Funny / Citation Needed

A Panel Show featuring four funny and relatively well-educated gentlemen is bound to cause a few belly-laughs. Here's just some of them.

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Series One

• 1x01: "The Big Lobster and Drive-through Booze"
  • The extended intro in which the guys riff on a pun Tom made about "Roger Daltrey's Discount Poultry".
    Chris: [as Roger Daltrey] Stay away from my chicken farm!
    Matt: Who are you? Who ARE you?!
    [everyone bursts into laughter]
    Gary: YES! WE'VE STARTED!
  • The revelation that houses are to people what tanks are to fish.
  • Tom accidentally partially giving away that the Big Lobster is located in Australia, leading Chris to jokingly ask if it's located in the "Tyrol of Austria".
    Chris: Just on the side of a mountain. "Why have you got this lobster?" [in a terrible Austrian accent] "Ve stole it from Australia." That's the worst accent ever, that's not from anywhere!
    Gary: "It teaches them the folly of their ways, Hans."
    Chris: "I say this lobster is a lesson, a lesson to the whole world!
    Gary: "From its claws will come fondue!"
• 1x02: "The Newgate Novel and Condiments on Toast"
  • The episode's topic sounds surprisingly sophisticated.
    Tom: And today's article is: the Newgate Novel.
    Gary: Ooh! We've gone highbrow all of a sudden.
    Tom: We have. Yes.
    Gary: I'll put on my best smoking jacket and clever cravat!
  • Gary mentioning that the British Prime Minister, Gladstone, "had his peccadillos" leads to an accidental mishearing by Matt, which in turn leads to this frankly epic exchange:
    Matt: At the beginning of that paragraph, I thought you were talking about piccalilli. [the others laugh] I was hoping for a story about toast, or sandwiches.
    Gary: F***, who puts piccalilli on toast?!
    Tom: I was going to say! There's something wrong with you if you're putting piccalilli on toast! Never mind the mishearing. Never mind how quickly we've moved through this. The hell are you doing putting piccalilli on toast?
    Gary: You might as well put mustard in your eyes! It's a horrible thing to do!
    Matt: [sheepishly] I've had mustard on toast before.
    Chris: Mmm.
    Gary: WHAT.
    Chris: Nothing wrong with mustard on toast.
    Matt: It's like having sweet chilli on toast, or...
    Gary: [in horror and disbelief] Just mustard?
    Chris: [thoughtfully] Hmm...
    Matt: And butter as well!
    Chris: And probably black pepper, if it was me.
    Gary: Oh fine! We got the butter, that's fine! [head darting from side to side] Which mustard, English? French? What?
    Chris and Matt: [incredulously] English!
    Tom: I like how you're doing this tennis thing here.
    Gary: [head darting] We must know! We must know!
    Chris: Brannan's terrified. He's encountered things he doesn't understand.
    Tom: You've opened Brannan's eyes to a whole new area of condiment-based toast.
    Matt: Have you never had condiments on toast before?
    Gary: No! Er, er... I've had cheese and brown sauce.
    Matt: No, no, that's cheese.
    Chris: Yeah. We're talking tomato sauce sandwich here.
    Gary: WHAT?!
    Matt: Tartare sauce sandwich!
    Tom: [Spit Take] Urrrghhh.
    Gary: [like he's just found a months-old corpse] Aaah! Jesus! Horseradish?!
    Matt: [eagerly] Oh! Horseradish on toast.
    Gary: [does an Aside Glance at the camera]
    Chris: Forget the toast. Out of the jar, with a spoon.
    Gary: [Breaking the Fourth Wall] Right! Behind the unseeing eye ahead of me. If you've ev... it's not just these two, if you've actually put a condiment — and only a condiment, on toast, e-mail in, write in, send a telegram, or a pigeon, or your butler or something.
    Tom: Oh wait, no, to be fair I've had sandwich pickle on toast before.
    Matt: ♫ Piccalilli! ♫
    Tom: Oh no, hold on Gary. That's a good point.
    Matt: It's like having gherkins on toast with mayo.
    Gary and Tom: Whoa, whoa, whoa!
    Gary: You can't say "it's just like..."
    Chris: That sounds pretty good. I've never had that.
    Tom: [desperately trying to bring the lads back on topic] If I can... If I can drag this back.
    Chris: Good luck, mate!
    Gary: That's like having...for f***'s sake, that's like having Yop on a baguette...I mean you're just putting... substances together...
    Tom: [forcefully] The Newgate novel. If I can bring this back...
  • The decline of the Newgate Novel leads to this exchange:
    Tom: Dickens, it says here, was "made of sterner stuff".
    Gary: More commercially lucrative stuff, as I like to call it.
    Chris: Didn't balk at giving the public what they wanted.
    Tom: Yes. So it became sensation novels.
    Gary: Charles "There's my 500 words, where's my £50?" Dickens.
    Chris: That's why his style is as it is. That's why he's so long-winded, you know. "I should hate to pontificate over this for so long as excess verbosity could lead to..." Yeah?
    Gary: I've probably said before, my favourite Dickens line is the one about the door knocker in A Christmas Carol, "which, having not undergone any intermediate process of change...".
    Tom: Wow.
• 1x03: "Stefania Follini and a Moon Theremin"
  • Stefania Follini spent months living alone underground as part of an experiment, her only communication with the outside world being through a computer terminal. In response to this, Gary suggests an extremely dark prank, which inspires Dude, Not Funny! reactions in the others.
    Gary: Wouldn't you, right, at least on April 1st, have taken the opportunity to really s*** her up via that computer terminal? If she can't see the outside world, I'd have just typed the word "HELP" repeatedly, with "THEY HAVE DONE IT. OH GOD THEY HAVE DONE IT" — repeatedly.
    Tom: Er...no.
    Chris: '89, yeah, that'd be a bit harsh!
    Tom: Yeah!
    Matt: It's five years too late, really.
    Gary: Yeah, but I wouldn't say who "they" were and what they'd done. It would turn out all they'd done is block the toilet in the gents' first floor loo.
• 1x06: "Neckarwestheim and the End of the World"
  • Chris talks about touring a decommissioned nuclear bunker, and mentions that as he left the bunker, he saw a group of people standing outside the chain-link fence, looking in, which gives Gary an unpleasant flashback.
    Gary: Aaah! Aaaah! Aaah! It's like Threads! It's like Threads happened!
    Chris: Oh, it's Threads turned up to eleven. If you guys are around on a different Sunday, because we're busy tomorrow, you'll - well, you'll hate it, but you'll all love it, I'm sure, it's great.
    Gary: No! No! No! Because it'll make me think of Threads!
• 1x07: "The Counts of Andechs and Motorway Service Stations"
  • The description of the Count from Sesame Street actually going out hunting for blood.
    Chris: [as Count] I have insatiable thirst for human blood! Ah ah ah!
    Gary: It's the thought of Count submitting to his baser, non-counting instincts one night. [as Count] "Ah, ah, try to find virgin on Sesame Street, impossible!"
    Chris: [as Count] "Bert and Ernie, no hope there! I go to their house thinking two-for-one deal, no! Things I see cannot be unseen."
  • The guys somehow come up with a British answer to Takeshi's Castle.
    Gary: Takeshi Kitano, am I right?
    Tom: Beat Takeshi.
    Gary: Massive, huge movie star of Japan. If you were doing it, it'd be Connery's Castle. That's the level - or Moore's Mansion or something like that is what you'd be looking at.
    Matt: Brosnan's Bungalow!
    [all laugh]
    Gary: Dalton's Dormer. Doesn't quite work.
    Tom: I've just got Brosnan's Bungalow as an alternative Saturday morning kids' show.
    Chris: Dick and Dom!
    Gary: [as Pierce Brosnan] "Now we're going to look at some silly things outside." [mimes pulling on a cigar] The thought of Roger Moore driving around in one of those little carts they have on Takeshi's Castle, spraying people while laughing in a military uniform.
    Chris: That's what he does!
    Gary: Yeah, but he'd have a big cocktail in his left hand, wouldn't he? [in suave Roger Moore voice] "Ahh ha ha huh ha haaa".
    [everyone loses it]
    Chris: That's the greatest impression of anybody I've ever seen!
    Gary: Roger Moore driving a car, shooting water while carrying...
    Chris: It was so good I popped a button on me shirt, Gary.
• 1x08: "The Flag of Mars and Rods from God"
  • The first five minutes of the episode are about the "flag of Mars" as being the flag of Mars - the chocolate company. It leads to the lads riffing on an imaginary chocolate war. Highlights include descriptions of Freddos in Saving Private Ryan-esque states of injury, "Curly-Wurlys used as trenching ladders", and discussing how the boss of a Lindt factory was killed in 1918 by one of his own fondant boilers exploding. All of which has nothing to do with the episode's topic, of course.
    • The discussion of the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit.
      Chris: Do you remember the Cadbury's Caramel rabbit?
      Gary: Yes, I do.
      Chris: She'd be Florence Nightingale.
      Gary: I was thinking she was the cheesecake for the troops.
      Chris: Oh, crikey. Steady, lad!
      Gary: On the old ENSA shows.
      Chris: Be still!
      Gary: [husky voice] "Hi, boys...I'll just undo the wrapper slightly..." [mimes cheering]
      Chris: "Show us your gooey centre!"
    • The above joke causes Gary to start laughing so hard that he makes a sound that can only be described as somewhere between a clogged drain emptying and a stalling car engine, much to Chris's delight.
• 1x09: "The Arctic Winter Games and Dropping the Bomb"
  • Gary makes a funny noise.
    Tom: Today we are talking about the Arctic Winter Games.
    Gary: Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!
    Tom: ...what the hell was that?!

