Taskmaster The Podcast - Introducing Taskmaster: The People's Podcast

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

As a bonus for Taskmaster Podcast listeners we are sharing the first episode of Taskmaster: The People's Podcast, a new podcast from the TM Universe and hosted by Series 8 Champ, Lou Sanders! Welcome to the first episode of Taskmaster: The People's Podcast. Series 8 champion and Pantsuit Princess, Lou Sanders is joined by comedy writer, journalist and Taskmaster obsessive Jack Bernhardt. Together they scour the globe to find and chat to the biggest Taskmaster Superfans. This week our first candidate explains how he risked life and limb as well as extreme embarrassment to become the first person to complete all 220 tasks in the Taskmaster book. Listen to the end for a teaser to next week's show!If you want to share your Taskmaster obsession, whether it's talking about your favourite task, what you loved from the latest episode or that you often like to whack on a pair of stilts and cosplay as Greg Davies we're all ears. Leave us a voice note on 07810 025570. Your time starts... NOW! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Well, well, welcome to the first episode of This is the Taskmaster, the People's Podcast, which makes me the Taskmaster People's Princess, the Timpy. You can call me Timpy for short. Does that work for you, Ben? Ben's a producer. Ben's not giving himself a mic. Rookie error. Each week we scour, we talent scout the world to find the Taskmaster superfans.

And you are super. We are going to delight in discovering what the show means to you. I'm squealing like a little piggy just thinking about it. I'll be joined by comedy writer, journalist and little Taskmaster nerd. That's what he calls himself.

I call himself lovely boy number one. It's Jackernhardt and he's going to be giving me all the facts and stats behind the show it's sexier than you think to be fair so the theme of this first podcast is firsts and if you're asking my first was warren day and he still sends me memes jack jack, welcome to the studio. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being with me, you know? Yeah.

So you're a writer, a journalist, and I'm going to say most importantly, you would identify as a Taskmaster fan. Yeah, I don't want to, you know, denigrate the audience and say I'm probably the biggest Taskmaster fan? Yeah. I don't want to denigrate the audience and say I'm probably the biggest Taskmaster fan. Well, you don't see them with their little spreadsheets, do you? You don't. And I have a lot of spreadsheets. Not very much time, but a lot of spreadsheets. That's all I do. New dad?

New dad. We don't care about that. We just care about the facts and stats. You know who my real baby is? No, I actually can't say that my real baby's my baby I love my baby but who'd you love more if you had to lose them do you know I never thought I liked facts and stats but it's very interesting what you do yeah I I didn't think I liked facts and stats and then I started to really get into it and now here I am uh 11 pages deep in a spreadsheet I love it I'm thinking in

a new way about the show when I watch it now with your facts and stats in my head and I'm not even joking that's really kind thank you that's all it's all I I want to get inside your head so what's your process uh I sit in my bedroom yeah and I watch the show and I make a note of everything that happens and then I put it into spreadsheets. You love a spreadsheet, don't you? I love a spreadsheet. Do you want to hear my theory on men that love a spreadsheet? Yeah. I think they're more likely to be faithful.

That's better than what I heard because someone else said, you know, my theory about people who like spreadsheets is they are inclined to be fascists. Oh, no, I wouldn't say that. I mean, I'm not a fascist. Faithful not fascism. How early in this podcast has it got to the point where I've had to say I'm not a fascist? Yeah, I know. You walk into the room usually, don't you? And go, despite the rumours.

Well, just to describe Jack for the listeners, he is white. So you make your own assumptions. for the listeners. He is white, so you make your own assumptions. I would say for this podcast, I'm the heart of the podcast and you're the mind

of the podcast. Yeah. The heart and mind. Yeah. The yin and yang. Yeah. And the producer, the couple of feet,

keeps us grounded. So you watched the first episode. I did. What did you think? I loved it. It's really, it's nice that,

it's nice that the crowd are back, isn't it? That's the thing that I think I was missing. It felt like the banter. The banter was there. It was very exciting. It felt all very new and organic and exciting. Yeah, Bridget Christie's great in it, isn't she? I love Bridget Christie. Terrifying.

