Would I Lie to You?/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Series 1

  • David Mitchell's rant against Anne Robinson when the fact in the "Ring of Truth" round was that Ben and Jerry's had released a limited edition Anne Robinson flavoured ice cream. Even the other panellists were laughing.

David: So what was the Anne Robinson [ice cream] called?
Angus Deayton: "Ginger Ice Queen".
Jimmy Carr: Ginger ice cream's really nice.
David: Yeah, it's gonna taste of ginger, not of that bitch. Y'know, ginger is a recognised pleasant flavour. She's a recognised arsehole. That's -- that's totally different. People who like ginger enough to be able to stomach the sight of her face while they eat it -- I can believe those people exist. So that's definitely become a lot more plausible. Suddenly you're saying that "Ice cream the flavour of a woman who's undergone loads of surgery, is obsessed with money and for some reason considers herself witty"? No, no, no! Ginger ice cream with a picture of that bitch -- yes!
Angus: Next week when Anne Robinson is our guest, she'll be on Lee's team.

  • Jimmy Carr reading out the statement "I lost my virginity age 26", and everyone on David's team instantly saying it was true.
  • When David Mitchell learnt that Mike Read had performed a ten-minute rap at the recent Conservative Party conference:

David: How are [the Tories] ever going to get back into office? Are they trying? Is it match-fixing? Is someone bribing them to be terrible at politics? Mike Read! Ten minutes! Rapping?! What the fuck is that?! Democracy -- in this country -- The reason Tony Blair can start wars for no- you know, without asking people - is that there's no opposition! It's their fault! It's Mike Read's fault! The deaths of our servicemen are on his conscience!

    • Although Lee's post-rant comeback may well balance a smaller crown atop the existing.

Lee: Sorry David, I've made a mistake, it's false!

      • Though it was true.
  • David Mitchell's rant in episode 4 of season 1 is one of my favorites, and cemented this show as a keeper in my mind. The lie that he was supposed to defend is "I have formulated a 5-step plan for survival if I were in prison." Since it was a lie, he had to make up a five step plan on the spot. The list makes almost no sense at all, and when he is eventually called out on it, he goes on a lengthy rant about how unfair this card is:

David Mitchell: Are there other cards in here like, y'know: "you have 19 different names for your grandmother." "What are they?" "Uh, granny, nan, uh uh..." A five-point plan for how to survive in prison? I've got no idea how to survive in prison! Don't go to prison! Only commit crimes you can get away with! That was horrible.

  • In one "This Is My..." round, Lee tried to persuade the other team that the guest of the week was the man who was responsible for transferring music to his iPod. David was skeptical. An argument ensued, and it got so hilariously heated that at one point Angus had to remind David that there was a possibility that Lee was lying.

David: Lee, if that iPod thing is true, you're not the man I thought you were, and that's the price you'll pay for this petty victory.

Series 2

  • Occasionally, cards will force one of the contestants to make things up on the spot.

Graeme Garden: I have five pigs, all named after my favourite newsreaders.
Lee: Wonder what the question's going to be here?
David: At this point we have to ask you "Which five newsreaders?"
Michael McIntyre: Can't we guess them? Can't we guess them?
David: No, we can't. He has to...
Michael: Please can we guess them?
David: You've got-
Michael: Moira?[1]
David: You've got absolutely no idea how-
Michael: Brian Hanrahan?
David: You- you-
Michael: Trevor McDonald.
David: You... this is just... This is suicide! Are you working for them?
Michael: Sorry! [laughs]
David: This is the opportunity where Graeme has to rattle off five newsreaders and you've just handed him four on a plate!
Michael: You're absolutely...
David: You idiot!
Michael: No, you're right, I...
David: Shall we give him more time?!
Michael: Alright...
David: Would you like a pen and paper, Graeme?! Maybe we should all leave the room and work on an essay about it!
Michael: Can I ask- can I ask, Garden-
David: No you can't! Silence! What are the names of the five newsreaders, please, Graeme?
Graeme: What was the first one you said?

