History Radio / ImSorryIHaventAClue

* LongRunner: It's been going for forty years, making it one of Radio 4's longest running programmes and the longest running Radio 4 panel game after ''Radio/JustAMinute''. Beginning with Creator/RossNoble in 2009, it has had several panellists who are younger than the show itself.

* LeftItIn: Jack once [[{{Corpsing}} corpsed]] at one of the {{Double Entendre}}s in his introduction, then muttered "That'll be edited out or I'm finished". Naturally, it's left in.

* SuspiciouslyAproposMusic: Jeremy Hardy once had to accompany Joe Cocker singing "With a Little Help From My Friends" in Pick-Up Song. He immediately [[{{Corpsing}} Corpsed]] at the first line, "What would you do if I sang out of tune?"

* {{Corpsing}}: Frequently. Whenever Letter Writing is played, Tim and his guest will almost certainly end up having to pause because they're laughing so hard.
** Barry is also a terrible offender, and is particularly noticeable due to his loud, distinctive laugh.
** Humph's "tributes" to Lionel Blair while introducing ''Sound Charades'' often cause panelists to corpse -- Sandi Toksvig's helpless laughter in an early 2002 episode led to one full minute of uninterrupted audience laughter going out over the air. In 2001, another ''Sound Charades'' intro left Phill Jupitus plaintively asking for Humph and the others to wait while he composed himself.
** Even Humph himself was not always immune; he was unable to keep a straight face when announcing that Jeremy Hardy was going to have to accompany Morrissey and the Smiths (singing "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now") in a round of Pick-up Song.

-->'''Graeme Garden:''' Well, I know Barry is my teammate, and he's consistently the best player in the game so far, and recently saved my family from drowning... but putting all that to one side... Barry.
'''Humphrey Lyttelton:''' Graeme, why Barry?
'''Graeme:''' Just a whim, really.
'''Humph:''' Tim, why Barry?
'''Tim Brooke-Taylor:''' Cheap laugh, basically.

In recent years, Barry and Graeme both cut down on their number of appearances and would appear only occasionally. This resulted in the show's future being left unclear once again after Tim Brooke-Taylor, the last of the original panellists still regularly appearing on the show, passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020. It was eventually announced that the show's [=73rd=] series in Autumn 2020 would consist of Tim's final two episodes (recorded shortly before the nationwide lockdown), followed by four remotely recorded episodes with the surviving regulars and a virtual audience (categorized by the BBC as Series 74). This was followed by two series in 2021 which were made up of an entirely rotating panel (Barry Cryer participated in the first two episodes of Series 76, his final appearance before his death in January 2022).

The panellists combine the names of films to make puns. Really, that's it. Puns can be literal (such as ''Film/HalfASixpence'', ''Film/TheDirtyDozen'' and ''Film/TheExorcist'' being combined to make ''Half A Dozen Eggs''). The meaning of the title can be used rather than the words. (Such as ''Series/AlloAllo'', ''Film/{{Boom}}'' and ''Film/FarewellMyLovely'' combining to make ''A Short, Meaningless Relationship''. Or ''Film/LordOfTheFlies'' and ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'' combining to make ''Would You Mind Accompanying Me To The Station''?) Then there are the truly ''magnificent'' puns, such as Barry combining ''Film/{{Superman}}'', ''Film/KellysHeroes'', ''Film/TheFrenchConnection'', ''Film/AlCapone'', ''Film/FantasticVoyage'', ''Film/XTheManWithTheXRayEyes'', ''Film/ThePrincessAndThePea'', ''Film/NightmareAlley'' and ''Film/TheDuchessAndTheDustman'' to make ''[[Film/MaryPoppins Superkellyfrenchaltasticexpeaalleyduchess]]''. Used to be very popular, but the last time it popped up was in 1995.

* AsHimself: Alan Titchmarsch, also doing double-duty as several other famous gardeners for a round of "Gardener's Question Tim".

