Ep 184. Jenny Eclair - Junior Taskmaster S1 Ep.3

Hello and welcome to the Taskmaster podcast with me, Ed Gamble, or should I say the Taskmaster Junior podcast, the Junior Taskmaster podcast, because we are talking about Junior Taskmaster Series 1.

It's very good, so I'm going to call it Series 1 because surely there will be more series after this.

Episode 3.

we will be joined by a fantastic guest to talk about this episode to talk about this brand new lineup of brilliant contestants.

We are getting a new lineup every week at the moment.

The top two will be going through to the semifinals.

Make sure you've caught up on this episode and watch it every week Friday night 8 p.m.

channel for

and today to talk about episode 3 we will be joined by the brilliant Jenny Eclair.

Jenny Eclair, of course, former Taskmaster contestant, co-host of the brilliant Taskmaster the Peoples podcast with Jack Bernhardt.

Many, many more things besides.

She's got a brilliant memoir called Jokes, Jokes, Jokes.

She's about to go on tour in 2025.

Go and check out everything Jenny is up to.

But she is a Taskmaster fan, a Taskmaster

survivor.

Is that the right word?

Veteran?

I don't like to say veteran, but we're going to be talking to Jenny.

She's absolutely amazing.

Can't wait to chat to her.

Always a pleasure.

So let's get on with it.

This is Junior Taskmaster episode three, as discussed by Jenny Eclair.

Welcome back, Jenny Aclare, to the Taskmaster podcast.

Well, this is very exciting, isn't it?

Because it's not just the Taskmaster podcast, it is Junior Taskmaster Podcast.

It's very exciting indeed.

We're going to be talking about episode 3 of Taskmaster Junior, third episode ever.

Have you been enjoying it so far, Jenny?

Well, do you know what?

Yes.

And it's a strange one because I've watched with a sort of grandmotherly eye.

You know, I have had a child and I now have a grandchild.

And I think I am a mother of the generation of parents who had children who were the same age as the Harry Potter kids.

And there is a little bit of a parent of my generation who thinks, if my child had got into the Harry Potter sequence of films, I would be living in a castle with a golden toilet now.

And you can never help but feel that my child would have been a better Hermione.

And the whole franchise would have been loads better if

my child had been it.

So

I do wonder how the parents feel, whether any of them are trepidatious about it.

Then I also have this fledgling junior Taskmaster contestant to be in the wings, which is my two-year-old grandson, Arlo, who I famously, well, not that famously, nothing I ever do is that famously.

I took in a photograph of Arlo, who was a baby,

babe in arms when I was doing doing Taskmaster and

I can't remember what the prize task was, but it was a pitch for the prize task and Greg awarded him two points.

Now we've never quite got over that and I like the idea of having Arlo in the wings, just two years old now.

I liked to think we could train him up to be a junior Taskmaster champion just to make up for those lousy two marks from Greg.

So he could turn around and give a big two fingers to the senior taskmaster and say, Yeah, but I am the junior champ.

Look,

I think that is famously that that happened, Jenny, because I think about that quite a lot.

That Greg gave a picture of your grandson two points and how, of course, you were genuinely affronted.

I feared for Greg's safety in that moment.

Yeah, I have had other

fathers in playgrounds of toddlers come up to me and say, Is he two points?

And And do you see anything in Arlo's personality yet?

I know it's very early, but do you see any signs that he might be good on Junior Taskmaster?

He's starting to do stupid faces, which I always think is good for

comedy.

Well, for anything, really.

You know, if you're in doubt, pull a stupid face.

I'm not sure.

He's very, very stubborn, which I don't think I am.

But

it's all to play for with him, really.

I mean, you know, he's not yet formed.

I'm not quite sure.

If I have my way, you know.

Yeah, you can, you can seed these things early.

Yeah, yeah.

I only have him one day a week.

I don't have my hands on him all the time.

I can't mold him that much.

So, I mean, I wonder.

I mean, they have chosen really well, obviously.

I mean, the taskmaster casting is always incredible,

be it, you know, nine-year-old.

I think I was shocked by how young they were.

Yeah,

I mean, shocked by how young you hear they are during the episode.

And obviously, this is the age group they're casting within.

But some of them are, I mean, you know, they're all very funny.

And then some of them say things completely out of the blue where you think, how are you only nine?

And you're coming out with that with brilliant comic timing, absolutely reducing Mike to rubble.

Absolutely.

And the age group, as you say, it's nine to eleven, the episode I watched, which, as you say, is episode three.

And we had Ibrahima, Finley, George, Liana, and Shanea.

And they were all between nine and eleven.

I think the youngest was George.

Yeah.

Fantastically vain George.

We'll come to that because there was a moment where he definitely could have done better in the task if he'd been less worried about his hair.

Yeah.

But I absolutely respect it because he's very well put together.

The nails, the hair, he looked fantastic.

Absolutely.

The little ear studs.

Yeah.

I was ticking all those boxes for him.

So the prize task is the most surprising item from your house.

Another good, broad, open-ended prize task for this series.

Obviously, on the on the adult series, they're they're really running through some pretty technical ones now, some pretty obscure ones.