  • The entry in the main page for Pull the Thread, where Krishnan Guru-Murthy catches Lee Mack in a blatant contradiction and, after a beat, an ecstatic Rob Brydon shouts "Thank you, sir!"
  • David's lock of hair:

David, reading the card: This is the lock of Steve Davis' hair which I bought on EBay.
Lee: True! Absolutely true! You can move on, now, Angus. That is so true.
Frankie Boyle: Why did you buy it, David?
David: I was a fan of snooker, and I was a bit drunk. The confluence of those two influences.
Lee: Are you a massive fan of Steve Davis, then?
David: Well, he's very good at snooker!
Lee: How many times did he win the world championship?
David: ...Six.
Lee: No, he didn't...
David: Yes, he did!
Lee: Don't outbluff me; neither of us know.

  • Although most of the Mitchell / Mack interplay belongs here (and indeed is one of the highlights of the show), Lee's coconut story is a particular standout:

Lee, reading the card: This is the coconut that nearly killed me.
Trisha Goddard: Where were you?
Lee: Under a coconut tree, where d'you think?

Trisha: In which country?

Lee: The coconut country of...

Rich Hall, in a fit of laughter: Coconuttia.

Lee: I was actually in... er... Thailand. I was in Thailand on holiday, I was stood underneath a coconut tree, and... well... The coconut fell off the tree, barely missing me...

Trisha: And you brought it home? I'm suspicious, 'cause you're not allowed to bring fruit and vegetables from foreign countries into...

Lee: Well, you've made the classic mistake, haven't you, Trisha? Because the coconut isn't a fruit or a vegetable. It is in fact a seed.

Rich: It almost hit you?

Lee: It went [whoosh] right past my face. Hit my shoulder, bounced off, on the floor.

David: Why did you decide to keep it?

Lee: Because I thought it'd make a nice anecdote. Clearly I was wrong.

David: At the moment of shoulder pain, the moment when your shoulder has been bruised, possibly shattered by the coconut, you think "I must keep that for anecdotal reasons!" I don't want to be rude, but "This is a coconut. It fell off a tree, hit me on the shoulder, but obviously if it had hit me on the head in the right place I might have died" is not as interesting a story as perhaps you think, and might actually elicit the response, "If only it had."

Lee, holding up the coconut: I will throw this coconut at your head now, right... Hang on, now, I will, David.

David: No, No.

Lee: Stop talking, then, stop talking. I will throw this coconut at your head, and hit you on the shoulder really hard. And I guarantee...

David: ...If they see...

Lee: DON'T PUSH ME, DAVID! DO NOT PUSH ME!

Rich and Trisha move away from David.

David: No one is insured for that to happen.

  • Lee Mack's bluff about a woman giving his dog mouth to mouth. Especially this bit:

Lee Mack: And at that moment, he looked up at me and said -
David Mitchell: He said 'now I can speak! This lady has blown her soul into me!' And then the dog got in the car and drove off.

  • Lee Mack's hilarious response to Michael McIntyre's claim that he once drove a car that could only turn left for a whole month.
    • Even funnier when it turned out to be true. In a deleted scene from the end-of-season compilation, Lee Mack said he still didn't believe it, leading to a hilarious argument with David Mitchell.

David Mitchell: You've got to realise the very truths they pick are the unlikely ones!
Lee Mack: Unlikely!? Right, my go! [pretends to read from card] I used to live on the Moon! Unlikely, but true!
David: Do you seriously think that's equally unlikely!?
Lee: Yes!!
David: Well, you're an idiot! No-one has ever lived on the Moon, cars have been damaged! It's so good, they put it on television!

  • One of the facts is that Bono once paid for his favorite hat to be flown first-class in time for him to wear it for a show. It then transpires that it actually traveled in the cockpit, having been upgraded from first class.

David: See, never buy a first-class ticket, you might end up getting "upgraded" and having to fly the fucking plane.

  • An outtake shown on the compilation episode for Series 2. Russell Howard is claiming that he got bullied at school because his mother was the dancer in the title sequence to Tales of the Unexpected when he was little. David Mitchell, refusing to believe this, applies copious pressure on Howard to explain all the little self-contractions, until finally Howard admits that he is lying through his teeth, basically forfeiting a point to David's team.

Danny Baker: Your mother was a professional dancer, or an actress, or...?
Russell: She was a professional dancer, yeah.
David Mitchell: What were the other highlights of your mother’s dancing career?
Russell: Erm, we never really went into it.
David: So you never—
Russell: You’re not gonna go, aged 8 – "Hey mum, you done any other dancing?"
David: To be fair, you might have spoken to your mother since the age of 8, and discussed her career then.
Russell: Yes. But it’s something we don’t really—
David: You don’t talk about your mother’s embarrassing dancing past?
Russell: Not really, no.
David: You have never asked, or bothered to find out, what else she did in her career as a dancer?
Russell: Well, it's clearly a fucking lie, isn't it?
David: Do I get extra points for capitulation?

