Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening! And welcome to QI,

where tonight we are celebrating 100 years of the BBC

in an episode that's all about television itself.

So for tonight's panel I'm using words the BBC experimented with

in 1935, to describe viewers of this brand-new technology.

Let's meet a telly observist, Greg James!

An opto-viser, Zoe Lyons!

I like it.

A looker-in, Richard Osman!

And...

..a bit of a glancer, it's Alan Davies!

Thank you very much.

Right, let's hear their TV tunes. Greg goes...

MUSIC: "Grandstand" THEME Oh.

Love that. Zoe goes...

MUSIC: "Ski Sunday" THEME Oh, perfect. That's good, isn't it?

I love the hip action there. Very good.

Like a mogul field. Richard goes...

MUSIC: "Wimbledon" THEME

And Alan goes...

# Tinky-Winky! Tinky-Winky! Dipsy! Dipsy!

# Laa-Laa! Laa-Laa!

# Po! Po! #

LAUGHTER

That's all we've got time for.

Right, question number one. You all spend a lot of time on TV,

but who has spent more time on television

than anyone else in the world?

I feel like Richard's got a good shout.

KLAXON

It's good to pop your klaxon cherry right there. Yes, it is.

Is it the test card girl? She was always on when I was a kid.

You are absolutely right.

Are you serious?! Oh, wow! APPLAUSE

Yes. Are you serious? Oh, wow. It is the most broadcast face

in the history of television. To be fair, Sandi,

I'm inside that clown costume, so that's me as well.

She's called Carole Hersee

and it is estimated that Carole has been on the air

over 70,000 hours. Wow. That's eight continuous years.

And she is here with Bubbles the clown tonight. There she is!

Great work, Carole! APPLAUSE

Wow.

So...questions that we have.

Where did you get Bubbles the clown from? He was a kit and I made him.

Oh! So your dad, George, he was an engineer at the BBC.

Yes, and he was helping to design test cards.

And it was just decided that a child would be better than an adult

because there would be no fashion, no make-up to worry about.

Yeah. And it just happened to be that Dad had sent in some pictures

of my sister and I,

and the committee decided, "We might as well stick with his children."

You must have the Guinness World Record, surely, for being... No.

No? Because it's not something that's achievable to be beaten.

Oh! That sounds like a challenge. Yes.

I'm honestly trying my best.

I'm free for the next 80,000 days.

But you must have been incredibly famous.

People must have stopped you and gone,

"Where's the clown? Get the clown! Let's play noughts and crosses!"

No, not really. Oh, OK.

OK, well, where's the clown?

Let's play noughts and crosses!

But to anyone under 40, they must wonder what that picture is.

To us, it's literally like the Mona Lisa. It's so familiar.

I'm under 40. I know it. But only from, like, I Love 1977 episodes.

Are these the unused alternatives, the ones that are on the screen?

It was done in two sessions. These were taken in the first session.

Then they decided what they were going to make the picture up as.

And it was decided that the blackboard was a good foil

for finding the centre of the screen.

And did you go on into working in television?

No, I make period costume for the stage. Do you?

How wonderful. Wow. Amazing. I'm intrigued by the committee.

Yes, it's the BBC. There's always a committee.

Thank you so much for coming in!

Thanks to Carole Hersee!

Well, we're delighted to give her

a little bit of screen time on QI tonight

because, you know, definitely needs it. Right.

How does the BBC send people to sleep? What do you reckon?

The Shipping Forecast. Yes... KLAXON

So there used to be a thing called The Toddlers' Truce.

1946 to 1957, there was no television at all in Britain

from 6pm to 7pm.

OK? And this was so that they could put the children to bed.

It worked really well until ITV started in 1955.

Why would that scupper having this hour break?

They could just plough straight through. But why would they want to?

To suck up... Get all the viewers. ..the audience. Get the viewers.

It's revenue. Advertising revenue.

It's all revenue, this business, Sandi. It's all revenue. Yeah.

They lost an hour of prime-time advertising.

And they filled it with Nationwide.

After 17 months of wrangling,

Parliament finally agreed to abolish it in February, 1957.

We just went to bed when the news came on. Three-day week,

something about Belfast. Bedtime.

LAUGHTER

When I was a child, my father was a broadcaster in Denmark.

And television would come on at seven.

And then my dad would be sitting there. He read the news.

And he often did it with a pipe and he always had a telephone

because they couldn't afford to have filmed inserts.

So sometimes the phone would ring and my dad would answer the phone

and that went on for an hour of my dad just reading

and then at eight o'clock they would have a half-hour documentary

about the Queen's silver spoon collection,

and then the whole service would close down. My father was two-thirds

of all available television in Denmark. Wow. Wow. Wow.

