'Pathetic': Stephen Fry hates one particular quiz show excuse
Stephen Fry has blasted one particularly "pathetic" excuse quiz show contestants give for not knowing an answer.
Stephen Fry has blasted "pathetic" excuses quiz show contestants give for not knowing an answer.
The 'Jeopardy!' presenter gets hugely frustrated when hopefuls dismiss their lack of knowledge due to being "before [their] time" and insisted it is never an acceptable response.
He ranted to Kate Thornton on her 'White Wine Question Time' podcast: "There's a thing anybody who's ever presented a quiz, or indeed who watches a quiz regularly, will tell you is nails on a blackboard, the worst thing a contestant can ever, ever say is, 'It was before my time.' Out!
"We don't want you anymore. You're fired from the quiz. Just get out.
"You know, 'What was the name of the emperor who ruled France in the 19th century and lost the Battle of Waterloo?' 'Oh, it's before my time. '
"You b***** idiot. Everything's before your time in a quiz. Or should be. Or could be. How dare you use that as an excuse? That's absolutely pathetic.
"I mean, if I asked you a question, what happened in the year 2041, you could legitimately say that's before my time, but nothing else.
"You can see, Richard Osmond used to be like that when he was on 'Pointless'. If someone said before my time, he and Xander would just shiver. You can't say that."
Stephen got his big break when his first comedy show won the prestigious Fringe First prize at the Edinburgh Festival in 1980 and admitted he thinks it is "deeply unfair" that he never struggled to achieve success or that he finds it hard to offer advice in how to break into showbiz.
He said: "I get requests from people and their parents saying, my boy and my girl wants to get into show business, wants to get into publishing, has written a book, has a YouTube channel that nobody subscribes to. How do they get an agent? How do they get noticed?
"I mean, this question is obviously asked a great deal to people, and I am in the awful position of saying, I don't know. You have to think about this and ask someone who had real struggle getting into show business. Ask someone who's knocked on a lot of doors. Ask someone who's had to find out who the agents are and where they live, and what sort of letter to write, and whether or not to accompany it with a treatment or a full manuscript, or a pitching deck, or all the other things that you read about.
"If you want to get into show business, ask someone who's been through that because they will know.
"But I have had every door open to me without me having to knock on it. It's such a dreadful thing to have to admit, because, you know, one ought to have struggled, and it's deeply unfair. And for me to be so lucky is just extraordinary."
Listen to Stephen's appearance on 'White Wine Question Time' at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/white-wine-question-time/id1447646731.
