Photograph-Illustration: Vulture and Photos past Channel 4

This article was originally published in 2022 and has been updated with 2021's BFQ offerings.

Americans, it is time for you to adopt a new Christmas tradition: watching a pirated version of Channel four's Large Fat Quiz. If y'all're non familiar with the annual quiz show, you're in for an hour and a one-half–long parade of current-event jokes, references y'all don't entirely understand, and Jimmy Carr's weird laugh.

Every year at Christmastime, three teams of British celebs ostensibly compete to encounter who remembers the most about the year that was. But they're really competing to encounter who can make fun of host Jimmy Carr in the most inventive fashion. Nearly mocked are his teeth, his robotic demeanor, his previously mentioned weird express mirth, and his 2012 tax-evasion whoopsie. The BFQsouthward have the energy of an old Friars Lodge Roast — non the Comedy Fundamental version, the really sometime ones with Dean Martin and Foster Brooks. About anybody onstage is an old pro, with a very identifiable personal make that verges on self-parody. The quiz is a bare Douglas fir, and jokes nearly David Mitchell being an uptight scold who would probably combust if he saw the "WAP" video are the festive tinsel. The tapings drag on for hours, and contestants have typically lost their whole-donkey minds by the final question. A Big Fat Quiz usually devolves into a food fight, a psychosexual drama, or at least a good sometime-fashioned screaming match.

The Big Fatty Quiz is merely one beautiful animate being in a vibrant ecosystem of U.1000. lite entertainment. Comedians across the pond volition supplement their tour or limited-serial auteur-comedy-show income by guesting on all these shiny-floor Television shows. Many returning quizzers star on other panel shows like Inaugural, Never Listen the Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, Hypothetical, Taskmaster, 8 out of 10 Cats, and Would I Prevarication to Yous? As a effect, at that place is a teeming customs of medium-tier stars. It's a much better system than what we have in America. How is a rising comedian supposed to get noticed here, insurance commercials? A 15-minute Netflix special? Dating Kaia Gerber? Gimme a suspension.

The BFQsouthward are besides hugely comforting. Through Brexit, recession, and the state of war on terror, the jokes go along coming. It says something about the indomitability of the human being spirit that even our darkest times have enough of room for dick jokes. 2021's Big Fat Quiz aired on Battle Day, and 2022's Large Fat Quiz of Everything is expected to run Jan vii, barring an Omicron derailment. To prep, we've ranked every Big Fat Quiz of the Year, Big Fat Quiz of the Decade, Big Fat Anniversary Quiz, and Large Fat Quiz of Everything.

(I've given each quiz a nickname with its most identifying feature, à la Friends episode titling. Otherwise, this would be an bulletproof list of numbers. A panel-testify fan might not remember what happened in the Big Fatty Quiz of 2014, only they sure as hell remember the ane with Mel B.)

This quiz is remarkable in office for the absence of veteran talk-show host Jonathan Ross, who is a panelist on most episodes and usually gets an executive-producer credit for his trouble. Ross had been banned from the BBC for iii months later on he and fellow Big Fat Quizzer Russell Make prank called an esteemed British actor and told him about all the weird sex stuff his granddaughter did with Make. (Even though Ross wasn't banned from Channel 4, he thought appearing on a different network while in BBC jail would be tacky.) Make and Ross returned to the quiz the following twelvemonth as part of a general amends tour.

Large Fatty Quizzes are known for their raunchy, sometimes tasteless jokes, and it's upward to everyone to make up one's mind where their limit lies. Early quizzes, particularly, endure from the aughts' detail brand of edgelordy brain worms. Information technology was a different fourth dimension, and different things will be the breaking point for different people. For me, information technology's James Corden and Sean Lock enervating points and receiving an applause break for calling trans man Thomas Beatie's pregnancy "an abomination." There's some fun stuff about how regular panelist Claudia Winkleman wants to take sex with Channel iv news presenter Jon Snow in an aisle behind the trash cans, but otherwise this thing is charmless and doesn't demand rewatching in our more sensitive times. Nobody is canceled, but life is short, and there are so many other quizzes to lookout man.