He had a pipe during the news?! Yes! Sometimes a little beer as well.

I imagine him putting on different hats and different outfits,

little moustaches. Yeah. Like a big Edinburgh show.

Yeah. Just, "Yay!"

"Meanwhile, in Germany..."

Are you sure he was on TV?

He might have just been behind your television.

LAUGHTER

Right, what do you get on the Blue Peter black market?

Oh! Hmm.

Milk bottle tops. Aww.

What do they collect now? There aren't any milk bottle tops.

Toenails.

The very first Blue Peter badge was awarded on the 17th of June, 1963.

It is probably the world's longest-running

family discount scheme.

So you can get into over 200 UK attractions for free

and it makes them quite valuable. For a brief while in 2006,

they had to temporarily suspend the whole thing

because an online black market was discovered...

Wow. ..in Blue Peter badges. The Times' leader -

there's nothing better than a fierce Times leader - described it as,

"a knife to the national psyche".

LAUGHTER I've got Blue Peter badges.

Did you say "badges"? Badges?

Yeah. Wow! I've brought them.

I'll give you £5.

What did you get them for, darling?

Well, I got them about two years ago. Oh.

I got them just for going on.

And you get another one when you go on again.

I didn't know they got you into places. I didn't know.

I'd have tried harder as a child. Legoland, Madame Tussauds...

They're worth their weight in gold. But now you have to have

an accompanying ID card as well. Do you?

And they are meticulous in tracking every child

who's ever had a Blue Peter badge.

Tracking? Oh, yeah? Yes. That doesn't sound great.

Well, what I mean is that they have a card index.

The original producer of Blue Peter was... She's always known as

the legendary Biddy Baxter.

And when she was a child, she wrote to Enid Blyton twice

and got exactly the same reply both times. "Eff off!"

She was so angry.

She's just casually sitting there...

With a lion cub. ..with a lion cub. I know. But she was so angry

about how she was treated by dear Enid as a child

that she made sure every single child got an individual response.

And they still have this attitude of making sure that every child feels

that they are properly cared for.

Renowned, of course, for the things that they make.

Anybody remember the Thunderbirds Tracy Island model?

Yeah. I love this.

That's wonderful. Yoghurt pots, loo rolls and so on.

That's one apparently made by Anthea Turner in 1993 and she still has it.

Glued to her shoulder.

In the '80s, she had one on each shoulder, though.

Tracy Island is really my only childhood memory.

Did you make one? Absolutely, yeah.

Fantastic. The giant cowpat she's used for the centre part.

It's papier mache! OK. Then oil and brown paint.

And the grass is sawdust with PVA glue. It's green paint.

He's a bit touchy on the subject, I think. Clearly touched a nerve.

Definitely. Stand back!

My kids watched the new Thunderbirds

which is all very exciting.

And then I showed them some old Thunderbirds episodes and they were

astonished at how long it took Thunderbird 2 to launch.

Yeah. It took forever. Yeah.

The swimming pool took ages! "Why is it so slow?!"

And it rumbled out, being pulled on a bit of fishing wire by some...

The palm trees pulled over by someone else.

Remember Petra, Blue Peter's first-ever pet? Oh, man.

Impostor. I'm just going to say the word.

Impostor. 1962, on the very last episode -

there's Petra answering the post - before Christmas...

That should have been a clue, to be fair.

Petra was a tiny mongrel puppy

and was introduced to the children as the first-ever pet on Blue Peter.

Unfortunately, her first appearance was also her last.

She died of a viral disease two days later.

AUDIENCE: "Awww!"

And the producers raced around London trying to find a dog

that looked like the one that had died. No! Yeah.

And they found one in a pet shop in Lewisham.

That's this one. Fake.

We had exactly the same thing with Alexander Armstrong.

Same thing. LAUGHTER

True.

You found him in a pet shop in Lewisham?

Yeah, we were scouring the streets looking.

I thought, "OK. Didn't think to look there."

While we're on the subject of legendary television dogs,

lovely people, please give it up for Basil Brush!

Hello! Hello, hello, hello! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Look at this.

Look at this, eh?

Ooh!

Hello! I can't believe I'm on such a clever panel. This is wonderful.

First of all, Sandi... Yes? A point of order if you don't mind. Yes.

Lumping me into the same category as dogs...

Yes. The last time I looked, I was indeed a fox.

I'm so sorry. Now I know this is a very intellectual show,

and you have those elves foraging away behind the scenes,

hunting for facts, so I have in fact, panel, brought along

a fun fox factoid... OK. ..for you all.

