History LoopholeAbuse / Taskmaster

As intended, this happens pretty often, and Greg will allow the behavior if it's sufficiently funny, clever, or entertaining [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs (or all three)]], but he is not afraid to disqualify contestants who obviously break the rules of the Tasks.

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* In "Dog Meat Trifle", the contestants are tasked to neatly put clothes on a clothes rack about 8 feet away, but must not ''step'' outside of the small square they are standing in. The contestants use the hangers, the clothes and mannequin provided to hook the rack and drag it to them, but Katherine is the only one who thinks to lie down with her feet inside the square to do so. Since she never stepped outside, Richard is perfectly willing to argue in favour of her strategy to Greg.

!!!New Year Treat 2020

** John tries several different approaches before realizing he could use liquid, and pours a large amount of tea through the donut. [[spoiler:It's allowed, but the revelation comes late enough in the task that he only gets enough tea through to qualify for fourth place.]]

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!!!Series Twelve
* In "Croissants is Croissants", the task is to prevent Alex from scoring a goal: Alex must kick the ball from a red dot, and the contestants must be at least 12 yards away from the dot while Alex is attempting to score. While the other contestants created barriers to block the goalpost, Guz instead moves the dot and ball inside the house, covering it with furniture and taping the doors closed for good measure. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Alex turns it around on him]], as nothing in the rules state the ball couldn’t be recovered and moved back to its original position. Furthermore, because of the aforementioned "12 yard distance" rule, Guz can't move the ball again. Because of the 3 minutes it took Alex to recover the ball and 2 and a half minutes goalkeeping the old fashion way, his attempted earned him third place.]]

!!!Series Thirteen

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* Throughout the season, the contestant used their lack of competitiveness to break ''many'' of the studio tasks with collaboration.

** When the rules for the prize task of "I'm Off To Find A Robin" were read, requiring the comedians to use grabbers to toss balls into their hats, Sue immediately asked if they were allowed to help each other. Naturally, all five had a much easier time than intended using their grabbers to place balls into their neighbors' hats, with all working together to make sure Sue got all three in within the time limit despite a guaranteed last place.

* "Brother Alex"
** In the studio task, the comedians were told to pass three pineapples amongst themselves, so that Greg could guess which three competitors had the pineapples at the end of it. It took exactly one round for Lucy to realize that nothing said that there had to be one pineapple per person, and two for the Sues and Sam to realize that nothing said that the comedians had to stay on stage or ''keep'' their pineapples. [[note]]In the second round, Lucy made Julian hold two of the three pineapples. In the third, Sue and Susan each left the stage to hide one each and Sam took his to hide behind the Taskmaster.[[/note]]

** One of the tasks featured is the Norweigan version of "hold the milk cartons above the microwaves for as long as possible". Like the original version of the task, Olli discourages the contestants from opening the task sheet immediately. Hani Hussein ignores Olli, and she ends up in fourth place with a time of 4 minutes and 13 seconds. The next task shown involves the contestants doing something better; and Hani decides to re-do her attempt for the microwaves task, this time just walking out of the lab without ever opening the task sheet. [[spoiler:Hani not only wins the improvement task, but she is also retroactively moved from fourth to first place for the microwaves task.]]

* In "Cricketmaster", given the task to "fly this thong[[note]]that is, [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage a flip-flop]][[/note]] the furthest distance", Julia Morris opts to stick the thong in the fly of her pants and run with it, 'flying' it that way. [[spoiler:The Taskmaster accepts this interpretation, and Julia runs away with the task, running over 200 metres before the thong falls out, whereas the next furthest distance was only about 40 metres.]]

* In "Fear of Failure", the contestants are ordered to place three large exercise balls on top of a yoga mat which is on top of a steep hill. While everyone else interprets this as getting the balls up the hill and does so (with varying degrees of competency), Richard instead brings the yoga mat down from the hill and places the balls on it at the bottom, reasoning that the task is worded in such a way that it never actually requires the balls to be taken up the hill. This one ultimately required the producers to get in touch with Susie Dent, the prominent lexicographer who notably appears on ''Series/{{Countdown}}'', to judge whether Richard had interpreted the task reasonably. [[spoiler: Susie concurs with Richard's reading as being valid, enabling Richard to win the task.]] Ed Gamble suggests on the Taskmaster podcast that this moment, and Richard's getting away with it, was the very moment Taskmaster came to be defined by its lateral-thinking LoopholeAbuse.

** For the "connect as many parts of yourself possible with your teammates" task, Sam Campbell comes up with the clever solution of cutting off a lock of each team member's hair and connecting those, hence forming nigh-infinite connections. [[spoiler:This turns out to be part one of a two part task, the second part being to cross a finish line, so Sam and his teammates run away with the task.]]
** For the "get this duck into the lake without touching the boundaries, the pineapples or the flamingos" task, Sue Perkins realises she can spread the boundaries wider and move the pineapples and flamingos out of the way. Notably, Lucy Beaumont reacts with shock in the studio, having [[GenreBlind not realised they could do that]].