The showtime Big Fatty Quiz of the Year does not feel like the evidence we've come to know and love. The teams tell fewer jokes, nobody throws things, and none of the teams takes on the function of impaired team. In wrestling terms, the show hadn't figured out its angles nevertheless. Big Fat Quizzes work best when each team takes on a role. In that location's a Brainy Team, which mostly provides authentic answers and can give knowledgeable commentary on the events of the yr. There'southward a Smart-ass Team that'southward simply in that location to make jokes. And there's a Difficult Squad, whose job is to undermine Jimmy's say-so as quizmaster and willfully write the dumbest answers imaginable. Since this is the get-go iteration, these roles are yet to be defined, and people mostly go for real answers. What's more, special guests come on to requite answers to the rounds, and their lifeless cue-bill of fare reading drains what little energy the show has every time.

Mel B'southward Big Fat Quiz is infamous in the fandom for the contentious relationship she has with literally every other contestant, also as Jimmy himself. She starts out the nighttime by making fun of Kevin Bridges'south Scottish accent, then says Richard Ayoade is weird for having a banana. Everyone manages to requite as skilful every bit they get from Scary Spice, however. Mel seems genuinely terrified of Ayoade after he rants about all the free energy he's getting to quiz from his bananas. And the end of the evidence is but a drench of Spice Girls lyric puns. You lot get the sense that her publicist had asked the panel beforehand non to mention the Spice Girls, and that after hours of sour energy, they finally tell her what they desire. What they really, actually want.

Beyond Mel B's antics, this is the first quiz where Channel four news presenter Jon Snowfall does his little trip the light fantastic. From its inception, The Big Fat Quiz has gotten a genuine News Gentleman to read a false story summarizing the lyrics to a big song of that year. Usually it's Jon Snow, whom many of the female panelists seem to have residual crushes on from babyhood. But this is the first year where they cut back to Jon in the studio, dancing to "All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor. It's a terrible year, and a terrible song, only Jon Snow makes everything amend.

Less well-known only nonetheless uncomfortable, '80s British Television set icon Sarah Greene seems afloat throughout this '80s trivia competition. Yous'd think her personal experience with the time flow would assist, but Greene acts confused and standoffish for most of the program. Subsequently not getting the applause she wanted for being at the first London marathon, she merely gets progressively stroppier. Her cute (???) chestnut near killing a tortoise on children'southward program Blue Peter doesn't become the laugh she seems to have been seeking, and the evidence's mystery-invitee round is almost derailed past a genuine argument betwixt her and Carr. Jimmy offers a joke, "I'm not being patronizing; I'm being condescending." They cut away from her reaction, but her eyes are on fire for the rest of the quiz. On the comedy end, Jack Dee's dour bit stops the quiz multiple times. Deadpan doesn't play on The Big Fat Quiz. Even Richard Ayoade shouts on these.

And this one merely lacks pizzazz. Maybe '80s nostalgia merely isn't fun in U.k.. Thanks a lot, Thatcher! Jokes about miners' strikes aren't the stuff comedy dreams are made of. Nobody is doing a bad job, but nobody is really on their elevation game either. Micky Flanagan dominates the conversation, basically making the whole quiz a ii-homo innuendo-off with Carr. Original Countdown host Ballad Vorderman has a prissy moment when she needs the concept of "fingering" to be explained to her. Simply too many of the panelists are quip-shy. I completely forget Stephen Mangan is on the quiz, which is insane for someone who pirated Greenish Wing back in the day.

This 1 is still very rough effectually the edges. Rounds go by month rather than subject, which makes the quiz experience very disjointed. They still take celebs reading answers and draining the room of its free energy. Merely Sharon Osbourne's enthusiasm pushes this thing to the eye of the heap. Only cackling like a mad witch and blurting out answers. She doesn't seem to understand how the quiz works, or fifty-fifty where she is at some points, but she and Jonathan Ross bear witness the proper disregard for authority a Hard Team needs. The edgelordy jokes are kept to a minimum — mostly some weird Islamophobic stuff about an Standard arabic translation of Homer Simpson. One is thrust correct back into Republic of iraq War discourse with these early episodes.

