History Series / TaskmasterNZ

** In the final episode of season two, one task featured a mysterious figure in a full-body animal mascot costume lurking in the background but not taking an active part. When eventually unmasked, it turns out to be Angella Dravis, [[spoiler:the winner of season one]].

** The live task in "Sauce Tits" is an extended shout-out to Rose Matafeo's shed-mounted fish poster in the UK ''Series/Taskmaster''.

%%Too avoid confusion, please refer to Guy Williams, Guy Montgomery, and Paul Ego by full name on this page.

* OneSteveLimit: Season 1 featured Guy Williams as a panelist while Season 2 featured Guy Montgomery, requiring them to be distinguished by surname on this page.
-->'''Youtube Comment''': I’m beginning to get the impression that 1 in 5 New Zealanders is named Guy.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny:
** In "A Political Hotcake", following the playback of Guy and Leigh attempting the "keep a balloon in the air" task, Madeleine makes a suggestive joke about them having trouble keeping it up. They're both amused, and Guy gives her a standing ovation.
** Guy Montgomery is prepared to credit Paul when a task is particularly devious, even though it means much harder work for him.

* AnswerCut: In "A Good Time, Not a Fast Time", a playback of two contestants' attempts at a task ends with each of them conversing with Paul while he enjoys a snack of cookies and milk. In one conversation, the contestant asks if Paul ever drinks the milk or just dips the cookies in it; this is followed by a cut to the other conversation where Paul immediately drinks the milk.

* BodyDouble: A task in "A Good Time, Not a Fast Time" has the contestants trying to find where Paul is hiding, made more difficult by the placement around the place of a dozen other men of similar appearance wearing his trademark outfit.

* BrickJoke: The first task in "Heat Stroke" -- "Float this brussels sprout down from the balcony. Longest float time wins." -- ends on an unresolved note, as two of the contestants creatively interpreted 'float' by floating the brussels sprout in water, with the sprout apparently capable of continuing indefinitely. In the studio, Paul reports that the two sprouts were left where the contestants had placed them, the two contestants are awarded ? points for the task, and the episode moves on. Two tasks later, the playback of another contestant's attempt at the current task includes the moment when he came across one of the still-floating brussel sprouts and threw it away, not realising what it was, leaving the floater of the remaining sprout to claim victory.

** In Season 1, [[spoiler:Guy Williams]] is singled out to [[spoiler:take a proper maths exam and gets every question wrong]].
** In Season 2, [[spoiler:David Correos]] gets suckered into [[spoiler:untying hundreds of shoelaces and spends hours getting the task done]].

** In the final episode of season two, one task featured a mysterious figure in a full-body animal mascot costume lurking in the background but not taking an active part. When eventually unmasked, it turns out to be the winner of season one.

* FunWithForeignLanguages: For the time travel task in "Judgement Day", Urzila transports herself and Paul back to her school days in the 1980s. For the duration of the scene, she speaks entirely in subtitled Afrikaans, explaining that in those days she hadn't learned English yet.

** Paul tries again the following season in "Bing Bang Schlong". He's shot down again, but this time the Taskmaster does at least let him demonstrate his dance solo.

** In "Judgement Day", one task requires the contestants to make a moving speech; Laura's is a heartwarming anecdote that bears a striking resemblance to the plot of ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo''.

* WouldntHurtAChild: For the time travel task in "Judgement Day", Guy makes a short film in which he travels back to 1918 and kills Hitler to prevent World War 2. On being asked why he didn't go further back and kill Hitler as a child, Guy replies that he would never kill a child -- at least not while being filmed for national television.

* TheCameo: The one and only [[spoiler:Creator/GregDavies, himself]] appears to berate Jeremy for being too nice as the Taskmaster.

* HotterAndSexier: Not that the original is shy by any means, but differing social mores between the UK and NZ mean that the NZ version is more overt in its humor, with incidents like Angella, Leigh, and Madeleine riffing and making explicit jokes about Angella's genitals.

* {{Angrish}}: Guy Montgomery's reaction to Laura sabotaging him and David in a team task.

* EarWorm: I wanna laminate this calendar day, eh!

** Angella's prize entry under the category of something that hasn't aged well is a floppy disk that contains a photo of an outdated hairstyle, which was of Jeremy Wells with frosted tips.

* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: For Urzila's time travel task, she opted to play herself in the '80s, a time when she hadn't yet learned English. She proceeded to call over Paul and verbally abuse him in Afrikaans. She noted in studio that she hadn't told him she was going to do this, and he was absolutely lost the whole time.

