Series / Have You Been Paying Attention?

An Australian Panel Game in a somewhat similar vein to the BBC's Have I Got News for You (though with a larger focus on the "quiz" side of things, as the contestants actually score more than five points), Have You Been Paying Attention?, as its intro suggests, tests a group of five comedians/radio personalities on the week's events.

Made by Working Dog Productions in 2013 for Network 10 and presented by Tom Gleisner, the show, like similar British shows, also has a pair of regulars in the form of Ed Kavalee and Sam Pang.

A New Zealand version of the show began broadcasting in July 2019.

Rounds

Like many quiz shows, each episode of HBYPA? picks from a pool of rounds; some being permanent fixtures while others drop in and out to fill the gaps as needed.

Regular Rounds:

• "Subject Rounds": The first couple of rounds in each episode are often grouped by a common category, the most common of which being Showbiz and Sport.
• "Guest Quizmaster": Often taking place around the middle of the show, the Guest Quizmaster rounds - usually one per episode, though having two isn't unheard of - have a celebrity guest ask a few questions relating to the field for which they're best known, such as Osher Günsberg asking questions about The Bachelor or Adam Liaw^note The Series 2 winner of MasterChef Australia asking questions about MasterChef Australia.
• "Rapid Recall": The final round of the show, Rapid Recall is the quick-fire round in which the contestants get a last opportunity to score. Or crack more jokes, as is often the case.

Other Rounds:

• "Either/Or": A round format which challenges each of the contestants to watch a video clip and take a 50/50 choice based on it. Over the years, multiple challenges have been derived from it, including:
  • "Over Or Under": After watching a clip from RBT, they guess whether the person depicted was over or under the Australian blood-alcohol limit (0.05%).
  • "Trash Or Treasure": After watching a clip from Antiques Roadshow, the guess whether the item was valued as either Trash (anything below £1000) or Treasure (anything above £1000).
• "Going, Going, Gone": The contestants are asked questions about an item sold at auction, with the aim being to determine what the item is/was famous for or, in the case of it having a famous owner, who originally owned it.
• "Identify These International Versions of Reality TV Formats": Each contestant is shown a clip from international reality TV, their task being to correctly guess both the show and the country in which it was shown.
• "Animal News": Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Contestants are asked questions about news stories involving animals.

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This show contains examples of:

