YMMV / I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue

• Adaptation Displacement: It's been called "the antidote to panel games" for so long, that it's managed to long outlive the serious, non-comedy panel games it was originally an antidote to. The only surviving panel game from its days is Just a Minute, and even that's often subject to Rule of Funny nowadays.
• Archive Binge: 50 years. More than 400 episodes, which means more than 200 hours worth of material. Have fun!
• Awesome Music: This can sometimes be the product of One Song To The Tune Of Another, if the words work really well with the tune. Examples of this include:
  • "My Old Man's A Dustman" to the tune of "Heartbreak Hotel".
  • The theme from The Flintstones to the tune of "My Way".
  • "Killing Me Softly With His Song" to the tune of "The Bear Necessities". Bonus points for Rob Brydon's fantastic singing voice.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Occasionally played with by playing a completely incomprehensible game that makes no sense, then moving onto another round and never playing that game again (such as Wordbuilders in series 56).
  • In an episode being recorded in Swansea where Rob Brydon is the guest:
  Jack Dee: Before our next round, we have something to say to our special guest. Rob Brydon, actor, comedian, author, voice-over artist. You thought you were returning to your hometown in Swansea to take part in a light-hearted Radio 4 panel game. [The This Is Your Life theme plays] ...And you were right, you were. Onto the next round...
  • This moment from a show in 1995 (just before a round of Mornington Crescent)...
  Humph: Our next game's called Numbers, and it's been sent in by a listener, a Mr. N. Moore of Stroud in Gloucestershire, who explains the rules as follows: "Four chairs are arranged in pairs on opposite sides of the room. One team stands and the other is seated. At one point a number is mentioned by either of the two teams, and then the seated team should stand up and the standing team should sit down. However, players should take note to pay special attention for numbers that may be cunningly hidden. For example: Expressions such as 'one dozen', which is only one twelve and not one and twelve, and while 'once' counts as one, 'twice' doesn't count as two; neither does 'third', but 'fourth' qualifies as four. A 'score' does score, but a 'gross' doesn't. And Roman numerals count to their individual digits beyond five. Teams may be ruled out for being too slow or responding to the wrong command which means they miss the next two standing moves. Each player standing must, at all times, hold up a maximum of four fingers..." (audience laughter) "...to no more than the value of the last number to which he made his move, and has to nominate which hand is in play. This can only be changed after a seated move before the standing opposition indicate theirs." Well, I'm relieved to observe that the teams have just about finished playing that round... (audience laughter and applause) So, thank you... thank you, Mr. Moore of Stroud in Gloucestershire, I feel it's certain to become a regular on this programme.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Rob Brydon ending a sweet card from a child to their father with the line, [you're proud of my triumphs, but when thing go wrong...] "you hit me". The audience breaks into shocked laughter and even Jack Dee is utterly taken aback...
  Jack Dee: Radio 4 would like to point out that not all households are the same as the Brydons.
• Fan Nickname: A common way of identifying episodes is by naming them after the final game, which is almost always Late Arrivals or some variation such as Film Club.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In an episode from 1995 where, after they both try to speak at once, Willie Rushton says to Barry Cryer, "No, you go first, you're likely to die sooner than me". Willie Rushton died the next year.
  • During a game of predictions in 1986, Willie predicted — to much laughter — that one of the sad events he foresaw for 1996 was his own death that January; he died in December.
  • In 1995, Tim Brooke-Taylor predicted that a 2010 Radio Times would include a listing for "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue with Humphrey Lyttelton, Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden, and Tim and Samantha Brooke-Taylor." Willie, the only one of the regulars left out, died the next year, while the others were all alive up to Humph's death in 2008.
  • Willie often complained about the "___'s Ball" games full of punning names about various subjects. At his last ISIHAC recording, the chosen subject was "Undertaker's Ball," full of puns about death and burial.
  • In a round spoofing the Archers (Series 58, Episode 6), the round ends when an unintelligible Scot starts shooting a village green. Funny at the time of recording, but this aired three days after the shooting in Connecticut in which over twenty people were killed and feelings about guns were rather sensitive. Again, owing to the simple timing (or lack of a sense of timing) of that airing your mileage will probably vary.
  • The episode (first broadcast 20 July 1991) which had for one of its Limericks opening lines: At an orgy with Sir Jimmy Savile will probably never be broadcast in full again.
    • There are several Jimmy Savile jokes like that that have appeared over the years.
