Shout Out / Taskmaster

Taskmaster tropes index
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This is the Shout-Out page for the UK version of Taskmaster

In General

• The large portrait picture that hangs in the living room of the Taskmaster house is always a mugshot of Greg that is done in the style of a famous picture, or a general art style. This changes for each series:
  • Series One has the picture reference Andy Warhol's "Shot Marilyns".
  • Series Two's painting references Le Sommeil (Sleep) by Salvador Dali.
  • Series Three has a picture that seems to be based off Roy Lichenstein's "Oh Jeff, I love you too, but..." image.
  • Series Four has a picture of Greg painted in the style of Vincent van Gogh's self-portraits.
  • Series Five has the picture parody René Magritte's Son Of Man.
  • Series Six has a portrait that references M.C Escher's "Hand with reflective Sphere".
  • Series Seven generally homages Pablo Picasso's "Cubism" style, but specifically riffs on Seated Woman.
  • Series Eight has a picture that is an original piece made for the show, which references various anime villain tropes; Greg with Tsurime Eyes and an Eye Patch Of Power, holding a Classy Cane with a metal hand.
  • Series Nine has a picture of Greg made up of vegetables, in the style of the painting "Vertumnus", originally painted by Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
  • Series Ten adopts a "western" theme, with the picture of Greg being styled as a colourised old-timey photograph of him dressed as Wild Bill Hickock.
  • The New Year Treats have a "golden age of silent cinema" theme, with Greg's portrait being a homage to Buster Keaton.
  • Series Eleven is themed around Soviet "socialist realism"-style art/propaganda, with the portrait of Greg naturally referencing over-the-top homages to Stalinist dictators. One wonders how it took them so long.
  • Series Twelve is themed around Steampunk, and the portrait depicts Greg wearing a mechanical monocle on his left eye, and a bicorne with a pair of goggles perched on top.
  • Series Thirteen is Mexican-themed. In his portrait, Greg dons a sombrero and calavera face paint, which is commonly seen at Día de Muertos celebrations.
  • Series Fourteen is themed after circuses and the living room features a lot of circus-related art and objects on the walls. The portrait is of Greg in a ringleader costume with the words "Cirque de Tâches" ("circus of tasks").
  • Series Fifteen is themed around psychedelia subculture, which came to prominence in the 1960s. The portrait is the style of a groovy 60s poster for "Taskonbury" (a reference to the final task of series 5, in "Their Water's So Delicious"), and features a panoply of references to that task and other musical and other tasks.
  • Series Sixteen is themed around The Roaring '20s and Art Deco. Greg's portrait is modeled on the poster for the 1927 German silent film Metropolis.
• Greg will occasionally reference Lord of the Flies to describe task attempts that see careful, orderly planning descend into absolute chaos (For example, Josh, Roisin and Romesh's attempt to get to 11 points in the squash court in the episode "Down an Octave").
• In Series 2 and 3, there is a mural on the side of the Taskmaster House of Greg holding some balloons resembling Banksy's well-known Girl With Balloon. The mural gets referenced again for series 11's "Absolute Casserole" where Mike and Lee took inspiration from it by stenciling Alex's outline for the "vandalize the wall" task.
• Occasionally Alex will sneak a subtle little shout-out into his tasks:
  • The "get this camel through the smallest gap" task in "Spatchcock It" is a reference to The Bible, specifically Matthew 19:24 ("Again, I tell you it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."). If they realise, none of the contestants comment on it.
  • In the "make your way back to your starting spot after walking away blindfolded" task in "Boing Boing", the contestants are given a slice of bread without explanation — a clear reference to the Trail Of Breadcrumbs from Hansel and Gretel. In this case, only Bob Mortimer picks up on it immediately (though both Aisling Bea and Mark Watson realise eventually, but after they've already started).
  • Two separate references to "The Twelve Days of Christmas" have popped up in tasks. Series 9 has one task in which contestants are given 5 minutes to find as many as 5 golden rings hidden around the lab with hands clasped together. Series 10 has a task to dial a number the fastest where the phone digits are clues hidden in a series of lockers, some of which include three French hens (life-size chicken figures wearing berets). Katherine Parkinson even stops to sing the song to herself when she finds the three hens.

Series One

• In "Little Denim Shorts," during her attempt to make Fred the Swede blush, Roisin describes the three-breasted woman from Total Recall (1990) in an attempt to unnerve Fred. The reference isn't brought up in the studio record; however, on the companion podcast, Ed Gamble is delighted and baffled why Roisin would use that as a method of making Fred blush.
• For Roisin, Romesh, and Josh's homemade Blooper in "The Last Supper", when Greg asked why the camerawork was so shoddy, Roisin (who was manning the camera) claims she was "Blair Witch-ing" it.

Series Two

• In "Pork Is a Sausage", for a task involving creating a music video out of a nursery rhyme, Richard Osman makes a homage to The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony while singing "she'll be coming round the mountain". He also framed it as a YouTube video, complete with a skippable advert prefacing the music video.

