Line #49 Podcast/NoSuchThingAsAFish


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/no_such_thing_as_a_fish.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: Left to Right: Andrew Hunter Murray, Dan Schreiber, Anna Ptaszynski, and James Harkin.]]
3
4	->'''James:''' We ran it on ''QI'' a few years ago. \
5	'''Dan:''' Yeah? \
6	'''James:''' Which was, there's no such thing as a fish. \
7	'''Dan:''' What do you mean there's no such thing as a fish? \
8	'''James:''' No, seriously, it's in the ''Oxford Dictionary of Underwater Life''. It says it right there, first paragraph, "no such thing as a fish".
9	-->-- The intro to episodes 1-41
10
11	A weekly podcast coming from the ''Series/{{QI}}'' offices in Covent Garden in London, join Dan Schreiber, Anna Ptaszynski, James Harkin, and Andrew Hunter Murray as they gather around the microphones and share their four favorite facts from the last week and discuss and explore related facts and ideas.
12
13	The first episode was released on March 8, 2014. Since then, the show has grown into one of the most popular British podcasts. Many episodes are recorded in front of live audiences, attracting large crowds around the UK as well as other countries.
14
15	The podcast has also spawned a [[SoundToScreenAdaptation spin-off TV series]] called ''No Such Thing as the News'', which ran for 2 short seasons in 2016. The series focused specifically on ongoing or recent events, as opposed to more general topics discussed on the podcast.
16
17	----
18	!! This show provides examples of:
19
20	* TheAlcoholic: Anna is known for her love of alcoholic drinks, particularly beer.
21	* AwfulWeddedLife: James can't help but make "take my wife"-style jokes, which the others credit to his being a northern comedian.
22	* BitingTheHandHumor: The hosts sometimes poke fun at the ''QI'' creator and co-producer John Lloyd whenever he appears on the show as a guest.
23	* BriefAccentImitation:
24	** Andy loves doing voices when talking about celebrities, historical figures, or even just certain occupations.
25	** James particularly likes to imitate the Queen and her trademark accent whenever she is brought up.
26	** In one of the episodes where Dan is absent and Anna takes over as the main host, she takes a jab at his accent by pronouncing the location of the QI offices as the hyper-rhotic "Covernt Gardern"; Dan is known to pronounce R's where there is no R in writing, e.g. he tends to pronounce "Chicago" as "She cargo".
27	* BritishStuffiness: Andy often plays on this trope, presenting himself as socially inept, fusty, and ludicrously middle-class.
28	* ButtMonkey: Dan verges on this. Anna describes him as "fourth among equals", and he catches way more mockery than the other hosts. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind.
29	** Alex Bell, one of the editors of the podcast and an occasional guest host, is frequently "bullied" by the main four as a running joke whenever he appears on the show (and sometimes when he doesn't).
30	* CallBack: On top of regularly connecting current facts to ones discussed earlier in the episode, the hosts sometimes make call-backs to topics from several episodes or even years ago.
31	** The following veritable hurricane of call-backs in episode 67 (to episode 64):
32	--->'''James:''' But do you know why they're called banana rats? \
33	'''Andy:''' They eat bananas. They're radioactive! \
34	'''Dan:''' They emit antimatter. \
35	'''Andy:''' They don't ''really'' have legs.
36	* CheapHeat: When the group plays a live show, they invariably find some occasion to poke fun at the host city or reference some local stereotype. Particularly pronounced during visits to Scotland and Australia.
37	* ChristmasEpisode: There's one at the end of each year, usually focusing on Christmas-themed facts.
38	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Dan usually plays this role, often delivering facts of dubious plausibility, taking pseudoscience at face value, failing to read the body of articles and simply getting his facts from the titles, and falling for the other hosts' obvious lies. His penchant for fortean phenomena is so strong that the mere mention of yetis counts as a laugh line during live shows.
39	* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: In very rare instances, an outlandish fact presented by Dan gets checked after the show and is found to be correct, something that he will definitely point out on his Twitter.
40	* DeadpanSnarker: Each host has their moments, but by far the biggest offender is Anna.
41	* DiscoDan:
42	** Anna allegedly uses the fax machine to send her facts to the other guys, though this is likely a joke, as she does run the podcast's official email account.
43	** Dan, fittingly, has an obsession that qualifies him for this trope. He is a massive fan of ''Wrestling/{{WWF}}''-era ProfessionalWrestling, as demonstrated in episode 375.
