Never Mind the Buzzcocks/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acceptable Targets: Primarily boybands and manufactured groups, though everyone got some stick at some point. In particular, Blue, Westlife and Chris de Burgh got a lot of bile.
    • Geri Halliwell. A Running Gag about her being older than the other Spice Girls was taken Up to Eleven, with jokes about her being around in The Thirties and so forth.
    • Lamarr famously wouldn't allow criticism of Steps (despite them fitting the bill) because he had a crush on one of their members. Or Bjork.
    • Also, every regular was an acceptable target for being fat (Phill), bizarre (Bill), from Swindon (Mark) or Irish/tactiturn (Sean).
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Lorraine Kelly spanks Noel Fielding, and the internet explodes.
  • Broken Base: As of series 25, fandom can't decide whether there's new life in the show with the latest reboot or if it's time to let it die.
    • Some fans started thinking this when Mark Lamarr left.
  • Ear Worm: "Moby, Moby, Moby, Moby, Michael Stipe..."
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Athelston Williams aka "Number Three", a catatonic-looking black man who achieved Memetic Mutation after memorably appearing in the identity lineup, and then became a recurring figure. Seriously, he was busy one week and they got a stand-in.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: Following Amy Winehouse's recent death at 27, her entire appearance on the show has become this. Particularly from 2:02 on this clip
    • In the same vein, Mark Ronson's appearance wasn't much better, given how about a third of the jokes were about Amy dying in a ditch.
    • In the '99 Christmas Episode, one of the lineups was a bunch of cardboard cut-outs of rappers, with the question being who had'nt been shot. The team (Phill's) was given a toy gun to shoot at who they thought the answer was. To make things even worse, among the line-up was The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Again, this was in 1999.
  • Growing the Beard: When Mark Lamarr was replaced by Simon Amstell.
    • And when Bill Bailey was replaced with Noel Fielding.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: When Simon was a guest years before he became host, Mark jokingly accused him of "stealing his act" and Simon referred to Mark as "daddy".
    • When Noel Fielding first went on the show as a guest, he commented that the intros round was his favourite bit of the show. Not too long later, when he's captaining, which round can he never bring himself to do properly?
  • Ho Yay: By the bucketload, especially on the episode with John Barrowman.
    • And Josh Groban.
    • And Russell Brand. But that's only to be expected.
    • Also, Phill and Simon. Also also, Simon and Stephen Fry, to the extent that Phill at one point called Stephen Simon's "boyfriend", and Simon asked Phill not to "mock [their] intellectual Greek love". All in jest, of course.
    • Simon introducing Matt Baker as, 'saucy ex-Blue Peter stunner.' A bit gratuitous, no?
      • Then again, Simon quite often introduces the guests in a complimentary fashion, like when he called Fyfe Dangerfield 'all round lovely man', or Midge Ure 'sexy eighties hottie'.
    • Boy George seemed to quite enjoy teasing original captain Sean Hughes when the former was playing for the latter's team.
    • In one episode with Roy Wood as a guest...

Phill: "Roy Wood just mounted me! I didn't think that when I got up this morning -- 'Today I think I'll impersonate the Smiths whilst being mounted by a glam legend!'"

    • Phill bending over and lets James Blunt mount and spank him.
    • Oh, let's not forget the episode in which Danny Dyer was a guest, and proceeded to call Simon 'babe' every time he directly addressed him, provoking much giggling and coquettishness on the part of Simon.
    • Heavily averted in this exchange between Donny Tourette and Simon:

Donny: The only reason I'm on the show is 'cause you told everyone you fancied me, dude!
Simon: It's not, it's 'cause we have difficulty booking people!

    • There's a beautiful moment of this in Season 2 between Brian Molko and Bruce Dickinson, greatly helped by the fact that Brian could easily be passed off as a beautiful, young Iron Maiden groupie.

Bruce: You're too young to remember this band. Go on, stick your thumb in your mouth.
Brian: (Obliges) Anything else you'd like me to stick in my mouth, while we're at it?

    • And in that same episode, Brian cuddling up to Phil after the former made a jab at the latter's weight.
    • Simon towards Danny from Mcfly. He had previously stated that Danny was his favourite member of Mcfly and then, when he was on the show, introduced him as a 'hunk', kept showing a picture of him performing naked, and acted like a spurned lover because they lost contact after their interview on Popworld.
    • The episode wherein Simon and Phil mime 'No Air' in the absence of Bill Bailey kind of reeks of OT3
      • And in the same episode, Mark Ronson giving Tim Minchin a lap dance.
    • On his first ever appearance, Noel Fielding demonstrates spooning on Bill Bailey, who then commented how nice it was.
    • Oddly enough, between Simon and the Preston stand-in:

Simon: Thank god for you *bear hug*.

"McFly's song contained the lyrics "there's nothing on Earth that could save us since I fell in love with Uranus." Which as it happens was a line removed from the pilot episode of Torchwood. Barrowman!!" *shakes fist at camera*

  • Mondegreen: The point of the "Indecipherable Lyrics" game is for the teams to come up with amusing lyrics for songs whose words are hard to discern.
  • WTH Booking Agency: Some of the choices of guest host post-Amstell are attracting this criticism (particularly David Hasselhoff).
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