Ep 192. Guy Montgomery - TM NZ S2 Ep.2

Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast.

It's me, Ed Gamble, and today we are talking Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2, episode 2.

Been so fun watching this series back.

I absolutely love it.

And we're only just getting started.

Last week, of course, we had the wonderful David Karaos.

And today we have another contestant from Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2.

It's the fantastic Guy Montgomery.

Guy Montgomery makes a return to the Taskmaster podcast after a few years.

Delighted to have him back.

Absolutely wonderful.

Guy is a brilliant Taskmaster contestant, of course.

But you should also know that Guy is a wonderful stand-up comedian.

I'm sure you guys know.

I'm sure you'll follow his work.

And you should know that he is releasing a stand-up special on his YouTube channel very, very soon.

It might even be out already.

But keep an eye out.

We'll find out more about that from Guy later on in the show.

But for now, this is the Taskmaster podcast, Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2, Episode 2, as discussed by Guy Montgomery.

Welcome back, Guy, to the Taskmaster podcast.

Thank you so much, Ed.

Welcome back to you as well.

Obviously, you were here last week, for me a little longer, but isn't it nice to be back in the saddle?

It is, it is absolutely, even though I'm very used to this saddle, but

you have not seen this saddle since I'm being told December 2021.

And I've been counting down the days.

You're always so genial at the end.

You always say, come back anytime.

And then, you know, it's hard to know how serious you are if it's just a flippant throwaway kind of sign-off.

So

honestly, it's a...

It's a weight off my shoulders to be back.

I thought maybe I committed some sort of podcasting faux pas.

Well, when I say come back anytime,

this is one of the times.

This is a

time of time.

You style yourself as like a late-night talk show host, and you have sort of this crazy power and agency where you go, come back anytime.

And then afterwards, I go, did you really mean that?

And you go, yeah, yeah, my people will be in touch.

Yeah, we'll be in touch.

We'll be in touch within the next four years.

Years pass.

I had to create my own TV show to while away the hours while I was waiting for an email from you about this.

But what a TV show it is.

I feel like, if anything, you know, me leaving you hanging on the line a little bit too long has created a truly wonderful thing.

Well, that's actually why I wanted to get back on the line.

I wanted to thank you and

let you know what portion of the earnings you are due during the year.

Thank you very much.

I know there's millions kicking around there.

That's right.

Once you get that NZ TV money, baby, things start feeling pretty different.

They're really shelling out for the old spelling bee.

Yeah.

It is fantastic.

I got an opportunity to come and do the show live, a live version at the Melbourne Comedy Festival a couple of years ago.

That's right.

And had a real ball.

That was a memorable episode.

Yes, it was fun.

That was a lot of fun.

Taskmaster alumni Tim Key made a real meal of himself.

He did.

He came out all guns blazing, very aggressive.

You don't know which sort of Tim Key you're going to get, really, but he came out really you know

full full balls out ready to rock uh and then and then really really failed at the end didn't he well he yeah you got you it's true actually because tim was someone i admired before i met and then it takes a while to penetrate you know the character of tim key to get to the core of tim key yeah and the tim key that night was he was full performance tim key it was in the same room he was doing his show in which he was a bit of a

sorry to swear but a bit of a fuck towards audience members.

It was all folded and it was very neat.

And he was creaming it, he was talking trash, he was winning.

And then during the drinks round, there was a round where you had to sip a drink and spell the drink.

And he drank all the drinks, and then he just absolutely capitulated and finished last.

Yeah, it was very good.

And the TV show is absolutely fantastic, guys.

So well done to you.

And thank you to me, it turns out.

The other reason I came on is because I'm doing a recap podcast.

It's called Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont Spellingby's Mont Podcastery.

And I'd like to invite you to be on the first episode.

I'll be there in a shot.

Absolutely.

You know that.

I'll do

any of your podcast ideas.

Why, thank you.

And hey, can I ask on a personal note?

How are you, man?

Did you get that thing sorted out?

Yeah, it's all sorted now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, just still recovering, but it's all sorted.

Thank you.

So happy to hear.

Now, not been on for a while, but we wanted to get you back, of course, Guy, because we are finally talking about Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2, which you're on.

Yeah, I know.

It was actually crazy.

I listened to your episode last week with David.

Lovely to hear from him.

And

then I thought, I'm going to have to watch the show.

And I watched it when it came out, but

I guess I stopped watching it after I watched it.

And so it was kind of,

crazy.

It was just like a portal back in time.

Have you ever re-watched your season?

Well, yeah, for this.

And then,

of course, watched it when it went out, re-watched it for this.

And then I did re-watch an episode of it the other day because I saw someone had done

a YouTube reaction video.

What did they make of your character?

Oh, yeah, they loved me.

They're very positive.

I can't remember the name of the guy now, but it's an American guy, seems to love Taskmaster.

It's got to be said, popped up a algorithm.

Positive

fan community in the world has got to be the Taskmaster fans.

Yes.

They are

unwaveringly positive.

But that's the vibe of the show, isn't it, really?

Yeah.

It's not a nasty show in any sense.

So I think you can't be going on there slinging bullets at people for

if I was sort of writing an article for The Guardian, discussing, I'd call it like a bomb for our times.

I'd say something like that.

And people seem to like that.

Yeah, people love that.

Prize task, the hottest thing.

Now, we should first of all talk about your line of t-shirts that you wore throughout the whole series, featuring a young Paul.

Yeah, that was,

I think the initial idea was just to get the teenage Paul in for the

out in the world.

And then

talking to, I believe it was Sasha, the costume, the wardrobe lady who was doing the

studio.

We talked about getting this tranche of Paul Williams photos just for personal use.

And then we realized that we were sitting on a pretty hot little premise there.

So this was a real, I really like this one.

It was a very sweet Paul, a young tinker bell.

You can see sort of the essence of his

ambitions for the stage, I guess.

You know, you can see the showman in him, even in

the young version of him on the t-shirt.

And I really like watching in the edit, like, because obviously you can't, there's only so much time in an episode of television.

You can't acknowledge

everything every time.

And so, the first one, I think, it was acknowledged.

The second one, Paul's sort of still getting his head around it.

And then from here forth in the season, I'm fairly confident it's just for anyone who's paying attention to the t-shirts.