This quiz celebrates Channel 4, literally the fourth British Idiot box station. Information technology lauds staples of British Television like Inaugural: a show where people do math simply call information technology maths and it makes no sense. Channel 4 also gave us Big Brother and, of class, the backbone of all Television set the earth round, Friends reruns. David Mitchell and Richard Ayoade are teamed in this one, which is a bit also dry-on-dry. It's like if yous put a slice of toast betwixt ii other pieces of toast. Their all-time running gag is using the surname "Devilleneuve" repeatedly in their guesses, assuming that someone at some signal in history had that proper noun. Only in the intros, Frank Skinner gets one of the all-time insults of Jimmy Carr's appearance ever on the prove: He said Carr looks similar someone who's but taken off their glasses. It's true. The similarity between Jimmy Carr and Milhouse petting the horseshoe crab is uncanny.

The second Big Fat Quiz of the COVID Year is weirdly joyless. Even Chantal, the big doll from Squid Game, can't relieve information technology. And she's hard to volume! Sarah Millican, who is normally a giggle monster in these, seems angry about getting the gig. Everyone seemed a lilliputian subdued — even Jonathan Ross' spontaneously generated character, Tommy Petrol. This outing also suffered from not having a true Brainy Team. Either trauma fog has afflicted all of our long-term memories, or this panel just suffered from a lack of news junkies.

Richard Ayoade and Noel Fielding have become the perennial bad boys (or airheaded boys, at least) of The Large Fat Quiz. Fielding was originally paired with Russell Brand, simply he got too famous for the show after Get Him to the Greek. Fielding and Ayoade were already friends and collaborators, having worked together on The Mighty Boosh and The IT Oversupply. This is their first quiz together, and the magic of their pairing has all the same to fully sally. Like the quiz itself, the Ayoade/Fielding double human action needed an episode or two to figure out the kayfabe. Ayoade calls their team-up "The Niche Corner," but they aren't the Rude Niche Corner yet.

Highlights of the quiz include an interpretive trip the light fantastic by Louie Spence depicting the Chilean miner story, Jonathan Ross with a truly horrendous goatee, and a woman who saved a cat. It'south a pleasant enough outing, only it tin can't help only be disappointing if you lot know the celebrity of what's to come.

Americans are hit or miss on this show. Michelle Wolf has expressed her love for British console shows, simply the quiz format holds her back somewhat. As a panelist, you have to determine to either know all the answers or agree the quiz in disdain. But Wolf is almost tentative. She seems aware she's on other people'due south turf, which does her advised make a disservice. This is too a weirdly low-scoring year. Nobody seems to know the answers and everyone seems mad nigh it. Noel Fielding especially has a "permit's go this over with" free energy rather than the more playful persona he usually brings. Even a false Hulk wrecking the set at the end feels somewhat joyless.

On the opposite terminate of the American guest spectrum, we have Rob Delaney. Delaney had been in the U.K. always since Catastrophe started, so he was up-to-date on the news and wanted anybody to know. The problem with that, even so, was that he had been paired with arch silliness impresario Richard Ayoade. The two had not bad quiz styles that tasted bad together. This was likewise the first Hell Twelvemonth quiz, before we equally a people were inured to the pain current events bring. Brexit was notwithstanding sore, Trump'due south impaired inauguration was yet to be, and nosotros were all down because nosotros thought the worst had already happened. Golly gee, were we wrong.

