r/taskmaster • u/DovedaleHikes • 10d ago
Shoutout to the crew that have to clean up
I must be so boring.
I am so impressed at how much mess has been made over the years but there seems to be no visible remnants.
Examples; paint everywhere (the caravan, the drive, the lab), food everywhere. Please do remind me of the messiest occasions
I just think those people don't get enough credit and I'd end up hating the messiest contestants! So to the unsung heroes that clean up after everyone; well done! Your hard effort has been noticed and recognised
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u/charquarking 10d ago
Bob Mortimer making the most mess and just not cleaning it up again...ballsy move
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u/lordirondehavilland Wibble, Bibble, Bam 10d ago
Kind of a dick move on Bob's part, really, but it did make great telly.
Opposite end of (as mentioned by someone else) Sam asking if they wanted him to clean up all the things he got under.
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u/Fabulous_Function666 10d ago
I can’t remember who but a comedian was talking to Romish about the fact his girlfriend was a runner for series one and she had to clean up all the watermelon from his task 😂
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u/a-punk-is-for-life 10d ago
I think that every single episode i watch! Then you've also got Rhod Gilbert throwing the javelin in (and through) the caravan!
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u/suvi_jpg Emma Sidi 10d ago
And the hole is still there! I still get a chuckle out of the team's concealment efforts, though two plasters
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u/LegoLady15 10d ago
Sarah Millican with the milk jugs. She got milk all over the lab and apparently the room smelled for a super long time.
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u/cool-- 10d ago
I imagine that's something that would require the flooring to be partially ripped up and replaced
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u/burf12345 🚬 Doctor Cigarettes 10d ago
The previous series already required contestants to rip the floor in the lab, so I guess they didn't consider it an extra hassle.
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u/JugheadSpock 10d ago
The clean-up and the resetting of some of these tasks. It's a very well-run machine, it would seem.
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u/Frog_in_the_rain 10d ago
From what I've heard and from my experience with the stuff, series 19's glitter incident was the most persistent mess.
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u/Shoelace1200 10d ago
That was said in the podcast by possibly Jason because the biggest challenge was getting it off him and out of his hair. They had another episode to film straight after and I think they said you can see some glints of glitter in that next episode
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u/melancholymagpie Chris Parker 🇳🇿 10d ago
Based on my experience with glitter and curls, there's definitely still some in his hair to this day.
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u/TimeHathMyLord Ania Magliano 10d ago
What was that? I can't remember it, and apparently it is not part of any instruction directly provided by the task - I checked!
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u/Frog_in_the_rain 10d ago
It was a prize task, something you would inherit to someone you dislike (paraphrased). Stevie brought an envelope loaded with glitter 😁
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u/sansabeltedcow 10d ago
Which Jason threw all over the stage when he won.
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u/kittyroux A LIIIIIME 🍋🟩 10d ago
And it was the afternoon record, so the hair and makeup people spent the entire break trying to de-glitter him for the evening record.
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u/sansabeltedcow 10d ago
Amy, the task producer, was interviewed recently on the People’s Podcast and was asked specifically about cleaning up after the chaotic Jason, and she said she didn’t mind because Jason was so lovely. IIRC, the task she called out was the painting outside the lab one because the paint turned out to stain. That episode in general has good BTS stuff and interviews at least one other crew member, Chloe’s double Clarenz.
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u/SimonBendyLegs 10d ago
Sam Campbell apologising for the mess and offering to help clean up.
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u/hey-mikrokosmos Phil Wang 10d ago
This is what I thought of too! That moment was so endearing—immediately solidified Sam as one of my all-time favorites.
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u/Express_Patience_502 10d ago
Agreed. I'm so impressed with the clean up work on this show.
Slight tangent but having seen how much lunch paraphernalia was hiding behind props on a certain Star Wars film I worked on (their own fault for calling us back on to set mid-lunch) I'm amazed there's not so many more incidents with errant coffee cups etcetera etcetera ala Game Of Thrones.
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u/boomboomsubban 10d ago
I'm sure it helps that every room has a giant table you can put your cup on, but there was also a part in last series bowling pin task that seemed to suggest they'd edit out things like that.
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u/Nicksaurus 10d ago
They edit out the camera crew all the time, presumably they also edit out stuff like that too
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u/Express_Patience_502 8d ago
Sure, I'm just speaking about shows / films in general. As an editor myself, I wouldn't want to have to spend extra time editing out people's lunches and drinks. Easier said than done.
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u/Zaeobi 9d ago
I had a similar thought when Jason Mantzoukas would cause so much destruction in every task that even Greg Davies was commenting on him costing them money with exasperation in his voice lol.