** For the "outlandish costume" task, [[spoiler:Brynley reveals that she is dressed as Gollum from ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', complete with a bald cap and the One Ring.]]

* GrowlingGut: Urzila's "extreme tea" for Paul (which was spiced with loads of chili powder and chili flakes) causes an audible gurgle from Paul's gastrointestinal tract, which Urzila jokes as his arsehole preparing for the impending eventuality.

* MusicalEpisode: Played with in "An Intervention". At the beginning of the episode, Paul sings a song announcing that this will be the musical episode and everyone will sing instead of talking. He's cut short by the Taskmaster, and the rest of the episode proceeds as normal.

* StrangeMindsThinkAlike: In "Bing, Bang, Schlong," there is a task to devise a method of wearing a tie in the most innovative way. Both David and Guy decide to wear their ties as loin cloths, which barely cover their privates and have to be blurred. While David slowly reveals his thong, Guy dispenses with any pretense and walks straight into the lab.

* EpicFail: In "Completing the Set", the contestants are required to eat a grape the fastest. An escape maze-esque task ensues where the contestants are locked in the caravan and the grape is outside. First place goes to Laura, who finished in just over 16 minutes. Meanwhile, it took David 19 minutes [[spoiler: just to spot the grape. He ended up dead last with a time of ''one hour and twenty-three minutes!'']]

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: In the banter segment of "Feel My Bean", Paul recounts how someone recently tried to sell him a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and says he doesn't understand what the point of those would be when what he wants out of a pair of headphones is for them to ''produce'' noise.

* LeftItIn: During the 'commit a crime' task in "My Uncle John", one of Madeleine's 'crimes' is to break one of the rules of television by moving around in a way that forces the camera to turn and show the production crew in the part of the room that's usually out of shot. Paul calmly tells her that they'll just leave that out, but of course they don't.

* ChangeTheUncomfortableSubject: In "My Uncle John", after Jeremy gives an uncomfortable answer to Brynley's joking offer to have sex in public, everyone waits an awkward beat before deciding to move as far away from the issue as possible.

* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: While explaining the premise at the beginning of the second season premiere, Jeremy refers to the contestants as "these four prize-winning comedians, and Matt Heath". (Matt Heath is an actor, musician, and radio personality, but not noted as a comedian per se.)

* OverlyNarrowSuperlative: In "A Political Hotcake", Paul introduces one of Guy's task attempts by describing him as "one of the top two Williams brothers".

* {{Angrish}}: Guy Mongtomery's reaction to Laura sabotaging him and David in a team task.
-->'''Guy Mongtomery:''' Yea– tha– I mean– that was ju– you are a real [[PrecisionFStrike FUCKING]] piece of work!

* {{Corpsing}}: In "Unbung", Paul's usually stoic demeanour cracks wide open while Guy Montgomery is describing his weird family Christmas traditions.

* CameraAbuse: In "My Uncle John", Brynley's energetic climb over a fence topples the camera recording it.

* StockYuck: In "Heat Stroke", Jeremy asks for a 'tasy task', and Paul says apologetically that all he has is a task featuring brussel sprouts.

** In "Heat Stroke," there is a task to completely renovate the room in 30 seconds under the cover of darkness, with that time starting as soon as one says "let there be dark." David reads if off the task and the lights immediately go out (a genuine mistake by the production crew - reading it off the card was never intended to be a trick on the contestants), and in a blind panic, he elects to strip down to his birthday suit in 12 seconds, thereby "changing the vibe" of the room. When he is told that it wasn't a trick, he still opts to settle for what he has already just done.

** Guy Montgomery's outfit during the recorded tasks includes a T-shirt that has a photo of a 14 year-old Paul Williams in the throes of puberty. Paul is especially surprised by this because the only existing photo in existence is in his mother's living room and suspects that somebody in his inner circle surreptitiously shared a copy with Guy. In the premiere episode "Flight of Fantasy," his in-studio outfit is another T-shirt with Paul's baby picture that he initially kept hidden under a different button-up shirt.

* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: In "Flight of Fantasy," Jeremy compliments David's attempt at the flying task (in which the latter attached helium balloons to a photo of himself in a flying pose) by comparing it to Phileas Fog and Passepartout from ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays''. David, however, suggests that he is too young to understand the reference, and that a more up-to-date allusion would be the movie ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}''.