• Addictive Foreign Soap Opera: The show introduced a new one-on-one round in 2020 called "Binge This!". In it, contestants are shown an untranslated clip from a foreign language show currently streaming on Netflix, and asks to guess what happens next. The show has included soap operas and dramas from South Korea, India, the Philippines, Mexico and South America. What happens next is usually fascinating and almost never what the contestant has guessed. Events have included a massacre by bandits, ghostly possession, and multiple characters being hit with foodstuffs (usually on a Korean soap opera).
• Australian Accent: Gets used and parodied on the show (typically against a New Zealand accent).
• Big Entrance: After one of his rare wins, Sam Pang was conspicuously absent at the panel in the following episode. Until, that was, Tom begrudgingly - due to "contractual obligations" - announced him as "Last Week's Winner, Mr. Sam Pang", whereupon he came out from backstage to a musical fanfare, dressed in a tuxedo and drinking a celebratory cocktail.
• Black Humor: Gets used on occasion, as would be expected from a comedy show.
• Bottom of the Barrel Joke: When Tom introduced the desperate sounding 'Nobel or Netflix' round, Anne Edmonds asked:
  So what does the bottom of the barrel actually look like?
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Sam Pang, to the point that jokes are made about him even when he's absent from the episode.
  • Tom is far from immune to jokes about his height, age or position as a gameshow host either.
• Catchphrase:
  • Sam Pang: [when he thinks that Tom has spent too long talking to guests]: "Can we move on?" Also a Borrowed Catchphrase, used by other contestants.
• Crazy Cat Lady: Regular guest Kitty Flanagan is portrayed as this any time she is on. Often by herself.
• Dark Horse Victory: On eight occasions in 150 episodes - the first of which not occurring until the middle of Series 4 - Sam Pang managed to win. Compare that to fellow regular panellist Ed Kavalee, who has been the winner in almost a third of all episodes. Though, despite that, Sam Pang is actually third in number of overall wins.
  Tom Gleisner: Still coming to terms with last week's extraordinary events; the first ever victory for Sam Pang. And Sam's win has made news around the world!
  <The screen cuts to a clip of North Korean news with an inset picture of a jubilant Sam in the top corner, much to everyone's amusement>
• Dog Food Diet: In the 29 June 2023 episode, Tom's regular self-deprecating insert into sponsor Mitsubishi's ad had him eating a can of dog food. Cue several gags from the panel about the cost of living crisis.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": After Kanye West announced that he was changing his 'Ye', Sam Pang said that if the name 'Kanye West' was now available, he'd have it. He then refused to answer the next several questions unless Tom addressed him as 'Kanye'.
• "El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Niño": The panelists were asked to define certain words coined during the Corona virus lockdown. While puzzling out 'trikini'^note a two-piece swimsuit and a face mask, Sam Pang offered "'tri' is Latin for three, and 'kini' is Latin for...kini".
• French Maid Outfit: In the episode first broadcast on 24 July 2023, the Running Gag of having Tom inserted into the ad for the sponsor Nissan Pajero had him dressed in a French maid outfit. Needless to say, this piece of Fan Disservice got callbacks from the panel for the rest of the night.
• Guest Host: Chrissie Swan replaces Tom for episodes he is unavailable to host.
  • Hayley Sproull also hosted one episode...in which Tom's only "appearance" was during the Once an Episode car ad, bound and gagged in the back of the car. It was lampshaded during this episode if the questions come faster than usual, it's because Tom's not hosting.
• Hypocritical Humor: Whenever Tom makes a Crossing the Line Twice joke, Sam is often the one who scolds or comments on it despite making jokes on the same level or worse.
• I Call Him "Mister Happy":
  • Following the death of Paul Orndorff:
  Chrissie Swan: Mr. Wonderful died this week. Who was Mr. Wonderful?
  Kitty Flanagan: Isn't that what Marty calls his penis?
  • After wrestling fan Sam Pang talked about how the first WrestleMania featured tag-team match of Mr. Wonderful and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper vs. Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, there was this exchange:
  Marty Sheargold: I call my penis all of those.
  Chrissie Swan: (quizzically) "Rowdy" Roddy Piper?
  Marty Sheargold; That's my favourite.
  • Contestants were shown a picture of a silver toy which bore an unfortunate resemblance to a dildo and asked to identify what it it was. After much hilarity, Ed finally got around to giving the correct answer:
  Ed Kavalee: It's Jeff Bezos's spaceship...Blue Origin.
  Anne Edmonds: That's what he calls it.
• I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: After Urzila Carlson gives an even more left field answer than usual in "Binge This", Tom responds:
  I can't believe I'm about to use this phrase, but...Let's see if you're right.
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • Tom describes a group of salmon swimming across a road as a school crossing and receives the appropriate responses from Sam and the audience.
• Noodle Incident: During a round of 'What's the Point?'—where the panellists have to identify what product, service or organisation is being advertised from the snippet of an ad played by Tom—Marty Shergold commented:
  It feels like it's chicken-related...But it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong about that.
• Not So Above It All: Tom likes to play Team Dad to the contestants by scolding them for off-colour remarks and trying to steer the show back on-rails. He's not immune to making the occasional snarky comment and has a tendency to duck his head to avoid smiling at jokes the contestants make.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: Tom once introduced Lloyd Langford as "our favourite jazz-loving Welshman", before admitting it's a very narrow field.
• Pungeon Master: Celia, so much that her highlight reel on her 50th episode was nothing but all the puns she'd made on the show.
• Running Gag:
  • Sam Pang is subject to a few:
    • Jokes based on his Chinese heritage ^note He's usually the only Asian on the panel, although Lizzy and Aaron have helped to balance that out in recent years.
    • Reactions of surprise whenever he gets a question correct.
    • His questionable taste in shirts also comes up quite often. Urzila Carson in particularly regularly refers to anything he wears as a blouse.
    • His stint hosting the unsuccessful quiz show ADbc also comes up frequently.
    • His appearances at the Logies as a representative of the show also get a few mentions; most notably, he was the host of the 2023 Logies.
    • Answering any question regarding the identity of a musician with "The steady hand of Conrad Sewell".
  • Ed Kavalee has made a side career out of participating in promotional ads. This has even come up in quiz questions.
  • Starting in Series 7 / 2019, Tom asking a question about the news story they've just discussed and getting a reply in the form of a clip from a newsreader or journalist somewhere in the world answering the question and ending with "Back to you, Tom" or some variant. Adding to this is the additional running gag of Sam Pang's increasing exasperation with this bit.
    • This was ditched eventually to introduce the Mitsubishi ad running gag, where in Tom is always involved in their ads from live-action cameos to being Photoshopped in their still-pictures.
  • Many of the recurring guests have their own running gags, including:
    • Glen Robbins' total lack of understanding of modern technology.
    • Mick Molloy being involved in something criminal, or under some sort of court order.
    • Marty Sheargold being The Alcoholic and a Dirty Old Man.
    • Tony Martin usually cops it for having achieved the lowest score of any contestant in the history of the show. And the dated nature of his pop culture references.
    • Lloyd Langford's 'Jazz Cave' (It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context).
    • Kitty Flanagan being a Crazy Cat Lady or jokes relating to her show on a competing channel, Fisk.
    • Anne Edmonds' Lethal Chef-level attempts at baking.
    • Celia Pacquola's increasingly desperate status as a single woman in her late 30s. Eventually Running Gagged as she had become pregnant with her partner in 2022.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: Anne Edmonds once made a joke about someone pitching an actual shark tank to Shark Tank (the Australian version of Dragons' Den) which fell completely flat. Not content to let the joke die, Anne kept returning the joke throughout the episode; adding additional information to the shark tank pitch, and explaining why it was funny. By the end of the episode, it was hilarious: not because the joke was any funnier, but just because of her sheer doggedness and desperation, and the refusal of anyone else on the show to get drawn into this train wreck.
  • Similarly, in one episode, Peter Helliar kept trying to introduce Lindy Chamberlain as a punchline. The situations got increasingly more absurd that people started laughing after a few attempts.
• Team Dad: Tom, naturally, since he's the host. He does have Not So Above It All moments where he makes off-color jokes, though.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Ed Kavalee's wife Tiffiny Hall once appeared as a guest to ask questions. Hayley Sproull was in shock that they were married. (Somewhat lampshaded when Tiffiny says her type is weird guys with big noses.)
• Verbal Tic: Ed Kavalee greeting Tom Gleisner in response to getting introduced at the start of just about every episode in which he appears, usually with something to the effect of, "Hello Tommy. Hello everyone."
• Waxing Lyrical: Melanie Bracewell responds to a Robbie Williams question with a lyric from his song Angels.