But here in Junior Taskmaster, we can do things like the most surprising item from your house.

But even so, as a past player yourself, does it make you look around your house and suddenly panic and think, oh, God, what have I got?

What would I bring in even for this?

Yeah, it made me panic.

And, you know, I panicked when I was doing the series, but looking around my house, I couldn't think think of anything, Jenny, to be honest.

I mean, immediately, I'm looking around my study now and I'm thinking, well, all those children brought in something better that I could lay my hands on easily.

Yes, absolutely.

I mean, Abrima really, I think, tackled the other meanings of surprising, bringing a cardboard cutout of himself, jumping out at people.

Absolutely loved it.

Love the idea.

Well, the thing is, you get to know him throughout the episode.

And, you know, you get this initial impression that he's jumping out at his mum and he's being mischievous mischievous and he's really naughty but he's probably the the sweetest politest contestant on this week's episode he's so polite isn't he absolutely a darling yes and also i love that little bit of info where um he'd been jumping out and surprising his mum but then his mum's bedroom was at the top of the landing and she asked him not to do it in case she fell downstairs she just thought you know you want to surprise your mum you don't want to break both legs

also it's just that instinct of going i will jump out of my mum but if she asks me nicely to stop i will immediately

Yes, because she rubs my feet.

Which was the only person that I know, my friend Linda Robson, who is very well known from Birds of a Feather, when I was touring with her, her son told me, and he was about 14 at the time, that his mother still put his socks on the radiator in the morning and then put them on for him, nice warm socks before he went to school.

We can all wish for treatment like that from people in our lives.

That is absolutely fantastic.

Yeah, I mean, I was a very mischievous child as well.

My mum will always tell people about the time I put itching powder in her bed, which was possibly the worst thing that's ever happened to her.

In the middle of the night, she was up.

I could hear her walking around in the house.

And the next morning, went, I had some allergic reaction to something last night.

It was very, very itchy.

And then I did have to say, Yes, I put itching powder in your bed.

That's a really, itching powder was all the rage.

I mean, you're so much younger than me, but even in my generation, but I think we had to make our own.

I don't know where you've got your itching powder from.

I think it's the beano, probably.

I think you got it from the beano.

We had to sort of split open rose hips, and they said if you split open rose hips, kids, you're learning something here.

Ask your parents what a rose hip is, but if you split one of those open, the seeds inside are apparently itchy.

So, that was that was how we made homemade itching powder.

Oh,

what a generation, the make-do generation, yeah.

Never put itching powder in my parents' bed because I often wet my own bed and needed to end up in theirs.

So it would have backfired, wouldn't it, massively?

Finley brought in a feather from what he claims and people are talking about is a £300 hawk.

Now,

I'm not too hot on my measurements, but I think £300 is probably too heavy for a hawk.

I think it's heavier than me.

And I'm quite a big girl at the moment, but it's definitely heavier than you.

Yeah,

it's a lot.

Do you know what I mean?

It's a very lot.

Yes, it's a very very lot.

And, you know,

but what I got from it was that it was an impressive hawk.

So Finley has met a hawk and managed to get a feather from the place where this hawk lives.

It's a beautiful thing, Jenny.

Did it surprise you, though?

I don't think that 99% of households have hawk feathers in the home.

So I think it was a charming thing.

It's possibly not the most surprising,

but I do think it was a good, I think it was a good prize task.

I think it was, did he end up in the middle?

No, I think he got he got the one point, I believe.

Oh, yeah, I think that was quite hard.

Yeah, there was some funny scoring.

I'd have, I'd have tweeted some of this scoring.

Now, I'm sure there are parents listening going, ooh,

what's she gonna say?

But I'll get to that.

But George brought it.

Now, I thought this was, I thought this was.

This was surprising.

Yeah, this was very surprising.

This was the 15-year-old belly button

that belonged to his brother.

And I particularly like just him bringing in the term human flesh.

It really made me laugh.

Just so gross and dark.

Human flesh.

It isn't, of course, you know, technically not the belly button.

The belly button is what is left.

It is the cut-off umbilical, it's the knot that is tied in the umbilical thing.

It's all a bit hazy now, but it does, because it's dead flesh and there's no blood supply going to it, it rots and it drops off.

And most of us get rid of it as quickly as you possibly can.

or else it sometimes just drops off somewhere that you never find.

And you suddenly go, oh, it's fallen off.

Oh, really?

Just in the street or something?

Yeah, pardon?

Just in the street or something.

Well, no, it's usually, I mean, some, it's probably, you know, in the nappy, but when you take the nappy off, it flicks out.

And, you know, some of us aren't that house proud.

There was a bit of umbilicus in the uh in the corner of the room.

Just find it when you're emptying the Henry.

Yeah, I genuinely did not keep my child's umbilical cord.

No, I mean, that it did surprise me that some people do, to be honest.

I guess, you know, it's nice to have memories, but I don't know whether

a piece of neurotic flesh is

a memory.

But I do think it's a really good thing to bring in and quite surprising.

Yeah, very much so.

Yeah.

Liana brings in a Cardi B hat.

I don't know if you're aware of the work of Cardi B, Jenny.