Series Two

• 2x01: "Thomas Trueblood and the Ridiculous Marathon"
  • The bonus material, in which Gary spots an ice cream van, which leads him to relate an anecdote about a pie van stopping outside his work, which then leads him on a tangent about the time he saw someone walk past his work with a wallaby on a lead, which then leads to an argument about whether wallabies can store food in their pouches (They can't, according to Tom, because the pouch is "full of goo"), which then leads to Gary and Chris bickering about Gary's imaginary wallaby butler, which then, finally, leads to Gary accusing Chris of being a "Wallaby f***ing Paxman" (after Jeremy Paxman, a British newsreader known for his aggressive style of questioning style and cynical demeanour), which then leads all the guys to riff on the idea of Jeremy Paxman, erm, gently caressing a wallaby.
    Gary: [as Jeremy Paxman] And tonight on Newsnight, we're talking to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it's full of goo...
    [everyone laughs]
    • Even funnier is that while Gary and Chris are bickering, Matt starts mugging at the camera, then starts checking his phone - after which he and Tom play a couple of rounds of rock-paper-scissors. All while Gary and Chris keep going. Matt and Tom don't actually rejoin the fray until the aforementioned "Wallaby Paxman" accusation!
  • The titular marathon itself, which featured: the initial winner being disqualified because he rode there in a car, the actual winner having doped with rat poison (against which there Weren't No Rule) and almost dying, another contestant having to take a nap halfway through after eating some rotten apples and still coming in fourth, and two others being chased a mile off-course by aggressive dogs - when they weren't even there for the Olympics, they were two South Africans from an exhibition on the Boer War next to the Olympics, who decided to give it a go.
    Matt: ...Is this all the same race?
    Tom: This is all the same race, this is the 1904 Summer Olympic Marathon...
    Matt: [promptly bursts out laughing]
• 2x02: "The Coffin Ray and Hugging a Penguin"
  • The opening.
    Tom: Today's subject is...the coffin ray.
    Chris: [coughs] "I'm a fish and I killed Steve Irwin."
    Gary: [reacting to Chris's joke] Ohhhhh! So R-A-Y?
    Tom: Yes, R-A-Y. First, you're getting a point for fish, but it's not the one that killed Steve Irwin.
    Chris: Nah, that one's already been sent to the electric chair.
    Tom: That was also a sting ray, which...
    Chris: [imitating a brass instrument] Da da laa dup daaa dup!
    [all laugh]
    Chris: [as Steve Irwin] "Crikey, I've got hold of it, but anything could happen in the next half hour!"
  • Matt tells the story of how he met a penguin, which leads to a brief debate as to whether penguins are birds or fish.
  • Tom asks the group what big things have been found in the stomachs of these rays, which goes about as well as you would expect:
    Chris: Sharks.
    Gary: Duncan Goodhews.
    Matt: Max Bygraves.
    [Tom looks bewildered]
    Tom: Not quite that size...
    Gary: A truck.
    Matt: The International Space Station.
    Gary: BRIAN BLESSED's underwear drawer.
    Tom: [facepalming] Big underwear drawer...
    Matt: Summerhike.
    Gary: The Library of Alexandria.
    Tom: They're normally things that live on land, but-
    Chris: Tigers.
    Gary: Vladimir Putin.
    [Tom just stares in disbelief]
    Gary: You said big things that live on land, we'll get there eventually.
• 2x03: "The Centennial Light and Edison the Cheat"
  • Tom asks a question about Thomas Edison's Eternal Light, a lightbulb intended to last forever. However, there is a slight problem with it. What is it?
    Gary: Is it evil?
• 2x06: "Lisa Clayton and Cake Black Holes"
  • The bonus video, in which Gary unsuccessfully tries to get away with a particularly loud, trumpet-like fart, causing the lads to corpse for two minutes. Every time Tom tries to bring the show back on track, Gary or one of the others starts giggling again. It comes to a head when Gary tries to maintain a blank expression, but unfortunately the result looks, er, rather constipated, causing Tom to get the giggles just as Gary stops.
    Tom: I can't look at Gary! I can’t look at him! He looks like he's having the worst sh*t of his life!
    [they all corpse]
  • Bonus points for the person doing the subtitles annotating the moment with the words, “Sharp, trumpet-like fart.”
• 2x07: "The Swarm and the Giant Jam Sandwich"
  • Matt falls into Tom's trap.
    Tom: At the end of the show, congratulations Gary! You obviously win this one for just knowing what the film was in the first place! You win updoc!
    Matt: What's up... doc...?
    Tom: Not much! What's up with you!
    [all laugh]
    Matt: [slowly bows down to the table, pushing his microphone down in the process
  • Gary says the film is from the "it's a living" stage of Michael Caine's career.

