Mock the Week / YMMV

Aluminum Christmas Trees: In one episode, Dara asks the panel what Queen Elizabeth II invented with a Dachshund and a Corgi. Josh Widdicombe jokingly answers Dorgi, which turns out to be the correct answer.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "ICE FISHING!"
- Lampshaded by his disbelieving realisation of what he'd just said seconds later.
Broken Base:
- Did Frankie Boyle's departure make the show more inclusive and less of a bearpit, or just completely unfunny?
- Frankie in general. Did he come across as too overbearing and trying to steal the spotlight (for example, during "Scenes We'd Like to See", it was not uncommon to see him suddenly walk over and stand right behind the comedian who was at the microphone instead of waiting for them to finish), or was he the highlight of the show?
  - As Dara has said:
"Frankie in particular had a tendency to kill a topic by bringing it to a brutal end, which people loved, absolutely adored, but it made it more difficult to engender any conversation. [...] Obviously, [he] was a one-liner comedian, so he was coming in with staccato bursts of brilliant but brutal stuff that meant it wasn't conversational... Frankie is the end piece of a jigsaw. Nothing else could attach because Frankie would close the topic off with a brilliant one-liner. So it meant it was very staccato as a show."
- The reveal (and Frankie has confirmed this on his podcast) that while the show is not scripted, the panelists are given advance knowledge of what will appear during the Scenes We'd Like to See, Headliners and If This Is The Answer, What Is The Question? sections, and have jokes written beforehand to read off a teleprompter - most noticeable in the outtakes of one episode where Josh Widdicombe, doing the stand-up challenge, says "Oh, I've messed that one up - just go on to the last line", or another panelist having his jokes written on the palms of his hands - has caused a lot of controversy.
Crack Pairing: It's possible Frankie Boyle was just making it up, but he claims there's Slash Fic... and it pairs him and Hugh Dennis.
- Such a thing does indeed exist, and while Frankie/Hugh is one of if not the most common pairing (thus not really a crack pairing as far as the fandom are concerned), it's by no means the only one. There's even an LJ community devoted to it.
Crosses the Line Twice: Frankie Boyle, almost every time he opens his mouth. Depending on your sensibilities, some of Hugh's lines may qualify (the suggestion for "Famous Last Words" of "Yeah Jackie, let's go in the open-topped car today!" being an example).
- Too soon?
  Frankie: "...when I read the headline "Fannie Mae Collapse", I thought Kerry Katona was pregnant again..."
- Another notable occasion is seen in the second "Too Hot for TV" DVD, where the unedited version of the "Deleted lines from the last Harry Potter book" is shown, with the multiple rape jokes intact.
- This deleted segment where Frankie and Hugh make jokes about David Blunkett. Making fun of a blind man has never been so outrageously funny.
- According to Frankie Boyle in one of his specials, a few of his scenes were left out for crossing the line a million times.
- Dara even calls Frankie out on it after this Richard Hammond joke shortly after his big crash:
  Frankie: "I think that should be the anti-speeding advert. It should be footage of Richard Hammond trying to remember his own wedding day. [audience groans] She was wearing black... or was it red? Am I married?"
  Dara: "We weren't going to make an oblique reference to that, let alone—there's a line in the sand, and you can't even see the line in the sand. You're out of the sand into, like, tropical tundra regions or something."
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- The camera crew seemed to like pointing out how even the other comedians were losing their shit during Stewart Francis' turn on Spinning The News.
- Holly Walsh, in comparison to the general audience perception of the female comediennes on the show.
Youtube Commenter: Holly Walsh might be the only decent female comedienne on MtW.
- Out of all the newcomers, James Acaster is pretty much everybody's favourite. Sadly, Dara gave an interview in 2020 that revealed Acaster (as well as Romesh Ranganathan, Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan) would not be returning to the show (Acaster would eventually return for one last episode during the final series).
- Milton Jones proved an instant hit due to his bizarre, offbeat and at times, surprisingly dark material. During the stand-up round, the audience laughs before he says a word.
Genius Bonus: Because he studied science, Dara will sometimes make a joke about some obscure scientific principle, or nitpick a joke by one of the panelists.
Growing the Beard: Early episodes focused heavily on impressions thanks to impressionist panelist Rory Bremner and featured games rarely seen later on. Once these were dropped a couple of series in, episodes went from mildly funny to hilarity and the show started to pick up a much bigger audience.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- One of the Too Hot for TV DVDs has a bit where the panel discuss viagra and Russell Howard finding the idea of old people having sex gross, prompting Dara Ó Briain to ask if he'll still hold that view come series 96, to which Russell does an old man impression. Sadly, the show didn't end up making it that far and Russell has since left it, as have Frankie Boyle and Andy Parsons.