Yeah, they don't have time to, they've got a lot of stuff to get through, right?

They don't have time to do a whole new section every week based on your t-shirt.

Let's have a look at Guy's t-shirt again.

It's actually another idea for a podcast.

Okay, it's called Talking T-shirts.

And I get people on and they talk about their favorite t-shirt and, you know, the favorite time they wore it.

And

then we go through other t-shirts.

So it's another one.

You're welcome to come on anytime, actually.

Thank you.

You know, I'll be there.

I mean, mean, that's, I can totally imagine that being a real podcast.

I have totally conceived of it once as a serious podcast.

Talking t-shirts.

And it should end with you talking about your dream t-shirt.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A t-shirt you don't have, but you can imagine having.

I've got loads of t-shirts I could talk about, genuinely, mate.

So just, yeah, drop me an email.

The hottest thing.

Let's talk about yours first of all, seeing as you're here.

This is a lovely bit of business.

A slice of tomato from the middle of a toasted sandwich.

That's right.

Great, great observation, nailed on solid stuff.

It is honestly.

And, you know, sometimes with the prize tasks, how yours performs, you know, it's relative to where it falls in the lineup.

And I feel like there was sort of, you know, your classic literal stroke impractical inventions that people had done.

You you know, Matt, the elevation.

So, Matt had gotten the photo and put it on a heater.

Laura got a photo and put it on an iron.

Oh, no, I had the actual iron for the photo shoot.

Yeah.

David had put deep heat on it.

And so when you come up last, and it's just like it's, you know, it's baseline stand-up comedy.

It's going, have you ever noticed how the tomato and the toastie is a bit hot?

And you could hear the audience going, it is a bit hot.

I'll tell you, it felt sensational in the room because I remember I was up and down on the prize tasks.

And so when you have one come through, you think, shit, I am caning it tonight.

Yeah.

The audience were crying out for it.

They were like,

this is a joke we understand.

We agree with this.

It is hot.

We've all been burned by the tomato.

It's not like super complicated.

There's not nine levels of heat for me to get through.

No, no.

There we go.

Yeah.

I noticed Laura try and...

trying to get a dig in on your tomato by saying, oh, when was the toasty made?

Insinuating that it's not not hot now,

but

the iron was plugged in.

Yeah, that's not the point.

It's to represent the heat.

It is there to represent the notion of a slice of tomato in a toasted sandwich.

Laura and I are incredibly close friends, and this is something we've discussed before, and I know you can relate to, but you can see the seeds of our competitive relationship are being sown early on there.

I think, I don't know if this is fair, I think you can seal your competitiveness better than Laura does.

Perhaps.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think we both take turns, you know.

I think

it's such a fun thing.

That's one of the funniest parts about Taskmaster, it's nonsense.

And you just have to watch David.

Actually, I tell you, everyone was making me laugh so much in this episode.

But you have to watch anyone else to learn that it is not about winning and it is not about,

it doesn't matter.

But in the back of my head, what was happening is I kept thinking,

well, if we get to five seasons in in New Zealand and they run a champion of champions, because it is just the best job you can get, I'm thinking, I'm never going to get to do this again.

It's bittersweet, the whole thing, because you think it's never going to happen again.

And so you want to win just

for the chance

that you might get to run it back.

And can I actually ask, as someone who got to compete in Champion of Champions, did it scratch the itch?

Did it satisfy you the way it did doing it the first time?

No, because it was one episode.

So imagine building up like that, doing a whole series, being like, I'm going to win, I've got to win and get champion of champions, then you turn up to do champion of champions.

It's one day filming, and the pressure you put on yourself to do good stuff is awful.

And then, I mean, if you've seen what I did, I'd fucked it up massively on multiple occasions.

I have not, but I love to hear it.

Oh, man.

I'd say too.

It's too exciting.

Yeah.

No, I fucked up every task.

Yeah, I was fucked out in all the tasks.

That's even better.

as a you know as a producer that's what we want to see happen to Ed Gamble on champion of champions after you scrapped so hard to make it yeah yeah my prize task was very good but I knew it had to be good because I knew what I'd done in the house

real bad man it was real bad stuff um let's talk about David's uh prize uh

The mask the mask of his face, which honestly, I don't know how he manages to nail this every every time.

Everything he does or makes seems slightly from sort of a psychopathic place.

Yeah.

The way the mask's made is evidence, isn't it?

When you see the back end with the deep heat on it, you can see the $2 price tag.

And then on the front, you've got this sort of,

you know, his perfect...

He is...

It's like there's a level of functional practicality he has.

And also then the essence of rushing kind of just melds so beautifully on so many of his projects.

And you could really see that lit across the mask.

I mean, you know, and I heard him discussing it last week, but I remember sitting there in the first episode and watching what he was doing and thinking, this guy is like a savant.

This guy is actually unstoppable.

And, you know, really believing that I was just going to be watching the David Corral show.

And in a way, we were.

But then you get into the second episode and you can see that the beautiful mind's not always so beautiful.

I feel like this episode is where David really announces himself to the world.

Yes, and in doing so, I have a belief that he kind of helps crack open the season for the rest of us.

We can all kind of organize ourselves around reacting to what David's done and sort of

made for a very exciting energy in the studio.

Yes, I mean, we will get to what David does in this episode a little bit later on, but there's a couple of just motifs that he creates

that are outstanding.

Laura as we as we mentioned briefly brings in an iron which represents the iron covering Jeremy Scrotch in an advert.

Now as

a non-New Zealander I obviously don't know much about sort of Jeremy's history within the world of modelling or

indeed his career.

Was that something that you'd seen before?

My understanding, Jeremy was such an influential comedic figure and

also evidently always such a beautiful specimen, like man.

And so he cut his teeth on a show called Havoc and Newsboy and then he got through and he did something called Eating Media Lunch, which was sort of our iteration of, I suppose, brass eye and sort of had a very strong countercultural voice.

And then did a few other, he did an unauthorized history of New Zealand, did something with the Symphony Orchestra, and then kind of pulled back somewhat from the public eye.

And in doing so, I think started an ad company or a small ad production house that produced ads that are contract with an energy company.

And I don't remember the particulars about it, but I know that he also fronted the ads.