Series Three

• 3x01: "The SS Bessemer and Ask Heaves"
  • Gary lampshades the fact that the gang have moved from Matt's kitchen into the YouTube Studio, or as he puts it, "SPACE!" ^note The studio setup has black flooring and a black curtain, giving the illusion that the guys are quizzing in an endless black void.
  • Gary points out that the studio setup looks a lot like Question Time, and jokingly refers to Chris as "My honourable friend, the Member for Sheffield", which Chris, of course, uses to make a dick joke.
  • Following on from the above gag, Gary says "Steelmember", which leads the guys to riff on the idea of a South Yorkshire James Bond film where the villain is just the local scrappie.
    Gary: Bond is just strapped to a slab of old railway locomotive, while Steelmember comes up with a gas torch and just very closely — [as Steelmember] "I'll get yer nadgers in a minute if ye don't give in!"
    Matt: I was imagining him on the windshield of a smashed-up car.
    Gary: [as Steelmember] Might tek 'alf an hour, but we're gonna get there.
    Matt: [as Steelmember] "I'll turn t'wipers on!"
    Chris: [miming] Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
    Tom: [miming] Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!
    Gary: [as Sean Connery] "Shtop it! That'sh enough!
    Chris: [as Sean Connery] I'm starting to quite enjoy thish. Does it have two shpeeds?"
    Gary: [as Steelmember] "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to f**k off!"
    [everyone cracks up]
  • Gary's amusingly childlike explanation of how steel smelting works.
    Gary: A crucible is a big bowl, innit? On a windey thing, what tips over, and all t' hot metal comes out, into a box, and that meks...knives. [Beat] I WENT TO SCHOOL!
  • Tom states that the ship's saloon had "a bit of a problem" in the early-mid 1940s, by which he means that it was destroyed in the Blitz.
• 3x02: "The Boobrie and Conservative Pandas"
  • Tom drops the old chestnut about there being more pandas in Edinburgh zoo - ie. two - than there are Scottish Conservative MPs. Which leads to this:
    Gary: Yeah, and they're both Tories.
    Tom: What, the pandas?
    Gary: Yeah, viciously!
    Tom: "We've got a habitat, I don't see why all those other pandas should have one..."
    Gary: "We could let them in, but why should we?" Gets out The Telegraph and just goes "mrfhfruffrf", like that!
• 3x03: "Sergeant Reckless and Terry Google"
  • Tom describes how Sergeant Reckless was honoured at an award ceremony, which she attended, via a lift.
    Gary: At which point there is someone on the third floor, they've been drinking heavily all day, the lift door opens and there's a horse, in a ballgown, with medals. [mimes rubbing his eyes, staring at the bottle, and putting it down]
    Chris: Puts the bottle down, picks up something stronger.
  • Tom asks a hazard Sergeant Reckless faced in battle:
    Matt: Did she have to traverse a river?
    Gary: Atomic test site.
    Tom: ...More dangerous than that, less dangerous than that.^note It was a minefield.
• 3x06: "Jimmy Carter's Rabbit and Tinfoil Hats"
  • This episode has the self-contained Running Gag of Gary insisting there's a rabbit conspiracy. The crowner has to be when Gary tries to add to a previous joke referring to JFK.
    Gary: Hang on a sec, rewind. A grassy knoll is a small little hill, is it not?
    Chris: It is.
    Gary: What would live inside a small little hill?
    Tom and Matt: Teletubbies!
    [Matt and Tom high-five each other while Chris cracks up and Gary sits in stunned silence]
    Gary: Yeah, Teletubbies killed Kennedy, that's where I was going with this.
    Chris: [as narrator] Nunu's about to be very naughty...
    Gary: I've got the thought the Lee Harvey Oswald footage being re-cut now for Tinky Winky, being pulled out as Po jumps out. (mimes shooting a rifle)
    Matt: [as narrator] "This President - is tubby-toast."