Truly terrifying. Really? You think so? Well, there's a bit where she, where Alex says something snide and she sort of goes, what was that? Repeat that. No, she said, are you proud of yourself? That was so good.

Yeah. It was terrifying how good Chris Ramsey is. This is a stat. That is the best performance by anyone in a first episode ever. And Chris Ramsey winning the first episode puts him in a good position to win the whole series

because half of... I could have told you that. I know, well... He's ahead but statistically half of the people who won their first episode go on to win the their series really yeah that's an amazing you you your theories ian technically won the episodes yeah but you have the same number of points as him in the first episode okay it was a tiebreaker and in fact the last three series richard herring sarah candle mcgarner robinson all won their first episode and all went on to win the the series wow so it's looking it's looking it's looking pretty good if you're a betting person if you're a betting person

but if we're going by age then it's judy love who's most likely to win. Ooh. Because the average age of all the winners from the past 12 series is 41. And that is Judy Love's age. Oh, I love that. Although, do you know, it's her real age because my age is wrong on the internet. Oh, is it? And that's not my fault. Okay, well then, worryingly,

that's ruined the entire average. So Judy Love might not win at all. Well, it's right on some websites. Okay. Is it Wikipedia? Wikifeet. They're getting close why would i have to use wiki feet to to find out your age when stats go wrong in episode one jack we've got a section called taskmaster news okay but we need the people like they need to tell us what they bring little get-togethers

so this is a section for news but we don't have any news well yeah but we're waiting for them to create some news okay okay get in touch if your local pub has got a taskmaster quiz if you're doing a taskmaster fundraiser if you're doing something online this is the news filled by you i heard about that's really good thanks sorry i only caught that no yeah yeah there wasn't enough of a pause to just sit back and enjoy that but yeah i've i've enjoyed it i like it but yeah if you've got any taskmaster news then email us at fans at taskmaster.tv now it's time to speak to a real live guest, Nathan Good.

Hello. Hello. Is your middle name very? It should be. And tell us what you did then. Not that story. Not that story. Oh, sorry.

No, no. No, no. The Taskmaster one. I think I have a small niche in the superfans in that I'm the only Taskmaster fan to have completed all of the tasks in the original Taskmaster book. I think there are 222 tasks

and I managed to eke it out to 242 by doing all the prize tasks. So I think that's my claim to fame. Blimey. How long did that take? I got a spreadsheet. Oh, not another guy with a spreadsheet. It took me 672 hours, which equates to about 56 days. Wow. Okay. So what were some of the highlights of the tasks you did? I think the lowlights come to mind. What were some of the highlights of the tasks you did?

I think the lowlights come to mind quicker than the highlights. Go on. I've got a tattoo. Wow. What is it of? It's the wax seal logo. Wow. Stamped on my behind.

And then you say to the lovers, there's your task. Tell us about the block of ice. You had to do the most unusual block of ice so i was a great fan of trying to combine tasks um oh yeah save save time because otherwise it might have taken me 120 days instead of 60 yeah so um the block of ice one, I combined with a write a story while you're running. So I wrote a word each time I went out for a run. And as I was doing it, I was collecting my sweat with a little spoon and sticking it in an ice cube. And I folded the page of the book up

so it would fit in an ice cube tray and slowly covered the book page with sweat ice a story as old as time we've all been there haven't we and then for some reason when presenting my cube of ice to the camera at the end of it i don't know why i've i suck the ice cube oh no it was hideous i don't because i've got if I imagine that too much I've got a retching problem so we won't delve too deep into that let's move on quickly and what about the one task 206 you will paper to your ex-girlfriend's house explain that one I think I've destroyed five books in the process of um completing the tasks Book budget, £35.35p.