Yeah, please, please, try not to patronise me.

I am a

member of the Cardi B fan club.

No, I just think it's very funny that I presume she's a rapper,

has a name of a cardigan.

She's got it, she's named after a cardigan.

I was thinking, oh, is it double-breasted or, you know, which side of the buttons?

Has it got pockets, Cardi B?

I, of course, I'm a, no, this didn't do it for me, but I think she came up with a great, she sold it well.

She sold it.

Liana sold this very well.

And she came up with a very good rapper name.

Yeah, Lil Orange.

I absolutely loved that moment.

She was so quick.

It was right at the front of her brain.

Yeah.

Her name's Lil Orange.

And then just the deconstruction of Mike.

The first time it happens on this episode, I think, and you know, he is absolutely hammered throughout, but just the idea that she couldn't even think of a rapper name for Mike because there's no way he would ever

be a rapper.

Yeah.

You know, there was a point when this programme was being mooted, and I thought, God, I'd love to get one of those jobs, you know, junior taskmaster or junior taskmaster assistant.

After watching it, I'm sort of quite glad it would absolutely rubbish me.

Yeah.

What I found surprising about this is Cardi B's lyrics are famously very filthy.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

So it's not just about knitwear.

It's not just about knitwear.

It is

pretty full-on explicit content.

So it did surprise me that Liana had some merch.

I thought it would be: I got a cardigan that's got pockets.

I've got a roll neck jumper, too.

I've got a waistcoat made of wool, and sometimes I wear that too.

That's brilliant, Jelly.

I mean,

let's get you on a track with Cardi B, ASAP.

Let's bring Cardi B back to where she belongs.

I was aware of the competition, to be quite honest.

I love Shania's snakeskins.

Yes, yeah, that was very surprising.

Again, more flesh,

but not human human on this occasion.

I'd always be surprised if I found this in someone's house, unless they were a serial killer.

I don't think that I was an English national snake because I don't think we, because it looked Python-esque.

It was long, wasn't it?

It was long and it was quite highly patterned and it looked more exotic than what we normally stumble upon.

But I still think it was a great thing to bring in.

Yeah,

it was a big surprise.

I think that, what did that one get?

Shania got three points.

So it went one point for Finlay.

Yeah, two points for Liana, three points for Shania, four points for George, and five points for Ibrima.

So you would have shuffled this around a bit, would you, Jenny?

Yes, I would, actually.

I would have put

George at the top with the 15-year-old rotten belly button.

And I'd have put the Cardi B hat at the bottom, only because Cardi B lyrics don't match up to what I think Cardi B lyrics should.

Your issue is more with Cardi B than with Liana.

It's not Liana.

She did her best.

She did a nice job.

Cardi B.

Doing a poor number.

Liana.

I've bring a Cardi B hat.

Cardi B hat.

There it is.

But mum decided to fight for us because I've been singing it for ages.

What do you love about Cardi B?

I love how she can sing words really fast.

She can say words really fast.

And we won't go into what kind of words she does say really fast.

What would be your rapper name?

Little orange.

Red, rap.

Immediately.

The orange, that's good.

Rapping, nice.

Milan, I'm thinking of getting into rap.

What would my rap name be?

He wouldn't be into rap.

Task one, say 15 very different words in 30 seconds, then open the next task.

And I'm going to read through all these tasks.

Next task, put on the goggles and completely cover your face in shaving cream, then open the next task.

The next task, catch as many petals on your face as possible in 30 seconds, then open the next task and the next and final task is say the 15 words that you said in the first 30 seconds, the most correctly remembered words.

Wins.

Of course the kids didn't know this.

No, they did not and it came as a real shock to them.

What I love about this is there's clearly Taskmaster fans in there, but they can still be tricked.

You know, there's this and there's a task later with some peas where they get tricked.

Yeah, and it still takes them by surprise there were some different efforts in terms of completely covering their face with the shaving foam some real a real range i'd say yeah um uh a braimer was very enthusiastic with the shaving foam so that was full coverage being more enthusiastic that is a braimer though isn't he he he goes for it he's gung-ho um and whereas george was backing away from the shaving foam he didn't want it anywhere near his hair and i don't blame him his hair looks good absolutely uh but you know taskmaster is always going to uh run the risk of something going wrong with yeah it's you know we're not there to have good hair in the world of taskmaster um but look he went in with good hair he left with good hair that was his major concern at that moment

a total result for him but the thing is if you don't put all the shaving foam all over your face and mess up your hair a little bit you do limit your petal count yeah yeah not that that mattered in the end it was a red herring it was it was but it did look great i mean there were some lovely film moments there were yeah absolutely especially i mean ibrima gets 59 petals on his face it's just completely covered in them some lovely slow motion it looked fantastic they they all threw themselves into it to an extent yeah uh but the rest got sort of you know in the 24 24 23 uh you know ibrima really did triumph in the petal catching in the shaving foam but then of course the result depended on how many words they could remember from the first round of this And this is why it's listed as different words, I guess, to stop them, to stop them just remembering.

Just saying red, red, red, red, red, red, red.

And I think they all did a good job with the words.

It does amaze me as well.