And so this is from that sort of era of the Jeremy Wells, you know,

so he pulled back from the public eye apart from taking all his clothes off for a billboard.

That's right.

Yeah.

But and but you know,

it didn't even, the irony of that didn't even occur to me.

To me, that's still him withdrawing from the public eye.

Well, look, if you've got the goods, flaunt it.

But

this is what's amazing about him and what makes him such a unique figure is he now fronts the show.

It would be like if Chris Morris was hosting like, you know, Good Morning Britain or some magazine style show in terms of how disorienting it was for a specific generation of New Zealanders to see someone who had been satirising the thing for so long, then just sort of without even a wink, just step into the role and act like everything was totally normal.

But that's lovely, isn't it?

Because then even the most serious news,

you can have a little chuckle, can't you?

Because you can imagine.

Well, you can, if you watch it, you can still see he's sliding some through just for him in case anyone, you know, anyone there are strays flying left and right.

Yeah, beautiful.

I mean, this was great.

I mean, the image being put up in the studio, outstanding stuff.

Great reaction from the audience.

Similar to what

Matt brought in as well obviously

Matt and Jeremy have a shared history in the in the world of show business

and this this photo is very very tender

yeah it's quite it's it's it's really quite nice they built something beautiful together with their breakfast radio show and spin-off podcast it broke up at the end of last year but

Again, I think seeing the photo and then also being in the studio and knowing of that pre-existing dynamic and having that feed into the kind of, you know, the cocktail of what we were making,

it was lovely to see.

And it's, you know, it's always nice, I think, I think, of Rod and Greg's relationship, or when you see someone digging through their shared archive to hold it up in front of them, especially when the taskmaster's in this assumed role of authority.

It's always

a fun thing to see.

I don't think it needed to be a heater as well.

I think he overaged the pudding there.

Yeah, Matt, I don't know.

He's

again,

just watching his brain sort of unspool throughout the season.

Every, you know, like,

it's just, this is what you've got to love about it.

And what you don't realise until you're doing it, you're just opening up your brain and you're showing it to everyone.

And that's Matt, isn't it?

He probably, it was enough.

And then I could see him getting in his head and thinking, no, I need another.

He would have been asking around, you know, like, I can see him panicking.

Matt's so funny.

I was not aware of Matt before watching this series.

And

he just goes for it, doesn't he?

And that's what's really funny about him.

There's no, because there's not that filter of going, oh, should I do this?

Should I not do this?

He just absolutely throws himself into everything.

Yeah,

there's almost a

not that it really rears its head in this, but I think there's a generational permission or lack of permission that he asks for to do anything.

He just assumes he can do it.

And, you know, like, he,

yeah,

he's fantastic.

And then Urs, of course,

is just so down the line.

She just does what she sees, like the hottest thing.

She just does this photo shoot.

So funny.

She sees the field.

The photo, did she have that taken for the show, or is that something that was pre-existing?

And if so, why did she have it taken?

My understanding is she did it for the show, but I could be wrong.

No, well, that makes more sense.

Because I was thinking if that wasn't for the show,

why has she done that?

And

I don't want to tell someone else's story, and I don't want to disappoint any listeners, but obviously, I checked with her, and they're not in her nipples.

They're not her nipples, they're not her nipples, no.

So, was it a Photoshop situation, or is she wearing some sort of nipple prosthetic name?

I think they're prosthetic nipples.

Okay, good to know.

Good to know.

And pretty light ones, too.

Yeah, they are, and she was very proud of them.

I loved when she started saying, You can see a bit of nip in there, and Jeremy had to go, yeah, no, we know, we can see.

Yeah, yeah, we just weren't mentioning them.

Uh, Laura gets two points.

My producer, Daisy, has just written underscored here.

She's very angry, thinks Laura's has been underscored.

But

Jeremy has given Matt two points as well.

I think it's his presence in the picture that has really

he is, he doesn't, he doesn't engage with his own persona or output.

Again, I know you're going to spot the irony of casting yourself in the energy ads, but

I sincerely believe he probably thought, I don't really want to have to see that, and scored accordingly.

But also, you know, it's a fool's errand.

You're going to get caught in a lot of arguments with yourself if you start quibbling about Jeremy's scores.

He's out there, he's just, you know,

who's that artist who just sprays paint everywhere?

He's very famous.

Banksy?

No, well, he does, but they sort of coalesce into pictures.

No, he's a very famous artist.

He just did paintings where he just put shit everywhere.

Someone Rockwell, Norman Rockwell, is that a name?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense, yeah.

You said to spot the irony with the the electrical ads.

I did spot the irony, it was over his penis.

This is why you get the big hosting gigs.

Yes, I just want you to know when you were trying to think of the name of the artist, I was not engaged in that because I was waiting for my moments.

It didn't feel like it.

You do glaze over the irony.

And for what?

It does.

It actually complicates.

If you think too long about pronouncing the word irony and iron,

it does get confusing.

It does, because ion, it's iron and ion are close together.

Anyway, I mean, we're all David.

This is great for my podcast.

It'd be good spelling, but that'd be a good spelling one.

Now, David gets the three points.

I think that's fine, but we're not going to quibble about Jeremy's scoring.

We have learned this already.

You're quite right because, you know, he's just doing his own thing.

There's often no reason to it at all.

Or he comes up with an absolute bullshit reason.

I mean, I will say, you know,

that prize task gets whittled down.

There is more conversation and probably

litigation and argument.

But then, you know, again, same thing with the t-shirts.

They've got a show to get through.

We haven't even made it to the first task, you and I.

We've spent longer reflecting on the prize tasks than we spend in the studio discussing them.

Okay, you got four points, and Angela got five points.

I mean, hot on multiple levels.

True story about that photo.

The billboard just happened to be 200 meters from my grandmother's house.

She was 91 when she saw that, and she lasted another month.

She died of heat stroke.

Task one, float this Brussels sprout down from the balcony.

Longest float time wins.

You have 20 minutes and one floating attempt.

Your time starts now.

A brilliant task.

A classic task.

Let's talk.

Let's talk you and Laura.

Wow.

The water team who went with the floating it down on water.

Brilliant move.

And I'll be honest, when I was watching this back yesterday, Guy, I thought, well, obviously...