  • Tara Palmer-Tomkinson may not have been a crowd favourite, but she did set off David Mitchell something hilarious:

Lee: This book, David; could you just tell us a little bit about The Lonely Lighthouse?
David: Well, yes, I could...
Tara: Is it autobiographical?
David: Bloody hell, that's a low blow! Yes, it's about a desolate building standing alone that's finally demolished.
Lee: David, David, "very bright." There's a positive, you're very bright, but very lonely, so it's quite like...
David: ...Shining my light pointlessly into the darkness. The only way I get any human company is if I turn the light off and people crash onto the rocks below me.

Series 3

  • "I am to die, it appears. Ah well, all things come to an end."
  • "Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd hear Ken Livingstone say 'anus' so many times!"
  • The entire exchange when Jimmy Carr claimed that Prince Philip called him a funny-looking kid when he was a ballboy at Wimbledon. Classic moment thanks to Carr, Jamelia and Lee Mack.
  • Jimmy Carr and Lee are mocking David (yet again) on his poshness, and he loses it. Link here

Jimmy: [Imitating David] Where are the pheasants, there's no bloody pheasants. I don't understand. We'll never catch the fox at this rate.
David Mitchell: [livid] What are you- what are you talking about?! Pheasants? Dogs?! Fox?! What sort of menagerie do you imagine I would be imagining? Here I am in my castle, with ten different sorts of vaguely posh animal all fighting each other, then I kill a servant and have sex with a wall!

  • Rob Brydon and Christine Bleakley's innuendo-laden dance number.

Christine: You go the other way.
Rob: No, I do not!

  • This exchange.

Janet Street-Porter: Unlike you, Rob, my IQ makes double figures.
[Everyone reacts in shock]
Dave Gorman: I think it's triple figures you're aiming at.

  • Lee's rant in episode 6 of series 3 after he had failed to defend his "Possession" claim, which was a wall map of the UK which he marked every service station he had ever visited on:

Lee Mack [bashing the rolled-up map against the desk]: Can I just say, to the idiots that come up with these questions -- as if it's not hard enough that I put little stickers on a map, because I fill up and I like to keep track -- you think, "Oh no, how can we make it harder?" We'll have four of them with blue on, one with an F, and one with a bloody asterisk! How the hell am I supposed to do that? Why don't you just stick one in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? [throws the map over his shoulder]

  • Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy claims he was approached by NASA to be the first cyclist on the moon. Danny Wallace attempts to perform his cunning interrogative tricks learned from his journalistic days.

Danny: I can sort this out. It's quite a bold claim you're making there, Chris. Tell me, is it true?

Chris: Of course it's true.

Rob: Oh, very good, very good.

Danny: Hey, woah woah woah woah woah!

Danny and Lee, in unison: He might be lying!

Series 4

  • Series 4 episode 1, particularly the This Is My round.
  • The entire horse story in series 4 episode 3.

[Kevin Bridges has claimed that he and a friend rented a horse in Bulgaria for 25 minutes each and discovered they had inadvertently purchased the horse instead]
David Mitchell: Let's forget about the 25 minutes ... that's absolutely obviously bullshit. You take the horse back. [Lee Mack puts his face in his hands] Guy B, who's the guy you met on the way to the stables, he's gone, no sign of him, so you say to Guy A, "Well, we hired this as part of your 'not actually bothering to go to the stables but getting a few hundred yards away' scheme, we hired this horse for 25 minutes at an extortionate rate, nevertheless, here it is..." And what did he say?

Kevin: We went back to the place where we picked up the horse--

David: Oh, so not to the stable! But to the random point in the road, a couple of hundred yards away from the stables, thinking bewilderedly - "Where has the mysterious man gone?" I would have thought that logically, when you were returning it, having thought that it had come from the stable, that you'd been lucky not to have to walk to the stable before hiring it, you might nevertheless have thought "Well, the stable's where it's got to go back to", rather than "Well, sod 'em! This is where we picked it up from! I'm not gonna take it to the stable. I'm gonna stand here, 300 yards away from the stable, going COME OVER HERE! COME AND GET YOUR OWN HORSE!" At which point locals start waving-going, "NO! YOU KEEP!"

