Trivia / Just a Minute

• Actor Allusion: Panellists will often be given subjects which in some way refer to their careers outside Just a Minute, whether directly or indirectly. For example, Kenneth Williams, when given the subject of "Julius Caesar", took the obvious bait to quote his famous line "Infamy! They've all got it in for me!" from Carry On Cleo, to huge audience applause (and a buzz from Clement Freud for repetition).
• The Cast Showoff: Kenneth Williams would often be given subjects that allowed him to show off his knowledge of history.
• In Memoriam: Just a Minute has included tributes to each of the five original members of the panel following their deaths.
  • The 5 May 1988 episode, the first to air after the death of Kenneth Williams a few weeks earlier (but which had been recorded before his death), was introduced by the Radio 4 continuity announcer as a tribute to his memory.
  • Nicholas Parsons introduced the 1 March 1999 episode as a tribute to Derek Nimmo, who had died a few days before the episode aired; Nicholas noted that the episode's recording a few months earlier had been Derek's last professional appearance.
  • A summer re-run of the 17 January 2000 episode was dedicated to the memory of Peter Jones, who had died earlier in the year and one of whose last professional appearances had been for the recording of the episode in question.
  • At the end of the 27 July 2009 episode, Nicholas introduced an audio clip of Clement Freud, who had died the previous spring, speaking on the subject "How I hope my epitaph will read" from the 29 January 2001 episode as a tribute to his memory:
    Clement Freud: I think just my name, the date of my death, and "best before".^note  Which is, indeed, how his death was listed in the programme for his funeral service.
  • Following Nicholas Parsons' death at the age of 96 on 28 January 2020, the two programmes made for the 50th anniversary in 2017 were both repeated on Radio 4 later that day.
• Milestone Celebration: A number of the show's anniversaries have been celebrated:
  • The 25th anniversary was marked with a special program called "Silver Minutes", featuring Nicholas introducing classic clips.
  • For the 35th anniversary an hour-long episode was recorded (the only time such a thing has been done to date), featuring a number of faces from the show's history as guest subject setters.
  • The 45th anniversary featured multiple commemorative moments across the year: the subjects for the first show that year were all ones from the very first series in 1967, there were two episodes recorded in India (where JAM has a massive following) and a new Sound-to-Screen Adaptation was done, which notably featured Paul Merton as he'd declined to appear in previous television versions.
  • For the 50th anniversary, a special called "50 Years in 28 Minutes" was edited together from the programme's archives to create the illusion that panellists from throughout the series' run were all on the same panel, even if some had debuted after others had died. The following week, Paul Merton conducted an extended interview with Nicholas about his career and especially Just a Minute, with guest appearances from frequent JaM panellists Sheila Hancock, Gyles Brandreth, and Tony Hawks, and 1974-76 producer John Lloyd.
• Missing Episode:
  • Ten early episodes (six from the very first series in 1968, three from the third series in 1969, and the Christmas 1974 episode) have no known surviving recordings. Additionally, most episodes from before 1990 only exist in the Transcription Services editions for international broadcast (The BBC junked most of their original tapes, but the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have a nearly complete set of TS tapes), trimmed by around three or four minutes each and sometimes with rounds spliced from other episodes featuring the same panel.
  • This (very likely) happened to the most of the show's archive in June 2016 when Clement Freud was posthumously outed as a paedophile. Freud was a panellist on 547 of the 716 radio episodes of the show up to his death, including the very first episode, none of which are likely to ever be aired or made commercially available again. ^*If you're looking for classic episodes, several collections are still available on Audible at the date of writing (2024).

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