After BFQ ran out of decades to quiz, information technology started running Big Fat Quizzes of Everything. These quizzes lack the political border of their yearly counterparts, but they oftentimes feature magnificent dumbass Joey Essex. It's a off-white trade. Rob Beckett loses points for this episode by recycling the team name he'd previously used with Aisling Bea (Tits and Teeth) with Roisin Conaty. Withal, the pair's combined "i ain't bothered" energy more makes up for this joke reuse imitation pas. The recurring flake of Roisin and Rob speaking to each other through the COVID-mandated plexiglass is the second best use of COVID security theater in a Big Fat Quiz (for the best, run into entry #eleven). Token Ingenue Oti Mabuse is sweetness personified, which is probably how she's able to negotiate one-half a point out of the usually signal-stingy Jimmy Carr. Mayhap she likewise gets that one-half bespeak because these questions are weirdly hard? At least for an American. If y'all sentinel a BFQ to experience smugly superior, look elsewhere.

The best role of this quiz are all the Prince Andrew jokes. From what I tin can assemble from the quiz, Prince Andrew said he couldn't take been a part of Epstein's pedo band considering he (1) had pizza one time and (two) is too brave to sweat? Someday we volition get 1 heckuva Crown season. And 70-year-old Jamie Bell is going to crush.

This episode suffers from besides many stunt foods. The grand tradition of bringing weird foods kicked off in earnest in 2012, when Jack Whitehall and James Corden ordered pizza. Things accept escalated and so in the intervening seven years that 2022 has multiple wicker hampers and a drinks run. Everyone gets tequila pineapple drinks that just sit down on their desks for more than half the quiz. Just at the end of the 24-hour interval, Jon Snowfall kind of twerks in this one. Cipher tin accept that away from united states of america.

Did you know brits call Nickelodeon-style slime "gunge," and that said gunge was used on a Saturday night one-act testify? I did non! Bob Mortimer is a hoot and a one-half in this episode, bringing his particular make of surreal filth. If you oasis't seen his season of Taskmaster, yous need to. His stop-motion pic almost a banana is a matter to behold. A highlight is when he explains cock-a-lottie: a game where you get your dick and balls out close to important historical artifacts. Mortimer has successfully erect-a-lottied next to Napoleon's bed, the Treaty of Versailles, and the Bayeux Tapestry. Picket Richard Ayoade while Bob explains the game. He backs him up all the mode, with an expression similar, Yep, I knew what he was going to say and I'g fine with it. We've both exposed ourselves to the Magna Carta. What are yous gonna do well-nigh it?

Monsieur auteur of Black Mirror is on this dick-joke quiz show and I, for one, beloved that for him. Brooker is partnered with David Mitchell, the resident creepo of The Big Fat Quiz. You know you lot're a niggling too smart for a quiz when y'all name your team after C-list characters from A Christmas Carol. Mitchell is in peak "old man yells at deject" grade this year, creating the all-time running gag of the ep by refusing to trip the light fantastic. Past the stop of the show, he's ready to take over equally the mayor of that boondocks from Footloose. Big Fat Quiz works best when someone is in the high-condition-buffoon role. Usually it'southward Carr, merely David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker work it perfectly. Russell Make and Jonathan Ross appear on their amends tour, demonstrating that they've learned nothing from their TV exile. Brand had co-starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall by this point, and everyone gets a few good potshots in at ol' Hollywood Brand. Just most interestingly of all, Brand explains the way he chooses parts: If the grapheme has a different haircut than him, he won't exercise it.

For the most part, the BFQE's alloy together. It's difficult to recollect which is the one with the question about da Vinci and which is the 1 where three models have fully exposed wangs in an art question. This ane is memorable for reuniting one-act duo Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. Double acts are still a large thing in the U.One thousand., and many BFQ regulars are half of a duo: David Mitchell from Mitchell and Webb; Mel Giedroyc from Mel and Sue; and Noel Fielding from the Mighty Boosh; amongst others. But information technology's pretty rare for a double act to be together on the show. Vic and Bob get to be supremely silly on this quiz, either telling a wealth of fun stories virtually interacting with celebs or inventing bizarre stories of interacting with celebs on the spot. Either manner, I'thousand laughing.

