball but not knowing what i mean noel really went out on a limb and uh put everything on greg yeah yeah it turned out to be an okay decision though well the best decision yes i mean you know what you know what i thought it was was so that i guess you know what dastardly about this task is you have to try and second guess what

obviously what was going to be required of you and these items in the second half of the task and i thought i thought it'd been really funny if the first stages prepare these items for the second stage of the task and then the the second stage of the task was place these items in their original positions and and and it turned out that all theay meticulously plays in certain parts of the table to remember where they were and put them back oh that's good do you know what you would have done faced with that, faced with prepare these items what would have been your instinct

I probably would have broken the egg and cracked it into the bottle and that would have ended there really and maybe scrambled it that wouldn't have screwed you over too much would it no that would have ended there really and maybe scrambled it and that wouldn't that wouldn't be like much would it no that would have been okay as long as i didn't throw away the shells maybe yeah good point i mean no i don't no just sort of held greg didn't he because greg had all

the stuff which i is that i don't think yeah it's a tough one i think away with that because in the same family of solutions was mel's which had all placed all the stuff and she was holding the table yeah yeah but because she was lifting the whole thing i think that counts because noel wasn't lifting greg which we would love to see we i would have loved like an like an old-fashioned victorian era strongman. That would have been brilliant to watch him lift Greg with one arm. But he was really actually kind of touching Greg. Yeah. I don't feel like it deserved the five points.

No, I think... I feel like I'm sounding quite anti-Knowl this episode. That was not my aim. But on this occasion, I feel like you're right. Mel's counted. I don't think Knowl's counted. Yeah. Yeah. I hate to be a stickler but yeah there we are but it's three points for lolly two points for you and one point for joe and lolly wins the episode very happy to see

uh lolly win the episode she obviously came last in the series overall so you're quite simpatico with her phil i'd imagine I didn't even win an episode and I had more episodes that I could have won 10 episodes there were in your series and no victory was that a disappointing feeling? the process of being in that studio

caused a great deal of introspection and revaluation of who I am and what my skills are. And if I have any. But it also revealed to me the subjective nature of Greg's judgments. Yes. And that really, I think there was a personal gripe he had with me which was something i could never overcome and really that was the true my real failure was not winning over the task master you feel like you needed to go on a charm offensive and you didn't yeah you didn't

do that i shouldn't well i should have brought him gifts. Yeah. I should have. Because everyone at Carrie, Carrie behind the scenes, of course, was bringing him gifts and making his lunch every day and stuff, right? That's right. Yeah, she was building statues to him. Yeah.

She was doing his laundry, you know, just to help out. He was doing shopping. Yeah, and fair play to her yeah yeah she knew the game she knew the game and you didn't but you won't kowtow to the man phil that's what i've always said about you i won't kowtow to the man unless i'm aware that it could benefit me okay phil a few emails that have come in for you uh this is from tom hyde phil uh hello ed just a quick question for phil was your best noise something you improvised on the spot or did you already know you could make that noise that is a good question thank you Tom um that it was a noise I knew I could make just for ages I just and I realized somewhere along the line that not

many people can do it which I thought was strange because it feels very easy to me yeah and so a lot of me sat down there thinking in the footage of me just had thinking is what i'm thinking is can i get away with just doing the mouth thing is it a good noise i know it's all straight i think i know it's a unique noise but is it a good noise and i thought you know what it actually, and it is unique, and loads of people can't do it. Yeah. And so I thought... No, I can't do it.

I can't do it. Yeah. I mean, this is going to be wonderful for people listening in headphones, I think. Oh, yeah. I mean, there are people who don't like the sound of chewing, let alone... Right, and there it is but yes Tommy I did know I could do it but it was coming up with

the idea to unleash it on the world that I had to wrestle with I love the noise I'm a big fan of that one this is from Caitlin in Philadelphia your hometown from Philadelphia yeah From Caitlin in Philadelphia, Phil. Wow. Your hometown. From Philadelphia, yeah.

Hi, Ed. I'm a huge off-menu and Taskmaster fan. And I remember Phil Wang said the banoffee pie they feed to the Taskmaster crew is the best you'll ever eat. Phil, did you ever get to eat that banoffee pie again? Or did you ever get the recipe so you could take a crack at it yourself? If so, could you share the recipe? Because I'd love to try baking it. I don't think... Do you bake banoffee pie?

