History Taskmaster / TropesAToF

** Calling upon this trope doesn't always work, however; a certain level of basic commonsense is often assumed and required when interpreting the task even if it is not spelled out for the contestant, which the Taskmaster will point out when they try to protest that the task didn't actually specify they should do something that they clearly should have done. For example, in the "have an argument in only ten words at a time ending on a four-letter word" task in "The Lure of Treacle Puppies", Jamali tries to defend his team's gradual degeneration into absolute gibberish by pointing out that the task didn't say that the argument had to make sense, only for Greg to shut him down by pointing out that an argument by nature implicitly has to have ''some'' level of coherence and logic it to it beyond simply blurting out random four-letter words like "town".

* {{Facepalm}}: The full-faced humiliation version is on display quite often when a contestant [[ThisIsGonnaSuck knows that his or her spectacularly bad task attempt will be shown next]]. Roisin in the Series 1 does this very often.

** The first series has one or two tasks that take place live in the studio apart from the final task, such as the "grow the longest nail" one, or a tiebreaker where the two tied contestants had to guess Frank Skinner's age in minutes. The only examples of this after the first series was the "buy the Taskmaster a present with £20" task, which seemed to be a OnceASeason thing as it survived into the third series, but was dropped after that, and one in studio tiebreak in Series 7.

** Mark Watson was put through the ringer in Series 5's "A Wind-Dried Puffin", as it features two of his most infamous downbeat moments on the show - the prize task where he reveals that he stole Greg's trousers in an impressive display of high-octane underhandedness that nonethless got him ranked in last place and the trick task where it was discovered that he was singled out to text Greg 150 days in a row only to be subsequently disqualified when it turned out he had only managed 148. Despite all of his suffering, Mark actually '''won''' that episode due to a skilled performance in most of the other tasks he was handed.

** The Prize task for "Friendship is truth" was to bring in surprising photo's of themselves. Joe brought in a photo of him topless wrapped in a hammock, Hugh brought in a facemask of himself, Mel brought in an edited version of the painting ''Art/LeDejeunerSurLHerbe'', with her behind a tree [[DisapprovingLook staring disapprovingly]] at the picnic. Noel got a photo of him as the Virgin Mary (taken during his Series/TheMightyBoosh years). Lolly presented a photo of her hidden under heavy layers of makeup to look like Lady Diana, in large part poking fun at Blackface. [[spoiler:Hugh comes last, Noel comes 4th, Mel places third, Joe comes second, with Lolly winning the round.]]

** In "Meat", a task required to slide as far as possible, with the furthest winning. Lolly managed to make a setup that had a plastic slide covered in various lubricants, and some diluted water and dish soap plastered over concrete. She ''Missed'' the slide and went 3.2 metres.

--->'''Iain:''' "You may not touch the sand, done that. You may not move the bucket, done that. You may not leave the room, fuck it, let's do that as well!. What a waste of everyone's time, you '''IDIOT!'''"

* DagwoodSandwich: For the Create an exotic sandwich task in "Tony Three Pies", Mel opts for a multi-decker sandwich with ingredients including Nutella chocolate spread, chocolate orange slices, various chocolate bars, [=M&Ms=], maltesers, and marshmallows. She describes the end result as a "Japanese pagoda" of a sandwich. Alex then hands her the instructions for part 2 of the task: "Eat your exotic sandwich, fastest wins"...

** In "The Pie Whisperer", a task was to inspect the contents of a pie without "breaching it". Both Romesh and Josh "breached" some of their pies as their bottoms fell off, and Romesh in particular maintained throughout that he shouldn't be penalized for something that he had no control over. It got quite heated between Romesh and Greg, not helped when Roisin and Tim used ExactWords to their advantage, and had "breached" their pies by way of asking Alex to do it. In the end, nobody got disqualified, (Alex likely realised they had a point and the breakages weren't their fault) but [[spoiler:Romesh came third, and Josh came fourth]].