Rob Brydon: (trying to restore order) Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, look at me, look at me. You're taking the horse back -

Lee Mack: (dying) 'Look at me'...!

Rob: (with emphasis) What happened next?

[the panel is too overcome with laughter for Kevin to respond for a few moments]

Kevin: So, where are we taking off from?

Rob: You're taking the horse back--

David: Let's go back to the start--

Rob: Kevin Bridges, for the love of God, please tell us what happened.

Kevin: Right. We bought a horse, we thought we'd rented a horse, we done the horse riding, we took it back to the initial place where we picked up the horse. The locals explained we'd met a counterfeit horse guy, who wasn't [the panel starts to crack up again] from the official horse riding stable--

David: This was a counterfeit horse? (Rob makes a 'hold it' gesture but is ignored) This wasn't a genuine horse? This was maybe two guys in a costume?

Stephen Mangan: That would explain the 25 minutes! [mimes being the back half of a pantomime horse] I can only do 25 minutes!

Lee: The giveaway was after 25 minutes when one went -- [he stands up and mimes smoking] Right, let's crack on, lads!

Rob: So, David's team, what do you think? Truth or lie?

[David's team breaks into incredulous laughter]

David: It's -- I -- I mean -- the trouble with this game is, it plays tricks with your mind. But -- I don't think it's true...

Stephen/David/Keeley Hawes: It's got to be a lie, got to be a lie.

Rob: You're saying it's a lie. Right, so here we go. This really is...

David: The moment!

Rob: This is, more than any episode I've done of this show, this is the moment we've been waiting for! Kevin Bridges, is it true or is it a lie?

Kevin: It's true!

  • Ronnie Corbett having to claim he went into a shop the other week to buy four candles.
  • David Mitchell and Rhod Gilbert's argument over whether or not dogs like Marmite.

Rhod: I don't think there's anyone on the planet who can answer that question.
David: You don't think there's anyone on the planet who can--
Rhod: --who can answer the question "Do all dogs like Marmite?" No, I don't there's anyone who can answer that question.
David: I don't want this to sound like a rebuke, but what you're saying is, if anyone knew whether or not all dogs hate Marmite--
Rhod: Well, that's very much just the other side of the coin.
David: What? No, no, no, no, this isn't a coin-- [briefly incoherent] -- there's "all dogs hate Marmite", there's "all dogs like Marmite", or there's "dogs have a similar view to Marmite as humans"!

Rhod: What, love it or hate it?

Lee Mack: Rhod, Rhod, Rhod, as someone who's now in Series Four, you never get into conversations like this with David. He always wins or wears you down -- just don't do it.

  • David and Lee's argument when Lee claimed he had been beaten at swingball by a chimpanzee in a South African zoo while drunk.

David: What time of day was this?
Lee: Time of day?? Before the monkey's bedtime!
David: Are you refusing to answer?
Lee: [obviously stalling] I'm not refusing, but I'm thinking about it for a while because I don't know if you mean South African time or English time, which is very similar, but I think there's an hour's difference - do you mean the South African time?
David: I mean the South Af- the local time, yes.
Lee: The local time, I believe- sorry, you've thrown me a bit, 'cause most times I tell people I've-
David: Local time, at the zoo, on the occasion of your match against the chimpanzee!
Lee: I've been using this - I can't lie, over the years, I've been using this anecdote with the darts and things, "Oh, did I ever tell you, lads, about the time I played swingball with a chimpanzee?" No-one's ever said, [imitating David's voice] "What time of day was this?" You threw me for a second, most people go, "A chimpanzee, swingball?? Tell us more, you interesting person!"
David: I suppose what's different is that while when you tell that as an anecdote in the pub, people go, "It's polite to go along with the bullshit that Lee talks..."
Lee: [open-mouthed with shock] No! No, they're interested! They kiss me and everything!
Joanna Page: Why were you in South Africa?
David: Don't- don't! I want the- I want the time of day! Time of day!
Lee: The time of day-
David: Make up a time of day!
Lee: [shouting] I couldn't beat a chimpanzee at swingball because I was drunk! How am I gonna remember the time of day!? [pantomimes playing swingball, slurring speech] "I'm terrible at this, and this at only quarter to three!"