Right, here we go. Now, did you know

that there is a species of fox

that has evolved to have no ears?

Oh, I didn't know that. What are they called?

Well, you can call them anything you like. They can't hear you.

Boom! Boom!

APPLAUSE

You walked straight into that comedy corridor. Very much.

The real reason you're here, isn't it, is you're going to clear up

a little bit of general ignorance for us? Yes, I've got a question

primed for the panel, so brushes on Basils, please.

Just call me Sandi Foxsvig!

So where do urban foxes get most of their food from?

OK. Panel?

Yes, Greg? My bins.

KLAXON Aaaah!

Ugh!

Incorrect and hurtful stereotyping, if you don't mind.

OK. Shame on you, shame on you.

What do urban foxes actually like to eat, then?

Well, I'm more urbane, actually, than urban.

But we're not fussy. We'll eat rodents. Eurgh!

Worms, birds, rabbits, even fruit and berries,

if we're feeling vegetarian, like Mr Alan.

Or we'll eat all the meat if we're feeling like you, Miss Sandi.

So I'm quite happy to swing both ways for my stomach

in your back garden. Now, I've got to say...

Thank you for being present

at one of the most surreal moments of my life.

LAUGHTER Promises, promises, Basil.

I mean, we do rummage in your bins, occasionally.

You can't blame us. No. You do throw away lovely leftovers

and, Sandi... Yes? ..if you don't mind me saying,

that grilled herring the other night was delicious.

So I'm looking forward to finding out what you're making for tea

when I get home tonight!

So I'm going to make a quick exit to your back garden

down my escalator.

MAKES BUZZING NOISE

The one and only Basil Brush!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Anyway, to quote a phrase first used on Blue Peter,

now for something completely different.

Who bought nine apartments

just to fill them with their own TV shows?

Nine apartments? Yes.

So we're going back to videotape, back to videotape. Ah, OK.

So a tape collection.

Yes, and it's astonishing.

It's a woman you've probably never heard of.

She was called Marion Stokes. And she's a legend in television.

She was born in 1929 in Philadelphia.

And, inadvertently, she collected the only comprehensive archive

of American TV news from the late 1970s to 2012.

Have you heard of her? No, it's amazing. It is astonishing.

She began on the 4th November, 1979, the Iran hostage crisis,

and she started recording the news on a VCR.

And her son said she hit record and she never stopped. Wow.

She's a phenomenal woman. So this is her, co-producing a show

called Input in 1967 about social justice.

She was an amazing person and she chronicled Fox, MSNBC,

CNN, C-Span, CNBC, and all of it became

a sort of family obsession.

They'd have to interrupt dinner to change the tapes.

She just carried on. She filled 71,000 VHS and Betamax tapes. Wow. My God.

Every minute of US television news from 1979 to her death in 2012.

She had to buy nine apartments to store them in... "Had to"!

"I better get another apartment."

"Marion, will you just stop it?"

LAUGHTER

I never learnt how to use my video player

and to this day I'm really pleased about that.

Cos...useless now, innit?

I was right just to wait.

Just go, "Yeah, eventually YouTube will come along

"and all of that knowledge will be absolutely useless."

So, winning.

What I remember about VCRs, I had a dog called Bompy,

and he would just shag anything

and I was once at the home of the founder

of the Born Free Foundation

and Bompy shagged the VCR machine.

LAUGHTER

He didn't get stuck in the little flap?

I don't believe it worked again. Anyway... Cos once they're engaged,

you know, they can't withdraw.

The barbs come out and then you're stuck there.

Oh, ow! You have to press Eject. Yes.

LAUGHTER

Sometimes there's a long bit of tape that remains.

"Oh, no, the tape's fucked! The tape's fucked!

"Gentle, gentle! Don't pull it, don't pull it!"

I can't believe I'm on a show

where Basil Brush has lowered the tone for everybody.

Anyway, she was able to buy all these apartments, Marion Stokes,

because she was an early investor in Apple.

And she made an enormous amount of money. Good noise!

Cos you never had that opportunity, did you?

Anyway, what do dogs like to watch on TV?

Other dogs, I reckon.

If I'm driving in the car with my dog,

he loves to see other dogs in cars. Yeah.

They do that thing where they have one paw on the window, like...

Yeah.

And then he's a Jack Russell and he gets that look in his eye.

"Dog! There's a dog! Dog!

"You want some? You want some?

"Yeah, jog on."

Any other thoughts? Basil, have you got any thoughts, darling?

Yes, I'm glad you brought me back up there.

How about The Great British Bark Off?

KLAXON

Oh!

Dogglebox?

Yes, yes.