** In "Hello", A task required the contestants to find a baby monitor, and they were given a Baby Monitor attached to some string, hanging from a stick, attached to a hat, they had to wear throughout the task. Immediately after Iain had read the task out, he took the Baby Monitor off of the string (the task never specified it had to stay there, he only had to wear the hat). Sian also realised this a little later on in her attempt, as did Paul.

** AdBumpers show Alex in a scene or with objects used in previous episodes' tasks:

* CoordinatedClothes: All of the competitors in the Series Nine finale "Think About the Spirit" were dressed in matching formal tuxedos. Amusingly, Greg and Alex also sported "coordinated" fake tan sprays, which is explained away as the two of them lying in Greg's sunbed together over the weekend.

* CringeComedy: The premise of the first prize task in "Champions of Champions" was to bring in the most genuinely cringe-worthy / embarrassing item. [[spoiler:Noel]] brought in a picture of him and his family when he was 14 years old, [[spoiler:Bob]] brought in a drawing his son did of "dog dirt", [[spoiler:Rob]] brought in elephants silk pants that he had had to buy after soiling himself, [[spoiler:Katherine]] brought in a video of her and her sister pretending to be Hitler, while [[spoiler:Josh]] brought in a clip of him being an interviewee on an episode of "This Week" (a late-night British political discussion show). [[spoiler:Noel came last, Bob came fourth, Rob came third, Katherine came second, and Josh came first]]

** In "The Last Supper", a task required to get the least amount of points possible on a Miniature golf course. They all had to use eggs, and the scores were calculated by how many eggs they used, as well as the shots taken, and also the minutes taken to complete the task. Tim, instead of shooting raw eggs with a golf club like other contestants, hard-boiled one of the eggs, grabbed a tennis ball, cut it open, and placed the egg ''inside'' of the ball, then taping the cut back up. [[spoiler:Tim got 1,200 points and came third]].
** In the Series 2 episode "Pork Is a Sausage," task where the contestants have to order a pizza without using specific words, there is a bonus point for getting the person taking the order to say the word "bubbles". Richard Osman tries asking them if they remember the name of Michael Jackson's pet chimp, Jon Richardson tries asking about flat cola, Doc Brown pretends his name is "Bubbles"... whilst Joe Wilkinson just asks the guy if he can say the word "bubbles".

** In the first Champion of Champions, the contestants have to discover what's inside a padlocked armored briefcase, with various methods of discovering the passcode (science and maths formulas on a nearby whiteboard, counting the number of grains of rice in a nearby drawer, hunting for the number hidden around the Taskmaster house etc.). [[spoiler:Rob]] and [[spoiler:Noel]] take unconventional, yet simple, approaches. [[spoiler:Rob]] shook the briefcase and guessed it was frozen peas, and [[spoiler:Noel]] grabbed a hammer from the shed and struck the padlocks off (winning the round).
** In "Tarpeters", A team challenge was to make Alex as waterproof as possible in 2 minutes, and after the allotted time, a shower above him will turn on. The driest Alex won the points. Asim, Liza, and Tim did the task as one would expect, covered Alex in mats (or "Tarpeters" as the three called them, which got mocked by Greg in the studio, hence the episode name), a towel, a bowl on his head and bin bags. They did reasonably well, and actually only got the bottom half of Alex wet. Russell and Alice on the other hand used this to their advantage, by ''disconnecting the shower'' and let the water run on the ground (the task never said you had to cover Alex to keep him dry). To [[RefugeInAudacity rub it in a bit]], they made Alex ''as dry as possible'', giving him a [[PunnyName ''Dry'' Martini]], with a towel around his neck, all the while drying him with a hairdryer. [[spoiler:They won four points, while Asim's team won one point. Greg was suitably impressed.]]
** In [="BMXing!"=], a task required the contestants to get a £5 note from under a glass full of beer, all the while without touching the glass, and not spilling any beer. [[BoringButPractical Alice and Russell grabbed a straw and started drinking the beer]] before Alice moved onto scooping the beer into a spit can with a dainty little cup, before sheepishly realizing she could use the task letter to move the glass and get the fiver. [[spoiler:It was all for naught, as Alice got disqualified for dropping a tiny drop of beer onto the table while transferring it to the spit cup, and Russell won the full 5 points for his quick time of 1:19]].