And was she happy when she saw it? It was just a case of having to clean it all up before she got too angry and noticed it and... Oh, so she decided not to keep it. She went for a more traditional look, did she? Yeah. I mean, I thought it looked great but yeah women women huh

what was the most embarrassing task would you say easily uh going to see the cheshire mayor with a carrier bag of calipos and an eight pack the task in the book was impress a mayor yeah i think he thought the task master gang were turning up to do oh no no and it's a man with a carrier bag full of ice creams yeah and he was a different man from from the guy that was on so he was probably like yeah this is my chance this is yeah this is my turn this is what happens when you're the mayor of chesham like yeah wow big business. Yeah. So just me turned up and he was like,

are the crew just outside? And I was, no, it's just me. And the secretary had to film it on my phone for me. Oh, man alive. If I watch it now, it's toe curling. It's hideous. But you thought to yourself, well, I know how to get over this. i'll just get a little tattoo on my butt i'll think no more about it oh good on you but we've all we've all done that and some of

sometimes not even for a task hey you could have used the book to um be like hey i've gotta get a task of getting the number from some pretty ladies. OK, what was the most expensive task? Easily traipsing around 193 embassies, because I interpreted it that that would have been the soil of that nation. The trouble is London doesn't house all house all 190 I think it's 193 by the time I got around to doing it embassies um so I had to go to Paris and Brussels and Washington as well um nice luckily I had some air miles to spend so that was when I was really sort of questioning what the hell I was doing with my life but you you'd done so many, you couldn't really stop then, could you?

Yeah, the same with the tattoo. Did you get in any trouble? There was an incident that led to one of the embassies having armed guards outside it. And I was like, yeah, can I just stand on that step and take a picture? I don't think English was their first language, so they just raised their guns at me. Was their first language rude, Nathan?

It was definitely rude. Maybe double rude. Yes. So there was an awkward moment where I thought, well, I can't fail. Well, you can fail. You can get shot in the head. Luckily, they just raised their guns as I gingerly stepped onto the step and let me do it oh really they let you do it oh that's nice i think they'd have kneecapped me though if if i'd

have tried to run yeah past them yeah so that was probably the biggest trouble i think and what did your family think of it they seem to enjoy it uh i don't know i don't know how worried people were about me you've got to let a man do his challenges though you've got to let him express himself it's like the same as if someone started taking up singles tango nights you've got to let them express themselves you know you can't say is this a breakdown you say dance dance for two tummy have you got any takeaways from it i think it's given me confidence so i started stand-up comedy just before the the old pandemic hit um and i think that's definitely not a path i would have taken otherwise i've looked so stupid in all of these things that yeah something that happened live and in the moment and everyone will

forget a week later wow good for you what uh what are you doing now in life then now that's done becoming uh more more known on the stand-up scene to the point where i get invited on taskmaster really god what if by the time you get there taskmaster's finished well that is what's going to happen isn't it yeah that's how it's going to go down. You're very Taskmaster focused. Don't think that's a be-all and end-all, OK? Because the universe has got a path for you and it may or may not involve Taskmaster,

but you have to be happy regardless. It's easy for me to say, what with me being the champion of Taskmaster 8. But, you know, you've got to be happy regardless. That's what I'm saying. You didn't ask for my advice, but that's my personality. I give it to you anyway. Thank you.

You'll have to put me in touch with Jill in the Pyrenees. My he-lover, those that don't know, which is very few, because I banged on about her enough but yeah i'm just doing my own spiritual work now god help us all have you considered uh there's a self-help book it's called the task master book oh lovely lovely stuff Now I'm injecting some, you know, energy. Raw energy, that's what I am. Now it's time for the part of the show that I like to call Ask Master. Because it's called Ask Master.

Each week we pitch a guest against our homegrown taskmaster, know-it-all, Jack Bernhardt, to find out if they really deserve the title of Superfan. Yeah. Each contestant will run music along the bottom, so it sounds more epic. It'll sound way better than that. Yeah, yeah. Each contestant's got 30 seconds to give us many correct answers to our Taskmaster-themed questions. It'd be funny if it was about something not Taskmaster-related.