44	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The early episodes were recorded with cheap microphones, had very spotty editing full of awkward transitions and poor audio quality, and featured a long intro sequence that has since been cut down to just the theme tune. Additionally, the podcast experimented a lot with various formats and guest hosts throughout its first year, something that barely ever happens nowadays.
45	* EmbarrassingNickname: Do not call Andy "Drew".
46	* FemaleMisogynist: Anna assumes this role every now and then, jokingly bashing women and the suffrage movement.
47	* ForgottenThemeTuneLyrics: The podcast uses the instrumental version of the song "Wasps" by Emperor Yes as its theme music. Occasionally, the vocal version will be used for special episodes.
48	* HiddenDepths:
49	** Dan has mentioned that he has a second-dan black belt in taekwondo.
50	** Andy is a stage actor who performs as part of the Creator/JaneAusten-themed troupe Austentatious. He is also a science fiction author, with his thriller novel ''The Last Day'' being advertised in several episodes of the podcast.
51	** James is a certified football referee.
52	* HilariousOuttakes: Subverted. The compilation episodes only partly consist of bloopers; most of their content is just bits that didn't fit into the regular episodes for various reasons, usually to cut down the episode length.
53	* HopelessWithTech: Played for laughs. Anna has a reputation for being way behind the times and not knowing how to operate modern devices like phones or computers. She also largely avoids social media, being the only one on the show who doesn't have a Twitter account. It has been mentioned, though, that she doesn't actually have any trouble with technology, and is one of the main people behind ''QI's'' official [[https://twitter.com/qikipedia @qikipedia]] Twitter account.
54	* TheHyena: All four hosts are prone to laughter, often starting to laugh before the fact is fully read out. Somewhat justified, as most of the facts do end up being quite amusing.
55	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every episode is titled 'No Such Thing As X', with X being a reference to a joke or fact from that episode.
56	* IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine: The podcast's guest hosts have often worked on ''Series/{{QI}}'', such as John Lloyd, Alan Davies, Stephen Fry, Sandi Toksvig, and fellow QI elves.
57	* LeftItIn: Especially common in live episodes, which are harder to edit down without creating abrupt cuts due to worse audio quality, natural reverb, and crowd noise.
58	* NamedLikeMyName: James mentions in one of the episodes that he occasionally gets confused with the journalist James Harkin. However, since the podcast has taken off in popularity, the latter is on the receiving end of this more often.
59	* OneOfTheBoys: Anna is often more laddish than the male hosts.
60	* PropheticNames: One of the most common types of facts presented on the show are ones related to nominative determinism.
61	** Dan's last name fits. "Schreiber" is German for "scribe" or "writer", befitting Dan's current job as a writer for ''Series/{{QI}}''.
62	* PungeonMaster: Andy and especially James are known for their love of making puns, drawing mixed reactions from the other hosts and the audience.
63	* RunningGag: The podcast has had a lot of these over the years, though they usually don't last for more than a few episodes.
64	** Calling a person or a thing that has previously been mentioned on the show "friend of the podcast". Even if they've been dead for centuries, like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everard_Digby Everard Digby]].
65	** If an animal species is brought up, expect a fact about their penises.
66	** If an official ''QI'' book is mentioned (especially if it was co-written by some or all of the podcasters), expect one of the hosts to start enthusiastically advertising it on the spot.
67	** James not having seen many popular movies, despite knowing a great deal about them otherwise.
68	** Spoiling the stories of various works, most notably the ending of ''Literature/AnnaKarenina''.
69	** Andy's pet topic is moss, and Dan's is yetis.
70	* SeinfeldianConversation: Fact discussions devolve into this at least once every episode.
71	* SelfDeprecation: A staple of all four hosts.
72	* SocialMediaIsBad: In the "Behind the Gills" documentary, Anna states that the reason why she refuses to come near social media is that she's afraid it would completely consume her.
73	* StudioAudience: Many episodes are recorded in front of a live audience.
74	* TakeOurWordForIt: Whenever something visual happens (e.g. James makes a funny face and Anna comments on it), the listeners at home only have the audio to go off of. Averted for members of the live audience (if it's a live show), as well as ''No Such Thing as the News'', where everything is shown on camera.
75	* TrueCompanions: The crew has said that working on the podcast has brought them very close together, and that the relationship between them is like siblings.