** In Series 6, Liza has stomped on a wind-up toy man on a pennyfarthing and forced Alex to look at its remains and asked Alex to sit bare-arsed onto a cake (after which she runs away giggling like a madwoman).

** Alex's persona as the Taskmaster's Assistant frequently crosses into this line, as it asks him to set, witness and comment upon rather ludicrous events in a matter-of-fact and deadpan fashion. One significant example, however, is the "Make the best thing to occupy a toddler" task, in which he frequently asks Nell the Toddler -- who is, of course, barely aware of what's going on beyond her entering a room and given various things to play with -- to rate the toys she's been given as if he's conducting a job interview.

* CompetitionFreak: The show came about because Alex Horne realized that comedians are naturally competitive and keen to one up each other[[note]]in fact, Alex organized the first stage versions of the show because he was jealous that Tim Key won a Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe while he didn't[[/note]]. Because of this trait, some contestants are very keen to win and this is reflected in how they approach the tasks and interact with others.

** The team task in "Butter in the Microwave" is a recreation of a ''[[GameBooks Choose Your Own Adventure]]'' where each team goes to various areas around the Taskmaster House property and complete a mini task. Choosing the wrong combination or accidentally breaking the rule meant the team would either be stuck in a loop or that the team would have to start all over again from the starting bench. The key to finishing the task was [[spoiler:to say the word "demeaning"]], which could have been done at any point during the ordeal [[spoiler:unprompted (several of the mini tasks were quite demeaning, like wearing a kitchen item for the duration of the entire task) rather than being prompted by the task underneath the door mat]].

** Richard in series 2 often gets called out for being a guest star/producer/tall man, as he's unusual in being the only contestant in series 2 to not be a comedian. (even Doc Brown does comedy as one of his ''many'' side careers). Mel Giedroyc would later appear on the show in series 4, as well as Alice Levine in series 6, but these two being [=TV=] presenters in a show that features mostly comedians is seldom brought up by Alex (in Mel's case, most of the jokes are about her being a former co-host of ''[[Series/TheGreatBritishBakeoff Bake Off]]'').

** In the New Year Treat special, all the contestants were tasked with building the lightest tower that they could. Rylan was given the extra rule that he had to say that he had just come up with a great idea every time he heard Alex ring a bell.

** A task in "Down An Octave" was one that sent the teams to a squash court, and had to score 11 points as fast as possible. When Frank asked Alex what the rules were, he simply replied "The Taskmaster Rules". They were given things to aid them such as cakes, a bucket, and squash rackets and balls. Alex in the studio later clarified the points system: Disrespecting the Taskmaster deducts 2 points, shaking your head deducts a point, but to score a point, they had to [[spoiler:touch their head]].

*** In the Pea Throwing task in "Pea in a Haystack", [[spoiler:Dave claimed the pea was wedged in the tennis racket they was using. Greg attempted to get the truth out of him, twice, and when he maintained he was telling the truth, Alex brought in the slow-motion footage to reveal that the pea had left the racket when Dave threw it. Dave ''then'' tried to claim [[DiggingYourselfDeeper the pea must've gotten wedged when he used the racket for searching for the pea]]. Unsurprisingly, this led to a disqualification, and to add [[HumiliationConga insult to injury,]] Paul, who failed to get the pea onto the rug, came in 4th for at least ''propelling'' the pea.]]

---->'''Greg:''' ''[[ItMakesSenseInContext [pointing at Alex's bare foot]]]'' Do you see what I'm capable of?!