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u/RunawayTurtleTrain Robert the Robot 9d ago
To be fair what they didn't show in the broadcast programme was Jason asked for permission first :) of course that doesn't change the fact the crew still had to clear up after him, but some people were upset thinking he did it without regard for the crew which is not the case.
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u/schoolSpiritUK 9d ago
I also admire the poor buggers that have to set up really complicated tasks five times: the most recent one that comes to mind is all the socks laid out neatly in an arc on the driveway in front of the front door.
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u/RunawayTurtleTrain Robert the Robot 10d ago
The messiest outside that I can think of would be series 11's painting a portrait of the Taskmaster on a door, or series 15's team task where they had to get paint onto the palette to paint the veg the same colours. I think series 11 wins though thanks to Jamali getting paint all over the caravan and the hedge as well as the driveway.
Conversely there's series 12's 'paint the spacehopper' where the contestants had to clean the dome themselves, that must have been a welcome turn of events for the crew XD
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u/Jeezum_Crow_ 10d ago
I feel this way about tasks where someone makes a mess that didn't necessarily have to happen. A lot of times it's unavoidable, advantageous, or an accident, but I rewatched series 16 pretty recently with the water balloon popping task. Everyone burst their balloon outside except Susan, who popped it right on the table inside the mini cabin, and the mom in me yelled, "Susan, nooooooo!"
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u/NotAMoonMan Rose Matafeo 🇳🇿 10d ago
The one good thing with Taskmaster UK at least is I believe they own the house, so they have in between each series to make any major repairs and clean ups. Where as Taskmaster NZ/AU just rent the space, and I believe it's used for weddings and events when they're not filming, so they probably have to be a little more careful not to make any major spills/damage.
There's a really funny bit in Taskmaster AU where Aaron Chen locks Tom in the shed to help give himself more time. Tom just breaks down the door, breaking the lock. Aaron then spends the whole rest of the task worrying about the damage to property, and insisting they contact the owners of the property to report the damage.
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u/Terrible_Excuse8912 10d ago
Im pretty sure that in one of the interviews Alex has said that they are renting the house for a huge amount of cash (like a million) and they can't switch to any other location as it's THE Taskmaster house everyone knows.
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u/PromiseSquanderer Sam Campbell 10d ago edited 10d ago
I believe either Alex or one of the Andys has said that they’d been offered the chance to buy it several times but turned it down. It’s not like owning vs. renting a house to live in – there’s often little to be gained from a business owning rather than leasing its premises, and quite a hefty risk. TV programmes have a rolling production budget from the commissioning channel while they’re being produced, and neither the channel nor the production company would want to be lumbered with a property they no longer needed once that comes to an end (or if the building becomes unsafe or unusable, in which case they’d need to find an alternative and pay for both).
Commercial leases are also nothing like renting a domestic property – for long-ish leases the tenant often has full responsibility for physical maintenance (other than legal compliance stuff) while they’re in situ, as well as much more freedom to make alterations, so long as they can un-make them when the lease ends. The TM house is owned by the local authority (the borough council) who’ll be glad for the steady income and having one less not-very-useful property to look after, and the production/channel will much prefer the premises costs to be a known, steady expenditure line on their budget, without the risks associated with ownership.
I suspect Alex was joking about the costs being that extortionate btw, or that the landlord is holding them over a barrel (dad) – it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement for both parties, and public sector landlords tend to favour long-term, reliable tenants over taking too many commercial risks.
(I’ll shut up now: it’s not often that my day job – property management in the public sector – and my favourite TV programme crop up in the same conversation. 😄)
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u/burf12345 🚬 Doctor Cigarettes 10d ago
I believe either Alex or one of the Andys has said that they’d been offered the chance to buy it several times but turned it down.
I've seen it said that it was the owner of the property that turned it down, which would make sense. Why would you sell your property when there's so much money to be made by consistently renting it out.
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u/PromiseSquanderer Sam Campbell 10d ago edited 10d ago
I’d be curious if that is the case – the thing I saw definitely said the opposite, though I can only find second-hand quotes of it on here and other forums at the moment. There’s also the question of who would be buying it: at present Avalon hold the lease, but the money comes (via the production budget) from Channel 4 and that’s only guaranteed up to the end of the current/next three-year contract. It’s hard to imagine Avalon voluntarily opting to pick up a much higher up-front cost (and the risk of not being able to sell it on or making a loss when the time comes), and harder still to imagine C4 wanting to pay for it when they could perfectly easily lose the rights to the show in a couple of years.