It'south a lovely spread of teams this episode. Aisling Bea and Rob Beckett debut on the quiz as Tits and Teeth, bringing the youth vote. On the opposite terminate, we have the Ancient Fucks: Adam Buxton and Jonathan Ross. In the heart nosotros have the old standbys of Ayoade and Fielding. Bea stands out, talking mad smack while she and her teammate lose horribly. They throw candy at each other, candy that belongs to Richard Ayoade. The all-time moment comes after this candy stealing and other torments, when Ayoade absolutely loses it at Beckett, channeling all the rage he felt at his years as a bullied teen and. Bea tries to coffin the hatchet by hugging Ayoade, but conspicuously he hates human affect.

This is the first quiz with Joe Lycett, God's perfect bicon (bisexual icon). Lycett's Channel 4 show, Joe Lycett's Got Your Back, is a combination of Punk'd and that segment at the stop of the news where they tell you near scamming car washes. On that show, Lycett commits to the bit. He legally changed his name to Hugo Boss to show that enforcing copyright on the discussion "boss" is stupid. And it worked! I now hate Hugo Dominate more I already did for the whole Nazi affair. Lycett commits on this quiz as well, dancing backside legitimate genius Sandi Toksvig after beingness served a Long Island iced tea during one round. Each team brings a fun flavor. We have the queer solidarity front end of Toksvig and Lycett, likewise as the actual double act of Frank Skinner and David Baddiel. The less established double human action of Big Narstie and Katherine Ryan is in that location, too, bringing the hurting. At 1 point, Big Narstie falls asleep and blames it on everyone making "proper white people jokes." This is why he got his own show.

This BFQE was 1 of the starting time quizzes with 2 female panel-evidence regulars on the same team. Foreign Twerkers consisted of Katherine Ryan and Aisling Bea, both of whom are agog feminists with dick jokes for days. U.K. console shows have long been under criticism for their overwhelmingly straight, white male casts. Ryan herself stopped going on Mock the Week because she felt like she was depriving other women of the one spot women get on a panel, if that. Often on previous quizzes, in that location would just exist one Token Girl. The Token Daughter typically wouldn't be a comic, instead maybe a presenter or a reality star or a Mel B. Usually, either Jonathan Ross or Dara O'Briain is paired with her as the Ingénue Minder, at that place to make all the team'due south jokes. The simply joke a Token Girl unremarkably gets is to be objectified by Jimmy Carr, or maybe misfile Gordon Chocolate-brown with the Gorton's Fisherman or something. Katherine Ryan and Aisling Bea are panel-show monsters, in the "Nicki Minaj verse on the Kanye song" sense. They also brought doggies! It'southward fun to track who is petting Megan, the tiniest dog on the planet, throughout the episode.

This is the one with three male models hanging brain at the finish. Romesh Ranganathan gets the episode off to a lively commencement past implying that he's fucked Dara O'Briain's mum on multiple occasions. The more than juvenile the humor gets on these shows, the better. In that location'southward something and then pure about "your mom" jokes. They're entirely untethered from anyone's actual mother. Rather, information technology's more than nigh how one can twist language, though no 1 can twist as much equally your mom did last night. That adult female is bendy. If your mom jokes go along for likewise long, they take on an cool border. Who is this ugly, sexually voracious woman who sits effectually the firm? What is her clandestine to living and then well?

This episode is and then jokey that Noel Fielding has to presume the nerd persona and go along the quiz moving. The joke answers:real answers ratio is really skewed. Nobody is going to be the Brainy Squad. Ranganathan made it clear what he and Alan Carr are going to be, and fifty-fifty known history buff Eddie Izzard gives a lot of space to Fielding'due south more abstract answers. And Chelsea Peretti'south apparent disdain for everything going on around her is delightful to lookout. Since no i is actually trying to win the quiz, the real contest becomes who can make as many answers "Dara's mum." It'southward not the get-go time she's fabricated it piece of cake to score, after all.