* ChekhovsGun: In "Residue round the hoof", a task was to blow up a balloon to the size of a cucumber (30 centimetres) while blindfolded, all the while a bunch of seemingly-unrelated props were at the other end of the garden. After doing the task, the contestants were given a second task, which was to remember as many of the now-very-relevant props as possible. Amazingly, ''nobody'' had noticed [[EpicFail a hanging tarpaulin had changed color]] from dark green to dark blue. Everyone but Aisling also failed to notice that Alex was replaced with a body double, but a few of them ''did notice'' his hat had changed.

** "I'm not bad at this!" ~ John Kearns, having demonstrably and repeatedly failed to get either ducks or socks within the appropriate buckets during the "get the most ducks and socks in the appropriate buckets" task in "Enormous Hugeness".

** Kerry (series seven) and Katherine (series two) replaced Katy in the studio segments while she was ill for "Another spoon" and "Bready Bready Bready" respectively (series nine).

** In the "find the ducks" task from "The Noise That Blue Makes", one of the "ducks" is the word "''canard''" (French for "duck") written near the ceiling of the lab.

* BizarreTasteInFood:

** James Acaster does this during the team task in "My Eyes Are Circles", while ''blindfolded''.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N0kr107ED4 Nell the toddler in "The Barrel Dad" on the grounds of being a toddler]]. Nell often got distracted by other things in the room, before Alex pointed her back to the item the contestants had to make for her.

* AuthorTract: In [="BMXing"=], in the second task of the show (do something manly inside of a box), Asim and Alice took the opportunity to talk about Men's Mental Health and the stigma that causes, while Alice poked fun at the gender pay gap. [[spoiler:They both got 4 points.]]

** Iain knows ''a lot'' about puppets (comes with the territory of being a former ''Creator/{{CBBC}}'' presenter), and he flexes his knowledge on the matter for a task in "Hello". Greg was questioning a puppet Iain had [[ItMakesSenseInContext made on its seductiveness]], but he fires back as to what constituted a ventriloquist puppet and points out the other contestants hadn't actually made ventriloquist puppets, they had just made regular dummies with mouth holes, or in Pauls case, a Piggy Bank with glasses "wearing" trousers. As the task goes on, Iain gets increasingly irate about it, and he is ''visibly'' annoyed at the others, and also at the very real possibility of him coming last in a task he knows so much about. [[spoiler:He comes first place, but Greg waits until [[BaitAndSwitch the last possible moment to announce this]] to deliberately push his buttons, while everyone except Joe got 4 points (Joe got 1 point for killing his puppet)]].

* BigEntrance: A task from the Series 9 episode "Join Our Cult" is to create the most dramatic entrance. David Baddiel makes a ''Series/DoctorWho''-inspired appearance in the phone booth and imitates the Doctor and Daleks and plays the music. Jo emerges from the shed dressed as UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and shows off the head of UsefulNotes/AnneBoleyn (played by Alex) on a platter. Ed makes an appearance as a creepy hooded figure before cheerily saying "Hello" to Alex. Katy creates doppelgangers of herself and hands out a flyer to Alex encouraging him to join their cult. Rose, dressed as a bush, runs out onto the driveway yelling "[[Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire STELLAAAA]]!!" [[spoiler:Rose wins the task with 5 points, Ed and Jo are joint second with 4 points, Katy receives 3 points, and David receives 1 point.]]

** [="BMXing"=], uses leftover footage from "One Warm Prawn", specifically involving a spinning plastic lizard attached to a cordless drill, which had kept on going for just over an hour and a half.

** In Series 6 episode "H." everybody manages to successfully TableclothYank without breaking any eggs and receives the full 5 points. Greg gets quite annoyed:

* AlwaysSecondBest: In Series 1 [[spoiler:Romesh. He's in both of the tiebreaker tasks that season but loses both. His overall performance gets him tied for 2nd for the series overall, just 1 point below Josh who becomes the winner. Moreover, despite a relatively high score overall, Romesh is the only person that season to never win an episode]].