You do water, right?

You get a really long tube, you put it on top, and you let the water evaporate, and you just leave it there for ages.

That's obvious.

And then I remembered I have seen this episode before, so that's I definitely just remembered what you and Laura did.

Again,

it's just one where you,

you know, sometimes they're sitting right there in front of you, and a lot of the time they're not.

And that was one where I thought, you know, wow.

And then, of course, when you get one like that, I assume, because I don't think, you know, David's was quite beautiful.

Also, shades of his fly task from the first

episode.

I don't know that I have the strength for thinking too far outside the box.

I can be, you know, I try to make, I suppose, lateral thinking funny in a way.

And so when I think of one correctly, I'm like, well, I feel like this is going to be accessible to everyone.

Do you not feel like you thought outside the box with this one?

To me, it felt like you and Laura were the ones who were outside the box.

I don't know.

I mean, putting it in water seemed pretty sensible.

You can see when I start walking really slowly, I assume that it's a 20-minute task.

And so I'm like, I'm going to take 20 minutes to walk down the stairs.

And I thought maybe you had to be in motion the whole time.

And they cut the conversation with Paul where he said, you don't have to do that.

And so we sat down and had a chat for 19 minutes.

And they say, should we get moving?

Yeah, I did think it was weird that you put it in the pan.

then really slowly walked and then sat down on the sofa.

You didn't want to go up to the balcony with it because you thought that would end your attempt.

Is that right?

Well, because it was floating it down from the balcony.

Yeah.

And so, in my interpretation, I thought, well, the longer I take to walk, the longer the technical floating down from the balcony is.

Little did I realize none of that would be relevant.

And that's the crazy thing.

I don't know if you've had this with Alex, but with Paul.

The amount of dialogue we were having while I was doing the tasks was,

I was on the whole, you know, around the fringes of it.

I was performing the whole time.

And then you watch it.

And of course, of course, that's not in.

Of course, it just gets all down to the essence.

I was basically turning over, you know, hours of stand-up every day.

At least you managed to get the tomato stuff in, the price touch.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

It's kind of cut around that.

Solid 20 on that.

But yeah, I was,

so I was happy.

And then when I saw Laura do it, I also was

really happy for her.

And then there was the thing of because she puts it in the bucket, lowers it.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's crazy to think, really, because that was there the whole season we were filming, and it never occurred to me to ask why or look, you know, so that's smart, isn't it?

It's kind of reflective of how I live sometimes, though, where I'm just like, Oh, that's just how that is, you know, something will be broken, and I'm just like, Oh, yeah, that's just where the broken thing is, you know.

And then only when a certain mood takes me will I think, oh, I could address that.

That doesn't, there doesn't have to be a broken thing there the whole time.

Yeah,

I'm completely the same.

My house is like, you know, the piles of stuff, and you're like, well,

that's where the piles are.

Like,

they're perfect bits of furniture.

And then one day you just move them and you're like, God, my brain feels tidy now.

Or your partner will be like, you do anything with this pile?

And then you look around and you'll see four of their piles.

And you're like, well, we're going to talk about piles.

You can't get me started on this now, guy.

We've got to talk about Postmaster.

That'll be a separate podcast.

That's another good idea.

We don't even need to record it, mate.

Gambling guys, girlfriend gropes.

Oh, dear.

It feels a little bit outdated, but I'm sure we can find a way of doing it, ironically.

There's actually a huge market for that kind of outdated podcast at the moment.

That's true.

Top of the Spotify charts.

We could knock off Rogan.

He could be our first guest.

yeah, you and Laura absolutely smash it.

Now, we will, of course, get to how long yours takes

to go in the next task or no, in two tasks time.

Very funny.

I mean, just supreme editing from the team.

Oh, to put it together like this.

So beautiful to just sort of lob it up like that.

And then...

Everyone in the studio, you know, again, on an operation of trust, I was just like, oh, okay.

I suppose you can do that, I guess.

You can have

an overarching narrative to a certain task.

And David, of course, explodes at it.

But

what a beautiful gift.

And so expertly played as well.

Really good.

And that's what I think Taskmaster in general is very good at.

But my particular favorite examples are this.

And then there's one in Taskmaster Australia as well where...

someone does the same task they've tried to do before again.

Genny, Jenny Chen, yeah.

That, I mean,

just that is one of the funniest.

Yeah, yeah.

You can't, there's no accounting for what some people are going to do.

And that will come up also later in this episode as well.

Yes.

David, as we say, gets the helium out again.

Wonderful editing again.

Matt and

is it Matt and Ursula are looking for?

They're not even looking for helium.

They're just...

David's actually, that was the first time when I was watching this, and

I laughed to myself.

I watched it right before we recorded and I was watching David

when he lost his assembly of balloons that were tied to the Brussels sprout in the ceiling.

I was like, that's right.

And then he really got me going when he was climbing up.

Paul giving him a boost.

And I was just thinking,

I mean, they might, you know, it was still a pretty, it was a tight ship, but it was still a pretty.

I guess it felt like a low stakes or low-key operation.

But I was like, there's no way they're letting everyone up in the rafters now.

No way.

I can't.

Absolute fucking madness.

I couldn't believe it when I saw that the first time.

I was like, What

the hell are they doing?

How are they letting him do that?

It's like when you know when you're a kid and you went over to a friend's house for tea or something, and you just saw the kid running absolute wild and like beating up his, like, punching his parents' legs and like swearing at them.

You're like, Is this what happens in this house?

I was like, This country's crazy.

Um,

So dangerous.

It's just.

And then he jumps down and just takes the impact.

It's a concrete floor in that kitchen.

Jumps onto the rug, which is sliding around.

But for me, it's just, this is when you really see David, like, you know, really blossom in this series.

He's so, the balloon keeps going and he keeps turning his head and the back of his hair follows a split second after his head.

Yeah.

It's like, and then you've got Matt and Ursula just like again, this generational divide, just standing out there, Ursula with a pair of scissors, cutting up a baby parachute, and Matt just doing the stupidest, worst shit you've ever seen.

So bad

balloons with no helium in them.

And then, like,

oh, he's so funny.