Series Four

• 4x01: "Graham Island and Ye Starbucks"
  • Talk about digestive biscuits (also known as Graham crackers in the US) quickly devolves into pot-shots at the French.
    Chris: Aren't they just called "biscuits anglais" on the continent because they refuse to accept that they have - they don't have any effect on your digestion at all, it's only in Britain where we hold on to this falsehood.
    Gary: That's part of the same kind of train of thought that makes them call it "la cors anglais" and not the French horn.
    Chris: [in cartoonish French accent] "Ah, zese crazy Engleesh! Zey sink everysing is about zem!"
    Gary: [in even more cartoonish French accent] "Everysing zat is sh*t is over there. Your biscuit? Sh*t. Your 'orn? Sh*t."
    Tom: Less than two minutes into the show, into the series, and today's nation we are insulting is France. Hi, France!
    Gary: We need a spinning wheel that goes [imitates Wheel of Fortune sound] Ding! [in the most cartoonish French accent yet] LA FRAWNSE!
    Chris: Just on every one, except one that says "Germany".
    Gary: [turns to camera] We'll get to you.
    Chris: Eventually.
    Gary: Amazingly, that's what the Germans said to the French in '39! [winces at his own joke]
    • Followed swiftly by this:
    Matt: F**k Morocco.
• 4x02: "Project Cybersyn and Military Fridges"
  • Matt's attempt at a pun goes from normal joke to absolutely hilarious given Tom's reaction to it.
    Tom: It's worth pointing out, in less than -
    Matt: *points a finger in Tom's face*
    Tom: *slaps Matt's hand*
    Gary: Ooh hoo hoo hoo!
    Tom: I didn't actually intend for that one to connect.
    Gary: Hel-lo!
    Chris: Handbags at dawn, ladies!
    Matt: You're right, it was worth pointing out!
    Gary: That is the most "shut that door" slap I've ever seen, Tom.
• 4x03: "Cello Scrotum and Radium Water"
  • Tom mentions a scrapped plan to bring a physical prop as a joke prize instead of the usual string of wordplay. This eventually leads to one of Gary's hammiest rants on the show.
    Tom: I was actually going to get a physical prize, rather than a cheap joke. I was going to say "congratulations, you win homeopathic kitten chlamydia," and then I was going to get a small vial of pills of homeopathic kitten chlamydia, which you can order for about four or five quid from Her Majesty's Homeopathic Suppliers.
    [cut to Gary, who looks confused]
    Tom [cont'd]: I am not joking.
    Gary: What would I do? What would I use homeopathic kitten chlamydia for?
    Tom: Curing chlamydia in your kitten. Not a joke!
    Matt: I don't believe a word!
    Gary: Wait a minute, so I'm giving my kitten chlamydia to cure my kitten's chlamydia?
    Tom: No, you're giving your kitten water that used to have chlamydia in it. In order to cure the kitten's chlamydia. Not a joke!
    Gary: But I don't... [stutters] but I don't cure chlamydia by giving myself yet more chlamydia! That's not how it works!
    Tom: They will also sell you homeopathic Berlin Wall.
    Gary [louder this time]: What's that for? Communism?!
    Tom: Claustrophobia.
    Gary: F*** off!
    [Tom chuckles]
    Gary [continued]: How does that— THE BERLIN WALL WAS F***ING OUTSIDE ANYWAY! I COULD WALK PAST IT! I COULD SEE THE SKY, THE GROUND! I COULD GO IN ANY DIRECTION, BARRING THE ONE THE WALL'S IN FRONT OF! SELL ME A F***ING ROOM IF YOU WANT TO CURE ME OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA; THE ONLY WAY I'D GET CURED OFF THE BERLIN WALL IS BLOODY INTOLERANCE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST GERMANY! THAT'S RIDICULOUS!
    Chris: Breathe.
    Gary: JUST EAT SOME ***ING CONCRETE, IF THAT'S YOUR ISSUE!
• 4x04: "Shanghai Fugu and Mucky Fat"
  • Learning that the pufferfish used to make fugu becomes poisonous by ingesting toxic plankton leads Gary on a tangent:
    Gary: That's like when I was at school and there was that lad called John who just ate nettles.
    [the lads all go quiet]
    Gary: Raw!
    Tom: [lost for words] ...go on?
    Gary: I've told the story. There was a lad called John, who just ate...he didn't just eat nettles. That wasn't his entire diet. But he would eat nettles.
    Matt: [genuinely intrigued] Why?
    Gary: I don't know?!
    Chris (interjecting): Summat t'do, innit?
    Gary: It was funny? He maybe liked the sensation? I think he might have -
    Tom: What, the stung up tongue?!
    Gary: [exasperated] I'm not him! Why should I defend the man's weird mistakes in life?!
• 4x05: "Victor Lustig and Binary Points"
  • Matt's introduction.
    Matt: [in an unexpectedly loud, exaggerated Yorkshire accent] 'Ello, YouTube!
    Chris: [quietly] Bloody hell.
  • Gary suggesting that "Victor Lustig" is what they say on French Top Gear when The Stig wins. ("Victor Le Stig").
  • Tom tries to get the guys to guess the name of one of the men Victor Lustig conned. It doesn't go well.
    Tom: Can anyone guess what the name of the dealer he selected was? And it's not as difficult as you might think.
    Chris: Michel.
    Matt: Jacques.
    Tom: André. The last name is just a French word you learn at school.
    Matt: Gare!
    Gary: Bonjour?
    Tom: Er, something you might eat with chips.
    Gary: Frites?
    Matt: Moules?
    Gary: Cheval?
    Tom: Cheval? That's horse!
    Matt: La plage?
    Tom: What? That's the beach, that's where you eat them. What the hell do you eat with chips?
    Gary: Piscine?
    Tom: [exasperated] That's not the right word! THAT'S A SWIMMING POOL!
    [everyone, especially Gary, then breaks down laughing]
    Chris: Poisson?
    Tom: Poisson, have a point! André Poisson!
    Matt: André Piscine!
    Chris: [in Yorkshire accent] Bonjour, je suis Andrew Swimming-Pool.
    Tom: Are you okay, there, Gary?
    Gary: [wheezing] Oh my God, I wondered why I couldn't get served. [miming pointing at a fish] Le piscine! LE PISCINE, S'IL VOUS PLAÎT!
  • Gary relating an anecdote about a former job, where a client tried to pay for a service by sending them a photocopy of two £5 notes.
    Gary: If you could do that, you wouldn't need money, would you? You would need a fiver! I felt like sending her back a drawing of 20p's change!
  • The bonus clip in which Gary says "Brian May looks like Russ Abbott peering out of a cloud".

Series Five

• 5x01: "The Hydraulic Telegraph and Latin Grease"
  • Gary's introduction:
    Tom: Everybody's favourite Gary Brannan, Gary Brannan!
    Gary: And so the man says to the lady, "I'll have another go, but I don't know if I can fit another bread roll up my ass!"
    [cut back to a very flustered Tom]
    Chris: Now the question is, I know Gary was planning to prep lines for this series...
  • The guys start teasing Tom after he makes what sounds like a Captain Obvious remark (he's actually talking about the functioning of the telegraph).
    Tom: There are flags and there is water. And this is...
    Chris: [laughing] And there are shoes! And there are boxes! And there are houses! And there are doors!
    Gary: And orang-u-tangs! There are also oranges!
    Matt: Today we have the handle on nouns.
    Gary: [turning to camera] Hello children. Today we are learning about things. Today we are learning about flags. And there is water.
    Matt: And shoes! And there are antelope.
    Gary: Goodbye! We'll see you next week!
    Chris: I don't really think we can explain what Tom is without adjectives, so...
    [Beat]
    Tom: (looks at Matt, then Chris) Are you done?
    [all the guys crack up]
    Chris: Probably not, but you know, have another go.
    Gary: That is the most exasperated look you've ever done! "Are you done, children?"
  • Tom, talking about the Eureka children's museum in Yorkshire, makes a Double Entendre.
    Tom: They had a massive Archimedes' screw on the ceiling.
    Gary: Lucky Archimedes!
• 5x02: "Thomas Midgley Jr and a Pope Infestation"
  • Tom asks what Thomas Midgley Jr invented at General Motors, to which Gary answers "Double-decker bus" and Matt answers "Nuclear-powered car". Tom tells them no, so Gary gives "Nuclear-powered bus". This leads on to a tangent about The Big Bus, which provides a link to Supertrain, which provides a link to The Love Boat, which provides a link to TUGS. The lads then have to extricate themselves from being "three diversions deep" (which Gary suggests would make a great Tinder username). The best part is that they succeed and finish talking about every subject they brought up!
    Matt: God, I watched Inception last night and this is more difficult.
• 5x03: "BackpackersXpress and the Disco Carriage"
  • Gary and Matt's reaction to Tom explaining one key detail about the airline:
    Tom: The air crew would encourage passengers to socialise.
    Gary: Oh, f**k off!
    Matt [barely a second later]: Oh, f**k off!
    [panel cracks up]
    Tom: Spot the British people!
    