* In "How Heavy is the Water", one of the tasks involves hitting a drum as many times as possible with a single throw of a ball. Mae gets the idea to attach a piece of string to the ball in order to continue moving it after it leaves their hand, leading to an insurmountable total. Notably, this caused some controversy in the studio over whether this constituted a single throw and should be allowed. [[spoiler:Greg allowed the attempt on the basis that it would annoy the other contestants.]]

* In "Pea in a Haystack", a task requires contestants to propel a pea onto a red rug. However, the verb "propel" is quite vague, although most interpret it as throwing. Rob gets a score of 414.53 meters, by placing a pea in a wheelbarrow, moving it around the garden, then placing it onto the rug. In the video, Rob also has the foresight to provide the definition and explain his rationale in case Greg tries to make a rebuttal. Greg did lampshade this. [[spoiler: Rob comes second]]. Amazingly, Al abuses ExactWords even more, as he places the pea onto the rug, rolls up the rug, then carries it in a Taxi for '''18 miles''', [[spoiler: winning the task comfortably]], while also burning £150 for a taxi ride to Slough for the sakes of the task.

* In "Their water's so delicious", both Sally and Mark abuse the [[ExactWords wording of a task]] that wouldn't let them touch the floor, or another object that they'd been previously stood on, in order to get a coconut as far away from the Taskmaster house as possible. Mark ''piggybacks'' one of the boom operators (the Task stated '''Mark''' couldn't touch the ground, not anyone else that he happens to be riding on). [[spoiler: Mark gets disqualified for immediately touching the ground when dismounting from the boom operator]]. Sally stays on a table, while Alex posts a coconut to ''the Prime Minister of Fiji''. [[spoiler:Sally comes first, as the coconut made it nearly two miles away to the post office, although posting restrictions (and presumably the 20 minute time limit) prevent it from actually being shipped any further]].

* In "Twelve Blush Majesty Two", one of the tasks has the contestants get a cricket ball into a golf hole on the other side of the garden. Phil uses brooms and sticks to guide the ball into the hole, Jessica does a similar thing but with pipes, which in her case, ''actively hamper her progress'', James relies on his own actual skill (and misses a Par, much to his anger and frustration), and Kerry also relies on her own skill. Rhod however, manages to ''dig up the golf hole'', places it on top of the mat that was above it, drags the mat to the ball, reassembles the hole near the ball, places a pipe leading to the hole, and shoots to get a hole in one. [[spoiler: He wins the full 5 points, simply because of how outside the box his approach was.]]

* In "The Barrel Dad", a task requires contestants to get a loo roll through a toilet seat hanging up from a wire above them. Iain completely fails to spot the hanging toilet seat, and instead uses the houses toilet. He then decides to unravel the toilet paper so that only the cardboard tube remains. He then passes it through the house's toilet seat, and finishes the task. [[spoiler:His interpretation of the rules is welcomed by Greg, and he gets 5 points for being the quickest]].

* In "Quisps", the task is to first pick a letter at random, and then put as many things in the house starting with that letter on the tray. David Baddiel mistakenly picks "Q" before he realizes the purpose of the task, then attempts to get around the rule by claiming he has a speech impediment and pronouncing the name of each thing he put on the tray as if it started with a Q (quock, quamera, etc.). Greg does not buy it, only allowing "quoffee" because it sounds like a New York pronunciation of "coffee". [[spoiler:A wasted opportunity too, as it turns out, because production had filled the house with several Q items in anticipation of someone picking it.]]

* In "God's haemorrhoid":

** The next task requires the contestants to move water from Barrel A to Barrel B within 10 minutes, while not being allowed to move the barrels until 5 minutes have passed. Mawaan readies a garden hose, and when the 5 minutes have passed he lifts Barrel A above Barrel B and sprays the hose into it, causing the water to then pour into Barrel B. [[spoiler:This technique comfortably wins him the task, even though he had lost most of the water originally in Barrel A.]]
* In "Moments of Silence," the task is to extract and then drink a tablespoon of coconut water. The task takes place in the lab and each contestant is provided two whole coconuts and several implements on the table. There is a caveat that if two more more contestants choose the same extraction method, they would each be disqualified. Katherine, after pondering all the items, takes another look at the task, then walks out of the lab into the kitchen and grabs a coconut water drink. [[spoiler:Despite being the slowest, Katherine wins the task.]]