In recent years, Barry and Graeme have both cut down on their number of appearances and appear only occasionally. This resulted in the show's future being left unclear once again after Tim Brooke-Taylor, the last of the original panellists still regularly appearing on the show, passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020. It was eventually announced that the show's [=73rd=] series in Autumn 2020 would consist of Tim's final two episodes (recorded shortly before the nationwide lockdown), followed by four remotely recorded episodes with the surviving regulars and a virtual audience (categorized by the BBC as Series 74). This was followed by two series in 2021 which were made up of an entirely rotating panel (Barry Cryer participated in the first two episodes of the winter series, his final appearance before his death in January 2022).

In recent years, Barry and Graeme have both cut down on their number of appearances and appear only occasionally. This resulted in the show's future being left unclear once again after Tim Brooke-Taylor, the last of the original panellists still regularly appearing on the show, passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020. It was eventually announced that the show's [=73rd=] series in Autumn 2020 would consist of Tim's final two episodes (recorded shortly before the nationwide lockdown), followed by four remotely recorded episodes with the surviving regulars and a virtual audience (categorized by the BBC as Series 74). This was followed by two series in 2021 which were made up of an entirely rotating panel (Barry Cryer participated in the first two episodes of the winter series).

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/humphreylyttelton.png]]
[[caption-width-right:250:The irreplaceable Humphrey Lyttelton. [[note]]1921–2008, it says something when all the other famous names in comedy have to go on rotation to fill in for you...[[/note]]]]

[[quoteright:226:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/humphreylyttelton5_396x222_8827.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:226:The irreplaceable Humphrey Lyttelton. [[note]]1921–2008, it says something when all the other famous names in comedy have to go on rotation to fill in for you...[[/note]]]]

The show has won three Golden Sony Awards, including one for ''I'm Sorry I Haven't A Christmas Carol'', a ChristmasEpisode which cast all the regulars and guest panelists into a version of ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' and somehow managed to force most of the games into the storyline. This was followed a couple of years later with ''Humph [[Literature/AliceInWonderland In Wonderland]]''. The show also spawned a sell-out live tour featuring classic rounds from previous series, initially with Jeremy Hardy as the guest; the most recent tour, in 2020, featured Tony Hawks and Miles Jupp in place of Barry and Graeme with several guest panellists.

*** In the last few years this has changed to Blair simply being insulted as untalented or unable to find work, likely because since the revelations about Jimmy Savile and a string of other high-profile entertainers the innuendos became considerably less amusing.

* ItIsPronouncedTropay: A running thing whenever Rob Brydon is on, and if the show is being recorded in Wales, is him correcting Jack Dee's pronunciation of Welsh place names (and sometimes, the audience members correcting ''Rob'').

In recent years, Barry and Graeme have both cut down on their number of appearances and appear only occasionally. This resulted in the show's future being left unclear once again after Tim Brooke-Taylor, the last of the original panellists still regularly appearing on the show, passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020. It was eventually announced that the show's [=73rd=] series in Autumn 2020 would consist of Tim's final two episodes (recorded shortly before the nationwide lockdown), followed by four remotely recorded episodes with the surviving regulars and a virtual audience (categorized by the BBC as Series 74). This was followed by two series in 2021 which were made up of an entirely rotating panel (Barry Cryer participated in the first two episodes of the series).

In recent years, Barry and Graeme have both cut down on their number of appearances and appear only occasionally. This resulted in the show's future being left unclear once again after Tim Brooke-Taylor, the last of the original panellists still regularly appearing on the show, passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020. It was eventually announced that the show's [=73rd=] series in Autumn 2020 would consist of Tim's final two episodes (recorded shortly before the nationwide lockdown), followed by four remotely recorded episodes with the surviving regulars and a virtual audience (categorized by the BBC as Series 74). This was followed by two series in 2021 which were made up of an entirely rotating panel with no regulars.