I'm not much of a baker, which is why I don't really make sweets. I just really enjoy them if they're good. And I remember that day. It might have been our last day. And almost as a treat, the canteen were like, you're getting the banoffee pie. And I remember Mark Oliver's um does the warm up and is a foodie and knows his food yes it was like this banoffee pie you're about to get today

is special yeah and i always take his food knowledge seriously and he was not wrong it was fantastic but the tragedy of it was that by this point of my career i knew that overeating will ruin me for a show it's worse than being drunk for me yeah if i've eaten too much i've i'm just dead i can't i'm worth nothing to no one and so i knew i had to self-ration yeah what might be the best version of my favorite dessert. Yeah. And I took the first spoonful and it was the platonic, I'm sorry to bring Plato up so much.

It was the platonic ideal of a banoffee pie. It had the banana, it had the biscuitiness, it was so cool and refreshing on the cream. And instantly I was like, I want to finish it all. I want to eat all of it. But I knew I knew i can't i can't it will kill my brain i'm already having a tough enough time out there as it is you know i can't it's hard the the life tasks are difficult enough without a belly full of digestive banana and cream so i had to like have half and then put it away and I've never had it again since and I'd love to well that should have given you

I mean that should have given you a kick up the arse to win the series maybe do champion of champions by that point it would have been like crawling out of a well it would have been like in Batman the Dark Knight Rises it would have been like having to climb out of that hole in the ground

it was a foregone conclusion by that point. But that's what you don't see. I knew this was the last time I'd ever try it. That's what you don't see when he's crawling out of that cave or that well or whatever, is that there's a Banoffee pie balanced on the edge. That's why he gets out. Yeah, Alfred's got a Banoffee pie at the top, right?

Master Wade, it's your favourite pie. I also had the Banoffee pie that's something they do every series i think because of tangerine i had a similar similar situation where i wasn't really eating the dessert because they obviously they feed you very well on taskmaster but you do a show then you have dinner and then you do another show and they feed you exceptionally well but i was really having to restrain myself because I'm exactly the same as you. If I'm full or I've gone crazy with food, I'm just a dribbling mess.

So I had some banoffee pie. I think I then got them to save me an extra portion, put it in a takeaway container, and I took some home and had some that night. Yeah, I should have done that. It all went out the window, though. I think day three i was overeating and drinking wine in between the shows so wow um one more uh question uh from

matthias in brazil um hello huge huge fan of the show recently discovered by me on youtube during the pandemic and a huge huge fan of you uh ed Ed, and Phil. So, Phil, I really wanted to know the origin behind your famous haggling bits during the prize tasks. Were you planning to do it multiple times from the get-go, or did the bit just grow organically during the series? Really grateful.

Much regards, Matthias. You know what it was? So it started with the task, the prize task, which was bring in the thing and that i most want to touch yes and i had and i brought in this toy horse and cart that i bought for real in an indonesian market and the haggling story genuinely happened there i tried to haggle and he literally was like nope and eventually i just had to haggling story genuinely happened there. I tried to haggle, and he literally was like, nope. And eventually I just had to haggle up to the price he said at the beginning.

And I thought, this is a funny story. I'll tell it. This is literally the story that comes with this item. And then I thought, you know what? I've got a whole lot more of price tasks, and I have to come up with funny things to say about a lot of them. I'll just say the same thing again and it'll become a running gag um and but what's interesting what's funny is that because a lot of episodes are filmed in front of different audiences of course yeah they're not aware it's a running joke they think

it's a new story every time so what was really funny for me was to what was to start the story with a new item going so i bought this and i i at first i offered 30 pounds and then i can see greg like his he goes like he's he's so sick of it but the audience doesn't know why he's sick of it maybe this is a new story yeah and they're sat there trying to work out why you haggled for these things or why you bought them from a market like it doesn't make any sense that's the that's the one issue like obviously taskbusters could be built really nicely on callbacks because you've all been in the same studio for like seven eight episodes nine episodes ten episodes and you should be able to feel like you can go oh it's like when

you mess that thing up two episodes ago but there's kind of no point because the audience would be like well i'm sorry i've got absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Yeah and it really came back to bite me in the very last episode where I wanted to subvert the joke, the Hackney joke and I think I said like I offered £30 and he took it

and nothing nothing in the room because why would there be why would there be? I've just described a normal transaction. Phil, before we go, let's chat about some of the things you've got coming up because you're a busy boy. Netflix special coming out very soon.