* In "Croissants is Croissants", the task is to prevent Alex from scoring a goal: Alex must kick the ball from a red dot, and the contestants must be at least 12 yards away from the dot while Alex is attempting to score. While the other contestants created barriers to block the goalpost, Guz instead moves the dot and ball inside the house, covering it with furniture and taping the doors closed for good measure. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Alex turns it around on him]], as nothing in the rules state the ball couldn’t be recovered and moved back to its original position. Further more, because of the aforementioned "12 yard distance" rule, Guz can't move the ball again. Because of the 3 minutes it took Alex to recover the ball and 2 and a half minutes goalkeeping the old fashion way, his attempted earned him third place.]]

* In "The 75th Question", one task is 'Record the highest number on this pedometer.' While the other contestants attempt various tricks to increase the pedometer count, Bridget sits on the pedometer and makes a recording on her phone of herself saying the number "eleven trillion gazillion". [[spoiler:Greg allows it (though excluding the "gazillion," as not being a real number), and Bridget wins the task.]]
* In "You Tuper Super", the contestants are required to hold a conversation with Swedish Fred after spending fifteen minutes cramming the Swedish language. Bridget phones her brother, who speaks Swedish, and has him coach her through the conversation. [[spoiler:Alex notes that this technically fulfills the task, which says "Best demonstration of the Swedish language wins" but doesn't specify that it has to be the contestant giving the demonstration. Greg awards Bridget second place.]]

** One task is to make a Swedish person blush as much as possible. Most of the contestants understand this as trying to embarrass Frederik the Swede by getting into his personal space, asking intimate questions, and outright flirting. Roisin tries this method first and then she asks him to stand with his head between his legs (but not for dirty reasons) to get the blood flowing to his head. [[spoiler:Roisin wins the task]].

* In "The Poet and the Egg", one task is to throw a teabag into a mug from the furthest distance. Frank uses a thin cardboard box put up against a wall to guide wet teabags into the cup, Roisin exploits the ExactWords of the task, and drops the teabags into the cup at height with a ladder (the task never said the teabags had to be thrown horizontally). Like Frank, Tim uses a catcher to guide the teabag into the mug, and opts for tarpaulin, and he uses a ball catcher to throw a teabag wrapped onto a tennis ball, and throws it into the mug. Josh however, attempting to broaden his target, says that he would define "mug" as "a receptacle larger than a cup, that you drink tea out of." He proceeds to pull the wheelbarrow out of the shed and promises to drink tea out of it by the end of the task. [[spoiler: Tim comes first, Frank second, Romesh third, and Roisin fourth. Greg disqualifies Josh, though not because he used a wheelbarrow, but because [[FelonyMisdemeanor Josh put the milk in first.]]]]

* In season 7, one of the tasks featured is the Norweigan version of "hold the milk cartons above the microwaves for as long as possible". Like the original version of the task, Olli discourages the contestants from opening the task sheet immediately. Hani Hussein ignores Olli, and she ends up in fourth place with a time of 4 minutes and 13 seconds. The next task shown involves the contestants doing something better; and Hani decides to re-do her attempt for the microwaves task, this time just walking out of the lab without ever opening the task sheet. [[spoiler:Hani not only wins the improvement task, but she is also retroactively moved from fourth to first place for the microwaves task.]]

There is also an unspoken assumption that the contestant will at least try to complete the task in a way which is in keeping with the spirit of both of what the task is asking for and the show overall; they're there to be entertaining, funny and silly, and the show isn't just a venue for contestants to show off how good they are at finding loopholes. Accordingly, just because a contestant finds a clever loophole in the task does not always guarantee them a victory.

* The contestants have to drink a pint of Ribena with the caveat that their mouths have to be open the whole time. While Guz, Morgana, and Victoria all gag and struggle, Alan realizes that using a straw leaves a small gap open in his lips and successfully finishes the task with little problem. Desiree, on the other hand, downs the whole thing in one go.

** The ducks and socks task states that contestants can't touch any ducks or socks that touch the ground. To counter this, Munya places the ubiquitous bathtub at the end of the treadmill conveyor belt to catch anything he misses so he can try again. [[spoiler:Unfortunately this ends up hindering him, as just before the end of the task he falls into it trying to catch the last batch, which results in several of his items spilling out of his catch buckets.]]

* In "Croissants is Croissants", the task is to prevent Alex from scoring a goal: Alex must kick the ball from a red dot, and the contestants must be at least 12 yards away from the dot while Alex is attempting to score. While the other contestants created barriers to block the goalpost, Guz instead moves the dot and ball inside the house, covering it with furniture and taping the doors closed for good measure. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Alex turns it around on him]], as nothing in the rules state the ball could be recovered and moved back to its original position. Further more, because of the aforementioned "12 yard distance" rule, Guz can't move the ball again. Because of the 3 minutes it took Alex to recover the ball and 2 and a half minutes goalkeeping the old fashion way, his attempted earned him third place.]]