And it sort of put my mind at ease a little bit, Jenny, that even kids who have brilliant imaginations in the Taskmaster situation panic and just say what's in front of them.

They all said camera, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

But

I thought that Finley played a very tough game here and he did a sentence which was a lot easier to remember at the end of the task than some of the others who just said random words and got themselves a little bit mixed up and back to the front.

Yeah, it was a really good, really good technique.

Mind you, if you did, it was with a load of people my age, you know, the repeat thing would have been just chaos.

It would have been absolutely completely different words altogether.

So, you know, credit to the kids.

They all did anything.

Did you have any like memory-based tasks like that in your series of taskmaster jenny uh not that i can remember honestly but i i you know and i don't know whether i've spoken about this on taskmaster but i've probably talked about it on other things um

but um my generation of kids i was born in 1960 which uh a lot of children you know just think i can't remember you know what was going on was that the tubers and the roundheads um but growing up in the 1960s you'd go to other kids parties and one of the party games would be a memory test.

I don't know whether you played this.

It was called the tray game.

I don't think I played that one.

It was a ghastly, sort of slightly masochistic game played for seven to nine-year-olds.

And the mum, it was always the mum because the dads had obviously scarfered.

Out of the party, not out of the party's case.

Yeah, yeah.

And she'd bring in a tray, and there would be 20 objects on the tray.

Okay, okay.

Right.

And you have to look at the tray for 30 seconds, then the tray is taken away, and you have a given pencil and paper.

And you have to remember as many.

Look at you in your eyes.

Ed, you're like,

right up your street.

You're already looking really competitive.

And you have to remember what was on the tray.

There was usually always a thimble.

So you could, because that's a guarantee thimble, even if you didn't remember it.

Guaranteed thimble and an egg cup and a safety pin.

But the rest, you were kind of on your own.

And that was sort of meant to be fun.

That was fun for eight-year-olds in 1960.

I'd imagine it just kept the eight-year-olds quiet for a little bit, right?

Was that the aim?

Yeah, but it was kind of unnerving as well because I was always competitive, but daft,

which is a lethal mix.

But I don't, you know, that's what we play.

But this was, I think, this was kind of harder because there was no visual aid at all, was there, really?

Yeah.

Unless you were remembering the things that were right in front of you.

I guess that made it slightly more helpful.

Or you went from the top of your head and said hair, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, neck.

You know, but that's clever.

That's in hindsight, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

And I think it made it slightly more difficult when your face was covered in shaving foam as well, just because all of your senses are.

Or maybe that made it easier.

If all your senses are blocked, then maybe you can focus more on the memory of the words.

I particularly liked Liana, the way she entered the room, looking around and just with the energy of a health and safety inspector,

looking around saying, This all looks very dangerous.

I love fastidious kids.

I haven't got in my notes, I haven't got the result of

that first.

Don't worry, Jenny, I've got it right here.

It was three points for George, four points for Ibrima, four points for Shania, four points for Liana as well, and five points for Finley.

Because we had a lot of draws.

Liana, Shania, and Abrima all remembered nine words.

But of course, Finley came out on top with 11 words because of that brilliant sentence technique.

Sentence.

Yeah, he likes Harry Potter and playing a lot of games and things.

Okay, I'd love to see more.

Let's see how Finley got on.

John Kay

say 15 different words in 30 seconds.

Super California with this SBL you know, it's just

done.

Isn't oh no, that's one word.

Hello, my name is Finley.

I love Harry Potter and lots of other things because

I go

and play games all the time.

I think that's 15 words, I'm not sure.

Thanks for hearing that.

You're welcome.

Say the 15 words that you said in the first 30 seconds, the most correctly remembered words for the wins.

You are 30 seconds, your time starts now.

Hello, my name is Finlay.

I like Harry Potter and I like to play games.

That's a lot of words, isn't it?

Okay.

Super qualified to Mr.

Espelios.

Bye, Mike.

Task two, stick as many different things to you as possible.

Most different things stuck to you when Mike blows his whistle, wins, you have 10 minutes, your time starts now.

Lovely task.

Sneaky, though.

Sneaky.

Do you think it's sneaky?

Well, George came a cropper with the sneakiness of this task because he

forgot that sometimes every word counts

as it had in the previous task, in fact.

And he thought he'd found a hack.

And had the task not been worded so specifically, he possibly would have found a hack.

And what he spied was a bag of straw, and he strapped an entire bag of straw to himself, thinking every strand of this straw will have to be counted.

And I've got thousands of pieces of straw strapped to me.

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's an age-old taskmaster argument.

What counts as a different thing?

And if things are from the same category, or they, or is it that they they have the same chemical makeup?

Is it that they're the same shape?

Because you could argue that they are different things.

They don't occupy the same space-time continuum, you know?

Yeah, but they are all straw.

I mean, you could just say hair, couldn't you?

Otherwise, you start picking up particles of dust and rolling yourself in what, you know, it could all go a bit mad.

So it was a shame because I could see the thought process and I could see how well he thought he'd done.