76	* VetinariJobSecurity: Whenever Dan is absent, one of the other hosts has to step into his shoes as the main host, with varying degrees of success. Anna is the most competent at it, though she's noticeably less energetic than Dan. Alex Bell also gives it a try in one of the episodes and fails miserably.
77	* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Dan is of Australian parentage, grew up in Hong Kong, and has spent more than a decade in Britain, but his accent is rhotic, vaguely North American, and very peculiar.
78	* WorldTour: While most of the live shows are done within the UK and Ireland, the podcast has visited a few other countries such as the USA, Australia, and Germany.
79
80	----
81	!! Episodes of this series provide examples of:
82
83	* AndThatLittleGirlWasMe: Episode 61:
84	-->'''Dan:''' I once went to a party where the host of the party employed the yellow card, red card system. The idea was, if you got too drunk, too rowdy, you'd get a yellow card. If you then repeated an offense you'd get a red card. \
85	'''Andy:''' And what happened if you got a red card, do you have to go home? \
86	'''Dan:''' Yeah, I had to go home. I got red carded.
87	* ArbitrarySkepticism: Episode 83:
88	-->'''Anna:''' Cats have a long and noble history of impersonating dogs, though, don't they? Because they can bark like dogs. Like, if you have cats and dogs living together, then cats will learn to impersonate dogs. \
89	'''Dan:''' Okay, hang on, no. I've never... yeah. And I'm the Mongolian Death Worm guy!
90	* BiggerThanJesus: From the "Behind the Gills" documentary:
91	-->'''Anna:''' I think we did better than Music/TheBeatles, in terms of working closely and not hating each other. \
92	'''James:''' Yeah. And if you think about it, they're bigger than UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}, and we're bigger than them. \
93	'''Anna:''' There you go. Us > The Beatles > Jesus.
94	* CaptainObvious: Andrew in episode 222:
95	--> "There are fish called grunion and to have sex they throw themselves on land -- which is inconvenient because they ''are'' fish."
96	* CelebrityEndorsement: In episode 109, Dan attempts to promote Etihad hoping to get a free trip to Abu Dhabi, before being promptly shot down by Andy.
97	* ComicallyMissingThePoint: In episode 266, Andy talks about how Microsoft made typesetting widely available to everyone, causing a "massive shift in power" from professional graphic designers to the general public, which may have been the main contributor to the popularity of Comic Sans. James then responds with this:
98	-->"What you're saying is, basically, when you give people democratic choice, they end up doing something stupid."
99	* CurseCutShort: A self-interruption from James in episode 430 while discussing rumors of Emily Dickinson having a spicy time with a man at her house:
100	-->"Do you think it was [Noah] Webster? And he was like, nice Arse, nice Boobs, nice... anyway."
101	* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: Episode 330, while discussing the small penises of golden moles:
102	-->'''Anna:''' I mean, just to be clear: we're not judging them on anything, are we, Andy? \
103	'''Andy:''' Well, speak for yourself, I am. Judge, judge, judge. \
104	'''James:''' There's not many people Andy can judge on this particular metric but the 1-millimeter penis golden mole. \
105	'''Andy:''' You betcha! Those idiots! With their ''even smaller'' penises. \
106	'''Dan:''' Just.
107	* LampshadedTheObscureReference:
108	** The end of episode 225:
109	--->'''James:''' The magic word "Expelliarmus" is from ''Literature/HarryPotter'' I think, isn't it? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it comes from the Latin "expellere", meaning "to drive or force out", and "arma", which means "weapon". But unfortunately, "arma" was also a euphemism for "penis". So Harry Potter is probably saying something like "Penis begone!" \
110	[everyone laughs] \
111	'''Andy:''' Does that mean the first line in Creator/{{Virgil}}'s ''[[Literature/TheAeneid Aeneid]]'' is "I sing of penis and the man"? \
112	[mild laughter] \
113	'''James:''' ...I think a lot more people got the ''Harry Potter'' reference.
114	** James in episode 371, in response to Dan's fact about stereotactic frames:
115	--->"Sounds like that thing on ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'', you know, that rips people's heads open. Like, you put them in this contraption and if you don't... get the key in time... I'm the only who's seen that movie, okay, never mind."
116	* LittleKnownFacts: Anna in episode 2:
117	-->"Did you guys know that UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln's contact lenses were made of wood?"