** Intentionally using the specific wording of the task to your advantage is an intended part of the show. Sometimes this is done when setting the task, such as in the "painting in the dark" task in Series 5, in which the task letter intentionally ''never'' specifies that the task had to actually be done with the lights off). Other times the contestant will come up with a way of CuttingTheKnot, abusing ExactWords, or employing LoopholeAbuse. It will be up to the Taskmaster's discretion as to whether or not their unorthodox solution is allowed. This often leads to contestants to their advantage.

* AbsurdlyHighStakesGame: The contestants have a clause in their contracts saying that they are genuinely giving up ownership for their submissions for the Prize Tasks, and are only allowed to request that the winner returns them if they lose. Prizes (particularly in the early seasons) can be of absurdly high value (sentimental or monetary)for a comedy show, including marriage certificates, wedding rings, Guinness World Record certificates and blank cheques. This has gradually been downplayed over the years as contestants have caught on and decided not to risk their prized possessions, with most prizes being either overtly absurd novelty items or, it's hinted, things that the contestants have specially bought from sites like eBay.

* TheArtifact: Greg Davies began to wear glasses and grew a beard from Series 6 onwards, which makes the title sequence outdated, as it still shows Greg clean-shaven and not wearing his glasses. The sequence was eventually refilmed for Series 10. His portrait that is on the stage and in the Taskmaster House foyer also gets an update. Lampshaded in the introduction to one Series Fifteen episode when he acerbically points out that the Taskmaster trophy that's been used since Series Two is clearly outdated, as "I've had a beard for five years."

* TheArtifact: Greg Davies began to wear glasses and grew a beard from Series 6 onwards, which makes the title sequence outdated, as it still shows Greg clean-shaven and not wearing his glasses. The sequence was eventually refilmed for Series 10. His portrait that is on the stage and in the Taskmaster House foyer also gets an update.

-->'''Kerry:''' ''[to Jessica Knappett]'' Did ''you'' think we were allowed to use calculators when you were using bean juice on a window? I was doing sums in my head...\\

* EskimosArentReal: In Series 10 episode "Toshwash", Daisy compares a task to circus shallow diving. Greg flat-out refuses to believe that such a sport exists. In "Moments of Silence" again, when Daisy mentions that wasps are able to identify landmarks and make their way home, Greg also dismisses it until Alex looks it up.

* {{Crossover}}: With ''Celebrity Hunted''. Contestants Ed Gamble and James Acaster chose to have a final confrontation with the hunters at the Taskmaster House due to them having a HomeFieldAdvantage. The duo were forced to lure the hunters to the house using very obvious clues due to the hunter’s unfamiliarity with this show. Ed & James even left a “task” for the hunters, taunting them.

** Ed (series nine) is heard via phone call in "Trapped in a Loveless Marriage" (series fourteen).

** In "Stuck in a Mammal Grove", both Joe Thomas and Iain Stirling come up with the old "drop a Mentos into a bottle of Coca-Cola" trick when planning their volcano. Iain designs and builds an elaborate volcano out of pipes and dirt, pours multiple bottles of Coke into the pipes, creates a sack full of Mentos which he balances on a pulley, and tops it off by decorating the outside of the volcano with little figurines of previous Taskmaster champions and delivering a speech in which he confidently declares his hope to join their ranks. Joe, on the other hand, just get a bottle of Coke, gives it a little decoration with cardboard, and drops the Mentos in. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for Iain, the reason this trick works is because the carbon dioxide within the drink reacts to the sugar of the sweet most dramatically when the drink is pressurised, as it is in the bottle; Iain pouring the drink into a larger container released some of the carbon dioxide, meaning there was less to react with the sugar and thus diluting the overall effect. Joe's volcano worked as intended, putting him in joint first place, but for all his hard work Iain's volcano only produced a pathetic amount of bubbles, leaving him joint last.]]

** In series 7, during the live task for "The Perfect Stuff", Jessica Knappett fell off the stage. The stage has since been named The Knappett.