Almost the opposite of 2021'southward BFQ, the first COVID quiz is exuberant. Nobody'southward been out of the house all yr, so the panelists get rowdy. James Acaster'southward smearing of ice foam on the COVID dividers is near expert enough to arrive the top ten. James Acaster, in general, is a cracking add to the madness of a BFQ. It'due south the way his face doesn't motility, no affair what madness is coming out of his mouth. Information technology's unpredictable, y'all never know what he'southward going to practice. Joe Lycett'south prop work also bears mentioning. He brought curtains, bless him! Combined with Jonathan Ross' bit near how horny Olympic athletes must be after years of training, and it's a hit.

Kristen Schaal is a vivid American guest on The Big Fat Quiz. She doesn't entirely understand what's going on, but she throws herself into it with enthusiasm. Schaal is paired with Bang-up British Baking Show's Mel Giedroyc for Big Fun Aunt Free energy. Nobody throws Baileys like Mel Giedroyc. Schaal and Giedroyc come with a special "handshake," which is merely a high five where y'all touch elbows showtime. This prompts David Mitchell to admit he's terrible at loftier-fiving, which is lamentably on-brand for him. This is also the episode where the entire audience gets Champagne. In all, information technology's a wine mom's favorite quiz.

This is the beginning quiz where a team truly commits to existence dumb, and male child does information technology pay off. Miranda Hart and David Walliams are the starting time squad in BFQ history to not reach double digits by the end of the quiz. When they score their first point —halfway through the show! — they do a victory lap through the audience. Information technology's a refreshing change of tactic for Walliams, who until this point had been doing an "the only sane man" shtick that was getting old. Every team has fun in this episode. Eddie Izzard steals some answers off Jimmy Carr'south podium, Jamie Oliver gives corking banter, and Creature from the Muppets asks a question. This is the first quiz where chaos reigns.

This quiz gets off to a raucous start when Joe Lycett hits Jimmy Carr. Lycett is paired with Alan Carr, as the Grindrs and Mincers, the pithiest idiots to ever alive. Alan and Joe brought wigs and simulated glasses then they could historic period as the famously hours-long taping progressed. Just then they saw Jonathan Ross looking a trivial worse for habiliment, so they decided confronting it. Didn't desire to be bullies. Lycett is wonderfully physical throughout the quiz. He hits Jimmy, he's chased by Pikachu, and he does the whole Gangnam Style dance. He fifty-fifty does a spot-on Theresa May dancing impression while wearing a spot-on Theresa May wig.

This quiz also has the loudest squad ever: Claudia Winkleman and Nish Kumar. Winkleman had been on quizzes since 2008, and she always shouts "Oh, yes!" whenever her teammate knows an respond. Like, every time. For 11 years. But Nish Kumar is almost equally loud. Kumar goes for the most jokes of any quizzer, insisting that 4 people on Game of Thrones died from dragon, big dragon, boobs, and natural causes. It's a humdinger of a quiz, starting with a slap and catastrophe with Geordie Shore's Charlotte Crosby on a wrecking ball. If you like Telly to make sense, this might not be the quiz for you lot.

This is one of my most rewatched episodes of Large Fat Quiz. It's a keen combination of pre-Brexit/Trump "everything'southward fine!" news, stunts, and silliness. Normally I don't retrieve hot people should be allowed to do comedy, merely Russell Howard is an exception. He pulls off an amazing trick of both knowing the answers to nearly questions and also having jokes to get along with them. Dude prepared for the exam. Jack Whitehall and James Corden show up in tuxedos and have pizza delivered to their seats, starting an always-escalating food-stunt war on these shows. The tuxedo boys requite tremendously stupid answers. The but depression point is sports presenter Gabby Logan, whom they obviously hired for her Olympics expertise. She seems drastic to stay smart, even giving one answer in French sans raison. C'est incroyable! She and Ayoade somewhen split their answer pad down the centre, so she can give a right reply and he tin write nonsense, like that Usain Commodities celebrated his Olympic win past weaving a tapestry.