Okay, so this is Askmaster. Nathan, it's your big shot. I'm going to read out questions. You've got 30 seconds to answer them. Keep cool, keep calm. Your time starts now. What was the first ever challenge in the lab on Taskmaster series one? Eat a watermelon as quickly as you can. Who was the first contestant disqualified in series two after

what seemed like the perfect potato toss? Joe Wilkinson. What task did Nish Kumar achieve with his feet after 52 attempts causing him to proclaim that he was the first in being a legend? Getting a basketball through a hoop. If in episode one of series three, how much did Al Murray pay to take a Peter Slough? Ah, 200 quid. What noble gas did Moana use? Helium, helium. To the nearest 100, how many...

I've started, so I'll finish. How many grams of doughnuts did Lou manage to fill her bucket with in the first episode of series eight? Ah, 12. 12 grams? The answer was 2,400. Right, now it's time for jack's questions hello um jack you weren't just peeking at them then were you yeah oh no the oh the answers no i was no definitely not okay here we go jack what is the first thing you see greg do in the taskmasters title sequence uh typewriter put typewriter on the first episode on series seven in which the

contestants had to work out the circumference of a caravan was titled The Mean. Was it Queen, Spleen or Bean? Bean. In Series 12, how many portraits of himself did Gus Kahn provide for the prize tasks? Oh God. Let's go. Five.

Who does Russell Howard call to help him get back to the Taskmaster house? His agent. What edible item did the contestants have to hide in episode one of series nine of Star Trek? Obligation. Okie dokie. You got one answer wrong. Guz Khan, in fact, only made two portraits of himself. He's not as vain as you thought.

The results are in. I can confirm that, Nathan, you scored. What are the scores? They're on the board. You scored four. And it's tense, isn't it? It is tense. Well, Jack, don't look back. Rat-a-tat-tat, you also scored four. Whoa! Okay, so, this is exciting stuff. Never in podcast history has there been a tie. Never?

Never. You put that on the stats facts. Okay, so we go to a tiebreaker. Okay? So the closest wins. This is so tense. Get your voice box on the buzzers. Your voices on the buzzers.

Okay. How many plates did Jamali Maddox drop out of his bumper piece? 18. Oh, he's gone first. I've blinked. 25. The answer's 9.

9. Well, there we go. Nathan has it. Nathan Goode. I was distracted by the way you pronounced papoose. Yeah, I know. Sorry about that, but they won't even hear that because I'm going to do...

Now I just sound like I'm a crazy person. Well, look, it was very close, you know. But I can't show my face in public now. Well, you know, who knows how many people will be listening to this podcast. That's true, actually. Nathan, thanks very much for coming on and sharing your stories. It was really nice to talk to you. Thank you for having me.

It was cathartic. Lots of love. Bye bye. That was a lovely show. What a nice podcast, I'm thinking to myself can i say that about it i'm waiting for you to say it am i you can say that about it sure i'm waiting for you to say it what a nice podcast did you have a nice day out i had a great day out it's just nice to leave the house yeah thank you to nathan good for coming on and thank you to the special regular

thank you jack bernhardt Thank you very much for having me. What are you going to do tonight? Open a new spreadsheet? I probably will add a new column, sure. Yeah. Are you an Excel guy or a numbers guy? I'm a Google Sheets guy and I regret it every day. Oh, really?

Yeah, it's not good. Is it not? There are certain formulas that you can't use. Stop it. I'm getting slippery. We're going to be back next week. We're very reliable like that with another taskmaster freak a tmf a little tmf for our ears in the meantime we've got a number you can leave

voice notes i love voice notes you just whatsapp us and we'll be playing your voice notes listening to your voice notes delighting in your voice notes the number is 07 810 025570. If you're a Taskmaster superfan, please let us know by emailing. I've given you the address once, I'll give it you again. It's fans at Taskmaster.tv. Thank you for listening and I guess it's... Thank you for having me. No, goodbye.

Oh, goodbye. Thank you. Thank you and goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Oh, quick thing. Here is the Tees Master himself with a little tease for next week. In episode two of series 13 of Taskmaster, you will see a photo of animals playing sport. of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know,

we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store

and ACAS Creative.