Hey You! What If... is 2020 UK Edutainment Show made by Screen Glue Productions for CBBC and Beyond Entertainment. It is narrated by Kat Butterfield and Ben Shires, and features Neil Reynolds as Zigi, the unfortunate who acts out the various scenarios.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if the Earth was flat? Or if the moon was made of cheese or you could time travel? This clever factual series plunges us into parallel worlds where anything can and does happen.
Hey You! What If...you had a list of tropes?
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: "You Could Turn Into A Giant?" shows that being a giant might seem like a fairy tale, but if you somehow became a giant in reality it would be anything but. You'd have slow reactions and be so heavy that you couldn't stand up. In fact, you'd have to live in a bath.
- Big Red Button: In "You Could Levitate?", there is a big red button that Zigi presses repeatedly on the device that allows him to increase the Earth's magnetic field. He keeps pressing it until the Earth's magnetic field is 1,000,000 times stronger.
- Cheesy Moon: "The Moon Was Made Of Cheese?" shows what would happen if the moon really was made of cheese. It wouldn't stay cheese for long. The cheese would separate with water and gases boiling up to the surface to create oceans and an atmosphere.
- Circling Birdies: Birds fly around Zigi's head after a hard crash landing in "You Could Fly Like a Bird?," and he hears tweeting birds after a wrench hits him in the head in "You Built a Mega Slide?"
- Digging to China: The subject of the episode "You Could Dig Through The Earth?"
- The Elevator from Ipanema: In "You Could Take a Lift to Space?", having to put up with six months of lift music is identified as one of the inconveniences you would encounter.
- Eskimos Aren't Real: In "You Fell Into a Black Hole?", Ben is explaining what a black hole is when Kat interjects:"Wait. You mean they're real? I thought they only existed in movies. Like superheroes, or talking lions, or electric toothbrushes."
- Fall of the House of Cards: In "You Could Live On The Moon?", Zigi is building a house of cards to wile away the tedious 14 days of night when you can't go outside when it is demolished by a moonquake.
- Flat World: "The Earth Was Flat?" shows what it would be like if the Earth actually was flat. This includes seldom considered facts such as gravity not changing, which means that all the world's oceans would gather as a sphere at the centre of the disc.
- Fold-Spindle Mutilation: In "You Fell Into a Black Hole?", Zigi gets subjected to 'spaghettification' as he falls towards the black hole.
- Gingerbread House: "You Could Build A Gingerbread House?" demonstrates that you could make a full size gingerbread house that was completely edible (including the windows), but it would be highly impractical, and only survive for a few months before rotting away.
- I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: Ben says this word for word in "You Could Dig Through The Earth?" when he has to explain that if you could dig a hole through the Earth, then you could jump through it safely:Ben: Earth-diving—I can't believe I'm saying this—would be perfectly safe.
- Inconvenient Parachute Deployment: In "You Could Run At The Speed Of Sound?", Zigi—having suffered all of the indignities that running at the speed of sound involves—still loses the race because he deploys his parachute to slow himself down and it snags on a post, stopping him dead in his tracks.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: "You Could Shrink Yourself?" has Zigi being shrunk down to the size of a mouse to retrieve the remote control from and under the couch, and then explains all of the physical changes this would actual entail.
- Midas Touch: "Everything You Touched Turned to Gold?" shows what would happen if this literally was the case. Needless to say, the downs considerably outweigh the ups.
- Questioning Title?
- Space Elevator: "You Could Take a Lift to Space?" explains the concept of the space elevator and shows would happen if there really was a lift that took you all the way up to space. This includes having to put up with six months of lift music.
- Walk on Water: Running on water is shown as one of the outcomes in "You Could Run At The Speed Of Sound?"