  • The bit in the series 4 Clip Show where Rob Brydon's claim is that he used to pretend to be his own agent on the phone by using a different voice. Eventually it leads to everyone acting as if the agent was a real person, much to Rob's frustration.

Kevin Bridges: Did you have anybody else on your books?
[Rob looks bewildered]
David Mitchell: What's the sort of work, that, er...
Rob: Hosting things. This was back in about the late Eighties, when I was a local radio disc jockey.
Keeley Hawes: Did the agent take a cut?
[Rob looks even more bewildered]
Kevin: Did the agent phone you to let you know they'd got the job?
Rob: No, I was the agent!
Lee Mack: Did you ever fall out with your agent?
Rob: No, it was me!!
Stephen Mangan: When you decided that this charade had to finish, did you take yourself out to dinner and tell yourself you were letting yourself go?
[Rob tears up the card]
Kevin: Did you sign a contract?
David: Are you still in touch?
Rob: Right - it's time to guess. First of all, [points] Lee and those bastards, what are you gonna go for?
Kevin: I would say "true".
Lee: Er, you think it's true?
Brian Cox: Yep.
Rob: You're saying it's true?
Lee: Yes, in the words of Rob Brydon, [BAD fake Welsh accent] I think that's truuue!
Rob: You're saying it's true. David and these arses, what do you- what do you say?
Stephen/Keeley/David: That is so true/I think it's true/Yeah, I think it's true.
Rob: Very well. Let me buck the trend by telling you... it's true.

  • Lee's fact in the Quick Fire Lies in episode 9 of the fourth series is that every year he pours a shot of brandy into the pond to commemorate the death of his goldfish. This starts a ten minutes argument over where the fish lived ("No, it was a tree goldfish, David."), why pouring brandy in the pond ("If the goldfish lived in a bowl, why do you commemorate its death pouring brandy into another goldfish habitat?!"), the possible dangers of such gesture ("If you do that the other fishes are going to die as well." "At no point the original fish died due to brandy being poured into the pond!"), the subtle line that divides alcohol from just another kind of water ("Diluted brandy is no longer brandy!" "So you say, when you put soda in brandy-" "SODA AND BRANDY?") and, finally, who cared most for the goldfish ("It doesn't matter the death of the fish-" "Oh, it doesn't matter to you, you bitch!").

David Mitchell: "So she [Lee's wife] said 'do me a favour, my beloved husband, show your respect for this fish I so loved by annualy pouring a shot of Brandy into the pond with these other fishes I secretely hate and wish to destroy'."

  • Lee manages to make quite the sleuth:

David: Well, a friend of mine...

Lee: Lying!

Ben Fogel: [reading from his card] I was interrogated for six hours on suspicion of being a spy.
Lee: Wow. Wurr? [Ben just smiles and nods] Wurr?

Ben: Where?

Lee: Wurr! Sorry, it's the accent! [turning to Hugh Dennis] Can you interpret?

Hugh: [shouts across the room in World War II-era RP accent] WHEAHHH...

Ben: [shouting back] WHEAHHH...

Hugh: WHEAH WHEH YOO IN-TERRO-GA-TED?

Series 5

  • Series 5 episode 1: the cuddle jumper.
    • David agrees, being reduced to helpless laughter during it. Yes. David.
    • Lee and Miranda make their own cuddle jumper. And then they have to talk to the other team mate- who's sitting on Rob's knees, in the original cuddle jumper with him. Did we mention that the other team mate is Alan Sugar's aide Nick Hewer?
      • And then they have to get out of the jumper- and Rob falls down the stairs.
    • Also, David killed a rat with his BAFTA. "He has a BAFTA?"

Rob [sounding a little down]: "Was this the BAFTA you won when I was one of the other nominees?"
David: "I don't wanna make you feel small, Rob, but... it was the other one."

  • This gem from episode 2:

[David is claiming that aged 12, he saved up all his money to buy a rowing boat and then never used it]
David: I planned to sort of row around in it when on holiday.
Lee: And how did you propose to get around on holiday? You had your eye on a nice Ford Fiesta with a towbar...
David: At that age, I would often holiday with my parents.
Robert Webb: "Who shall I holiday with this year? Parents! Come here!"
David: Yes, that seemed to go terribly well before.
Robert: "Parents, come here, I've got a proposal for you!"
Lee: And what stopped the plan?
David: The, um... basically, the boat was a bit too big.
Lee: A bit too big for what, the sea? Every time you pushed it into the water, it kept hitting France!