Series Three

• In "The Dong and the Gong", Paul Chowdhry shouts "SHORYUKEN!" during the balloon popping task. After his attempt was shown, he name-drops Mortal Kombat, causing Greg to mistakenly think that he had gotten the earlier reference, but Paul clarified, and he pointed out it's from Street Fighter.
• In "The F.I.P", Al Murray's submission for the "do something that looks amazing sped up or slowed down" task is a homage to the iconic Vanity Plate for films produced by the Rank Organisation, which involved a man striking a gong impressively (though in the originals, said man wasn't wearing a toupee which fell off due to his swing).

Series Four

• In "A Fat Bald White Man":
  • Hugh Dennis paints a picture of a black woman that looks like, in Greg's words, "a fat bald white man". At the end of the episode, Greg says "What have we learned today? Well, if you're thinking of being Hugh Dennis' baby, it don't matter if you're black or white."
  • There is a bonus point on offer if any of the contestants guess the full name of the woman behind the curtain. Lolly gets her first name correct (Jennifer) and immediately asks the woman if her name is Jennifer Coolidge of American Pie fame, something which doesn't go unnoticed by Greg.
• In "Hollowing Out a Baguette":
  • Alex refers to Lolly Adefope's attempt at the camouflage task as "a game of Where's Lolly?".
  • The instructions for the movie trailer task are given in a fake trailer that opens with a parody of the Rank Organisation's Vanity Plate — specifically the one Al Murray created as one of his tasks during the previous series.
• In "Friendship is Truth", the prize task is to bring the "Most Surprising Picture Of Themselves". Mel's submission is a photograph of herself digitally inserted into Édouard Manet's The Luncheon on the Grass. Funnily enough, she's staring disapprovingly at the picnic scene.

Series Five

• The live task in "The Leprechaun or the Lesbian" is to draw an animal, vegetable, or mineral whilst wearing the canvas around one's neck. This references the well-known line in the Major General song from The Pirates of Penzance.
• In "Spoony Neeson," Aisling's POV Camera film is a pastiche of the movie Taken (titled Took), where the titular character, a decorated wooden spoon, takes on Liam Neeson 's role in the movie and is voiced by Aisling with a Northern Irish accent.
• In "Their Water's So Delicious":
  • Sally's contribution to the prize task is a large quantity of helium balloons; she warns that if the winner is one of the smaller contestants they're at risk of being wafted away to Paradise Falls.
  • In the song task, Nish introduces himself and Mark as "The Diverse Stripes".

Series Six

• In "The old soft curved padlock", Alice gets assistance for a task from two bystanders named Alvin and Simon; in the studio after watching the playback, she jokes that there was also a Theodore.
• In "We met at mealtimes", while introducing Russell Howard's attempt at a task, Alex says the task is going to be done "Howard's way", like the popular drama about the yachting community.
• One of Asim's obscure animals for the team task charades in the episode "Roadkill Doused in Syrup" is a "three-eyed raven."

Series Seven

• Phil Wang's pre-recorded outfit is a Whole Costume Reference to Bruce Lee's iconic yellow tracksuit from Game of Death.
• One of the tasks in "I Can Hear It Gooping" has the contestants make real-life video game homages. Kerry goes for Tetris with Alex providing the bricks and Kerry being the player, James goes for Grand Theft Auto and even references the infamous "WASTED" screen, Jessica goes for Mario Kart using golf carts and bananas, Phil goes for Goldeneye 64 with intentionally bad first-person camera view recreated by tying his and Alex's left arm behind their backs, and Rhod goes for Space Invaders. For his attempt, he recruits a large amount of people to create real-life space invaders, where Rhod is the player shooting balls at the people descending. James won the task, specifically because his act was so convincing.

Series Eight

• Paul Sinha's pajama-and-bathrobe ensemble for pre-recorded tasks pays homage to Arthur Dent.
• In "Stuck in a Mammal Groove", Alex introduces the "identify what costume Alex Horne is wearing" task by giving it the title The Horne Identity.
• In "I've Been a Bit Ill", Greg at one point misquotes the chorus of Fleetwood Mac's "Little Lies".
• In "Clumpy Swayey Clumsy Man", Sian's entry in the 'tremendous legs' task is a homage to the scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy's house falls on the Wicked Witch, leaving only her legs sticking out. (Sian plays the part of the witch, with Alex as Dorothy and the caravan as the house.)

Series Nine

• In "Join Our Cult", one task has the contestants make the most dramatic entrance. David arrives via Tardis, theme song and everything, as a rather unimpressive Thirteenth Doctor while Jo dresses up as Henry the Eighth and unveils the head of one of his wives (Alex) on a platter. But the real kicker is Rose camouflaging herself in the bushes before she popped out and screamed "STELLA!!!"
• "Butter in the Microwave":
  • A task where the contestants have to locate Alex among 5 wheelie bins while following the 7 commandments. Ed Gamble took an aggressive approach, and in the studio he says that "Everything I did, I did to bins that I thought he might be in" like the Bryan Adams song.
  • In the first part of the live task, David decides to make his ball arrangement by turning his bucket upside-down and piling the balls on the bottom. Whe Alex goes around to observe each arrangement, David lifts the bucket and says "Ambassador, with these plastic balls, you are spoiling us," a nod to the Ferrero Rocher advertisement.
• In "Five Miles Per Day", the object memorisation task has a Cluedo theme, which none of the contestants realises in time for it to help them (one eventually figures it out in the studio). The objects included weapons from the game (gun, rope, knife) and references to characters (mustard, plum, peacock feather).