I actually thought Ursa's, there was a moment when she first threw her Brussels sprout off, and the, and the, the, her little self-created parachute caught like at the tiniest gust of wind.

It was probably less than a second.

And I thought, yeah, it looked so good.

And then it just dropped like a stone.

Of course.

But that was that was beautiful.

And Matt's, there was no redeeming qualities.

I just thought, this is absolute dog shit, mate.

Yeah, but he was very confident in the studio still.

This is the magic of Matt Heath: anything that happens, he'll argue for or defend.

It's sort of a huge part of his aura and his draw.

It's like he's so watchable and listenable.

Even if you totally disagree with him, or you just know that he's doing it to be a shit, you're like, yeah, go off, Matt.

Yeah.

But a wonderful task.

Just the other favourite moment was when David finally gets up onto the rafter and then his quad's really painful.

Just starts screaming about his quad.

Quad.

A quad.

Matt gets one point.

Ursula gets two points.

David gets three points for his 12 hours, an estimated 12 hours, which I think is fair.

And then

we're not sure how the four and the five go between you and Laura.

We know how it all works out, but let's let's save it for when um when the next thing happens.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

What an insane way to imagine someone consuming Taskmaster the show is by listening to these recaps.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't want to give it away.

Imagine the aggressive

missives you'd receive if you said, and the points were like this.

Fuck, man.

Task two: Transform.

I've got a bone to pick with Paul here.

Transform this room when the lights go out.

You'll have 30 seconds of darkness.

Most spectacular transformation wins.

Your time starts when you say, let there be dark.

Great task.

Reminded me a bit of the quick change task in series 7 of Taskmaster UK, where they're in the lift and they have to get changed quickly.

A little bit more time to prepare here.

It seemed like, I mean, you and a few other people got a lot of stuff done in that 30 seconds.

Yeah, well,

you got your

open-ended planning time.

And so I created

a vision, and production can help assemble the materials.

And it's one of those things where sometimes you get, you know, like

it's incredible how creative and in some ways like limitless the brain can be when it goes out.

And then inside of these environments when you can see a whole production crew waiting for your brain to spark, you catch onto one idea and you just can't let go, no matter how much you might want to or find something else.

And all I had in there was a farm.

And so we're sourcing astro turf.

Someone like from production goes to the neighboring farm or property and borrows their dog.

You know, someone's getting a hay bale.

And then there are these costumes.

I don't know how the costumes were sourced.

And then, you know,

and then it's just...

So obviously the 30 seconds is basically how quickly can you relocate, you know, push everything in.

The sheep were very useful.

They relocated

the astro turf and stuff.

And then I guess, so there's two things happening in your brain when you're doing the transformation.

One of them is you're transforming it in real time from what it was to what it's going to be, like what it is actually going to look like for the people in the room.

And the other one is sort of the

sobering balance between what your brain first imagined when you said, I'm going to do a farm, and then you know, when the lights come on, what you've actually managed to do, which

you're under incredibly limited time and resource, but

I remember looking around and thinking, like, oh, fucked it.

Everyone's done their best.

Huge shout-out to the crew.

But, yeah,

I don't think you fucked it as much as you thought you did.

I mean, you can you only have 30 seconds to get stuff in there.

It's a room.

I mean, what else were you hoping for?

What was it?

Honestly, it's a reflection of how I think I go through the world where I still have this sort of cartoon vision of how things are.

And so, you know, you're watching a cartoon and they're transforming it, you know, like a room into a farm.

Yeah.

In 10 seconds, they can have like...

you know, they can have a windmill in there.

They can have a pond.

They can actually be churning butter.

And so I think, even though obviously I'm an adult man,

I'm still butting up against the hard facts of reality all the time.

And this was one of those instances where I'd let my brain, my brain had lashed onto one thought, I'd let it run riot with visualizing what it was going to be.

And then I was coming up against my own and the production's limitations.

And I'm holding someone's dog.

I've got a plaid shirt on.

And I'm sort of, you know, and then you're improvising to the camera.

Yes, well, I would say that I thought visually, I knew what it was.

I thought that was quite an impressive transformation.

People in costumes, et cetera.

I would say the monologue, maybe you should have planned slightly more.

The farmers' monologue.

I don't know about you, I've been around farmers.

I've moved in that community, and that is exactly how they talk.

There's not a lot of action, there's a lot of describing sort of the broad strokes of what their life is.

It's more just saying, here we are on a farm, just over and over again.

It's a pretty relaxing life.

Yeah.

I thought it was much, much better than you gave it credit for.

I mean, certainly, Matt was very confident about his.

I'd say yours looked more like a farm than his did like a circus.

Matt's, I would say, on this rewatch, was arguably my favourite.

I could not stop laughing.

Why he says to the taskmaster, you know me and I don't like you, but you're going to like this.

Blackout, and then he's in a skin suit about to break a kid swing, just smashing an elephant with a whip.

It really, it really, really tickled me.

I was just in hysterics watching that today.

The most spectacular show on earth, is what he calls it.

Outstanding.

So funny.

But he doesn't care.

He's like, yeah, it's a circus.

There we are.

No, but.

Yeah.

But that's his character, isn't it?

Again, that's exactly what I was talking about.

He'll wheel out some...

And the fact that it is absolute

trash is part of the appeal, I think.

It's just so, there's nothing to it.

It's so thin on the ground, and he just commits.

The swing, when he gets on the swing, and you just see the legs bow.

So exciting.

Yeah, really funny.

Ers made me laugh a lot on this one, too.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, he's like the inside of her head, she says.

I mean, there's a lot of sort of

deliberate advances towards Paul from Erzina in this series.

And it's so funny because he's obviously his vibe is uncomfortable.

But yeah,

what really made me laugh was you need to loosen up, giving him a drink, him saying what's in the drink and her saying it's a loosen up juice.

Star out, man.

I'd worked with her just on lineups and stuff

and seen her do stand up.

And she was already, she was probably the biggest star of any of us, or she was, in fact, on this season.

But then working with her, like in the studio, just how many lines she just has pouring out of her and how quick she was just on the panel.

And then watching, you know, the

task representational iteration of that.

She was just crushing me that whole time.

Yeah.

She's so funny.

She's so good.

She's one of those comics where you're like, I can't imagine

you having a bad gig.