This is the 2nd quiz with the Goth Detectives. Russell Brand and Noel Fielding's childish contempt for the quiz is what fabricated this show keen. If a BFQ doesn't take a little bit of chaos, it falls flat. Brand and Fielding bring a lot of anarchy to 2007. They make defensive battlements out of their mid-quiz snack, Brand throws a shoe, Fielding defends his option of attire (a big ol' Dracula greatcoat). At i point Brand appeals to the audience to demand points, not because they knew answers, but considering the audience loves them. David Mitchell calls it out as some Nuremberg shit. This quiz has everything. Lily Allen is a delightful loose cannon, minded by Jonathan Ross only nonetheless managing to insult Radiohead. And after 4 long years, perennial guest Rob Brydon wins a quiz. It's a Cinderella story, if Cinderella was nigh a guy who does impressions.

This is the all-time episode to autumn asleep to. The chillwave edition of the quiz. The highest-energy moment comes when Rob Brydon and David Mitchell accept a pedant off about Jeremy Clarkson'south firing. Though a close second is when Rob Brydon finds out about "the dress" live on TV. 2022 has the calmest popular uprising in Large Fat Quiz history, when all the panelists concord that maxim David Cameron put his penis in that dead pig due to "peer pressure level" is technically correct, however Jimmy Carr refuses to give the point. Brydon uses that moment to leverage himself into running the quiz, until after ane commercial break, Brydon is hosting. The show'southward chill vibe is anchored by Greg Davies, host of the other best panel show of all time, Taskmaster . Davies has a big, bearlike presence. Very picayune fazes him. Very little, that is, besides the word dong. It'due south a childish throwback word, dong. And once it's been let loose, it takes over the quiz.

This Big Fatty Quiz of Everything soars above its brethren because it has a phenomenal and volatile lineup of guests. Chelsea Peretti, the confused-yet-indifferent interloper, is paired with sometime pro Jonathan Ross. Jack Whitehall and Mel Giedroyc accept the free energy of a hyper nephew hanging out with the aunt who'due south desperate to claim the title of "fun aunt." The moment where Whitehall convinces Giedroyc that her pen is voice activated is devastating in its generation gap. And Fielding and Ayoade are there to snark and provide surrealist answers. Each team has at least one member known for shenanigans. And so when Giedroyc breaks out a shit ton of cakes, it should come up as no surprise that a food fight ensues. Just Peretti and Ayoade refuse to participate. Only even when pastry isn't flying through the air, this quiz is anarchic. At one point, everyone talks in Stallone/Elephant Homo impressions. It's a total minute of completely unintelligible mouth sounds. You actually get the sense that culture is a thin veneer on the true animal nature of human being, just you likewise get a lot of dick jokes. If you're looking for a fun version of Lord of the Flies, this is the quiz for yous.

If throwing cakes doesn't practice it for you, what near flight chunks of turkey? Jonathan Ross brings his Christmas leftovers to brand sandwiches for his boyfriend panelists. Of class Jack Whitehall winds up flinging meat beyond the stage. Whitehall is in peak "abrasive little blood brother" mode this yr. Plain he'd gotten in problem for some of the things he'd said in 2012, and then Ross provided him with family-appropriate pun jokes to read mirthlessly throughout the quiz. The team of Kristen Schaal and Dara O'Briain brings a lot of joy to the quiz. They're much peppier than the Bad Boys on either side of them. And when Ross and Schaal pretend to be Kim and Kanye in the "Bound ii" video, O'Briain does splendid mime work as the motorcycle.

Large Narstie manages to bring Jimmy Carr the same corporeality of consternation as Jonathan Ross, Jack Whitehall, and Russell Make put together. Narstie got his own talk bear witness based on this and other panel-show appearances, and you can see why. Nobody is as simultaneously confident and confused as Large Narstie. He doesn't know who any of his co-panelists are and he gets two very foreign catchphrases immediately: "Bong!" imitating Large Ben and "Mo Farah Sign," doing what he thinks is the Mobot but is actually just a heart. Each thing drives the ultrapolished Jimmy Carr up the wall. It is delicious to lookout man.

