A Pop Quiz style show, made by the same production team as the successful sports
quiz They Think It’s All Over. The mid-nineties media shift towards ‘new lad / new
girl’ saw a new breed of commissions like Men Behaving Badly, They Think It’s All
Over, The Girlie Show, Fantasy Football League and TFI Friday among others. The media's
belief that “comedy was the new rock n roll” meant that a new comedy-based pop show
was inevitable. A Brit Pop style quiz show would tick all the boxes.
The chosen host was stand-up comic and poet Mark Lamarr, late of The Word and Shooting
Stars, while regular captains were comedy actor Sean Hughes and ex-record producer
and DJ Phill Jupitus. The rest of the panel would be filled by pop stars and at least
one other comedian. The show proved so popular that the initial first series of six
was expanded by another four in the new year schedules, plus a compilation show.
Regular features were the misheard lyrics round, the identity parade where a ex-chart
pop star would have to be singled out by by panels from a line of look-a-likes, the
“what happened next” video clip etc. The show format was later sold to the USA and
other countries.
Sean Hughes would leave the show and his role would eventually be taken over by Bill
Bailey, then Noel Fielding from The Mighty Boosh.
Host Lamarr left in 2005, and comedian Simon Amstell took over, followed by a succession
of guest presenters until the show's de-commission almost twenty years after its
debut.
