Funny / The Crystal Maze

• One contestant was supposed to get the crystal out of a treasure chest, but for some strange reason he seemed more interested in a skeleton that served no purpose other than decorating the test chamber. Richard O'Brien tried to help the contestant out by telling him to "look at the chest." So the contestant grabbed hold of the skeleton via its ribcage and tried to drag it out of the chamber, which resulted in much yelling from his team-mates about how that wasn't the "chest" that Richard was talking about.
  • Even funnier is in this instance there was a clip of the production team's comments on it as it was ongoing, one such being "Where do we get them?" seen here. Another production member jokingly said that "the skeleton's got a fractured pelvis!"
• Another had a contestant putting together pieces of a puzzle which would then tell him a button he had to press on a wall, the wall containing buttons next to codes representing directions (U2 = Up 2, D4 = Down 4) etc, with each direction leading to another button forming a path to the crystal. The person had to press U3 then continue from there, but he spent most of the remaining time trying to figure out what to do next. Eventually when he came out as the timer ran out, a somewhat exsaperated Richard pulled the contestant back into the room and solved the puzzle for him!
  Richard: Now we go Left 2! Let's get the hell out of here!
• This game from Series 1 is one of the most hilarious failures in the entire run. From the contestant falling in the water immediately upon reaching the far side of the beam, to her attempts to get the cage containing the crystal by throwing the pole with the hook at it, to her finally hooking the cage containing the crystal with 7 seconds left... only to drop it into the water (automatically forfeiting the crystal) and fall in herself immediately afterwards, to her teammate calling Richard a "horrible man" for locking her in and protesting that she was "almost out of the door", to which Richard replies, "She was in the water more than she was out of the door!", it is two minutes of pure comedy gold. For a time a clip of that game (the contestant dropping the cage into the water and falling in after it) even made it into the opening titles.
• The one crystal attempt at the crystal dome mentioned on the main page also qualifies.
  • And of course, if one crystal's bad, there's only one way it could be worse...
• Ed Tudor Pole's first appearance in a non-holiday special had him telling the contestants that if anyone did not make it out of the game before time runs out, they'd be locked in "for two months". In the same episode, he draws a ten-year-old girl's attention to a skeleton, saying "that's what happens if you get locked in". The girl's Eye Take is a sight to behold.
• The collections of outtakes, in addition to including the usual scenes of crew members accidentally getting in shot or props and scenery not working as planned, feature plenty of staggeringly inept performances at the various games, this time accompanied by the director's audio track. Evidently, the crew were thinking the same things as the viewers when watching some of the more clueless contestants, laughing hysterically or grumbling in utter disgust at how they could misunderstand a game so completely.
  (during the game in which the contestant seems more interested in the prop skeleton than the treasure chest)
  "Where do we get them!?"
• The 2016 Stand Up To Cancer celebrity special with Stephen Merchant has some brilliant gags:
  • Michelle Keegan being utterly inept in the Aztec Zone.
  • "Why are we running, this bit isn't timed!"
  • Merchant during the Crystal Dome:
  Look at them. Like Sam Allardyce grabbing at fivers!
• Richard Ayoade takes over for the 2017 full series and we get some brilliant ones:
  • Richard doesn't like touching people so he guides them with a hand on a stick... for a few metres in many cases.
  • Joey Essex from the second celebrity special seems to have no clue what is going for most of the episode... in one case confusing a crystal for a diamond.
  • Adil Ray is tasked with using pulleys to roll balls on a platform into a funnel and it's an automatic lock-in situation; if three end up on the floor, he's locked in. He lifts one rope, fails to secure it... and all the balls drop onto the floor. He is bought out with a crystal... then in his second game, gets locked in again...
  • Rylan Clark goes full shriek mode while manoeuvring himself along a spinning wooden log at a 45 degree angle... cue Richard:
    It’s balletic. It’s some of the most moving imagery I’ve ever seen.
    • Clark manages to get the Crystal... and carries it out in his mouth because he fears that it will fall out of his pockets. Richard is not impressed and chucks the crystal with his hand on a stick into an off-camera contamination tank.
  • The fourth special - after the group fail to score any Crystals in the Medieval Zone, Richard leads them off towards the second Zone, warning them they have to cross over a bog on a balancing beam. He zips off ahead of the group... and the group just remain on the other side, looking unsure about crossing it. The theme music coming to a slow, defeated halt is the cherry on top.
    Richard: Come on, lads! Lads? Lads... Lads..... *Smash cut to a commercial break*
  • Tom Allen gets locked in on a particularly tricky Future Zone game (One that involves dodging lasers and collecting shards to get the crystal). Upon losing his third life and getting locked in, this exchange happens upon one of the female contestants insisting that Tom's 'fine'.
    Richard: Tom, you're massively NOT fine. He's been locked in!
    Tom: This is the worst gay club I've ever been to...
    Richard: I've been to worse!
    • Around halfway through that game, Richard comments that he'd love to see something like this occur on Eastenders, to which he keeps mimicking that show's rather (in)famous musical sting.
    • When the team decide to buy Tom's freedom with a crystal, Richard points out that this is the third crystal they've given up to free a team mate, to which the team thinks he's just saying it to rub it in. Richard's response?
    Richard: I'm recapping - it's a TV trope!
  • The Cosplay Team, a team of nerdy cosplayers whose episode brought out a lot of hilarity:
    • The team captain Mike is a Competition Freak, constantly yelling commands to his teammates. When his teammate Andy got locked in during a physical round in the Industrial zone, Mike went to the door and screamed "You're a disappointment!"
    • In the Medieval zone, Andy's brother, Mike, was assigned a mental maths game. Halfway through, Mike asked Richard Ayoade if he could replace Rob mid-game, while Andy told Rob not to stuff it. Rob would eventually get the crystal.
    • Unfortunately, the Futuristic zone didn't fare well for Rob as he was given a physical round in crossing five spinning planets without touching the floor in three minutes to get the crystal. In Epic Fail fashion, he barely made it to the second planet and chose to come back at 1:30. He went back to Planet #1 in ten seconds and spent the next minute struggling to get back to the stairs before falling to the floor gaining an ALIS.
    • To make matters worse for poor Rob, on the way to Andy's game in the Aztec zone, he ended up tripping face first on the steps. It was probably a good thing he kept his safety gear from the game.
    • Prior to the show Mike had a bet that he would shave his beard off if the team leaves only with the Consolation Prize. With only two crystals totalling 10 seconds in the Dome, the team ended up with a total of 29. Alongside the consolation crystal, Richard handed Mike some clippers to end the show.
  • In one episode, Richard Ayoade informs one of the contestants that "they'll look slightly different in the next shot." Her response? "What?" Cue smash cut to her opening the door, pads and all.
  • Any time Adam Buxton (as the head in the jar) appears.
  • The Epic Fail on the 15th April 2018 episode - one contestant got locked in twice, which has never happened before, and all three crystals won were used to release team members, leaving nothing for the dome, which has also never happened before. They were indisputably the worst team ever on the show![1]
• The celebrity special featuring grime star Big Narstie, who gets overwhelmed by the whole thing, brings snacks and pockets one of the gold tokens from the dome as 'memorabilia'.
  • The best bit is him meeting Jarhead.

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