** As a nod to his outfit in his recorded tasks, Guy Montgomery wears a T-shirt with an EmbarrassingOldPhoto of Paul Williams in the studio recording, with a different photo each episode. He keeps it hidden underneath a different shirt or jumper until after the first ad break or task VT (with little fanfare until either Jeremy or Paul comments on the shirt). When interrogated on where he sourced the shirts, he will reply with "the shops."

* {{Calvinball}}: The last team task takes place outdoors and is simply to "get to 10 points" while handcuffed to one another. There is a basketball hoop with a variety of balls, a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle, a mini trampoline, a box of comical costumes, and a tray of complimentary mints. The key to scoring a point is [[spoiler:to give each other compliments]]. Of the two teams, [[spoiler:Brynley, Guy and Madeleine figure the scoring method almost immediately, complete the task in 3 minutes, and then trash the props as they leave while Angella and Leigh take 4 minutes to score their first point and then complete the task in 47 minutes. They never determine the scoring method until the studio recordings - the clue to the scoring method was with the "complimentary mints" card]].

* ChangeTheUncomfortableSubject: After Jeremy gives an uncomfortable answer to Brynley's joking offer to have sex in public, everyone waits an awkward beat before deciding to move as far away from the issue as possible.

** Parodied when Leigh brings in some Snacka Changi chips (a brand he has a stake in) for a prize task and Madeleine and Jeremy start mockingly shilling them directly to the camera.

* RedHerring: This trope is memorably in full play for the final pre-recorded task in the series finale "My Uncle John." The lab table has a set up of a variety of treats, including ice cream, chocolates, spearmint leaves, sherbet, and gherkins. [[spoiler:Angella, Guy, Leigh, and Madeleine]] are shown first and each one of them use the treats to create their best dessert. They do have some throwaway observations about how strange it is to have gherkins and two bowls of the same beige-coloured sherbet while making their desserts. After the clip ends, there is a closeup of the task language, which says "''[[spoiler:make the best '''desert''']]''." Because they completely overlooked this, all of them were disqualified. [[spoiler:Brynley]], however, was the only one who questioned the task and asked Paul to confirm what a [[spoiler:desert]] was. Being the only one to complete the task at hand, [[spoiler:Brynley]] deservedly received the full 5 points.

* BitingTheHandHumor: Angella does this to Jeremy twice in this series during the prize task rounds. In "An Intervention," the prize task is to bring in the worst thing to show the Taskmaster. Angella brings in a book filled with mean comments (all written by her) about how this show will not live up [[Series/{{Taskmaster}} to the original]] and how Jeremy is a poor man's substitute for Greg Davies. In "Astro Blaster," the prize task is to bring in something that hasn't aged well -- Angella brings in a floppy disk that contains a photo of an outdated hairstyle (an EmbarrassingOldPhoto of Jeremy with [[NinetiesHair frosted tips]]) and claims that she would have brought in a current photo but she thought it would be too harsh. [[spoiler:This works to Angella's benefit in the former episode and she got the full 5 points. The second time, however, she was penalised and only received 2 points.]]

** In "Sweaty Socks and Depression", the prize task to provide a thing that sounds really impressive until you see it. Angella's contribution is her "collection of nudes", which turns out to be [[spoiler:a set of colour swatches in the pale-brown range referred to as 'nude']].

* In "Sweaty Socks and Depression", Jeremy describes Paul when he introduces him as "my partner in crime, except I'm more his superior than his partner and we don't do any crime".

* {{Dissimile}}: In "An Intervention", one task requires the contestants to put on an extra item of clothing each time they perform a particular action. Paul describes it as being "like strip poker, but reversed, and I'm there and I'm in a tree".

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Just as with the [[Series/{{Taskmaster}} original series]], any time a contestant's attempt at a task is shown last, it either goes incredibly well or incredibly poorly.

** The contestants are told to keep a balloon in the air, but they must use a different object each time they hit it. [[spoiler:Madeleine finds a petrol-powered leafblower and uses it to keep the balloon from touching the ground]].

* ThatCameOutWrong: During the sculpture task in "Gluten Free", Leigh declares (in the context of knowing when it's time to call an artwork done) that Creator/LeonardoDaVinci didn't spend all his time fiddling with Art/{{the Mona Lisa}}, then backtracks to make sure it's clear he meant the painting ''Mona Lisa'' and not the woman it's a portrait of.