    • In episode 1 of season 55, broadcast a mere few months before Savile's death and the subsequent revelations about him, Barry was asked to sing the words of the Jim'll Fix It theme during One Song to the Tune of Another. Jack Dee's comment at the end is uncomfortably accurate:
      Jack: Really rather lovely, wasn't it? Until we all remember Jimmy Savile.
  • Similarly, the game of One Song To The Tune of Another involving a Rolf Harris impression singing "Sexual Healing" to the tune of "Two Little Boys" has taken a horrible new spin.
  • In a similar manner to the Willie Rushton examples above, on his final appearance on the show — recorded barely six months before his death — Jeremy Hardy's turn in the "Mystery Illness" round was that he and Tim were dead. It becomes worse once you learn that he had already been diagnosed with cancer at the time of the recording, and discovered it was terminal not long after. And then barely a year later, Tim died from COVID-19.
  • One of Tim's last recorded episodes, series 72 episode 4, has Jack make a joke about how Tim was offered a place at a retirement home in Coventry, but turned it down because he didn't want to give up his (lack of) career, as Jack says. Hell of a lot less funny given his actual death a few months later.
  • The live tour in early 2020 would have the audience given kazoos, which producer and warmup act Jon Naismith would jokingly warn the audiences had come from China but shouldn't be a risk for catching COVID-19. Fast forward to April 2020, and Tim would sadly be among the many to die from the virus in the UK.
  • The second episode of series 73 has Jack attacking the teams with a paintball shotgun, testing it on Colin Sell first, on the grounds that Colin is expendable while the comedians aren't. The episode was the last one Tim recorded before his death. Even worse, a few minutes later, Jack "shoots" Tim as well (the joke is Jack's shooting everyone for frivolous reasons, but it's still awkward as all hell).
  • The intros to Sound Charades that involved Innocent Innuendo aimed at Lionel Blair can be seen as this, given the revelation that his children were brutally bullied at school over it.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The tributes to both Willie and Humph are actually quite sweet, given the cynical nature of the show.
  • The tributes to Jeremy Hardy, unofficial Sixth Ranger, which continued into the booklets for 2020.
  • The live show in Watford in January 2020 would see Barry in the audience most of the show, only to come onto the stage for the final act. The crowd gave him a standing ovation.
• Growing the Beard: Once Barry became a panellist in the second series the show, the show began to gain some stubble, which grew into a full length beard when Willie Rushton (the only regular panellist to have a beard in fact) joined the show in 1974.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In a 2003 episode the teams played a round of Mornington Crescent by American rules.
  Humph: "Any Bush related move will trump.
• Memetic Mutation: Mainly Mornington Crescent. There's also Barry Cryer's distinctive 'filthy laugh'; Dead Ringers once suggested the BBC could improve more serious Radio 4 programmes by dubbing it in at random intervals.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • "Hamish!" "Dougal! You'll have had yuir tea."
  • "Now it's time to play the game of Mornington Crescent."
  • "Mrs. Trellis of North Wales."
• Once Original, Now Common: At the time ISIHAC was introduced, it was an innovative subversion of the far more serious panel shows of its time. Nowadays, it's still funny but it's no longer unique, having been imitated by the likes of Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
• Overly Long Gag: The set-up for One Song To The Tune Of Another; occasionally, also the set-up for Uxbridge English Dictionary.
• Signature Song: Some tunes show up a lot in "Pick-Up Song", "Swanee Kazoo", "One Song to the Tune of Another" (sometimes as the words and sometimes as the tune) and any other game involving music, including "A Whiter Shade of Pale", A, You're Adorable, When I'm Cleaning Windows and the theme from Swan Lake.
• Tear Jerker: The deaths of both Willie Rushton and Humph hit the fanbase and the panel pretty badly, to put it mildly. Though he was only a regular, Jeremy Hardy's death had a major impact too ... as did Tim's death at the hands of COVID-19 in April 2020.
  • Tim's death was already sad enough, but the show was able to get his last two recorded episodes to air... the first one begins with, for One Song to the Tune of Another, Tim singing the lyrics of "The Funky Gibbon". Of all the songs to choose...
  • The first episode from Tim's final recording opened with a short introduction by Jack Dee, dedicating the broadcast to Tim and thanking his widow, Christine, for giving permission for the episodes to be aired.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some people's reaction to the decision to keep going with the show after Humph's death. However, after Stephen Fry, Rob Brydon and Jack Dee all hosted two shows each (recorded in a single session then broadcast over two evenings) Jack Dee has filled the Chairman's slot on a permanent basis, having hosted every series since then.

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