8 Out of 10 Cats

8 Out of 10 Cats
Genre	Comedy panel game
Directed by	Chris Howe (series 1–3) Barbara Wiltshire (series 3–7 and 9–) Richard Valentine (series 6, 8–12 and 14–)
Presented by	Jimmy Carr
Starring	Sean Lock Dave Spikey (2005–06) Jason Manford (2007–10) Jon Richardson (2011–)
Narrated by	John Pohlhammer
Theme music composer	Mat Osman
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	18
No. of episodes	182 (as of 29 December 2015) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Richard Osman Dominic English (series 1) Ruth Phillips (series 3–)
Producer(s)	Darren Smith (series 1–3) Ruth Phillips (series 1–2) Derek McLean (series 4–7) Ruth Wallace (series 4–5) Karen Murdoch (series 6–8) Stu Mather (series 8–10) Fiona McDermott (series 9) Richard Cohen (series 11–) Andrew Westwell (series 11–12) Adam Hutchinson (series 13–)
Production location(s)	BBC Television Centre (series 1–15) Teddington Studios (series 16–17) Pinewood Studios (series 16–) Shepperton Studios (series 18) MediaCityUK (Countdown editions)
Editor(s)	Tim Ellison (series 1–10 and 13–) Ian Birchall (series 1–4 and 9–11) Steve Andrews (series 1–3, 5, 7, 9–11 and 13–) Bex Murray (series 1, 4–11 and 13–) Damon Tai (series 2–11 & 14–) Tom Jarvis (series 7) Matthew Jeffreys (series 7) Ben Heather (series 12–) David Frisby (series 12) Nick King (series 12) Jamie Shemeld (series 15–)
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	30 minutes (inc. adverts)
Production company(s)	Zeppotron
Distributor	Endemol UK
Release
Original network	Channel 4
Picture format	HDTV 1080i
Audio format	Stereophonic
Original release	3 June 2005 (2005-06-03) – present
Chronology
Related shows	8 Out of 10 Cats: Uncut 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
External links
Official website

8 Out of 10 Cats is a British television comedy panel game produced by Zeppotron (a subsidiary of Endemol UK) for Channel 4. It was first broadcast on 3 June 2005. The show is hosted by Jimmy Carr and the current team captains are Sean Lock and Jon Richardson.

The show is based on statistics and opinion polls, and draws on polls produced by a variety of organisations and new polls commissioned for the programme, carried out by Harris Poll. The title is derived from a well-known advertising tagline for Whiskas cat food, which claimed that "8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas".

Overview

The show is hosted by comedian Jimmy Carr and features two teams, consisting of a regular team captain and two celebrity guests each. Sean Lock has appeared as the first team captain since the show's inception; the opposing captain was originally Dave Spikey, who left after series 4 to pursue other projects and was replaced by Jason Manford. Manford departed following series 10, and was replaced by Jon Richardson for series 11.

Every week, the captains are joined by two celebrities from the likes of David Walliams and Alan Carr. Often, topical celebrities appear on the show, for example Ruth Badger following her appearance on The Apprentice.

The show is currently recorded at Pinewood Studios, previously at BBC Television Centre, typically the day before transmission. However, in the past few years, due to Jimmy Carr's stand-up schedule, certain episodes are pretaped and broadcast later as "special" episodes dealing with a particular subject.

2015 was the only year since the show began in 2005 in which a full series was not broadcast. Two Christmas Specials however were filmed for airing on 24 and 30 December 2015. 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown however aired for a total of 24 episodes throughout 2015.

Current rounds

The current rounds featured on 8 Out of 10 Cats are:

• "What Are You Talking About?" – The polling organisation asked the public what they were talking about during the week. The teams have to try to guess the top three.
• "Pick of the Polls" – The teams are given four pictures to pick from and are given a poll based on that picture.
• "Believe It or Not" – The teams are given a statistic and try to guess if it is true or false.
• "And the Winner Is..." – The teams are given a question from a poll and then they try to guess what came on top of that poll.
• "The Poll with a Hole" – each team is given a statistic but it is missing one piece of salient information. The teams have to guess what that piece of information is.

Until series 8 there were four rounds during the game, but it has since been reduced to three. The points often do not add up correctly, as the show has to be edited to fit in its 26-minute slot. From series 9 there is a longer version of the show called 8 Out of 10 Cats Uncut, broadcast a few days later.

Former rounds

These rounds only featured in series 1 and the Big Brother special shows:

• "Face Off" – The teams have to guess who from a list of famous people came top with respect to a particular topic.
• "Word Association" – The teams view a clip illustrating a word and have to guess the top three things people thought of when they heard that word.
• "What's the Poll?" – The teams are given five famous people, picture by picture, and they have to guess which poll they appeared on.