    • Robert Webb's statement of having a large gang on imaginary friends when he was a kid:

Katy Wix: And how many were in the gang?
Webb: There were quite a lot... There were twelve.
David Mitchell: (laughs) Same number as apostles!
Webb: Yeah... It did occur to me that this was a harmless little messiah complex.

  • Series 5 episode 3, which offers us David accusing Lee of being an intellectual snob, the panellists theorising what would happen if The Wombles came across a dead body, David O'Doherty's Epic Fail at convincing Lee's team he was seeing a hypnotist to cure an addiction of hypnotists, Lee saying he can tell the circumference of somebody's head on sight...
  • Just about everything Greg Davies did in his guest appearance, with special mention to the "Hoot Owl of Death".

Greg: I used to try and scare school friends, by planting a particalar drawing in their pockets, signifying death.

Rob: Lee, what do you think?

Lee: What was the drawing?

Greg: It was an owl...

David: Ahh, the Owl of Death

Greg: Its full title was actually the Hoot Owl Death Sign.

Lee: What do you mean, "The Owl of Death?" What was it doing in this drawing?

David: The Hoot Owl Death Sign?

Konnie: That old chestnut...

Greg: I could draw it for you, if you like.

Rob: Greg, I've got a pen, I've got some paper...

Greg: I'll come over there?

Rob, clearly a head shorter: No, I'll come to you. Don't stand up next to me, it just highlights it. So please, draw the owl of death.

Greg: So...

Lee: Don't look at it David! You'll die!

Greg, with an owl-like expression on his face, holds up a crude drawing of a screeching owl

Rob: Oh My God! Please put it away!

  • Episode 6: Jon Richardson saying 'LOL'. "Did people say LOL eleven years ago?"
    • The peacock. Everything from David repeating the word 'waft' to Lee noting that people do farm peacocks and David's rant about it.

Jon: It was a takeover from the peacocks. When she got back to reception, fifty peacocks there... "this is our hotel now". *mimes peacock opening its tail*

    • Lee says that he shaves half his face and then amuses himself by acting for two. Him reenacting the scene? Hilarious. David reenacting the scene while arguing about the logic of it? Priceless.

Lee: I didn't shave like a rent boy!

    • Sarah Millican's true claim was about wetting the car and then blaming the dog. It turns out that apparently everyone has a similar story to tell.

David: Basically, lavatories are just for me.
Lee: What a great name for your autobiography!

    • During Bill Oddie's true claim that he was saved from drowning by a character from the children's show Rainbow (namely, Freddy Marks of Rod, Jane, and Freddy), they end up in a bit of a tangent, which brings us to this gem. It's David's outrage that sells it.

David: Only one arm, though. George and Zippy had one arm each.
Lee: Oh yeah they did, the other arm was in their mouth, wasn't it...
David: [appalled] WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?!

      • There are several brilliant moments during this round. Bill remarking that the incident may have happened before "The Funky Gibbon" and Frank Skinner suggesting that surely people still lived in the sea back then, Bill (and the other panellists) misunderstanding Rob's question of whether or not Freddy "cupped" Bill to drag him to shore, and Rob and Sarah Millican's exchange when Rob asks if Freddy dragged Bill back to shore.

Sarah: Well, it's obviously gonna be back to shore, he's not gonna take him further out to sea!
Rob: [surprisingly impatiently] He might have been intercepted by a lifeboat!
Lee: [laughs and strikes the desk] That is the angriest he has been in three series!
Sarah: Yes! [pumps fist triumphantly]
Rob: Don't come on here and soil the seats!
Sarah: [smirks] Too late!

    • During Jon Richardson's "Possession" turn:

Jon: This is the emergency kit that I keep in my car at all times.
David: Well, not at all times, obviously, it's here. Lie! Next!
Rob: Jon, if you could take it out of the box and put it on the desk, there...
Frank Skinner: What would've been brilliant then: if he'd have took his car out of there...

[Lee's team are debating whether or not Mackenzie Crook owns an orchidometer]

Lee: This can't be real! This can't be real!

Victoria Coren: Take those. [gives her glasses to Rhod Gilbert] Have a look at him. Through those. [to Mackenzie] Tell him your sister gave you that as a present.