And it had the task not been so specifically worded he would have done very well so that was yeah it would have been 70 77,603 different things had it had it been counted but no sadly it wasn't to be for George Liana

keeps well keeps laughing but Mike thinks it's hiccups

uses tape to stick straight to the shed they love the shed The kids on Junior Taskmaster absolutely love the shed.

There's a lot of good stuff in the shed.

I think it's a bit harsh, Jenny, to do a task for the kids where where they have to stick stuff to them and give them loads of sellotape and then make them use those awful child safety scissors, which Kali don't work.

It was funny though, wasn't it?

It was funny.

It was funny.

I mean, all kids know they don't work, but they all tried, you know, they tried to pick them up and make them work, but no, they were rubbish.

They always rubbish.

You need proper sharp scissors and you mustn't run with them.

You just be sensible with your sharp scissors.

But yeah, so Jana's strapping scissors to herself.

I thought at one point Ibrahima was trying to do something clever and have, because I saw glitter on him.

And I thought, oh, is he trying to do a little bit of a George and say, you know, every speck of glitter is different, but that wouldn't have worked either.

No, sorry.

Because I don't think he was trying to do that, though, really.

So I was trying to work out, was he just using the glitter as glue?

Was it just a type of glue?

Or was he just having a good time covering himself and things?

Knowing Ibrahima, he was possibly just having a good time covering it, just being enthusiastic, picking up whatever was there, just

he was happy.

He'd have pancakes for breakfast.

Whatever happened on that day after that, it doesn't really matter, does it?

Yeah, no, it was going to be downhill, really, after the pancakes.

I mean, the pancake, and then what I loved was it was, um, you know, the today he only had pancakes on special days, and it turned out that it wasn't his doting mother who'd made the pancakes, it was actually because it was a hotel, and that's what you get in hotels.

You know, I one of my biggest joys in life is watching children at hotel buffet breakfasts.

And just

I saw one little boy who must have been about six or seven, and he had seven sausages and a chocolate muffin.

And I just thought, oh, that's breakfast.

That's the breakfast.

That's the best day of his life.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love this.

I also love how patient Ibrahimer is with Mike when Mike's asking all his stupid questions about, are you a sticky person and all that?

He's just going, yes, very sticky person.

He's yes-anding everything Mike's saying just to make him shut up, basically.

Yes, because he just wants to get on with the task, really.

But he's so polite.

Finlay, Finley really goes for it.

So Finley ends up winning this task.

He really goes for it and just tops it off with the pillow stuck to his head.

Yeah,

that's right.

I've just got a mental image of Finley with that cushion on his head looking like a small emperor with loads of stuff on him.

Yeah.

He does have the stance of an emperor as well because he's trying to keep the cushion on his head and just and the way he walks out is quite regal, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

He's quite cunning.

Yes, he is.

He's a good contestant.

He seems to know what he's doing.

And we come back to the studio and he's the one who maybe starts the suggestion that George should not get points for every single piece of straw.

He's gone in there with a game plan.

They're all quite on that, aren't they?

They're all sort of, you know, they've all got the straw game sus

so Shania.

This was quite a clever way of doing it, I think.

Rather than going for the tape, she finds things that already have sticky backs in the shed and goes for it that way.

And that really works out well for her.

She managed to get 12 different things.

I thought that was quite canny.

I love the way she plays as well.

She seems to play very fairly.

Yeah.

She seems to be nice girls.

She's got, you know, there are some girls that you don't want your own daughter bringing back for tea.

I mean, there's

when I do one of the other podcasts I do, which is older and wider, I do suggest some of the parents listen.

But my podcast cohort on that once admitted to me that I was the kind of girl that her mother would not have liked her bringing home for tea.

And I can see that.

There's always

kids always turn up with dirty hands.

No,

she's very sweet.

She plays the game properly.

And I really like the, we see a little glimpse of the relationship between her and Liana.

I think it's after the next task when they've both done really well and they both say to each other, you were so great.

well done, everything you did was fantastic.

And I love that.

There's a bit of

a bit of girl power.

But no, they all did very well.

They all came out with lots of things stuck to them.

But it was five points for Finley again.

Four points for Liana, three points for Shania, two points for Ibrima, and one point for George.

Yeah.

Big scissors.

Big scissors.

I think there's stickers in here.

Stickers.

Stickers in the chairs.

Yep.

Are you sticky yourself?

I'm very sticky.

Yeah.

I like to stick to things.

How would you make yourself sticky?

If there was glue in here, I'd just put it all over myself.

Are you getting stickier with age?

I think I'm just staying sticky.

Staying sticky.

You're a peak sticky.

Yeah.

Who's the stickiest person you know?

Questions that?

Pants.

Has anyone stuck a brick onto a girl before?

Nah.

No.

These scissors are useless.

Glitters messy.

Yep, you're definitely making a nice mess, aren't you?

Yeah, but whatever it takes to win.

Oh.

Oh.

These are sticky, I think.

It's like there's a little bow sink.

You've got to choose a colour.

No, you're just small as though.

Thank you.

All you want to do now?

Take it off yourself.

All the information's in the task.

Goodbye, Nate.

Thank you, Anna.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

How'd you feel that went?

Stick it.

Let's see if George can do any better in this one.