- Kevin Bridges, Unlikely Things to Get Through Your Letterbox: "Dear Ms. Winehouse, congratulations on turning 100, best wishes, the Queen."
- Hugh's impressions of Jimmy Savile don't seem quite as cuddly, given the 2012 revelations about the late entertainer's darker side. Then again, one could also argue that in retrospect, they only serve to reinforce how obviously creepy Savile actually was.
- This line from Frankie Boyle:
  "It's showbusiness, it's not ugly business! You think I'll stop doing Mock the Week after these looks go? NO!"
- Hugh Dennis' line from "Unlikely Things to Hear on a News Broadcast" - "Sir Gary Glitter received his honours at the Palace this morning". Jimmy Savile was knighted in 1990, making the idea of a pedophile receiving a knighthood no longer as ludicrous.
- Gary Delaney's idea of "Unlikely Things To Hear In Hospital" was a dig at Prince Harry being considered the equivalent of a Chocolate Baby just for being ginger. Come 2021, and Harry had severed ties with the royal family, revealing that they really had this concern about his own child with Meghan Markle.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
Hugh Dennis [when the "Scenes We'd Like to See" category was "Unlikely Things for a TV Announcer to Say"]: If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in Balamory...
- After that, series 9 episode 8 of the show, where Balamory regular Miles Jupp appeared as a guest.
- The more recent series of the show have taken a break over the summer. One of the reasons for this break is because Parliament is in recess and there won't be any big new stories to cover. For 2010, this worked well in practice. For 2011, not so much, as the show went off air in the same week as the News International phone-hacking scandal broke, closely followed by the riots in London.
- This. Presumably he took it to the knee.
- Frankie's comment at 1:18 here, since he later grew a beard two years later.
  Frankie Boyle: "Everyone knows I'm not a paedophile because I don't have a beard".
- Naturally, anything said that mocked Andy Murray's tennis ability. One example (exaggerated but the sentiment is there):
  Frankie Boyle: [Unlikely things to hear at Wimbledon] "And as the Scottish man holds the Wimbledon trophy aloft, the earth opens and swallows him whole."
  - And another:
    Frankie Boyle: [Unlikely things to read on a packet] "Viagra are proud sponsors of Andy Murray. For people who can only ever achieve a semi."
  - Ed Byrne got one in after Murray won Wimbledon... while Murray was in the audience.
    ["Unlikely things for Andy Murray to think"]
    Ed Byrne: Well, at least now that I've won Wimbledon, they'll stop making fun of me on television.
- In the run-up to the 2008 US Presidential election, Frankie Boyle jokes about John McCain's war record:
  Frankie Boyle: He was in a Prisoner Of War camp 'cause he was shot down five times. And they say he's a war hero! Does that make you a war hero or does that make you a really shit pilot?
  - In the 2016 election, Donald Trump would disparage McCain in a similar manner:
  Donald Trump: He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.
  - Another occurs in "Scenes We'd Like to See" in a 2007 episode: "The worst thing to say when running for US president":
  Frankie Boyle: I will never forget the terrible events... of 9/12.
  - During the 2016 U.S. Presidential race, while talking about the atrocities of 9/11, Donald Trump flubbed and called it "7/11", similar to Frankie's joke made almost a decade earlier.
  - From the same prompt, Hugh's impression of a candidate "like George Bush, only less intelligent" has gotten increasingly funny (and/or depressing) as American politics have gotten more outlandish. In retrospect, it almost seems like a Flanderized prediction of Rick Perry's^note 2012 presidential run.
- Newcomers John Robins and Sara Pascoe can be heard taking digs at his girlfriend and her boyfriend respectively on occasion. Then we learn in season 15 that they were talking about each other. It's especially telling in the Christmas special they were in when Dara mentioned that the other four should take a pew and sit it out, so it wasn't too subtle.
  - When they finally appear together on the panel in Season 15, Ed Gamble pointed out that he hopes the relationship lasts "otherwise there's gonna be some depressing evenings in a few years' time when you turn on Dave". Learning that John and Sara have separated by January 2017 either throws this into Harsher in Hindsight or serious Black Comedy, though it appears to be ultimately subverted.
- At one point, Hugh made the joke "And now, your host for tonight, Dec" deliberately omitting his television partner Ant. Come 2018 Dec really was left to present by himself while Ant took an extended leave of absence from television work following his arrest for drunk driving.
- Milton Jones' infamous monologue about "thinking that Europe doesn't exist", now that the UK has voted to leave the European Union.
- Nish Kumar's joke about Of Mice and Men suffering Sequelitis in the style of The Fast and the Furious takes on different meaning if you've paid attention to the plotline of both - due to Values Dissonance, George shooting Lennie would never have gone over well today, but The Fast and the Furious (2001) provides a possible way out with Brian letting Dom escape.