David: Have you got truth glasses?! THEY'RE NOT ALLOWED ON THIS SHOW!

  • Barry Cryer's claim that he wrote a trilogy of romantic novels using a female pen-name.
    • And from that same episode, Lorraine Kelly claims she once presented an episode of TV AM while drunk.

Sue Perkins: What would be different about you on that day?
Lorraine: Nothing. You know, you reach that point where you can drink yourself sober.
Lee: I don't think you can. (Aside Glance) I don't think you can, kids. (wink) One of these days--"mummy, you know what Lorraine Kelly's just said on the television?" You can't drink yourself sober.
Barry: Yes, you can! You're right, Lorraine--(wobbles)

    • Later, during the This Is My round, Lee has claimed that he had accidently taken the guest's luggage while at the airport and had to then wear his clothes on holiday. About thirty seconds into questioning, Lorraine has suggested that it was remiss of Lee not to label his luggage. Lee immediately suggests that he could be lying, prompting this response from David:

David: Just to clarify Lee, are you still saying this is true? Or, has the very suggestion that you might be remiss made you abandon any attempt at playing this game? "I'm not going to be called remiss! Okay, it's nonsense! It's nonsense! I'm not a fool, I actually label my luggage very carefully and I think that's very important, and I'm not for a moment going to pretend otherwise!"

  • From the series 5 compilation show:

[Bill Turnbull's claim is a "conversation book" with topics of discussion to use written in it]
David O'Doherty: I'm gonna write some unexpected ones in it! [writing] "Boobs!"
David Mitchell: "So, Archbishop, what do you think about boobs -- oh my God!"


Series 6

  • In the series opener, David has to claim that the "This Is My" guest rescued him when he was on a donkey ride that went mad. Having to describe a donkey ride, at one point he refers to "the piece of string attached to the donkey's face..."
  • Rhod Gilbert introducing the This Is My guest - a man in his seventies who had to be given a chair rather than standing - as his badminton doubles partner. And it turning out to be true.
  • In episode 5, Dr Christian Jessen is claiming the This Is My guest was the surgeon who removed the piece of the Operation board game that he swallowed. When he starts describing the surgery, Andy Hamilton begins looking slightly uncomfortable; Rob proceeds to play this up by doing an exaggerated description of an operation complete with gestures that culminates in a re-enactment of the infamous scene in Alien.
    • From the same episode, Andy Hamilton's true story about "Fisher",[2] the fictional schoolboy that he and his classmates invented to confuse a bad French teacher, to the point of doing 'his' homework and handing it in; Lee turns him into a Running Gag, bringing him up in later rounds in that episode.
  • Greg Davies roping David and his teammate Richard Osman into a re-enactment of the game he invented called "Snorkel Parka Music Practice Room". Especially since both Daveis and Osman are giants and, even when they're sitting down, David looks tiny between them.
    • Richard Osman's claim that he and the Banker had once run over a badger and then buried it was derailed by the opposing team being more interested in trying to get to divulge the identity of the Banker.
  • Rob Brydon's introductory crack about Greg Davies: "If Goliath ate Rik Mayall."
  • When Huw Edwards was asked to demonstrate his claim that he uses an 'evil eye' look to force long rambling news correspondents to get on with it, Rob Brydon pretends to be Robert Peston to give him a target, and comes up with a scarily plausible-sounding ramble about the eurozone crisis.
  • Lee's bafflement that when he claimed the "This Is My" guest is a milkman who mistakenly delivered 88 bottles of milk rather than 8, the part that David and Sarah Millican found most implausible was that he drinks full fat milk.


General

  • Whenever Lee Mack and David Mitchell engage in Ham-to-Ham Combat, particularly the "coconut injury", "personal iPod manager" and "stolen tent" incidents.
    • "This is My" is particularly ripe for this. If Lee's team are the ones claiming the association to the mystery guest, David will generally start by interrogating Lee, and on several occasions (most notably the aforementioned "stolen tent" story, but also the "darts team" story from the same series) the Ham-to-Ham Combat has escalated to the point that Rob Brydon has had to interrupt and remind David that there are two other possible answers - otherwise, David and Lee could probably argue with each other for hours.
  1. Moira Stuart.
  2. (possibly not the name they actually used, but Andy claimed to be unable to remember the real name)