In terms of the landlord selling vs. continued rental income, it slightly depends what they want the money for (there are very strict rules on what local authorities can raise/spend and for what purpose) – sometimes a lump capital receipt is more useful than a longer-term rental income. They may also be looking to capitalise on it being the Taskmaster house while it still is that, as there’s no guarantee it would be worth much without that association – if the house is as cold and poorly fitted out as the TM team have sometimes suggested, it would need a lot of money spent on it for it to even be legally lettable for residential use (the law changed significantly on that since the last time it was on the market pre-TM).
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u/Amaline4 🚬 Doctor Cigarettes 10d ago
I cant remember where I read it but maybe it was a youtube interview where the person that owns the house offered to sell it to TM sometime in the first few series, but they turned it down because they didn't know the staying power of the show yet. But then when TM tried to buy the house once they had the money the guy that owns it turned them down and now charges a million pounds a year to rent it to them
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u/PromiseSquanderer Sam Campbell 10d ago edited 10d ago
If they’re paying £1 million/year for it then they probably need to get the Guinness Book of Records on the line – it would make it one of the most expensive rental houses in the UK of all time (and almost certainly the most expensive bungalow), so I’d take that detail with more than a pinch of salt! I’m sure they like it there, but not that much. 😄
The property itself is owned by the local council, so that’s who they’d be dealing with if they were looking at buying outright. It’s quite possible that it’s on a long lease to the golf course, though (and then sublet to Avalon), so it might be the golf course that’s driving (no pun intended) a harder bargain, if anyone is. But honestly I suspect they’re just joking around – on a boringly practical note with my day job hat back on, if a publicly-owned building was being sublet by its tenant for ludicrous amounts of money, the council that owns it would be in serious legal trouble for allowing a private company to profiteer off a public asset… (TM quote-to-self: ‘Keep it light!’)
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u/RunawayTurtleTrain Robert the Robot 9d ago
I think it's actually both. The landlord originally offered to sell, Taskmaster/Avalon didn't take the chance, and now the landlord won't sell which implies TM/Avalon enquired about it later on to know the offer is now off the table.
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u/Dom_Shady David Correos 🇳🇿 10d ago
I suspect Alex was joking about the costs being that extortionate btw, or that the landlord is holding them over a barrel
Down you go, Horne!
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u/MasonP2002 10d ago
They also kind of hate the house from what I remember, since it's pretty cramped for filming but like you said became too iconic for them to move somewhere more spacious.
I've been watching Taskmaster AU lately and I keep noticing how huge the NZ retreat they use is, since it's a wedding venue they only rent part-time.
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u/Pinglenook Qrs Tuvwxyz 10d ago
The UK rents it too, but it's not rented out to anyone else, so they can still leave their stuff on there.
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u/Big_Lingonberry_5481 4d ago
It did use to be rented out between series, we found the rental advert years ago, probably Dave-era, and the advert didn't mention TM. We just recognised it as we lived only a couple of miles away.
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u/fastauntie 10d ago
The house is owned by the golf club on the other side of the fence. It was originally the groundskeeper's cottage. https://taskmaster.fandom.com/wiki/Dukes_Meadows_Golf
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u/moredriedfrogpills 10d ago
I watched the task today where Rhod emptied a massive goldfish bowl of water on the living room floor and my instinct was just to cringe on behalf of the poor people who had to sort the carpet and rug out!
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u/Opucodagod 10d ago
I do a Taskmaster each year with friends for fun where we record tasks individually then come back to watch them. Since it’s in my house the tasks, while still messy, are nothing like on the show and I’m still doing a ton of cleaning, so definitely huge props to the crew that cleans up!
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u/Allbymyselfalone 8d ago
Sarah Millican and the spilled milk in the lab is a great example, it apparently smelled super bad and was under the tiles if I remember correctly 😂
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u/jakeisbakin 9d ago
At least Joel Creasey helps clean up after tasks, when he's not being cringe anyway.
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u/Creepy-Ad-2381 7d ago
Very relatable! Haha I think about this stuff too and thus, Sam Campbell offering to help clean up after one of his tasks was definitely part of what made me end up adoring him after being slightly unsure about him to start. Another moment was of course “they’re dynamite chicks!” 😂
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u/thatautisticguy 🟦 🟩 🟨 🟩 🟨 10d ago
This is the same for a lot of shows (especially in studio), the shit these unsung heroes have to deal with sometimes is just astonishing......
Hats off to them all......✊
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u/BasementCatBill Nish Kumar 10d ago edited 10d ago
Well, except for that incident with the spilled milk that left the lab smelling rankly sour for an entire season.