118	* {{Malaproper}}: Episode 461, while discussing an imaginary scenario where goats used to be birds:
119	-->'''Rhys Darby:''' They believe they're flying. That's the closest thing they can get to going back to their old life as a bird, by flying, and they'll end up in the trees, and you'll often hear them um, uh... twerking. \
120	'''Dan:''' Twerking? You should see him twerk, he's amazing. \
121	'''Rhys:''' What's the actual word that birds make? \
122	'''Anna:''' Tweeting? Chirping? \
123	'''Rhys:''' Oh, tweeting, chirping. That's where I'm getting confused. I'm mashing those two together and coming up with "twerking". \
124	'''Anna:''' I think that's how twerking was born actually, wasn't it.
125	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: A scenario presented in episode 523 as a possible reason why people in WebVideo/{{Vsauce}}'s [[https://youtu.be/1sl5KJ69qiA video on the trolley problem]] were afraid to divert the train:
126	-->'''Matt Parker:''' But if you've misunderstood the situation, you make it worse — "Aaa, I'm releasing more trains!"
127	* NoodleIncident: Episode 188:
128	-->'''Dan:''' Oh wow! Like Andy's anal thing that he was talking about earlier. \
129	'''Andy:''' Sorry!? \
130	'''James:''' So for the people listening to this podcast on Friday... \
131	'''Andy:''' And I would hope you would edit this bit right out. \
132	'''James:''' Not a chance. \
133	''[audience laughs]'' \
134	'''Andy:''' There's a new robot that-- \
135	'''James:''' No, no, we don't have time for this! We don't have time, no, no, we don't have time, no, no. People can just imagine what you were thinking about.
136	* {{Planimal}}: Collectively conjured up in episode 447 as the the hosts play a guessing game about what two things go into a hybrid species.
137	-->'''Andy:''' A "rabbage". \
138	'''Dan:''' It's a rabbit... and a cabbage! \
139	'''Andy:''' No, it's a radish and a cabbage. Sorry. \
140	'''Andy:''' A rabbit and a cabbage — the only animal that eats its own ears!
141	* SnubByOmission: Episode 444:
142	-->'''James:''' I am mentioned in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia#Notable_people_with_aphantasia Notable people with aphantasia]]. Dan is mentioned as a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australians_in_the_United_Kingdom#Notable_individuals notable Australian in the United Kingdom]]. And Anna is a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_the_United_Kingdom#Notable_persons notable person in Poles in the United Kingdom]], as in people from Poland.\
143	'''Andy:''' ...And? \
144	[silence] \
145	'''Dan:''' [[NamedLikeMyName Andy Murray is a notable tennis player.]]
146	* SpeakInUnison: Episode 198:
147	-->'''Anna:''' ...and then he would sit there for 4 to 5 hours... \
148	'''Dan and Andy:''' FORTY-FIVE HOURS!?
149	* ThatCameOutWrong:
150	** Episode 82:
151	--->'''Anna:''' This year is the first time a Brit has won the town crier championships, this is very exciting. Mark Wylie beat off 24 other contestants... \
152	'''James:''' And they were like, "OYEZ!"
153	** Episode 188:
154	--->'''Dan:''' We used to play in Australia (for sports): you would sit on a big wooden pole, and you'd each have a pillow and you'd try and wack each other off-- uh, sorry-- \
155	'''Andy:''' I wasn't aware you had such a traditional education, Dan!
156	* ThrowTheDogABone: In episode 105, James shares a fact that in 19th century America people treated agalactia (women's inability to produce breast milk) by putting pancakes on the affected breasts, which prompts the following exchange:
157	-->'''James:''' I don't know what they thought it would do, but you would put a warm pancake on the breast, and then when it got cold you put another warm one on, and keep doing that for a couple of hours and then-- \
158	'''Andy:''' What would they do with all the cooled breast pancakes? \
159	'''James:''' Just make some new pancakes, Andy! \
160	'''Andy:''' That's very wasteful! You could give them to... perverts!
161	* WeirdnessCensor: In episode 82 Dan [[YouHaveToBelieveMe argues... passionately]] that stick insects are clearly [[WhenTreesAttack plants that have gained animacy]], but we all choose to believe they're just some bizarre kind of insect because we can't comprehend the truth.

Context Podcast / NoSuchThingAsAFish