It's task three.

Hide the peas that are currently on the tease.

You have five minutes, your time starts now.

And of course, once they've hidden the peas, Jenny, part two, retrieve the peas and put them back on their tees most peas back on their tees in the fastest time wins you have a maximum of 10 minutes your time starts now did you see this coming Jenny because I like to think as a seasoned taskmaster watcher and player no no I didn't remember I'm very gullible and quite stupid and I I do everything instinctively and very quickly and don't think so no I'd have been a complete idiot about it and I'd have then I'd have run around like a headless chicken trying to find stupid peas that I'd thrown miles away.

I'd have probably thrown thrown them over the fence.

Would you have also assumed that Mike was the one who had to find them?

Yeah.

Because they all love that.

They love that idea that Mike has to find it and they're gleefully throwing these peas into the grass, being like, Yeah, good luck, Mike.

You're never going to find that one.

I think I'd have probably eaten them.

Oh, that's good.

But then part two, retrieve.

Then

part two, I'd have had to say, Can you wait three hours, please?

And could you give me a sieve?

That might have been a step too far for a junior taskmaster, I suspect.

Yeah, but anyway, you know what I'm talking about.

Absolutely.

Shitting.

We'll call it plop-plopping for the children.

Plop-plopp.

But Shanaya very cleverly finds the peas in the fridge.

Finds them early as well, finds them before she was supposed to, essentially, for the big sort of big reveal.

And decides to

carefully places her peas in strategic places.

She's not a chucker.

She's very delicate.

She's thinking about this.

She's not throwing them willy-nilly, obviously, because she doesn't know who's going to have to find them.

So she's thought ahead a little bit.

But what I really liked, she found that bowl of peas.

She thought, maybe I have to hide these as well.

So I'm going to go and hide the whole bowl of peas just in case there's some little twist.

And it worked out very, very well for her because eventually she works out that she can just go and bring the bowl of peas and put them on the teas.

And she absolutely nails it.

Yes, very, very nice job.

Liana also find peas, but she didn't find them till quite late.

But it did save her bacon or save her peas.

It did.

Yeah, again, fun watching her hide the peas and talk about her auntie

who has a caravan that she never speaks to.

That whole chat with Mike was fantastic.

And in the studio, where

Mike says, have you taken your auntie out for lunch?

And she said, no, I'm nine.

Just Mike really can't catch a break this episode, I don't think.

I think he must have come out this way.

I think that's why

that's his game plan.

Do you think he's going to be that assistant?

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, he's that assistant.

It seems to be like a character from a very strange book, but those kind of books that eight-nine-year-olds read.

He's just reminding me of a fictional character who's wandered into the wrong room and is saying the wrong things, which I really enjoy.

Yeah, there is something, that is definitely the way Mike's decided to take the assistant role.

But also, there is just something about him that seems to make kids want to be mean to him and undermine him quite a lot.

Just something something about his personality.

Well, I mean,

I think that's a big difference between children of my generation and children of this generation who are so much more confident.

I mean, my generation, you didn't call adults Mike.

Yeah.

That just wouldn't, it would have been Mr.

Wozniak

and

you know,

Miss Mattafeo.

And you'd put your hand up before you spoke in the studio.

And actually,

we'd have all been sitting in puddles of wee under our chairs because we'd have been so overly excited.

I mean, it would have been just the maddest, most exciting thing to somebody of my generation in a TV studio.

Yeah, seeing people up close that you'd seen on television that was like an impossible dream.

That was like you know, the moon landings.

Yeah, I mean, they're definitely excited, but there's no hands up.

Other, there's no hands up, and it's Mike, it's Mike and Rose,

which I think Mike and Rose prefer, to be honest, because

they don't want to feel any older than

any older than the kids are making them feel anyway.

As Rose said, do not Google our ages.

At which point, every child watching Junior Taskmaster is going to go straight to

Google and find out how old they are.

No, there's a lot of...

I mean...

Again, I hate making the sort of crass gender divide as to what the contestants do, but the boys do enjoy a lot of just throwing the peas around as far as they can.

George does a lot of, yeah, a a lot of throwing, a lot of random places.

Ibrim, no, Ibrima's a little more delicate, actually.

Ibraima, you know, he picks, he picks his places, you know, windowsill, you know, and Finley puts one in the key lock and all of this stuff.

Says Mike wouldn't be able to see it because he's an old man.

So it's with his restricted eyesight.

Restricted vision.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, but none of them do find the secret peas, sadly.

It's just, it's just the girls who do.

Yeah.

Is that, I mean, is it just because girls know that peas get kept in the fridge?

Is it sort of...

I think they're just...

I mean, that's a gender thing that I don't think happens anymore.

But in my day, you know, girls were expected to put things away in the fridge.

And I don't think boys would have done that.

Yeah, well, I mean, I was no stranger to the fridge when I was a kid, Jenny.

Well, that's because you were very greedy and you had your hands in all the pies.

Absolutely.

So I would have, I probably would have opened the fridge at that age and not even seen the peas.

I had vegetable blindness.

But you might, as a contestant, what sort of a junior contestant would young Ed have been?

