Taskmaster Series 5

[GeoffreyShawcross]

Since it's been aquired by Channel 4 here in the UK, I've been working my way through every series of offbeat panel show Taskmaster over the last few weeks. For anyone who hasn't watched, five comedians compete over a series of episodes to complete a set of usually pretty daft or demeaning tasks that often require them to think outside of the box. Generally pretty funny, easy to enjoy stuff. 

  I was settling down to watch the fourth episode of the fifth series yesterday when a task caused me to sit bolt upright in my chair. "Sneeze as quickly as you can, quickest sneeze wins!"

The competitors in this series are Bob Mortimer, Sally Phillips, Nosh Kumar, Mark Watson and Aisling Bea.

Sadly both Sally and Aisling immediately pretend to sneeze, therefore robbing us of the chance to see them actually sneeze on national television. Although Sally does a quite lovely fake sneeze with quite a convincing build up. 

  All three of the men actually try to complete the task honestly. At this point I had to leave the room and pretend to go to the toilet, as it was making me anxious, but my partner assured me that both Mark and Bob managed a sneeze, while Nish failed in his attempt. 

  For anyone with access to Channel 4's streaming service, it starts at the 31 minute mark of episode 4. I'll try and embed a link to the episode if I can work out how!

[Musical_Dork]

Oooh thank you! I'll check this out. I wish it'd been the women that had managed it, but heyho 😂

[Justforawhile]

Oh I absolutely LOVE Taskmaster!! So glad they put it on YouTube for those of us in the states! If only Doctor Who would be so kind...

But upon my bingeing of every episode, I came across series 2 episode 3, where Jon Richardson sneezes during the live show. They left it in because Richard Osman was quick with a joke about that happening whenever someone says "Playboy Mansion." Very thankful for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cADq27hoDI

There you go, 3:45 is the timestamp. You can see him looking up at the lights to coax it out. Adorable.

Now if only there were a James Acaster floating around out there... I think I'd keel over if that happened...

[Justforawhile]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cADq27hoDI

Whoops, there's an active link. Sorry about that!

[Justforawhile]

Wow, okay wow, butterflies. Here's James Acaster in his absolute mad glory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm6gfgIQDPg&list=PLxggddpIvXgYvnOqvYR_vys6OoQqTYSXs&index=7

6:25 to see the whole progression.

Most devilishly and strangely charming person... Throughout the whole series of visiting his hometown and its sister hometown they're outside in the winter a lot and he's got a drippy nose in some shots and it's bizarre and beautiful and he already has a sort of congested sounding voice at all times so I don't know, just girly things hahaa

[•.*°•☆. Q .☆•°*.•]

1 hour ago, Justforawhile said:

Wow, okay wow, butterflies. Here's James Acaster in his absolute mad glory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm6gfgIQDPg&list=PLxggddpIvXgYvnOqvYR_vys6OoQqTYSXs&index=7

6:25 to see the whole progression.

Most devilishly and strangely charming person... Throughout the whole series of visiting his hometown and its sister hometown they're outside in the winter a lot and he's got a drippy nose in some shots and it's bizarre and beautiful and he already has a sort of congested sounding voice at all times so I don't know, just girly things hahaa

oh i wonder if he's photic. the way he squints and looks away for a sec makes me think maybe he is

[Wig_Powder]

I normally hate to bump old threads, but this is relevant; the Taskmaster Youtube channel recently uploaded the "Sneeze the fastest" challenge as a standalone vid, so if anybody hadn't seen it or didn't want to scan through the episodes to find it, here you go;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeI52-2vidM

Part of me appreciates that this was a real task, but it's also really weird seeing sneezing being such a focus for people who (presumably) don't have the kink. Not to mention having thoughts like;

*"Some of their attempted sneeze techniques wouldn't be out of place in a fic"

*"Clearly, none of them are aware that trying to use pepper to sneeze not only probably won't work, but is a very bad idea"

*"I imagine a lot of my fellow fetishists would have been able to complete this challenge insanely quickly via q-tips or rolled up tissues. Though that probably would have led to some awkward conversations..."

Honestly, I don't know if having thoughts like that makes the clip more fun to watch or detracts from the point. I'm not complaining too much either way, though.