I just don't, yeah, just surely just absolutely smashing it every time.

Absolutely.

I remember doing, like, I think it was post-COVID, we did these shows coming out a lot.

She was doing some working up new material for a tour, and she'd sort of book some lineup shows with three of us on before her, and then she'd come out.

And,

you know, I can't remember who I was on.

It was probably some other alumni.

And then, you know, but I was on third, and I went up, and I did, like, what was my best material at the time, and sort of it went okay.

You know, like, they were laughing, but it's not what they were there for.

And then Urs comes out at the top of hers and she's like, geez, Facebook's fucked eight.

And it was like the biggest belly laugh I've seen ever it was like the hardest kill I've seen a stand-up have and I was like oh I didn't stand a fucking chance

no way man um Laura an outstanding techno rave fantastic transformation so so

well executed and

just like she's so good on this show isn't she yeah she's just so she's so on it she's got a vision and she can execute nearly every time.

And I thought that was a powerful transformation.

Very, very strong.

DJ Asmaster.

Love Asmaster.

I love it.

See, that's the sensible way sex.

Because I say master, but I would say ass.

Ass master does not sound

burning in the mouth.

It should be ass master.

It's funny.

It's funny because

growing up, I always spelt ass-a-r-s-e.

That's the same.

At some point, I migrated over to the A-S-S.

And I suppose what's unique about me is that the pronunciation followed after I adjusted the spelling.

Yes.

And so now I'm out here saying

Askmaster.

But that makes more sense, you know,

Asmaster.

As master.

You got a nice ass master.

But yeah, truly, great work.

Great work from Laura.

So let's talk about David.

Can I pause?

At the start of this, you said you have a gripe with Paul.

Is it about to be articulated?

Yes.

Well, I have a gripe with Paul.

I have a gripe with the crew.

I feel like David was dropped in it here.

I think this was planned, and I don't think it's in the spirit of Taskmaster.

Oh, you think it was planned?

I think it was absolutely planned.

Because he even double checks.

David double checks.

Can I say it now?

And then Paul says yes, as part of the task.

No one else had that issue.

And then the lights went off.

And I think they just knew that David would react in a funny way.

You might be right.

And if that is the case, you know, hats off to them.

Because again, with the broader view to the season, I think this is another cracking the can open moment where we're all, you know, he's he's elevating and introducing himself.

And in the studio, we're all kind of, you know, doubled over, enjoying what he's done.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I think I didn't say it at all because I had no no trust in Paul.

And David has a very trusting nature.

We see that later with the

don't open the task

one where he just takes Paul at his word and doesn't open the task.

And then they spend like, what, two hours talking about Rumple Stiltskin?

So it's just, I guess,

it's different natures.

I didn't think he was being stitched up, but I mean,

Paul is a bit of a prankster.

It was worth it, but for the sake of the purity of the game,

you shouldn't have done it to David, but it was amazing.

The fact that they turned it off even less than 30 seconds.

So he basically, he got naked in under 12 seconds.

And David did absolutely the right thing, whereby, you know, he got offered the rerun.

You can do it again.

But the amount of adrenaline, the adrenaline that must have been coursing through his body.

Can you imagine doing that?

Like, just scrambling.

And then, like, do you want to do it again?

You go, yeah, and then you spend half an hour like cobbling together a scene to push through the lab

or spending the right outcome coming up with an idea and then just getting naked again.

That would have been worth it.

That would have been so funny.

But yeah, so funny.

Even just the way he's like heavy breathing when he's like just naked on the table.

Just, yeah, really, so funny.

And just, yeah, Paul saying that it definitely changed something in the room.

The room felt different.

But then

he got one for that, didn't he?

This was actually, I thought in the scoring, this is a nice Jeremy moment where he's coming into his own.

The offering of a point swap to Laura

was a really classy touch.

Yeah, really nice.

But yeah, Dave got the one point, which, I mean, he should have got another pity point, surely.

But

it's fine.

You know, he's made his mark.

Matt gets two points for the circus, amazingly.

You get three points for your farm guy.

I think you talk your farm down too much.

I think you could have got more points if you'd been more confident with your farm.

Ursula gets four points, and Laura gets a well-deserved five points.

There's actually a lot of impressive stuff going on there, but DJ Ass Master.

I've seen the short film, it's great.

I did also ask for the morph suits to have the ass cut out, but the camera crew weren't that keen,

seeing as they were in the suits.

Let's talk about task three.

This might be my favourite task of the episode, and it's up there in the series as well.

Just

for how simple it is.

I yeah, so this is squirt the sunscreen the furthest.

If you have one attempt, your time starts now.

This is I'm I'm near certain, and I don't think I'm telling tales out of school here, that this was originally a tiebreaker task.

They did not have a grand vision or aspirations for this, but we all managed to just absolutely fuck it in our own beautifully unique ways.

Because I was thinking that as I was watching this, I thought this is the this is the perfect task.

This is

everyone, you know, doing their doing their own thing and believing it's the right right and normal way to go about the task and basically not working for anyone.

And then Earth swanning in, how are you?

Bang, you know, just the business.

I feel like that's it's the sun cream equivalent of that gig you did with her.

Yes, and I was

so

gutted.

I was so

so upset with myself when I got that little drip on the tarfall and and then

you know like when you're sitting in the studio and you don't know what tasks they're gonna get up on the big screen and you see it and then you can feel the air leaving your body because I'm gonna have to live through this again

was it a relief to you that a lot of other people fucked it up as well

yeah you can even when um david who i i like god this is what i'm you know david i i know earlier i was talking about he has these this practical ability but he does it in a rush this was an example of him taking his sweet time, and it was so good to watch.

But you can see, I was still my competitive juices flying because as soon as

you know, as though the editors and the creators and the producers haven't caught it, but as soon as he is doing his squirting out of his mouth and a little bit gets on the thing, I'm one of the people in the studio pointing at the screen like

you saw that, right?

We're getting

the litigious part of me is coming out, but yeah, I did take solace in seeing how badly everyone else ballsed it up.

And can you imagine writing that task and thinking, well, this is sort of a throwaway, we'll just, you know, we'll have this up our sleeve in case.