  • Gary's detesting of backpackers causes a neat bit of trivia to take a hilarious turn:
    Gary: The beds on airplanes I'm most interested in are the crew ones. It depends on the plane but a lot of them are right in the nose!
    Tom: Yep. And if you're on an Airbus A380, they have two and a half decks. There is another half deck up in the very top of the plane with half-height... you can crawl in and get sleep there.
    Gary [awestruck]: I want that one! I'd be fine with that one!
    Tom: No you wouldn't, because you're gonna be down there, and then you're going to get up and whack your head on the thing.
    Gary: Yeah, but I'm not with them f***ing backpackers, am I?!
    Tom: That's... not unreasonable.
    Chris: So what you're advocating actually is that you'll sleep in the wheel well if necessary?
    Gary: Yeah, if I'm not with them!
    Tom: I think previous news incidents have declared that is not a good place to sleep! That is a good place to freeze, die, and fall into someone's backyard.
    Gary: I'm not with them, am I though?!
    [panel cracks up]
    Tom [miming "on one hand..."]: Backpackers, freezing to death, backpackers...
    Gary: Everyone 'round this table is going "y'know, mate, that is a hard choice!"
• 5x05: Camille Flammarion and a Spiritualist Story
  • Gary's anecdote about attending a spiritualist service while drunk, which involved the spiritualist leading the service very clumsily cold-reading people and getting out of bad reads by insisting that anything people didn't understand was "for the future".
    Gary: It was...sh**.
    [the lads all crack up]
    Matt: I was expecting any other word there!
  • Gary then goes on to say that he had a glass of orange squash and got a samosa butty on the way home.
    Tom: And got what?
    Gary: A samosa butty.
    Tom: How Northern is that phrase?!
    Gary: It's a deep fried pastry, with spiced meats inside.
    Matt: The Empire...
    Matt and Tom: In a bap!
    Tom: Yeah! Bread roll, for those...
    Gary: In a bread roll, with a bit of mint sauce.
    Matt: The Empire made it to the North. A samosa — I want to try that now!
    Gary: It's beautiful!
    Tom: I don't! That's just — No! That's...no, that's double carbs, which I...
    Matt: Chip butty.
    Tom: Burrito. Yeah, never mind. I withdraw my objection!
• 5x06: "Ruth Belville and Time Balls: Citation Needed LIVE, Part 1"
  • Matt's Accidental Pun in the episode about the woman who sold time telling to people.
    Gary: Everybody, roll up your sleeves. This one's coming. [rising, along with the audience and the rest on the panel] Ohhhh...! GO!
    Matt: [stuttered] This is terrible! [audience laughing] Did she meet her untimely death at the third stroke?^note After Matt says "untimely death", the noise from the audience/Gary almost drowns out the words "at the third stroke". [Gary and the audience start groaning/cheering] Oh, no! No!
    Tom: [rewards 'MYSTERY BISCUITS']
    Matt: That wasn't even the joke! (everyone starts corpsing) I hadn't noticed that! That was better! [audience laughing] I was going to say, did she die at the third stroke? [audience groans]
• 5x07: "The Ice Block Expedition and Chainsaw Licenses: Citation Needed LIVE, Part 2"
  • Gary's intro.
    Gary: [to the tune of "Born Free" by Matt Monro] Porn free, as free as yer mam blows!
  • Tom mildly annoys Gary, which sets him off on a rant.
    Tom: Today we are talking about the Ice Block Expedition of 1959.
    Chris: Is this like King Cnut holding back the tide, trying to stop it melting by sheer force of will? [mimes straining]
    Matt: Who's Will?
    Chris: Well, this is the problem with the expedition. They couldn't find enough people called Bill, Will and William or Willis to take along, which is why it's failed, which is why the ice caps are still melting.
    Matt: Oh.
    Gary: Well, that's called, they all have bread-making hands and they're all too warm. You need them to be pastry hands to do that, they're all cold, don't you.
    Tom: [with a look of disbelief] What?!
    Gary: Oh for the love of f***. Look, if you've got 'bread-making hands', you've got warm hands, because you need warm hands to activate the yeast. If you've got cold hands, you've got 'pastry-making hands', because that keeps the pastry cold and the butter doesn't melt, dickhead.
    [studio audience applauds]
    Tom: [nods silently]
  • Discussing how they got the blocks of ice out of the Arctic, Matt suggests that they simply licked the ice into a block shape, like an ice lolly.
    Gary: Tons of Norwegian men, hands and knees... [mimes licking a block of ice]
    Matt: [mimes similarly but flicking his tongue in a way that looks a bit suggestive]
    Gary: [Beat] ...can you not do that when you're sat right next to me?
    [Matt hides his head in embarrassment, the audience laughs]
    [Wolf Whistle from the crowd]
    Gary: [beat] Yer mam's in!
  • An explanation of how they actually removed the ice turns into a discussion of chainsaws.
    Tom: They actually got it out from a glacier in 200-kilo blocks. What do you use to remove that much ice?
    Matt: Spoon!
    Gary: Big f**kin' 'ammers!
    Tom: Um, no, no - [points to Chris]
    Chris: Chainsaw!
    Tom: [ding] I knew you'd get that because you've got a chainsaw licence, haven't you?
    Chris: Not since October. [audience groans] So you're all slightly safer in your beds!
    Gary: But when we had that absinthe and chainsaw night last week, you told me you were fully qualified!
    Chris: Once you're drunk, you don't need to be qualified. It all becomes much more natural.
    Tom: To be fair, I don't think Leatherface from the horror movies really had a license for that. It's not a requirement.
    Chris: Yeah, like, and you see what happened? You see what happened?!
    Gary: Is that like Al Capone, is that what they got him on?