You maybe have looked straight in the fridge to see if there's some chopping.

Yeah, I think I definitely would have done.

I think I would have been, I mean, I was probably a clever-ish little kid, but also just chaos.

So I think I would have been

more of a couldn't believe my luck that I'm allowed to smash things up and no one's going to tell me off.

So I would have been a little bit more bullish, I think, as I was on the show.

Exactly like I was on the actual show, Jenny, is the answer to that question.

Yeah, I don't think we really change that much.

Yeah, I do think so.

Well, how do you feel?

How do you feel about the P-forgery by George?

That's what I want to ask because this is the biggest story.

I love George.

George is, you know, one of my favorites.

Well, they're all my favorites.

I don't have favourites.

Well, I've only got one favourite child, and that's my own grandson.

So there we go.

That's easy.

But I did like, I thought George was scrabbling by this point, but I do admire

the fact that he refused to give up.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that bodes very well for George because he knew that

he was on a hiding to nothing.

So, but he still didn't.

He could have just put his face in his hands and just go, I don't want to play this anymore.

I mean, none of them cried.

No, no, no, no.

They're made of strong stuff.

Yeah.

So good for George.

But he was never going to pull the wool over anybody's eyes, you know, trying to pretend that bits of grass were peas.

No love.

I thought it was smart, though.

You know, faced with the situation that he was where he didn't know that there were other peas, there was no chance of him finding the peas that he threw away.

I thought it was pretty smart.

It's the sort of thing Andy's Ultiman would do on this series.

I think he'd have been better off trying to find some

beans or some pets of paper and then some green paints.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, yeah,

it was a shame that all he could find in the time that was left was some grass.

Was some grass.

But yeah, he does get an extra point though, remember.

So he comes bottom of the table, but he gets two points.

And it's two points as well for Abrima, three points for finlay four points for liana and five points for shanaya lovely shot bad news is it bad news

wow okay so retrieve the peas and put them back on their tees did notice a lot of people just threw them just hoofing it into the grass some of them that might have been hard to find yeah

Shania, I saw you at one point trying to hide a pee in a zebra's ear.

Yeah, yeah.

Did that work out?

No, so then I tried the math because I thought he might be hungry.

Oh.

I wrote this down.

Finlay hiding a pee and saying, is Mike going to look there with his restricted vision?

I think he's an old man, isn't he?

Wow.

Got a Google that, isn't it?

Aren't you like 46?

Do not Google how old we are.

You're 32, you're 47.

The first time you said we were allowed to be mean to him, we're being mean to him.

I forgot I did that.

You news watching at home, yes, we have lost control of the

so at this point, Shania is in the lead.

Yes, yes, she's doing very well.

I love that you like to check in on the scores as we go along, Jenny.

I don't think we've ever done that before, but it's

just slightly analyzed.

Well, no, it's just because I need to know where I am because we're going into the studio task now, are we not?

We are.

I love this.

I think this would work very well in the adult taskmaster.

I think it would.

Because I quite like those random tasks.

And the ones that have a bit of tension.

So this, yeah, this was, open a can, you must open the first can you touch.

If you open a can that has something in it, you're out.

The person who stays in the longest wins.

And there is a, they really ratchet up the tension for this one, don't they?

Yeah, yeah.

And what's great is because the cans are quite light.

So they pick them up and sort of peer into them, which of course has disastrous consequences when they open one, which does have the thing in it.

And all the things are the same and they all do the same thing.

And the reaction, I mean, everybody jumps because they're those cans with the jumpy out snakes.

And those have been around since my day.

Well, that's probably the same shop that you get some itching powder.

Did you not have to make your own jumpy out snakes back in your day?

No, we actually had those.

And we had,

there's another one as well, because you did get joke, you got packet of joke things for christmas and there was a fake chewing gum one that snapped your finger i can't remember there were all sorts i loved things like that i loved practical jokes yeah they were great i mean obviously the whoopee cushion is the classic right oh i bought one recently but they're not as good as they used to be

I genuinely,

why did you buy whoopee cushion, Jenny, and how do they differ from what they used to be?

Okay, I've got a new tour coming up.

I've been scrabbling around for material.

You know what it's like.

You know, when you start writing a show,

any idea, you don't block yourself.

You go, no, I'm going to go with that idea.

Right.

It would be cushioned.

Very funny.

Right.

I buy three on the internet.

And they were just, they're not, I like those sort of funny, slightly orangey pink ones that are quite thick rubber.

Yes, yeah.

And these were much brighter and thinner, and I found them hard to blow up.

And no, they're just, anyway, I've still got them.

I haven't, you know, I've not got rid of the idea entirely yet.

I'm just thinking.

Well, make sure you go and see Jenny on tour, guys, because

careful where you sit in the theatre.

Well, I know that was one of my ideas, but I just couldn't do it.

I just thought, how am I going to disguise?

I just loved the idea.

Oh, well, anyway.

Of the audience all sitting down and then they're all on with the other one.

In fact, if I had the money, if I was properly, properly successful, what I would do is I would interfere with an entire auditorium and I would secrete a would be cushion into every single seat.

So that, I mean, I'd like to do it at the Royal Albert Hall when they're doing really posh things.