The chairman was Humphrey Lyttelton, a jazz trumpeter (the thinking being that improvisational comedy owed a lot to jazz), who created the persona of a curmudgeonly DeadpanSnarker who would rather be doing something else. ''Anything'' else [[note]]except playing the trumpet[[/note]]. Barring some EarlyInstallmentWeirdness in the first two series, the regular teams from the beginning in the [=1970s=] until 1996 were Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden versus Tim Brooke-Taylor and Creator/WillieRushton. After Rushton's death in 1996, the fourth panelist became a rotating position.[[note]]Jeremy Hardy usually appeared once a series before his death, and some of the more frequent guests have included Rory Bremner, Marcus Brigstocke, Rob Brydon, Susan Calman, Pippa Evans, John Finnemore, Stephen Fry, Andy Hamilton, Tony Hawks, Miles Jupp, Paul Merton, Rachel Parris and Sandi Toksvig[[/note]] Guests have also deputised for Barry, Tim or Graeme if they were unable to make a recording. Because of the show's pedigree, and the fact that the regulars have the final say in who the guests are, being asked to appear on the show has a certain amount of prestige attached to it (and many have turned down the opportunity for fear they might ruin it).

In recent years, Barry and Graeme have both cut down on their number of appearances and appear only occasionally. This resulted in the show's future being left unclear once again after Tim Brooke-Taylor, the last of the original panellists still regularly appearing on the show, passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020. It was eventually announced that the show's [=73rd=] series in Autumn 2020 would consist of Tim's final two episodes (recorded shortly before the nationwide lockdown), followed by four remotely recorded episodes with the surviving regulars and a virtual audience (categorized by the BBC as Series 74). This was followed by a [=75th=] series in 2021 which was made up of an entirely rotating panel with no regulars.

* MonochromeCasting: Has featured precisely ''one'' non-White comedian (Omid Djalili) in forty-seven years.

[[caption-width-right:226:The irreplaceable Humphrey Lyttelton [[note]]1921–2008, it says something when all the other famous names in comedy have to go on rotation to fill in for you...[[/note]].]]

The teams play a song using a swanee whistle and a kazoo. (Tim and Graeme always play the swanee whistles, whereas Barry and Tim's guest always play the kazoos -- although when Sandi Toksvig stood in for Graeme, Barry had a one-off go at the swanee whistle. In the COVID-19 lockdown episodes, which featured three guests to a team instead of two, there was an "unseemly break from protocol" by having Harry Hill play the trombone.) The humor comes from the naturally silly sound of these two instruments (usually described by the chairman as "the cheeky rasp of the kazoo and the smooth ululation of the swanee whistle"). Still played about every second episode.

* MadLibsCatchPhrase: The Summer 2021 series, where all six episodes were recorded from Broadcasting House in London with a virtual audience, had Jack Dee open each episode by describing it as being "part of London's ______ district", and explaining they were in an empty audience, which was "nothing to do with Covid regulations, just (explanation which was usually something insulting the teams)".

The teams play a song using a swanee whistle and a kazoo. (Tim and Graeme always play the swanee whistles, whereas Barry and Tim's guest always play the kazoos -- although when Sandi Toksvig stood in for Graeme, Barry had a one-off go at the swanee whistle.) The humor comes from the naturally silly sound of these two instruments (usually described by the chairman as "the cheeky rasp of the kazoo and the smooth ululation of the swanee whistle"). Still played about every second episode.

The chairman gives a profession for a film club, book club, or song book, and the panellists make puns based on the profession, changing around the titles of films/books/songs in order to fit this particular profession. (Such as the bakers' film club -- [[Film/BenHur Bun Hur]], [[Film/CitizenKane Citizen Cake]] and [[Film/TheLastTemptationOfChrist The Last Temptation Of Crust]].) Graeme [[RunningGag invariably]] makes a pun on ''Film/BringMeTheHeadOfAlfredoGarcia''. Still played often, usually as the closing game of the show.

In recent years, Barry and Graeme have both cut down on their number of appearances and appear only occasionally. This resulted in the show's future being left unclear once again after Tim Brooke-Taylor, the last of the original panellists still regularly appearing on the show, passed away from COVID-19 in April 2020. It was eventually announced that the show's [=73rd=] series in Autumn 2020 would consist of Tim's final two episodes (recorded shortly before the nationwide lockdown), followed by four remotely recorded episodes with the surviving regulars and a virtual audience. This was followed by a [=74th=] series in 2021 which was made up of an entirely rotating panel with no regulars.

* MonochromeCasting: Has featured precisely ''one'' non-white comedian (Omid Djalili) in forty-seven years.