Series Six

• 6x01: "Jack Churchill and a Live Studio Audience"
  • Chris tries to speculate what happened with Jack Churchill when he was captured.
    Tom: He was captured-
    Chris: Yes. Was he?
    Tom: Do you know the story there?
    Chris: Ah, I can only presume that he was captured, went along willingly, beat all the guards at chess and poker, drank the camp commandant's rum, then dug his way out with his teeth while the commandant was passed out, chewing on broken glass and spitting it at guards before having relations with the entire female population of the nearest town, lighting a cigarette on the ground, not even using a match, flipping the V and then walking into the camp and say, "What have you f***ers been doing?"
    Gary: Tom. [visually telling Tom to press the 'MYSTERY BISCUITS' button along with Matt]
    Tom: [presses the 'MYSTERY BISCUITS' button]
    Chris: Just as a guess(!)
    Gary: Tom, please ding. For the love of God, please ding!
    Tom: I mean, it's not even close, but I'm going to give him the point for it. [ding!]
  • Gary's brain activating (see Series Seven folder below) is a funny moment in its own right. Gary's brain failing, on the other hand?
    Tom: ...I'm giving you a rectroactive point here, Gary...
    Gary: Ooooh, respective pointage! [ding!]
    Tom: ...because you've already said the word. What did he qualify as in the army?
    [long beat]
    Gary: ...supermarket?^* Immediately before this bit, Gary and Matt were joking that Churchill's Blood Knight tendencies would be hilariously out of place in a supermarket. [audience and panel breaks down, Gary starts panicking] I can't remember what I said!
    Matt: "You are now a professional supermarket, sir! Well done!"
    Tom: Where did that come from?!
    Gary: Because I think [Matt] said "Imagine him in the supermarket" and that's all that was there for that brief second, the word 'supermarket'. [panel laughter] Supermarket. He became a Londis, that's what happened!
    Matt: Pick a word, any word!
    Chris: He's pulling bottles of wine out!
    Gary: From under the kilt that he's not wearing, yeah!
    [beat]
    Gary: ...nail bar?!^* Earlier, Tom had asked the gang what Churchill did before WWII, and "Operative of a mildly successful nail bar" was Gary's (joke) guess.
    Tom: Parachutist!
• 6x02: "The $100 Hamburger and Tach Time"
  • Gary delivers an Accidental Innuendo.
    Gary: Wimpys, if you go into a Wimpy, and there’s not many left, I’ll mark you, they come on a plate, with like a knife and fork.
    Chris: PHRASING!
  • Gary describes Graceland as looking "like a Sixties council planning officer’s self-designed house."
• 6x03: "Stephens Island Wren and the Cobra Effect"
  • Wouldn't be a complete list of funny Citation Needed moments without mentioning Will Seaward's marvelous stand-in guest appearance.
    Chris: [Was the wren killed by] Cats?
    Tom: Yes, cats is technically correct. Could we be a bit more specific?
    Will: Panthers?
    [the audience laughs at the way he says it]
    Gary: Will, I've just gotten this thing of being in like a hotel room, in a lonely kind of guest house and suddenly from inside the cupboard, hearing you saying that! And it would be the most terrifying thing I could imagine.
    Will and Gary: "Panthers?"
  • And earlier in the same question...
    Tom: Any particular pests?
    Chris: Rats.
    Audience member: Bill Oddie!
    [panel cracks up]
    Chris [as Oddie]: "Bring me another plate of wrens! Conserve them that I may consume them..."
    Tom: Oh, we're in trouble when the audience have better gags than we have.
• 6x04, "Julie D'Aubigny and Dueling Scars"
  • Tom and French names:
    Tom: ...and today, we are talking about Julia... d'Aubig— d'Aubig?
    [panel and audience crack up]
    Chris: This is it! Forty minutes of this! Try and stay with us.
    Tom: To be fair, I am not French....
    Gary: No, really?!
    Tom: ...and if I were English, I'd pronounce this as der-orb-ig-ny, but I think it's dawb-ney.
    [...]
    Tom: Better known as Mademoiselle Maupin. Mopin... Moppin— I'm not French.
    Gary: This is gonna be...
    Tom: It's a French article, I'll be honest, it's downhill from here.
    Chris: The whole thing's not in French, is it?
  • Will's speculation as to what Julie's plan to break her lover out of a convent was:
    Will: She pretended to be a doctor, and went around the convent saying "this nun has a terrible disease! She must come with me immediately!" And then the nuns would all say "oh, a doctor has said so." And then the doctor would also have a sword. [laughter]
    Chris: Yeah, and they listened because he was SINGING!
    Gary: And then we have the interval, that's the way it goes.
    Tom: No.
    Will: ...She pretended to be a policeman, and went around the convent saying "this nun has committed a terrible crime! She must come with me..."
    • Becomes a Brick Joke later on, when Tom asks how Julie caused a scandal at a society ball.
      Chris: Turned up dressed as a bloke, left with a woman, reverted to being a woman, burnt the place down when somebody said 'oi!'
      Tom: One of those things is right, but it was a broad blunderbuss attempt, so let's try Gary.
      Gary: Singing opera, throws sword, stabs man, room on fire.
      Tom: None of those. So, based on that...
      Chris: Come on Will.
      Will: She pretended to be a doctor, [audience laughs, Tom makes 'damn it!' gesture] and went around the ball saying: "Everybody here has a terrible disease! You must all come with me immediately."
  • Tom talks about how Julie d'Aubigny was "insulted by a young nobleman, fought a duel with him, put a blade through his shoulder," which leads to this:
    Gary: This doesn't sound much like a duel. This more sounds like a very quick stabbing.
    Tom: She was a very good duellist, by all accounts.
    Gary: Well, excellent, obviously, yeah.
    Tom: He was Louis-Joseph d'Albert de Luynes, son of the Duke of Luynes.
    Chris: "He killed my father. Prepare to die."
    Tom: Quite the opposite. One of his companions came to offer his apologies-
    Chris: [interrupting Tom] He...resurrected my father?
    Chris and Will: [in unison] Prepare to live?
    Tom: Okay, when I say the opposite, I mean in more general terms.
• 6x05: "Acoustic Kitty and Bat Bombs"
  • Early on in the episode, Gary comes up with the idea of teaching a cat to hold up a flag that shows its real mood. The others are... not very open to this idea. What follows is Gary both admitting it's a terrible idea and still defending parts of it.
  • Gary's reactions to Tom describing the operation the CIA did on the cat.
    Tom: Yes, in an hour-long procedure a veterinary surgeon implanted a microphone in the cat's ear canal...
    Gary: [horrified] Oh!
    Tom: ...a small radio transmitter at the base of its skull...
    Gary: [gasp]
    Tom: ...and a thin wire into its fur.
    Gary: Agh!
    Matt: That's what the cat said.

Series Seven

• 7x01: "Charles Blondin and the Stolen Point"
  • The discussion of Henry II's jester, Roland the Farter, who every year at Christmas was required to perform "a jump, a whistle and a fart". Which he did by sucking air into his anus through muscle control and blowing it out again.
  • Matt uses Buffy Speak to glorious effect, leading to a chain reaction in the panel.
    Tom: We are looking for a specific acrobatic act that Charles Blondin was famous for.
    Matt: The windey-windey-falley-fabric thing!
    [Beat]
    Tom & Chris: Aerial silks!
    Tom: No. What have you got, Chris?
    Chris: The flat-o-mer-boing-a-mi-thing!
    Tom: Slackline?
    Chris: Trampo-mo-line!
    Tom: Trampo-mo-line? No.
    Gary: The high-rope walky-longy...
    Tom: Yes!
    [...]
    Tom: You’re absolutely right, it is the walky-longy-not-fally-downy-thing.
    Chris: The elastomastring!
  • Chris makes the shape of Niagara Falls with his hands, but turns them to be convex rather than concave, which leads to this disaster of a bit:
    Chris: Oh, that’s where I went wrong, I need my hands that way. Have you ever rubbed a waterfall? Don't get your hands backwards.
    Matt: You don’t want to rub it the wrong way.
    Chris: Actually you were trying to push the water back up weren’t you? "Get — ugh!" — what is Cnut doing in the wave pool?
    Matt: Stood at the bottom, like Atlas, failing.
    Gary: You’re sort of, "Why is no one else as bothered about this as me?! The sea will be empty, the fish will—" [his brain short circuits] "—opposite of drown!"
    [the panel and audience crack up]
    Chris: Asphyxiate, Gary...!
    Gary: "The fish are drowning! They seem fine with it, though..."
    Tom: You should have seen Noah trying to load them onto the Ark! Did not like it, did not like it at all.
    Gary: [through laughter] “There’s going to be a flood! Get the fish on!”
  • Chris steals Matt's point.
    Tom: Matt. Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt. You are so close... [Chris and audience laughing] because unbelievably, the word "egg" is the accurate one in there. What did he do in the middle of a tightrope, over Niagara Falls in about 1860?
    Matt: [tries to speak while waiting for Tom to finish]
    Chris: Fry an omelette.
    Matt: [less than a second later] Omelette. Oi, I was saying that! But how did I get that afterwards?
    Chris: I was doing it better!
    Tom: And Chris steals the point! [presses the 'ding' button]
  • Matt makes a pun by accident, yet again.
    Tom: He appeared in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Crystal Palace. Not at Crystal Palace, at the Crystal Palace.
    Gary: I’m going to guess that what he did his tightrope act on was, maybe, the beanstalk.
    Tom: I’m going to suggest that might be it, it’s not recorded here but, yes.
    Gary: Nah, he was the front end of the panto horse. While on the beanstalk!
    Tom: Back end, not a tightrope walker, clinging on desperately.
    Matt: It’s like, you have to put some tightrope walking in there, because this guy’s a one-trick pony…
    Gary: Oh, f*** off…
    Matt: That wasn’t a joke. Oh, horse! Panto horse. [deadpan] I must just be naturally funny.
    [he makes direct eye contact with the camera]

