Top 10 Funniest Taskmaster Outtakes

Few comedians have as much of a gift for non-sequiturs as Lucy Beaumont, who found herself utterly baffled by nearly everything that happened on “Taskmaster” in the most unpredictable ways. The most memorable outtake was when she opened a can with a blindfold in it, and was amazed at the idea that you could put whatever you like in a can if you’re willing to pay the cannery. Later on, she offered Julian Clary a candle that looked like a bum, prompting one of his trademark one-liners. And, of course, there was the Fruittella in the hair saga, where she rambled about how she hadn’t been able to wash her hair properly before filming the show.

While going through the scores, Alex missed an obvious pun on Phil Wang’s name, prompting Wang to intervene. Alex says he’s going to re-do the line and nick Phil’s joke, much to the horror of the audience and fellow comedians on stage. Rhod Gilbert came to Phil’s defence, accusing Alex of being a bigot. A rebellion begins, as everybody encourages Alex to make the joke again while they all express their disappointment with him for doing an offensive accent. He takes the bait and the scene plays out, always up for embarrassing himself for telly – even the audience got involved. Luckily, they then did it AGAIN, and Phil got to use his own joke.

You can always rely on seasoned comic Jenny Eclair to lower the tone, and she did it wonderfully with this bit of trivia about trumpet players. According to her, trumpet players are prone to developing haemorrhoids. But then Mae Martin intervened with another fascinating piece of information: while they may get piles, they’re also supposed to be good at a certain sexual act. But things got even stranger when Eclair also suggested that the best sexual performers are the people who play the didgeridoo. You heard it here first; playing the didgeridoo makes you better in bed, so you’d better start practising.

In this extended edition of one of the live tasks, we got a peek behind the curtain – both figuratively and literally. The contestants had to put parts of their body through holes on a board and trick Greg into not knowing whether a face and a leg belonged to the same person or different people, earning points when he gets the answer wrong. The girls were behind the curtain for what felt like an age, even though they’d actually already won by this point. But perhaps the best moment was Judi Love’s pure rage at Alex accidentally pulling off one of her eyelashes when he drew back the curtain.

You know we had to include this viral outtake from Fern Brady. During the live task as they were waiting for Alex to read out the next part of the rules, Fern ended up sneezing and ruining the take while Alex tried to explain about extending Henry the Hoover’s nozzle. The incident became notable because Fern didn’t realise that she’d sneezed, asking Alex to clarify what had happened as he went back to the beginning of his script. The misunderstanding led to laughter throughout the studio and another legendary Fern Brady quote. It’s up there with her diss track and the familiar potatoes.

The Taskmaster himself Greg Davies produced this very surprising anecdote about his surgeon brother-in-law, whose job regularly involves making people new anuses after undergoing bowel surgery. He told Sian Gibson this story at length, leading to complete and utter confusion as she couldn’t come up with a response. The tangent just got longer, though, with the contestants all debating the pros and cons of if they had a second hole down there, and how Greg believes that if he wants two holes, it’s his God-given right to have them. He got so distracted by the bottom question that he forgot to give out the points, leaving Iain Stirling in the lurch.

Conversation in the studio turned to the sound of hedgehogs breeding, with Greg bringing out his impression of what a hedgehog sounds like when it’s doing the act. They discuss how the origins of swear words must be from the pain of hedgehogs trying to copulate because of their spikes, but remarkably, the bit was made even stranger by Lee Mack joining in. While steering the studio towards bestiality, Greg paints a vivid picture for the viewers, only for everyone to break following a classic, Lee Mack one-liner. It’s probably not the kind of joke that would make the final cut of “Not Going Out” if it was too much even for “Taskmaster”.

Sophie Willan came out with a baffling story on this recording, and we’re blown away that it didn’t make the cut. She tells Greg that she knows his aunt and uncle during a moment of silence where she was asked to fill the time. Who knew that Greg’s aunt was a former beauty pageant winner? Well, not Greg, that’s for sure, because he tells Sophie that his aunt and uncle are not, in fact, called Pam and Willy, and that there is no Miss Wem pageant. Sophie was astounded to find out that she’d been lied to, but the best moment was, undoubtedly, the punchline that she’d met these weirdos during on holiday.

They were being challenged to get an egg into a frying pan, with the catch that the frying pan was on top of three metal barrels, and they were overlooking it from a balcony. Star of the small screen Katherine Parkinson had the bright idea to roll an egg down a length of pipe and hopefully get it to land straight in the pan, but it didn’t work; the egg cracked as it reached the bottom, leaving quite the mess inside. Of course, the mess looked like something else. Back in the studio, the contestants couldn’t keep it together, seeing that it looked a little risqué when they watched the clip back.

Very few contestants have had the raw chaos of Sally Phillips back in series 5. The moments that got into the show included THAT “water cooler moment” and the birth scene, so you can imagine what got cut out. Starting out strong with her forcing Alex to eat toast covered in absinthe, we eventually moved onto a prize task where she brought in a bag of “high octane” pig feed. Unable to acquire the actual pig feed as it’s illegal in Britain, Sally put together a replica for the prize. They then begin to speculate on what would happen if a human ate the high-octane pig food, with Alex offering to test it for Greg’s benefit.

Let us know in the comments which of your favourite “Taskmaster” outtakes we missed.