Would I Lie to You?/Funny
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? |
- 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. |
- 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. |
- 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. |
- 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 - |
- 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! |
- 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...? |
- 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? |
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. |
- Rob Brydon and Christine Bleakley's innuendo-laden dance number.
Christine: You go the other way. |
- This exchange.
Janet Street-Porter: Unlike you, Rob, my IQ makes double figures. |
- 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? |
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] |
- 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 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? |
- 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? |
- 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... |
Ben Fogel: [reading from his card] I was interrogated for six hours on suspicion of being a spy. |
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?" |
- 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] |
- 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? |
- 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. |
- 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. |
- 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. |
- 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! |
- During Jon Richardson's "Possession" turn:
Jon: This is the emergency kit that I keep in my car at all times. |
- In episode 7:
[Lee's team are debating whether or not Mackenzie Crook owns an orchidometer] |
- 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? |
- 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] |
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.