Yeah, so when the audience sits down, everyone's

like that en masse, and it would really, really make me laugh because there is nothing funnier than barting, let's face it.

To be fair, I think a lot of the people going to those posh things at the Royal Albert Hall just do that naturally anyway.

They are, they're a rather naive, aren't they?

Where they're slightly seeping.

Um,

so this is this, this is a very tense studio task, and um,

yeah,

they all have a clear round.

They all have the first round, they get lucky and they all open a can with nothing.

That's really nice.

And you can't organise that.

It's just luck.

Or this game, no skill.

And I quite like this because this is really the essence of Taskmaster, isn't it?

It doesn't matter how clever you are, how cunning you are, how those brain waves come in.

It's all...

Sometimes it's just up to luck, isn't it?

It's just up to luck.

It is.

And there's some great reactions.

Ibrima jumps three feet in the air.

I absolutely loved his reaction, but it's yeah, totally down to luck.

And it is George who manages to scrape through and get the five points.

Doesn't think he's going to do well.

He thinks he's going to go out at one point of the task.

But yes, he manages to get it.

He triumphs.

Finley picks the snake out and reacts as if he knew it was a snake all along.

The snake bursts out.

He just sort of throws it down.

He knew what was going on.

Doesn't seem bothered.

Straight back.

Played it cool.

If it had been a real snake.

Shania would have been fine with it.

She's seen the skit.

Yeah, she'd have skinned it.

Yeah, she'd have been fine.

Draw that.

Who have we got going through then?

Because it's the top two, isn't it?

Yeah, so in that task, it was Liana with one point, Shania with two points, Ibraima with three points, four points for Finley, and five points for George.

Meaning that going through top with 18 points is Finley and second with 17 points is Shania.

But it was very close.

It was George and Liana on 15 points and Abrima on 16 points, 17 points and 18 points for the winners who are through to the semifinals.

Close, very close.

We will look forward to that as close as the adult series, this series 18.

Yeah.

Very close indeed.

And that's over 10 episodes, and that's still as close, really.

But yeah,

that's great.

Well, we wish them all the very best.

And who are they up against?

They're, of course, our fifth and sixth contestants who are through to the semifinals.

And we've got another two weeks of heats.

So, yes, very, very exciting.

So, there's going to be 10 kids in the final, is there?

In the semis,

in the semis, and then five kids in the final.

Yeah.

Okay, right.

All very, very exciting.

Oh, gosh, there'll be some tense parents.

There will be, but the kids all seem very relaxed.

That's what, that's what I'm amazed by and very happy by, that they just seem to be, they seem to be having fun.

Oh, the kids are no trouble.

It'd be the parents in the green room being impossible.

I mean,

there should be a secret camera camera in the green room just to see which parents are being the most needy.

Speaking to all the agents.

Yes.

Trying to get them signed up.

Jenny, thank you so much for coming back on the Taskmaster podcast.

We, of course, always ask our guests to rate their experience on the Taskmaster podcast between one and five points in the style of the Taskmaster.

We hope you've had a good time.

I have had a very, very good time.

Four and a half points.

Half point taken off for a slightly mean fee.

Well, I'm not in control of that, Jenny.

No, you're not in control, but I've got a medical procedure to pay for, and it's not a facelift before anyone goes there.

And, you know, that won't even pay the nisatist, but that's not your problem.

Well, look, we hope we have chipped in at least some money to your Brazilian butt lift.

Your book is Jokes, Jokes, Jokes.

That is out now.

And your tour has been a good idea.

While this, because this is kids podcast it's jokes jokes jokes is a memoir it's not a joke okay if there are children thinking oh that sounds fun i'll get some good jokes no no it's a memoir uh and uh it there will be a particularly great for grandmothers okay great this it's a good christmas present for your grandmother if you're a kid listening yeah and your tour is the of the same the same name yeah and that is not for children either i'm really sorry yeah i'll put i'll put it out there now Jenny's shows are not for children, and neither are mine.

Despite the fact that parents insist on bringing them, do they?

I've had some very young front row audience members.

Yeah.

I think 11's probably the youngest that's been in there, but it's 16 plus my show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, people always think their kids are more hardy than other people's kids.

Yeah, well,

we have seen some very, very bright children on this series.

And I'm sure that there are other parents looking in and putting their children's names down.

So,

you know, this could run and run.

It could indeed.

Thank you so much, Jenny.

We will see you again soon, I'm sure.

And of course, listen to Taskmaster the People's podcast, which Jenny co-hosts with Jack Bernhardt.

Bye-bye, Jenny.

Bye-bye, Ed.

Thank you so much to Jenny for coming on the Taskmaster podcast.

Welcome back anytime, of course.

Don't forget to go and check out Jenny's memoir, Jokes, Jokes, Joke, and see her on tour.

And just whatever Jenny's up to, please take part in it.

Unless it's just her private life, in which case, please leave her alone.

We will be back next week to talk more about Junior Taskmaster episode 4.

We will be chatting about that with another brilliant special guest.

Don't forget to watch it Friday, 8 p.m., channel 4.

But for now, goodbye.