And then just slowly, like, because it's what must have been magic, especially for Paul, is not just one person getting it wrong, just the slow build across the five weeks of us all going out to the house.

I guess it would have been across one week, actually, because they did the same task in the week.

So just that one week of every day, someone new coming out and getting it wrong.

It just, it was so beautiful.

Because you almost, once David's done that, once David ends up on all fours with sun cream pouring out of his mouth, screaming, no,

you're like, that's probably enough for us to turn this into a full task.

Absolutely.

But then everyone messing it up.

You, I mean, that's one of my favorite things you say all series: is you don't, you know what they say, Paul.

Fuck.

Come from such a real place.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

David down there screaming.

Unbelievable.

And Paul kind of turns his back.

I thought he was when I was watching it tonight, I thought he was going to the caravan or something to just, you know, take a moment to himself while David got through it.

It's amazing what Taskmaster does to the brain, though, right?

Because David is willing to take sun cream in his mouth

to then put water

in there to dilute the sun cream so he can spray it further.

And it never once occurs to him that if he's willing, if he's got it in his mouth, he can just spurt it out of his mouth down the thing and probably would have won.

And Paul's saying to him, Hey, be careful, don't get you know, they're having such a normal interaction inside of it where he's sort of like a parent being like, Hey, make sure you don't get any of that on the rug.

And he's like, Yeah, I'll try.

And then he's

just spraying it, you know, hither and yon.

So funny.

Obviously, Matt splashes sun cream on the thing.

He had a very sort of

masturbatory style motion, not just in the studio, but even when he was mixing his water and sunscreen, he was really jerking it.

He knew what he was doing.

It was crazy.

He knew what he was doing.

He knew what he was doing.

And, you know,

he wanted to do that because he was being a filthy little boy.

And then the results speak for themselves.

That's right.

That's what you get.

Yeah, that's what you get.

31 centimeters.

That's all he managed.

Laura, absolutely, you know, destruction derbying that mug.

So good.

What a moment.

What a moment that is.

The build.

The build to it as well.

Because we can't see what sort of mug it is when we're watching.

We're like, okay, I get it.

You're getting a little sort of hammer situation going.

Straight through.

So strong.

I know.

It was a perfect hole, really.

It was quite beautiful.

But obviously, it worked out better for her because there was a dot of sun cream on one of the shards of the monk that she destroyed.

David, we've talked about it.

I mean, I didn't know if David's plan was ever going to really work, the tube of pool noodles.

No, but

I didn't either, but I suppose, you know, and also on the back of the first episode, there's a confidence in what David's doing where I think, well, he's clearly capable of approaching these things from an angle that

I don't even have access to.

Yeah, and he does things like he's done them before, right?

Yeah, and you can like the way he's slugging the sunscreen and water, it's like, you know,

he does it with such confidence.

Yeah.

It would never occur to you that it's unusual or that it would be the first time.

And you can see he's trying to get the viscosity right.

He's spitting it out, not because it's sunscreen.

He's going, no, that's still no good.

Like, it's not a taste thing.

He's saying, nah, it's not good.

The mix isn't right.

So I believe he just, he probably needed to get the ratio down to like 90% water, 10% sunscreen because Paul's in the studio saying he got the water running just fine.

Yeah,

you know, you've got to have such confidence to,

and that's why he's screaming.

It's because he's just been out in the sun for an hour and a half.

He's had all these people and their production blacks filming him, and then it's just gone absolutely belly up.

And you can just see someone calling lunch.

He's on his feet.

Oh, God.

He's got a belly full of SBF 50.

He's not hungry.

And of course, as we've mentioned, Urzila comes in, does exactly what everyone should have done, and that what they were expecting everyone to do, I guess, if it was a tiebreak task.

And just

whack the top.

How what would you do?

I don't know.

It's difficult once you've watched it, once the brain's been polluted by other people's attempts,'cause you sat there going, Oh, well, you could, you know, take a sip of it and gob it.

You could find w I'm sure there's a water pistol on site.

Get it in a water pistol with some water and just get a massive sort of super soaker spray down there um but i i suspect i would have just panicked and whacked the top of it yeah because you can get some distance on those things

wow six point something meters yeah evidently yeah six meters twelve centimeters yeah she she did a really really good job there um but just the perfect build to that as well increasingly complicated ways increasingly complicated failures and then just bang there we go see you later so So satisfying.

Again, you know, a testament to the editors.

And inside of that, actually, we have the resolution of the Brussels Sprout task.

We do.

David

finds your Brussels Sprout, brings it over.

He's carrying it, thinking it must be part of the task for some reason.

And I'm assuming that he's done this task already.

Yeah, I am too, actually.

But he doesn't.

I actually haven't spoken to him about this because he's playing it so straight and so sort of ignorant of its connection to anything that's happened in the show before Because he sort of brings it over and it's not part of what he's doing for a long time and then kind of like two-thirds of the way through his insane process he just again unconnected to anything else just tosses it to the side and keeps going

yeah because yeah it's not if he's done that already surely he's remembering and thinking oh that must be someone else's brussels Sprout.

He's one of four contestants who ignored a bucket dangling from the balcony with the Brussels Sprout in it.

Very true.

Very true.

You get so

caught on the rails of your own brain in a process that it can be difficult to

think across multiple days or

they did do that with us later on in the season.

That phone task was a real brain bender.

Yes.

How are you feeling in that moment when David throws the Brussels Sprout away?

You see it happen?

I don't, it's sort of interesting.

I don't feel

I feel as I do now, I guess, where I just think, what's going on here?

Like, I mean, there's obviously a huge amount of business going on with the sunscreen stuff, but when it happened, and I'm watching in the studio, again, my brain is being scrambled by what's happening on the screen in the first place.

And so it's sort of the second most interesting or fascinating part of the sunscreen task with David.

So

I guess I just thought, okay, four points.

Pretty good.

That's still pretty.

I mean, it's still, it was like three days it was there for.

Obviously, I'm assuming Laura's has been there throughout the filming of other seasons of Dust Must New Zealand.

It's just been hanging around there.

It's in the background of wedding photos.

But yeah,

the sunscreen task, what a task.

It was one point for Matt, two points for you, Guy, three points for David, four points for Laura, and five points for Ursula.

I mean, you didn't even get one point on that.

