I love this show. Stephen Fry is host, Alan Davies is the non-changing “contestant” and they have great recurring guest contestants, mostly british celebrities.
They talk about trivia and joke around about the trivia and common misconceptions.
So who would be the host for this show in North America. Canadian/American host.
who would you like to be the constant contestant?
who would be your recurring guests?
Perhaps this would be a measure of wit, comedic chops, and intelligence.
I looooooove this show, and have been thinking about posting a thread on it – I’m really surprised there haven’t been more discussions about QI, as it seems perfect for Dopers. For those who haven’t seen it: most episodes are available on YouTube.
We don’t have an equivalent of Fry here in the US … then again, who on earth is the equivalent of Fry? Brilliant, funny, self-deprecating, curious about everything, erudite in an old-fashioned way yet delighted by technology, both gentlemanly and dirty, and utterly charming… It’s a tall order indeed. But I’ve been thinking that John Hodgeman would be a great host here in the US. He’s smart and affable, and loves trivia. Maybe Dave Foley could work too.
Alan Davies is also difficult to replace. He plays the “fool” role so well, and in addition to being hysterical, he also has a sweet innocence to him that’s very winning. Offhand I can’t think of anyone like that. Well, what about Foley’s fellow Kid in the Hall, Kevin MacDonald?
(Sadly, I think at one time, Andy Dick – at least, in his Newsradio ‘Matthew Brock’ mode – would have worked really well. But he’s almost universally despised these days.)
Dave Foley and his fellow Kids in the Hall aren’t (United States of) American though, they’re Canadian.
Hodgeman has been out on tours lobbying for this show to get made in the US. I’d still prefer Fry to come over here himself (I’m not gay, but I’d consider it for Fry), but if not him, then Hodgeman would be fine.
Alan’s replacement would be tougher. Someone daft, but not too much so, quick witted, able to think on their feet. My first thought is Ryan Stiles, but maybe his humor is too much the physical? Rich Hall needs to be a regular guest regardless of where he sits.
Of course, but the OP did say:
So there! 
Ooh really?! That’s awesome and hopefully he’ll be successful! I wonder how David Sedaris would be in something like this?
Fry would be wonderful, heaven knows. He’s so busy, though. I wonder how well he’d do with a US audience.
I’m female so there’s nothing I could do to win Fry, alas. But I adore him. An absolute treasure of a man.
Yep, Rich Hall has been a total revelation to me! Before watching QI, I hadn’t seen him since Sniglets back in the '80s. His bone-dry delivery is hilarious.
Ryan Stiles is a pretty good choice. He did a lot of physical humor on WLIIA, but I guess that’s part of the style.
Please don’t let them try. It would be a horrid parody of perfection.
I know what you mean, Smeaghead. I think the only way it wouldn’t be hopelessly bastardized is possibly as an NPR radio show. But it’d be a shame to lose the visuals.
somehow I keep thinking that Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Nova ScienceNow Host) would be an okay host. I like hearing him speak and he’s intelligent and kinda humourous. However he is highly intellectual and would perhaps need someone of high intellect to be his Alan Davies counterpart.
I’d like to believe most of QI’s discussion is off-the-cuff banter and improv word play, but there could be some writing involved and prep time. Colin Mochrie is good with word play, but I don’t know if i could believe him to be too funny a lot of the time. Improv comedians would be awesome.
Conan O’brien could probably be in the mix too. Harvard educated. Have him as host and Andy Richter as Alan Davies.
just throwing out ideas to keep the discussion alive.
The problem with this sort of thing is that over here there’s pretty much a history of panel games and the like where British (and the odd Aussie, American, etc.) stand-up comedians do the rounds, whereas i’m led to believe there just isn’t that kind of thing across the pond. I can’t really think that the American equivalents of the general QI contestants would be too interested.
Yeah, I am really in to British comedy quiz shows, and I was thinking this today. We might be able to find a suitable host, but the people who show up on panel shows in the US are pretty lame.
I guess we could get the folks who do the “I Love The…” shows. Actually, I’ve seen all of the UK “I Love The…” shows and it seems like a lot of the people who do those show up on quiz shows. If not QI, they’re on 8 out of 10 Cats or Mock the Week or something.
There would definitely need to be a pool of comedians that come on the show regularly. I notice instantly on QI when someone is new. They either interrupt too much or barely say a word (the ones who stay quiet end up winning).