• 7x02: "The Sark Football Team and Hovercraft Enthusiasm"
  • An audience member tried to be a part of the show
    Tom: You're thinking of St Helena, and that's on the other side of the planet.
    Matt: It's a... Okay, yes.
    Gary: Alderney.
    Tom: Alderney is the other one, yes.
    Matt: Does one of them have a capital of St Helena of Guernsey?
    An audience member: Yes!
    Matt: Yes. I'm getting something right.
    Tom: That's my job! [audience laughing] And the thing is, you're wrong, it's Saint Helier. [audience laughing louder]
  • Matt's hovercraft enthusiasm is funny enough but guess what the bonus video links to. The crew going on hovercrafts!

• 7x03 "Turra Coo and Four-Legged Juggling"
  • Matt Parker fits into Matt Gray's space perfectly:
    Matt P.: Pleasure to be your replace-Matt.
  • Tom accidentally hurts himself while the audience sings along to the "Mystery Biscuits!" jingle.
    Gary: What did you do?
    Tom: Whacked my funny bone on my chair!
    Gary: Ohhhhhhh!
    Chris: That is pretty funny.
    Tom: [squeaking] And today...!
    Gary: That's the right hand, he needs that one.
    Matt P.: "Come, Matt, fill in for the classy panel show, it'll be great."
  • Apparently both Gary and Tom forgot something.
    Gary: Can I just ask, is it a boy cow or a girl cow?
    Tom: It's a girl cow.
    Gary: Okay, thank you.
    Tom: I believe there's technically a term for that.
    Gary: Yes, it's "cow". [audience and the rest of the panel laughing]
    Tom: [tried to say something and then pressed the 'MYSTERY BISCUITS' button]
    Gary: I only know that because I've made that same mistake myself.
  • In a moment that will likely only make sense to British viewers, Tom points out to Gary, after a disparaging comment about the middle class, that he bought a croissant from Waitrose.^note A "posh" supermarket in the UK. There's no close comparison for US readers, but think along the lines of Whole Foods. Gary's defence?
    Gary: Didn't have almond in it.
    Chris: Almond?! LUXURY!
  • After an entire episode of jokes about the cow as a juggler and then a judge, Tom tries to get them back on track:
    Tom: There's a full circle to this story.
    Gary: Did it become a cow again?
    Tom: It was never not a cow, Gary.
    Gary: It was a judge for a bit!
    Tom: That doesn't mean it can't still be - for God's sake!
• 7x05 "John Stonehouse and Dropped Trousers"
  • There was many instances of British political satire in this episode.
    Tom: He worked very closely to the Foreign Office. There was the Foreign Office, Home Office, the India Office and then another one.
    Matt: Places We Stole Office.
    Tom: Yes, it's the Colonial Office. [dings]
  • Gary's brain activating:
    Tom: [Stonehouse] went into politics, as the Labour-Cooperative Member of Parliament.
    Matt: [Did] he own some small supermarkets?
    Gary: [eyes go wide, sits up straight] Eh, sort of...
    Chris: Did you hear that? Clunk-clunk-clunk-CLINK! Archivist Gear Engaged! Everybody else shut up, I know the answer!
  • Discussing the fact that he was also a spy for Czechoslovakia
    Tom: At the time Margaret Thatcher was in power, what did she do?
    Matt: Privatize him!
    Gary: Yes, he will have more efficiency as a privately owned scumbag.
• 7x06 "Atomic Annie and Blue Peacock"
  • Gary, Matt, and Tom enjoyed Atomic Kitten Shout-Out, leaving Chris slightly unhappy.
    Matt: It's an atomic powered thing that fires... Atomic Kitten.
    Gary: That would go for... miles? I don't know.
    Tom: But only when the tide is high. [Matt bursting into laughter, Gary also laughing, and Tom looking up...] Atomic Kitten songs... [On his laptop. Chris doing a double facepalm.]
    Gary: 'Cos if you're going to fire at it something, it'll make a hole again. [Matt and Gary cheering.]
    Tom: And cause an eternal flame. [Matt and Gary keeping on laughing.]
    Chris: [saying nothing, pushing his chair backward, and walking out.]
  • After Matt accidentally made a joke about solid tuba, everyone took a turn to act "playing solid tuba" gesture, even Tom.
  • When Gary comes up with a Zany Scheme involving a bomb inside a birthday cake (itself a funny moment), Matt suggests making the bomb go "Happy birthday, Mr. President...," to which, Tom of all people makes a pun on "Blonde Bombshell." The reaction must be seen to be believed.
  • Matt of all people goes on an angry, hammy rant on the topics of there being no abort option on the Davy Crockett nuclear weapons plan ("NO! IT'S A NUCLEAR BOMB!") and Blue Peacock ("I SOMETIMES HAVE PROBLEMS STARTING MY CAR IN THE WINTER, SHALL I PUT A F***ING CHICKEN IN THE ENGINE?!").