Series Ten

• The very first recorded task is a two-parter, where the first part is a coconut shy. Alex "rewards" the contestants after they knock the coconut with a stuffed bear, which becomes a handicap for the second part of the task to transport drinks from the phone box to the caravan. The contestants are awarded the big bear if they knock the coconut in the quickest timeframe, a medium-sized bear in a middle timeframe, down to a small bear if they are slowest. In other words, Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear.
• Daisy's submission for the prize entry in "Legit Glass" (best thing that is bigger at the top than the bottom) is a cotton bud with a face pad folded to look like a pirate hat attached on top, which she calls "Captain Budwash."

Series Eleven

• Lee Mack pays homage to famed stunt daredevil Evel Knievel twice:
  • For the pre-recorded tasks, he wears a star-emblazoned white jacket and a crash helmet that is similar to ones Evel Knievel used to wear, though he doesn't go full jumpsuit and just wears a shirt and jeans underneath it.
  • In "Slap and Tong", when tasked with making the best uniform for a bee, Lee transforms his bee into "Bee-vel Knievel", complete with a frozen pea for a helmet. He even tries to make the bee jump a row of buses while riding a motorbike.
• In a task to make the house haunted, Sarah Kendall recreates Danny's (with Alex in his role) encounter with the Grady twins (with Sarah playing both twins) from the film version of The Shining.

Series Twelve

• The picture and "Dignity" quote from Alan's hoodie of his pre-recorded task outfit alludes to the The Simpsons episode "A Milhouse Divided"
• In "The Customised Inhaler," Morgana's attempt at "spread the jam in the coolest way" is a pastiche of In Bed with Madonna (the international title of the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare). Unfortunately for her, the reference was lost on Greg, who thinks that she was having a breakdown.
• The first ad-break transition during the 100th episode "Croissants is Croissants" has this bit
  Greg: Oh, hello. Welcome back to our Taskmaster centenary!
  Alex: It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.
• For the "Propose to Alex" task in "Caring Uncle Minpict", Guz's proposal involves Alex discovering a horse's head in the bed next to him.

Series Thirteen

• The prize task for "Having a Little Chuckle" is 'most surprising thing to find in a wardrobe'. Alex comments that whoever wins will have a wardrobe more surprising than the one that had a lion and a witch in it.
• In "Heg," Sophie recites a monologue from Romeo and Juliet in one task and uses the painting L'Origine du monde by Gustave Courbet as the inspiration behind her edible sculpture of female genitalia.
• In "You Tuper Super":
  • When introducing the "learn Swedish in fifteen minutes" task, Alex name-drops the Swedish version of the show, Bäst i Test. The patriotically coloured dummy with whom they must speak Swedish, bearing an iPad through which they will video conference with Fred the Swede, is revealed to the strains of the Swedish national anthem.
  • Judi's garbled comment to Fred that provided the Title Drop may be an attempt to allude to Abba's Super Trouper, since they're also Swedish.
  • In the live task, when the contestants are asked to write down purple things, Bridget writes "rain."
• In "The House Queens", the final task sees the teams creating and performing a piece of music. Ardal likens Bridget's efforts in her team to Bez's role in Happy Mondays.

Series Fourteen

• In "Crumbs in My Bralette," as part of his defence of selecting a bread bin to fit the entirety of a giant tarpaulin into, Munya claims that he thought there would be a manhole opening just underneath the bin, from which one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would greet him.
• The first task in "The System of Endless Plates" features a pre-task of selecting weapons and locations in the style of Cluedo. The contestants then need to use their chosen weapon to burst 99 red balloons in their chosen location.
• Fern's bizarre prize submission for the best fancy dress in "The One That Bats Do" is from a production that she performed in the past based on the book The Cone Gatherers (with some liberties — none of the characters in the book are aliens).

Series Fifteen

• The live task in "I Love to Squander Promise" is a short test on sausages. Before the test begins, the contestants are given 100 seconds to read a provided fact sheet. The sheet is mocked up in the style of the CGP Revision Guides, a series of textbooks known for its informal and humourous presentation style.
• In "How Heavy Is the Water?", Alex's introduction to the prize task (about things to wear on your head) involves a hypothetical five-headed offspring of Cerberus and Zaphod Beeblebrox.
• In "Old Honkfoot", one of the tasks is "Fake something." Frankie's first thought (although not the one he ends up going with) is to re-enact the fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally....
• In the final episode, all the contestants wear themed outfits for the studio segments; extending the psychedelic theme of the House decor, the outfits are versions of the uniforms featured on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Series Sixteen

• In "Fagin at the Disco," Sue's gift for the Taskmaster is a portrait of Alex in which he is posing mostly nude in the manner of the The Birth of Venus (Botticelli).

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