Yeah. Filly Filly Wang Wang. My. Philly Philly Wang Wang. My show Philly Philly Wang Wang is going to be global on Netflix. The streaming platform. It's very exciting. You filmed it at the Palladium, yes? I filmed it at the Palladium.

Yep. Covid style. Reduced capacity, but what a fantastic bench that came i'm very very very excited to see it phil is it is it your last tour or is it like a sort of like uh fusion of all your favorite bits it's my last tour my last show which i'm restarting again that's why i'm finishing the tour of in september so we're in this sort of because of covid we're in this weird scheduling where i'm finishing the tour after the netflix special comes out yeah yeah um but uh there is new a whole new

chunk in it which is pandemic related because I felt I had to mention it it's the first British Netflix special since the pandemic um so I felt like you know I need to mention it and it puts it in context and because there's this um inescapable chinese element to the pandemic and its origins and that is relevant to me by the way the rest of the topic in the in the schedule in the show inescapable chinese element is a great title for your next show yeah it is yeah okay great i'll put a pen in that and so there's some there's some stuff about the pandemic, but the main body of the show is the show that started touring in 2020 and finishing later this year.

Amazing, man. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. Do you wear the outfit for the show? No, much to a lot of people's chagrin and a lot more people's relief. Yeah. I do not, no. Also, you've got a book coming out in september

side splitter side splitter hard to be from two worlds at once and it's um a comic comedian's book about being mixed race and and growing up in malaysia and then and then moving to the uk and living the other the second half of my life so far in the uk and it's like a series of essays on the subject of being mixed but kind of memoir either i loathe to use the word because I've not really well I've started reading it last night I was very lucky to receive um two advanced copies I started reading it last night um in bed uh my girlfriend came to bed she said what are you doing because I don't really read books a lot of the time so it was a real shock to not see me watching youtube videos about about marvel uh so i started reading it last night and it's very funny already i've laughed out loud a

lot already uh but you're great you're at great pains to point out in the introduction that it's not a memoir no it's a collection of essays. Which sounds much more fun. Yeah. That's much more appealing, isn't it? A bunch of homework, my homework. But there's already, there's a story very early on about you and your dad attempting to run a Kung Fu class

that made me laugh out loud. Oh, great. Yeah, I do like that story. It's very, very funny. It's an absurd situation. Yeah, I'm excited to read the rest of it So make sure you go out and buy that everybody, thank you Will there be an audiobook Phil?

Yes, I've recorded the audiobook So there'll be an audiobook available And do you think that counts as reading? No, because it is listening But Is that the age oldold debate finally settled? Yeah, I think so. Thank you very much for finally knocking that on the head, Phil.

Now, Phil, at the end of the Taskmaster podcast, we always ask our guests to rate their experience on the podcast between one and five points in the style of the Taskmaster. So between one and five points, how have you enjoyed your experience on the podcast? I will give this five points how have you enjoyed your experience on the podcast i will give this five points yes i've had such a nice time and i want to show to greg that you can be kind and you can give points where they're obviously earned good thank you very much phil and may i say you've you've won this episode of the taskmaster

podcast finally you have won an episode of something taskmaster related congratulations phil go out there and collect your prizes uh your prizes are the extra copy of your book that i have yeah i'm sorry about that i will pick that up thank you very much phil wang bye-bye there we are what an episode with phil wang uh i love that guy um he's got so much going on uh his netflix special that we discussed there uh philly philly wang wang uh is launching worldwide on netflix on the 10th of august so make sure you're there front of the queue in front of your TV ready to watch that and his first book Sidesplitter How To Be From Two Worlds At Once is released on the 16th of September I'm sure you can go and pre-order that now wherever you pre-order your books go and do

that because from what I've read so far it's excellent and like Phil says he takes time over things he makes sure there's quality so you're guaranteed a good read there. And he's on tour. Filly Filly Wang Wang, the tour. It's running again from 2nd of September to the 3rd of October. So if he's coming to your area, do go and see it. Live and in the flesh. You might not see all of his flesh or indeed the outline of his flesh.

But he will be there. So from me, thank you very much for listening to the Taskmaster podcast. We will be back next week to talk about Series 4, Episode 7 with another special guest. Thank you very much. Bye bye. 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 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.