Series Eight

• 8x01: The Battle of Fishguard and Brandy:
  • Chris' impression of William Knox.
    Tom: ...what was [Knox's] immediate reaction?
    Chris: "MORE BRANDY!"
    Tom: Yes! [ding!]
    Chris: "We'll fight them in the morning— ah, er, lunchtime!"
    Tom: The thing is, you're about right.
    Chris: "...Wednesday!"
    Tom: The import—
    Chris: "I'm not done! Don't you interrupt an officer of the crown!" [beat] "Now you may speak!"
    Tom: The import—
    Chris: "But not about that!"
    Tom: The import of this news was slow to dawn on Knox...
    [audience laughter]
    Chris: I don't know what you mean!
  • After Tom mentions that the French troops discovered the local supply of wine.
    Tom: Why might there have been wine in Wales?
    Chris: Stolen.
    Tom: Stolen is close.
    Matt: Stollen. The bready thing.
    Gary: "This wine is German Christmas bread! I'll have none of it!"
  • Matt makes a satirical joke.
    Tom: The Battle of Fishguard was the most recent landing on mainland Britain by a hostile foreign force.
    Matt: ...as we record this.
    [audience groans]
    Gary: Yeah...!
    Tom: And on that note...!
    Chris: Wow!
• 8x02: The Norwegian Butter Crisis and the Ark of Taste
  • Tom asks why the crisis wasn't resolved by the 'invisible hand of capitalism':
    Gary: Because the invisible hand of capitalism couldn't grip it. Had all butter on it.
    Chris: They could pass the butter, but they couldn't pick up the corners!
    Gary: Just sliding out of their hands!
    Tom: I think "the butterfingers of capitalism" has just summed up everything that's wrong with the world, Gary!
  • When Tom asks the panel what the actual crisis was Matt guesses too much butter, Gary guesses too little butter, and Chris decides that it was just the right amount of butter which no one was expecting.
  • Chris mishearing "smør-panik" ("butter-panic")^note Tom mispronounces it - it's actually read as "smear-panic" leads to a riff on the Norwegian panic scale: "No panic, s'more panic, lots of panic!"
  • Tom asks a stupid question.
    Tom: Any specific famous potatoes you might know?
    Gary: King Edward...?
    Matt: Maris Piper...?
    Tom: You're just naming potatoes now.
    Matt: [genuinely indignant] THAT'S WHAT YOU ASKED US TO DO.
    Tom: What we're looking for here…
    Gary: What, an individually famous potato?
    Tom: What we're looking for here is the pointless answer.
    Gary: The Koh-i-Noor potato that sat in the royal crown up until 1640! Until the English Civil War, the middle of the English crown had a f***ing spud in it!
  • They eventually deduce who was really responsible for the crisis:
    Matt: And that's what the Smiths' song "Panic" was about.
    Tom: Panic on the streets of Oslo?!
    Gary: Yeah, but Morrisey would be enjoying that because he's a vegan, he's a militant vegan.
    Tom: I think what we've learned here is Morrisey caused the Norwegian butter crisis.
• 8x03: "Juan Pujol Garcia and Thirtynineitude"
  • The exchange that gives the episode its title.
    Tom: What was Operation Fortitude in 1944?
    Gary: Did it come after Operation 39itude?
    [Everyone laughs]
    Tom: No. But it came immediately before another famous operation.
    Gary, Chris, and Matt: 41itude!
    Tom: I set that one up, didn't I?
  • Tom gets topical after asking why Garcia, a Double Agent for British intelligence during World War II, had to accept awards from both the Germans and the British.
    Gary: Because otherwise it would blow his cover and he'd get killed by some mysterious agents, they probably thought still existed at the time.
    Tom: He feared reprisals after the war.
    Gary: Yeah, because we all assume, like, neatly the war ended in '45. They weren't very sure the war was actually over for quite a long time, because the kind of thought, "They'll be back", like they are in films. Like there's a secret cache of Nazis that...
    Matt: After the credits!
    Gary: Yeah. A single Nazi helmet pops up out of the ground, ♪ Dun dun dun dun! ♪
    Tom: [nonchalantly] Well, you know, 70 years later they're back. Anyway…
    Audience: [audibly wincing]
    Gary: [silently points at his hoodie, which conveniently reads "SATIRE"]
• 8x04: "Hail Cannons and Operation Popeye"
  • Chris' introduction.
    Tom: He reads books, you know: it's Chris Joel!
    [Chris says nothing, instead pulling out a "Nails Open" sign from beneath the table. Upside down. Cue audience and panel crackup.]
    Matt ["reading"]: "Nepo slian?"
    [Chris looks down and just shrugs at it.]
    Gary [between laughing fits]: Where the f*** did you get that from?!
  • Matt's introduction.
    Tom: And the bounciest man on the internet: Matt Gray!
    Matt: Please let us know if you spot the secret shamanist message in the show. Is-a good!^* This is a reference to British rave band The Shamen, and their song "Ebeneezer Goode."
    Gary: Oh, f*** that!
    [cue scattered Slow Claps from the audience, which amuses Matt greatly]
    Tom: That is the most reluctant clap I've ever heard for an introduction!
    Gary: Matt, they're gonna sound like they're at gunpoint.
  • Gary saying that the Kate Bush song "Cloudbusting" is based on the story of Wilhelm and Peter Reich, and then proceeding to quote the lyrics to "Running Up That Hill" instead.
• 8x05: "The Crazy Eights Incident and the Pumpy Thing"
  • While discussing the minutiae of train braking systems, Chris mimes zipping up an anorak.^note "Anorak" is a British slang term for a trainspotter, particularly a very nerdy and socially awkward one.
• 8x06: "Sweater Curse and Clothing Controversies" (series finale)
  • Gary's response to his introduction; one so unexpected and hilarious, it leaves Matt unable to do anything but say "Hi..!" amidst his own laughter.
    "Have you ever seen y'Granny passing water, down by the old mill stream? She pisses for an hour and a quarter and you can't see her arse for steam!"
  • Matt's impression of a loom.
    Tom: We have two mechanisms left, we've gone through timing, aversion, misdirected attention, insufficient gratitude.
    Matt: Is one of the mechanisms a loom or a weaving machine, what's a weaving machine called?
    Gary and Tom: A loom.
    Matt: It is a loom, yeah! Have they got a loom and is it taking up an entire room in the house?
    Gary: Actually that's a fair point, because people have knitting rooms, don't they, where they kind of -
    Matt: [miming a loom] Eey-daga-dung, eey-daga-dung, eey-daga-dung, eey!
    Gary: I can see you've seen one work before.
    Tom:If that doesn't get remixed as a beat, I will be very surprised!
    Gary: Dope. Put a donk on it.
    • Even funnier is the fact that the sound effect Matt made actually was remixed.
  • Chris lays the smackdown on Gary.
    Tom: Alright, clothing controversies through history, the Dress Act 1746.
    Gary: Banning of tartan, post-1745.
    Tom: Yes, you are exactly right.
    Gary: [to Chris, who is wearing a check shirt] You're banned, get out!
    Chris: [Beat] This is buffalo check, peasant.
  • The note Citation Needed ends on is all too appropriate:
    Tom: At the end of that, congratulations, you all win this one!
    [audience cheering]
    Chris: Cop-out! Cop-out! I refuse to win!
    Tom: Fine! Gary and Matt, you win this one!
    Matt: Ha-hey!
    Gary: Well, I think the winner is the audience.
    [Collective "Awww!"]
    Chris: Liar!
    Matt: No, the real winning was in your hearts.
    Chris [facepalming]: Jesus f***!