Wendy Roby

“Quiz contestants say the funniest things” is the subtitle to this collection of quiz show blunders. A more accurate subtitle would probably be “Quiz contestants sometimes give wrong answers” since while almost all the answers in the book are incorrect they're mostly not funny. Even that wouldn't be totally accurate since in one or two of the entries the contestant gives a correct answer to the question, haha! How hilarious.

Most of the entries are just transcriptions of all those amusing YouTube videos of game show fails, like this one or this one. Those videos are pretty funny because you can watch the contestant give the answer and usually then realise what a stupid answer it was. Meanwhile the host tries to maintain a straight face and the audience doesn't. Baldly written down, the answers lose all that.

There's also some arts-bias snobbery in the text. Somebody naming the wrong Shakespeare play is supposed to be hilarious because everyone knows the plot to every Shakespeare play. Meanwhile the chapter on maths and science questions is prefaced by the author's explanation that no one knows anything about maths or science, but the contestants in the chapter know even less than that.

That's not to say that none of the entries are funny; I did chuckle a little bit every few pages. Indeed, some of the answers read more like Christmas cracker jokes, which are of course the highest form of humour. Still, the most pointed review probably came when one of my relatives saw what I was reading. “Go on then,” they said, “tell us a funny one.” And thus followed an awkward few minutes as I scrambled through the pages looking for one, muttering “Uh, hang on, I'm pretty sure I read a funny one a minute ago…” Except I probably hadn't.… (mais)

“Quiz contestants say the funniest things” is the subtitle to this collection of quiz show blunders. A more accurate subtitle would probably be “Quiz contestants sometimes give wrong answers” since while almost all the answers in the book are incorrect they're mostly not funny. Even that wouldn't be totally accurate since in one or two of the entries the contestant gives a correct answer to the question, haha! How hilarious.

Most of the entries are just transcriptions of all those amusing YouTube videos of game show fails, like this one or this one. Those videos are pretty funny because you can watch the contestant give the answer and usually then realise what a stupid answer it was. Meanwhile the host tries to maintain a straight face and the audience doesn't. Baldly written down, the answers lose all that.

There's also some arts-bias snobbery in the text. Somebody naming the wrong Shakespeare play is supposed to be hilarious because everyone knows the plot to every Shakespeare play. Meanwhile the chapter on maths and science questions is prefaced by the author's explanation that no one knows anything about maths or science, but the contestants in the chapter know even less than that.

That's not to say that none of the entries are funny; I did chuckle a little bit every few pages. Indeed, some of the answers read more like Christmas cracker jokes, which are of course the highest form of humour. Still, the most pointed review probably came when one of my relatives saw what I was reading. “Go on then,” they said, “tell us a funny one.” And thus followed an awkward few minutes as I scrambled through the pages looking for one, muttering “Uh, hang on, I'm pretty sure I read a funny one a minute ago…” Except I probably hadn't.… (mais)