Or Gogglefox!

Even better. Dogglefox, hello.

Any more? Have you any more? You'll like this one.

Have I Got Chews For You.

KLAXON

I'm quite good at this. OK. Any more? The Chase?

LAUGHTER

KLAXON

OK, you stay down there now, Basil.

Ooh!

That was my spare hand. LAUGHTER

Honestly, it's like a sort of bad dream.

They don't even have hands!

I know! It's very confusing.

So what do dogs like to watch on TV was the question.

Humans need a minimum of 16-20 frames per second

in order to perceive what we think of as a continuous film.

Dogs need about 70 so, historically, films were presented

at 24, 25 frames per second, so to dogs it's like

a sort of series of flickering images,

but in recent years frame rates have increased on TV.

So, for example, sports programmes are up to 60 frames per second,

but we think of the original films, which are 25 frames per second,

as much slower, as classier.

We think of Casablanca and all those films as being classier.

And recently they've shot big-screen films

like The Hobbit in many more frames

and people have said, "Oh, my God. It looks like a soap opera."

So people just don't think it's classy.

Yep, people complain that the better quality it is,

the less quality. Oh, hello!

Oh, I didn't know what that was. It's a remote control.

LAUGHTER

He's going to get that stuck in the VHS player in a minute.

Dogs will happily tune in to any TV with a high frame rate.

They'll also watch the National Lottery,

but only if it's a rollover.

What morally dubious activity takes place

while people are watching TV?

Judging people while pulling the fluff between your toes out.

Is that you watching TV, Zoe?

And then making socks out of the fluff that's come out.

I always feel like

if I'm eating a packet of Wotsits during MasterChef,

I think, "Oh, come on." They're making this beautiful stuff,

and you're going, "These are delicious!"

I do like those. They're lovely.

Oh, yeah, they're great. Frazzles as well.

Oh, I've not had those. You haven't had Frazzles?!

You haven't had Frazzles? No. Greg, should I try them?

They're, like, take a breath!

You can't believe it, can you? She's never had a Frazzle!

The things we've been through the last two years and that was...

It's like bacon, but kinder.

I like bacon. A Quaver?

Oh, I don't like Quavers. Oh, come on!

They're delicious!

What's the matter with you?! Who likes Quavers?

AUDIENCE "Yes!" Who doesn't like Quavers?

AUDIENCE "Yes!"

Oh. That was more than a third.

That really had the feel of a 52/48, didn't it? Yeah!

Who likes Quavers...and Brexit?

SCATTERED GROANS Oh, it's the other lot!

Quavers for Remainers.

So the morally dubious thing.

2002, the head of Turner Broadcasting System, a man called Jamie Kellner,

he accused television viewers

who ignored or fast-forwarded through ad breaks of being immoral.

He said that that's the contract you make with the network.

If you watch a show, then you are also going to watch the commercials

because if you don't, you're actually stealing the programme.

Urgh. Yeah. He did say

a certain amount of tolerance is allowed for going to the bathroom,

but only if you really need to go.

BBC's never carried advertising, but it still needed programme breaks

so they used what were called "interlude films".

Anybody remember The Potter's Wheel?

Oh, the Potter's Wheel, yes.

They also had that penis that rose right up....

..to fully erect and then went down again.

I think they only played that once.

"Wrong tape, Nigel! Wrong tape!"

"You didn't put that out, did you?"

"I don't think anyone noticed."

So what they used to do between shows,

they used to have idents or moving logos.

Remember this one? This was the bat wings one.

Let's have a look. Remember the bat wings? No.

They were proper physical objects that moved

and, in fact, this one was so delicate it only lasted

for as long as it was filmed, then it completely collapsed. Wow.

The one I remember is the globe. Remember the globe spinning? Yes.

That's my era. That and Jon Pertwee. OK.

HUMS "Doctor Who" THEME

BLOWS RASPBERRY Behind the sofa.

You couldn't even pause it!

You couldn't even pause it!

It just went on. Stop it! Stop it! "We can't stop it!"

Anyway, it's tiny. We have it here.

Right down the front. It's the real thing? It's the real thing.

We've got the clock as well, which is absolutely tiny.

And I don't know if you remember the moving lines,

which was the BBC Two logo for a very long time.

We've got all three here and they're absolutely tiny.

Those are all the real ones right there. Wow.

To be fair, Sandi, if they'd done the globe actual size...

Yeah.

"What a waste of the licence fee!

"The BBC have made a planet."

What size would you have liked it to be?

Well, I don't know. Beach ball? Yeah!

Open it up, fill it with Frazzles. Lovely. Done.