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown

Main article: 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown

Between 2012 and 2016, several series of crossover episodes between 8 Out of 10 Cats and Countdown have aired. The show follows the format of Countdown, but is hosted by Jimmy Carr, with permanent contestants Sean Lock and Jon Richardson, as well as two other guest contestants.

Other specials

On 4 January 2013, a special episode of Deal or No Deal featuring Carr as host alongside Richardson and Lock aired during another Channel 4 "mash-up night", the story behind it being that Noel Edmonds had been driven to leave when Derren Brown was playing, and was getting all the boxes from lowest to highest. Noel ran away with the £250,000 box, saying that he "spent it all on his shirt". The backstage personnel then took out a hammer and smashed the 'break glass for Jimmy Carr' box, which produced a horn, which was used to call Carr to the set.

Joe Wilkinson guest starred as the Banker's assistant. Guests were Nicola Adams, Rob Beckett, Gemma Collins, Mia Cross, Corinne Davies, Susie Dent, Matt Forde, John Fothergill, Stephen Frost, Nick Helm, Elis James, Dave Johns, Tony Law, Alice Levine, Mark Olver, Rachel Riley, John Robins, Katherine Ryan, Nong Skett, Andy Smart and Holly Walsh.

Podcasts

A series of podcasts have also been released on iTunes, with material directly from the show for several episodes. Each podcast is typically the "What Are You Talking About" round from that episode.

Cast

Role	Series
	1–4	5–10	11–18
Presenter	Jimmy Carr
Team captains	Sean Lock
	Dave Spikey	Jason Manford	Jon Richardson

Episodes

Main article: List of 8 Out of 10 Cats episodes

Original series

The coloured backgrounds denote the result of each of the series:

     – Indicates Sean's team won.

     – Indicates Dave's/Jason's/Jon's team won.

     – Indicates the series ended in a draw.

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	3 June 2005	5 August 2005	10
2	10 February 2006	24 March 2006	7
3	26 May 2006	14 July 2006	9
4	20 October 2006	8 December 2006	8
5	15 June 2007	20 July 2007	6
6	13 June 2008	18 July 2008	6
7	4 September 2008	27 November 2008	14
8	5 June 2009	17 July 2009	7
9	8 January 2010	19 February 2010	7
10	17 September 2010	15 October 2010	5
11	17 June 2011	19 August 2011	10
12	23 September 2011	25 November 2011	10
13	27 April 2012	22 June 2012	9
14	8 October 2012	24 December 2012	10
15	18 January 2013	29 March 2013	11
16	4 October 2013	29 December 2013	10
17	17 February 2014	14 April 2014	9
18	6 October 2014	23 December 2014	12

Specials

See also: 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown § Episodes

Date	Entitle	Special Guests
12 August 2005	Big Brother 6 Special	–
18 August 2006	Big Brother 7 Special	–
15 December 2006	The Best of Series 4	–
30 August 2007	Big Brother 8 Special	–
5 September 2008	Big Brother 9 Special	–
26 December 2008	The Best of Series 7	–
24 July 2009	The Best of Series 8	–
11 June 2010	Footy World Cup Special	–
21 August 2010	The Best of Series 9	–
9 September 2010	Big Brother 1-11 Special	–
23 December 2010	Christmas Special	–
5 March 2011	24 Hour Panel People Comic Relief Special	–
26 August 2011	The Best of Series 11	–
9 December 2011	The Best of Series 12	–
23 December 2011	Christmas Special	–
29 June 2012	The Best of Series 13 (Part 1)	–
6 July 2012	The Best of Series 13 (Part 2)	–
24 December 2012	Christmas Special	–
4 January 2013	8 Out of 10 Cats does Deal or No Deal	Sean Lock, Jon Richardson
29 December 2013	Christmas Special	Holly Willoughby, Alan Davies, Henning Wehn, Roisin Conaty, Nick Helm, Joe Wilkinson
23 December 2014	Christmas Special	Roisin Conaty, Freddie Flintoff, Jonathan Ross and Ricky Wilson
24 December 2015	Christmas Special	Peter Andre, Seann Walsh, Roisin Conaty and Joe Lycett
29 December 2015	End of Year Special	Joey Essex, Romesh Ranganathan, Isy Suttie and Richard Osman

DVD

8 Out of 10 Cats: Claws Out is a ninety-minute collection of highlights from the first few series which features deleted scenes considered too offensive to be aired. It was released on 20 November 2006.

External links

• 8 Out of 10 Cats at channel4.com
• 8 Out of 10 Cats at TV.com
• 8 Out of 10 Cats at IMDb
• 8 Out of 10 Cats at British Comedy Guide
• 8 Out of 10 Cats at EpisodeWorld.com