Seems like the closest we have to a quiz comedy show right now is The Marriage Ref. But as that show goes, right now, it’s way too high of a level of guest. All of Seinfeld’s friends. Madonna is never going to be on a panel show again.
I think there are a good number of funny stand up comedians that can manage to be on this show. Harland Williams seems interested enough with some animal trivia to make jokes about the animal kingdom. he’s also zany and ridiculous, and pretty witty with crowd banter. We just don’t have this sort of show in north america and it kinda saddens me that we don’t.
I would agree the Marriage Ref is the most similar to QI’s format but they’re dealing with stupid spousal quarrels. Seinfeld isn’t that funny either and his friends pretty much have the same comedic outlook. Someone who’d have a lot of friends and would be more funny would be Drew Carey. He could get Wayne Brady, Ryan Stiles, Wanda Sykes, Kathy Kinney (mimi bobeck), and other more famous people. Drew Carey however is more the blue collar kinda guy, nothing like Fry.
For the American version, if one restricted the pool of panelists to existing TV personalities, they would generally be lame; instead, print columnists and popular authors with a minimum level of “telegenicity” are your best bet.
But somehow I feel QI and their ilk work in the UK because of the ethos there i.e. a greater receptivity/tolerance of “trivial recreation”. I’m not so sure about the US.
You may want to define your terms. I would think all recreation in the US is trivial.
Yeah, I was looking for the right word. But I meant trivial as in related to trivia, as opposed to sporting or pop-culture. I should have used literary or, even better, scholarly recreation.
I get you. Americans do love trivia, but it’s got to be trivial trivia. We have the educated=elitist thing going on to a degree that even 1960s or 70s Americans would be surprised by.
I recall once seeing Stephen Fry taking Alan to task over some prescriptivist fairy tale about “none” being singular, Alan essentially presenting good evidence for why this was nonsense, and Fry simply continuing to bully him down with undeserved tones of authority. Even worse, on another episode, I recall Fry brusquely admonishing another contestant for considering marsupials to be mammals. It all rather took the wind out of my sails of admiration for Stephen Fry (not just the being wrong, but the being smugly wrong). I still basically like him on the whole, but I do sometimes, particularly after watching QI, find myself agreeing with the commenter in this article who described him as “a stupid person’s idea of what an intelligent person looks like”. More generally, I often get the feeling that, despite its self-positioning otherwise, QI is only about equally as likely to debunk popular but mistaken factoids as it is to perpetuate them.
Still, QI is mostly good fun, taken with suitable doses of salt at the ready. However, it’s so quintessentially British that I can’t imagine making it work as an American show. As others have said, it’s part of a broader tradition that just doesn’t exist here. I suspect the general response would be something like “Huh? If no one’s winning any prizes, then what’s the point? We like our game shows and our talk shows separate, thank you very much.”
Maybe QI would be best suited for NPR, then (our National Public Radio, liberal smarties being newsy and cheeky).
But then that’s not the spirit of the show.
I often think this too, so I rarely ever repeat what I’ve heard on the show just in case I’m wrong 
Aha! Yes, that’s another point I had in my head that I couldn’t get out. Seems like all of our shows have to include non-celebs + celebs (Hollywood Squares), or if it’s just celebs (Celebrity Jeopardy) they have to be playing to WIN something for their charity.
That’s the ticket, tho…American’s can’t comprehend the idea of meaningless points or negative points.
Although, we did ok with appreciating Who’s Line Is It Anyway? … but that tends to be more accessible than QI is. Maybe?
Never heard of it before, but I just watched an episode I found online. Very good. Learned a new pickup line I shall use at the first opportunity.
There’s already a show called Says You, that is rather similar in spirit. The questions tend toward wordplay and definitions, but with quite a lot of general trivia, too.
Arnie Reisman and Barry Nolan could hold their own with any other panelists you’d care to have.
Along similar lines, one incident that sticks out for me is when Fry asks, “Who invented the Theory of Relativity?”, which is then followed by the inevitable hesitation among the contestants when posed with an apparent straight one. Finally, Alan volunteers Einstein only to be greeted by the ‘klaxon’. And Fry smugly corrects him with Galileo as the answer.
Except, the Theory of Relativity does refer to Einstein, whereas Galileo’s contribution is more formally referred to as the principle of relativity.