Russell Make returned for this special commemorating ten years of The Big Fatty Quiz. He and Noel Fielding are in superlative form. Fielding brought a mask to complete his conceptual artist Nick Cave–esque bejeweled gown. Brand weighs in on every politician and whether or not they'll brand it out alive, come the revolution. And let's not forget when Fielding demands "a blowie off the puppet [Carr]" if they win. The Goth Detectives come shut to winning, but at what cost to the integrity of the quiz? They run through the audience asking for answers, really bringing an audience member onstage. Just and then, Brand exchanges numbers with someone in the audience who crowdsources answers for the Goth Detectives. It takes Jack Whitehall several rounds to convince Carr that the GD'due south are cheating, and none of their points are revoked subsequently their cover is blown. It just goes to evidence: There'southward no point in playing past anyone else's rules. Charisma wins over correctness every time. A dark moral to depict from the last pre-Brexit/Trump quiz, merely at that place it is.

Mr. Blobby is going to take some explaining. Mr. Blobby was a parody of children'southward characters on Noel's House Party, a.k.a. the show with the gunge. He runs around and says "blobby" and falls down, sort of a combination of Tinky Winky the Teletubby and Mr. Bean. In 1993 he had the Christmas No. 1 single, like Bill Nighy in Love Actually. Early in this '90s quiz, Jack Whitehall expresses a deep abiding fearfulness of Mr. Blobby. Little does he know that the Blobster himself will be presenting the last question of the nighttime. The look of 18-carat fear on Whitehall's face is priceless, but then Mr. Blobby turns out to be a gifted mime performer in his ain correct. Blobby should be on every quiz. An American viewer goes from not knowing what a Mr. Blobby even is to completely understanding how he got that No. ane single. Mr. Blobby slaps!

Beyond the Blobby content, this quiz is blessed with Dara O'Briain's considerable mime talents. In the BFQ of 2013, he played a motorcycle. In this one, he's a sexy single in your area who is trapped in a box, going down an lift, and trying to milkshake a fart out of her butt. Between him and Blobby, it's the quiz with the best space piece of work bar none.

This quiz starts every bit all Big Fat Quizzes of the Decade do, with panelists describing what they were doing in the decade in question.This somewhat rote segment pays off big time in The Large Fatty Quiz of the Noughties. The mode Sarah Millican singsongily says, "I was in the center of a loveless marriage, only I didn't know," rings through my head all the fourth dimension. It's then nighttime, yet in her Geordie accent it sounds like the beginning of a children's book. The wind whispers information technology to me on cold nights. Information technology's fucking perfect. And then Richard Ayoade tops it by maxim he was at dwelling house for the unabridged decade, taping Friends.

But further forth in the quiz comes the best bit, where Noel Fielding and Ayoade reach their final form: kids bullying the substitute teacher. The way they berate Carr, insisting the respond to "Who managed to set a new earth record, subsequently spending 71 days crying in the B&Q?" is "Your mum." Admittedly slays me. Ayoade looks and then smug. Fielding tin can't stop laughing. Jimmy Carr does a good job of pretending to be offended. This is what The Large Fat Quiz is all well-nigh: mom jokes and IRL cyberbullying.

The Platonic ideal of quizzing. Non only does this episode introduce the churlish hipster fucks we know and dear, it'south damn exciting. For well-nigh all of the quiz, information technology's a tight race for first place between Rob & Dave (Rob Brydon and David Walliams) and the Conventionally Attractive Team (Jonathan Ross and Cat Deeley). Every bit the start team to actually get for jokes over points, Make and Fielding are at the lesser of the bottom. Jimmy is then confident the Goth Detectives know nothing that he offers 22 points to the boys if they respond one question correctly. When they get it, the studio audience pressures Carr to laurels his hope, and information technology puts the GDs dorsum in the running for first. David Walliams goes full Frank Grimes, incandescent with rage that these dum-dums take a chance at winning. From then on, each team actually tries for the first time all quiz. It gets tense, almost like watching sports. The Goth Detectives win, and it's the most stunning upset since the White Sox threw the 1919 Globe Series. This is the showtime quiz where everyone figured out how to inhabit their roles, and it remains the best of the lot.

Every Big Fat Quiz, Ranked