LAUGHTER

Now, do not adjust your set as we transition

from the frothy glitz of prime time to the gritty post-watershed drama

that is General Ignorance. Fingers on buzzers, please.

What is the world's longest-running TV show?

Coronation Street must be up there, Sandi.

KLAXON Surely! No!

There it is, right up there.

The longest-running sitcom is Last Of The Summer Wine, I think.

Isn't it? Great show.

Did you like that? Loved that show. I watch it every Sunday.

I don't think it's on any more, Greg. Where are you watching that?

I've got nine apartments' worth of VHS tapes.

LAUGHTER

Is it a British one or where are we going? It is British.

The longest-running show ever in the history of telly

is a British show?!

It's an annual event. Is it the Queen's Speech?

We're heading in the right direction.

It's the Lord Mayor's Show from London.

Ahh! It's so disappointing when you get the answer.

Especially if the answer's that. Yeah!

The parade is over 800 years old.

It originated in the 13th century.

And the BBC began televising it in 1937.

Wow. That's just one year after they launched their regular service.

And it has broadcast every year since, apart from World War II.

So there's been a total of 77 instalments over 85 years.

It makes it the longest-running television programme.

Do you remember on the horse racing they used to have a Citroen

with a camera on the roof driving alongside? Yes! Yes!

It's like early GoPro, isn't it?

Yeah, really early GoPro! You need a Citroen.

It's driving alongside the horses and the bloke...

There had to be a bloke on the top as well!

An absolute health and safety disaster now!

"It's all right - I'll go on the roof with it!"

Probably started out the window.

"It's terrible out the window! I'm too low!

"We're going to put it on the roof!" "Are you mad?!

"It's not even a proper road - it's a horse track!

"They go fast, you know, they're doing 40!" "It'll be fine!"

"Holy shit!"

Just get on the car and go...waaah!

Why would you not just sit on a horse with a camera?

Oh, yes, that's so easy, Greg, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

The cameras are the size of the horse!

Strap it to his head! Strap it to the horse's head...!

They've got to keep up with pure-bred racehorses!

This poor bastard carrying a camera and a man!

I'm just offering solutions! I like that, Greg!

The car was a better idea! The car was a good idea.

It was just profoundly unsafe. Insanely, madly unsafe.

Inevitably, the driver was pissed. Everyone's always pissed!

At any races after lunch, the driver's drunk.

Everyone was drunk, Greg, in the '70s! Yeah.

All the time!

Another solution - another jockey on the back of the original horse

who's trained in horses, train them up as a camera operator.

They're filming behind on the other horse.

Good idea, but what if the horse with the camera

gets ahead of himself? Yeah.

He sees the finishing line and thinks, "I can have this."

LAUGHTER And then all you see on TV

is just an empty screen

as he moves away from the horses.

"Jesus Christ, he's good! Look at the speed of him.

"He's filming it and everything!"

What you need to understand, Greg, is he's waited 50 years

to get this off his chest.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

The longest-running television show began production

hundreds of years before television was even invented.

What colour is radiation?

Oh, no... Ooh! Green.

Brown. KLAXON

It's see-through, isn't it? I thought it was see-through.

It's mostly invisible, colourless. It's not a colour!

You can't ask what colour something is if it's invisible! Well...

"What colour is it?" It's invisible! LAUGHTER

We've reached the point in the show

where Alan's medication has worn off.

LAUGHTER

It's just kicking in.

It is commonly depicted as green in popular culture.

That is the point. But it is not green.

There is something called Cherenkov radiation... Sure.

..that is seen in water-cooled nuclear systems

and that makes the water glow, but it's blue. OK.

And not green. Didn't I say blue in my list?

No. No. Second row, "No, you didn't."

I think on that note it's high time for the scores.

I don't believe it!

In first place, with minus four, it's Richard!

APPLAUSE

AS BRUCE FORSYTH: In second place, nice to see her, to see her nice, it's Zoe!

APPLAUSE

AS ALAN SUGAR: In third place, with minus 15, you're fired, Alan.

APPLAUSE

AS ANNE ROBINSON: In fourth place, with minus 19, you are the weakest link, Greg.

APPLAUSE

But...he foxed it up completely,

in last place with minus 20, it's Basil Brush! Thank you!

APPLAUSE Thank you, thank you.

All that remains is for me to wish the BBC a very happy 100th birthday

and to thank Greg, Richard, Zoe, Alan and, of course, Basil!

Thank you!

Here we are, sweetie.

And I leave you with the words of David Frost.

"Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained

"in your living room

"by people you wouldn't have in your home."

People like us. Goodnight.

Say goodnight, Basil. Goodnight, Basil!