You must have been happy with that.

Two points.

Yeah.

But, you know,

there are certain points in the season where you're not really grading yourself against Matt.

Yeah.

He's the buffer.

Oh, no.

Spurt.

Spurt.

Splash.

There's splash in there.

Oh, that's damning.

You happy with that?

Not overly.

31 centimetres.

I'm happy with that.

1 meter nine.

I think it's going to be hard to do less than 30 centimetres for anyone.

Okay, yeah.

You know what they say, Paul?

What do they say?

Fuck.

Let's talk about the live task using your electric toothbrushes.

Paint a portrait of Jeremy's mother.

You have 200 seconds during which Jeremy will describe his mother.

Most beautiful portrait wins.

I would feel quite awkward about doing this one, I'll be honest, when it's someone's mother.

I think if the host has fronted their

mother, you know, for it, you've got cut blanche.

You can do it, you can do whatever you like.

I think, you know,

there's not a huge amount that appears to be sacred in Jeremy's world.

And,

you know, ultimately,

if you go too Hogwarts, it's going to reflect more poorly on

you than

either Jeremy or Cheryl.

But I sort of, these

the artistic tasks, they don't s s stress me out per se, but you know, I

want so it's like so much in life, I guess.

I want so badly to be good at art.

Yeah.

And I'm not.

And so you're doing it live.

You're competing for points.

You want to be good at it.

And it's just not going to happen.

I was still reeling because you film the studio, you do two episodes a day.

I was still angry about missing the toilet paper tower with the shoe in the first episode.

Because I was like, well, that's one that is money.

I can do that.

And then I even listened to you and David talk about it.

Again, I was getting riled off in the car.

This, I mean, this is a tricky one.

And I totally get what you mean about

art.

I mean, it's like the same, it's the same thing we were saying about the farm, right?

You have an idea in your head of what you want to put out there, and then practically you can't actually realise it.

I'm just not capable.

Yeah.

But you can't.

It can even be like that in my job.

It can be like that with comedy.

Yeah.

This is funny.

And then you say it, and everyone's like, nah.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it drives you nuts so often.

Or like a bit in a show where you don't normally do it, like maybe like a little physical bit or a little sort of visual joke.

And then you're like, this is going to be so good.

And then you do it and it's confusion is worse than

so much.

What about this?

What about when you're cooking, your show's going great guns, and you've got this bit that you've pulled out because you're like, it doesn't really work, but the crowd's loving it.

It's running so hot.

And you think, I tell you what, I think I've found a home.

And you pull back the bit that has never worked but you think it's gonna work and it just tanks even harder than anything you've ever said in your life

well that's it you've got to give you things their best effort right you've got to give

stick it in in fertile ground and if it if it still dies that's it um so urzula's terrifying portrait gets one point uh matt gets two points david gets three points you get four points despite not being an artist as you said and laura gets the five points.

Oh, I've just got to say, I thought David's was stunning.

Even watching him, I remember on the night thinking David was underscored.

I thought his picture, his use of space and the way that his painting came out, I was just so taken by it.

And I remember thinking that has to be the five-pointer.

And obviously, you know, I've got...

No bone to pick with the scoring, but it happened to me again when I was watching it back.

I thought, that is a stunning little painting.

Well, the thing is, we can't argue.

We can't normally argue with the scoring because Jeremy's show,

he rules the scoring.

And in this case, it's also Jeremy's mother.

So

this is, you know, obviously Laura captured the likeness the most.

The episode scores, Laura wins an episode, 21 points, Ursula on 17, you on 17 as well, guy.

David on 13, and an absolutely dreadful episode for Matt, seven points, meaning that Laura's in the lead in the series, Ursula in second, you in third, guy, then David, then Matt.

Thank you so much for coming back on the Taskmaster podcast, Guy.

Of course, welcome back anytime.

Oh, that's very good of you to say.

Can we maybe bang out a sort of timeline for that now while we're together?

Hey, look, we're pretty chill here.

It's anytime.

Amazing.

So what?

Next episode three, you're thinking?

There's other people to have on from the series.

Of course.

Oh, you've got to get other people on.

But if it's any time, next week looks great for me.

Track down Matt Heath, but anytime, I think.

Yeah.

You got it.

Same time next week.

Do you think we'll get Matt Heath on?

I reckon.

Yeah.

I think so.

He's not on breakfast radio anymore.

So

it's feasible.

He's got more autonomy over what hours he keeps.

You really get Urs?

Erse has gone stratospheric.

Yeah, but we've had her on before, so

we've got the contact there, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know she's stratospheric, but.

Well, you know, if you're struggling, you know, I mean, you know where I am and whatnot.

No, look, I think you'll get Matt.

He's got fond memories of it.

We're still on a thread.

We all send our

personal highs and lows to each other.

This was a genuinely,

I would say, for all of us in a way, it was a,

we forged a friendship to last a lifetime and it was career altering that's lovely that's really nice and it's a very well thought of uh series and gang so um thank you for thank you for coming back on to discuss it and um yeah we'll see you again some time see you soon no worries we will get you to rate your experience on the podcast between one and five uh in the style of the taskmaster um please go

i look Just, you know, seeing how close the gap between this and the next episode is, why don't we crack a little cliffhanger and I'll tell you next time.

Okay, you can tell me next time.

No worries.

And Guy, I hear you have a special coming out.

That's right.

It's so special.

I'm putting it on YouTube, which is, it's not open access.

You know,

it's a platform only for the greats.

I filmed my tour show last year, 50 Million Guy fans, can't be wrong.

I didn't film it.

I hired people to do it.

Yes.

That would be a bold special to film it in selfie mode.

Yeah, I didn't really connect with the audience, but the camera angle is very close to my face.

I'm putting it on my YouTube channel on the 11th of February.

Go and watch that.

It will be fantastic.

Guy, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Cheers, Guy.

Bye.

Thank you so much to Guy for coming on the show.

We'll get him back at some point in the future.

I'll say that.

Uh, don't forget to go and watch guys' stand-up special on YouTube, it will be absolutely fantastic.

Uh, thank you so much for listening to this.

We'll be back next week to talk Taskmaster New Zealand Series 2, episode 3, with another brilliant guest.

But for now, bye-bye.