- Hugh made a joke about a Foreign Remake of The Great British Bakeoff, hosted by a "Paul Bollywood". Bakeoff later went through a tulmultous Channel Hop, with Mel and Sue following Mary Berry off the show, meaning that Paul Hollywood became The Artifact for real.
- This joke from Frankie Boyle about Patrick Stewart after he appeared in The Emoji Movie:
  "What's wrong, Captain Picard?" "WHAT'S WRONG?! I'm a serious Shakespearean actor! And I'm talking to the ambassador of the fucking worm people!"
  —Frankie Boyle
- Milton spun an entire Running Gag about the world's worst love story about a lighthouse keeper. If it was movie length and directed by James Wan though...
- Hugh's line about "letting the weak... die," in light of the UK government's awkward messaging on the COVID-19 Pandemic (also counts as Harsher in Hindsight).
- Before the 2020 US presidential election, guest panelist Nigel Ng pointed out how both candidates were old white men and "their only common enemy is winter." Fast forward to the inauguration of Joe Biden, and the sight of a different old white man, Bernie Sanders, all bundled up like it was winter turned memetic.
- Milton's idea of "Unlikely Things to Hear in a Costume Drama" is a simple "they're all naked." Except maybe Deadwood, Game of Thrones, Bridgerton...
- Ed Byrne calling out Channel Four for not booking him for any of their shows in "Unlikely Letters to Television Channels". He later became a contestant on The Great British Bake Off.
- "Unlikely things to hear in a James Bond film" became this when Hugh Dennis made a cameo in No Time to Die.
- Ed Byrne had a joke about the Alien movies suffering Sequelitis with "Alien 7: It's Just Fucking Ruined Now". Fast forward to 2024 and there really will be a 7th movie, Alien: Romulus - which is shaping up to be one of the most popular ones to date.
Ho Yay:
- Frankie Boyle made note of the fact that he'd discovered slash fiction—of himself and Hugh Dennis. When Hugh raised his arms as if in victory, Frankie asked him why he was celebrating, as he was the receiver. True to form, Frankie noted that he was most offended by the fact that the writer claimed his pubes were ginger.
[The answer in the "If This is the Answer..." round is 2035]
Stewart Francis: Is it 'when will Dara O'Briain succumb to my... advances'?
- Bad Things To Say On A First Date.
  Russell: Whoa... how pissed was I when I asked you out?!
  Andy: Not as pissed as I was when I said "yes"!
- Unlikely lines to hear from a thriller:
  Russell: I have amnesia. The tattoos on my body will tell me what happened. ...'Dara was here'?
  Dara smiles wryly at the camera and presses the buzzer.
- The legendary Dara/Ed Byrne bromance gets an overdue Lampshade Hanging in season 16:
  Hugh: Will Dara cop off with Ed? Find out tonight on: Love Ireland.
- With them being the last two original panelists remaining, Dara and Hugh have taken to being portrayed Like an Old Married Couple. The very final episode piles in on it both on the jokes and The Stinger.
  Ahir: After 17 years, the greatest will they, won't they in British television history comes to an end, as Hugh and Dara finally fuck.
  Hugh: Vigorously.
Memetic Mutation: After Paul Gascoigne made a surreal attempt to appease escaped killer Raoul Moat with a can of lager, a chicken, and an offer of a fishing trip (having consumed a huge quantity of alcohol and drugs, Gascoigne had convinced himself that they were friends), Michael McIntyre started what became a Mad Libs Running Gag of Gazza cheering [someone] up with a [drink], a [foodstuff] and an [activity].
Stewart Francis: In an effort to cheer up the badger, Paul Gascoigne was seen in the area with an empty bottle of Cava, a can of Spam and a Savage Garden CD...
Andy: Don't worry, Gazza's arrived with chicken and a fishing rod.
- "ICE FISHING!"
- Other news stories referenced often include the story of John Darwin, who turned up alive five years after he'd gone missing whilst canoeing, the Josef Fritzl case, and Kerry Katona's drug issues and frequent pregnancies.
Padding: As seen on the show:
Fred MacAulay: ...And the detail is vital in padding out the routine...
Tear Jerker: Due to the passing of one of the legendary Chuckle Brothers, this Black Comedy Burst when they do "Unlikely Lines from Kids' Shows" is actually a bit heart-wrenching in hindsight.
Ed Gamble: (anguished) To me!^note
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A lot of fans decided they hated the show when Frankie Boyle left. On the official Facebook page for the show, comments are still in the vein of "OMG WHERES FRANKIE IT SUX WITHOUT HIM".

YMMV / Mock the Week

Edit Locked