A new series of Taskmaster is always an event worth celebrating, but series 19 is a special occasion for the rapidly growing American fan base of the British comedy panel game show: American comedian and nexus of chaos Jason Mantzoukas is officially joining the action.
The show has had North American contestants before (Desiree Burch, Katherine Ryan, Mae Martin), but Mantzoukas is the first contestant to be based professionally in the U.S. Mantzoukas, a big fan of Taskmaster, directly reached out to be on the show, series creator Alex Horne told Polygon, and the Channel 4 program was more than happy to add the Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The League star.
The first episode of series 19 was screened to a private audience in New York January 21, marking the second straight year Taskmaster has visited the Big Apple ahead of a series drop, as the show’s American audience continues to grow. Shortly after the event, Polygon caught up with Horne and the Taskmaster himself, Greg Davies, about dealing with “more intense” American fans, how Mantzoukas could “power a city,” getting a second wind of motivation 19 series in, and what they’ve learned from the franchise’s expansion.
Taskmaster series 19 debuts May 1 on Channel 4 and May 2 on YouTube, with new episodes each week through early July.
This interview is edited for clarity and length.
Polygon: Are you still in the U.S. or are you back home?
Alex Horne: We are still in the U.S. We’re doing a show tonight at the New York Town Hall.
Greg Davies: We’re in NYC, baby. [to Alex, demandingly] Say it.
Horne: We’re in NYC, baby Pete.
What’s been your highlight of this U.S. tour?
Horne: We had our portraits done in Central Park.
Davies: Tick. [pantoming checking a box] They were terrible. Tick. [pantoming checking another box] We’ve met lots of nice people.
Horne: That’s probably the highlight.
Davies: We’ve been confounded by being recognized by people in this incredible city. We went on Seth Meyers, we had a lovely old time.
Horne: And we went to the Harry Met Sally restaurant, Katz[’s Deli].
Davies: And Alex faked an orgasm.
Horne: Wasn’t faked.
Davies: We’ve done a lot in the time we’ve been here. We’ve done a lot. There’s lots more to go.
Horne: But we’re mainly just two tourists having a lovely time.
Davies: We really are.
Now that you’re on your second promotional visit to the U.S., what differences have you noticed in terms of the fan reaction in the U.K. versus here?
Horne: Well, I think people here discovered it themselves — you have to go looking for it on YouTube, rather than it being on your terrestrial telly. So the people who know it here seem to know it really well. It’s their thing, and they’re quite proud of telling us. We always meet people and they say, “Oh, I’ve told my sister and she’s told her kids.” So that’s a really lovely thing. And we met people last night who showed us pictures of their family playing it at Christmas and all that.
Davies: Yeah, which is wonderful.
Horne: They’re slightly more intense.
Davies: I think that there’s an interesting dynamic at play. If fans of the show were to meet us in the street in the U.K., they would be sort of slightly thrown and not quite know what to say. And I think it’s the other way round here. People come up and go, “Hey!” but they expected to see us, and Alex and I go, “Whoa, you know us!” It’s a strange reversal of excitement.
Last time we spoke, Alex, I asked you who you wanted to add to the show as a contestant, and you said you wanted to get an American comedian on the show. Now you’ve gone and done it. What drew you to Jason Mantzoukas, and what did you see and like him in before?
Horne: Well, it’s interesting. For one of the first times, we didn’t ask him, he asked us. He got in touch and I knew him from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place and also every other program, because he’s in everything. But yeah, Brooklyn Nine-Nine I liked, and that same intenseness of that character, he brought that to the show in spades. So yeah, I just wanted to see the energy of a fully full-blooded American. He didn’t disappoint. He knew the show inside and out.
Davies: He hit the ground running. You may not know this about Jason, but he has a bag, and in that bag are tools, tools I think would mean that he would survive any global event. That’s very useful for a series of Taskmaster.
Was it the same for you, Greg?
Davies: Yeah, yeah. I’ve worked with Andy Samberg before [on the comedy show Cuckoo], so I watched [Brooklyn Nine-Nine] obsessively, and I think Jason’s fabulous. We couldn’t believe that he asked us to be on.
When you’re thinking of the right mix of contestants for a Taskmaster series, they all have to bring a different element to the table. Where were you thinking Jason would slot in? What did that leave on the table that you needed to supplement that with?
Horne: We don’t really plan it too carefully. It is kind of done on gut instinct, really. But he was very much the unknown. We didn’t know how that would fit in and how the people would react to him. But I was a bit worried he might be all Hollywood. I didn’t know him personally at all, but he wasn’t that at all. He was very gentlemanly, but also chaotic.
Davies: And also a lot of energy. I think if we’d known Jason before he arrived, I think probably we could have just had four sleepy people. He could power a city.
Last time, we did a quick word association game, and I’d like to do that again with you two. I’m going to run through the contestants from the series as well as a few other words. And I’d like each of you to just say the first word that comes to mind, or a short phrase. We can start with Rosie Ramsey.
Horne: I’m going to say “motherly.” And that’s not necessarily in a caring way, sometimes in a strict way.
Davies: I’m going to use two words and I’m going to say “deceptively strong.” And I don’t mean necessarily physically. Gravity, gravitas, something…
Horne: How’s this one-word association game going?
Davies: I should be doing this internally. She just seems like a lovely mom on the surface, but there’s more going on.
Next up: Stevie Martin.
Horne: Scatty. I’m sticking to the rules, by the way.
Davies: Meerkat.
Mathew Baynton.
Horne: Lithe [somehow pronounced as a three-syllable word]. Lovely body, hasn’t he?
Davies: But does that relate to the show, “lithe”?
Horne: Lithe of mind as well, I think.
Davies: It sounds more like you’re designing a calendar with him on, “lithe.”
Horne: I might do that.
Davies: Lithe of mind?
Horne: Lithe of mind.
Davies: [incredulously] You think he’s got a thin mind.
Horne: I think he’s got a trim mind.
Davies: Mathew Baynton, for me: Unsettling.
Fatiha El-Ghorri.
Horne: I’d quite like to steal “unsettling” for her.
Davies: I’m going to use two words. I’m going to say “terrifyingly warm.”
Jason Mantzoukas.
Horne: I’ll go for “explosive,” please.
Davies: Yeah. Deceptively explosive. I sort of want to add “deceptively.” He just seems in control, but there is a real danger there I think. Like you find an old World War II bomb and then you go, Oh God, it’s still live!
How about the whole of Taskmaster series 19?
Horne: Well actually Ed Gamble does a podcast about the show and he gets to see it first and he just sent me one word, which was “chaotic,” which I really liked. It’s a chaotic series, and I think it is a lot down to Jason, but all five of them add to that.
Davies: Oh, definitely. Chaos all round. It was real cat wrangling.
Now we’re going to turn it on the two of you and I’m going to ask you each for word association for the other. So Alex, going to start with you: Greg Davies.
Horne: Wow. Well, I’m not going with “lithe.” Well, I think this is a good one. I’m going to go for “masterful” because you’ve got the Taskmaster bit in that word. And I think he is very masterful in terms of he’s very funny and he’s very good at his job. So I’m going to go with “masterful.” There’s no one better.
Now Greg, Alex Horne, what comes to mind?
Davies: Egomaniacal dweeb.
And Alex, how does that make you feel?
Horne: Pretty good.
That fits the bill, then. So, I’m curious. Between doing these U.S. tours, you’re doing U.S. events, you have the VR game — there’s been lots of Taskmaster expansion recently. What have you learned from these expansions of the Taskmaster banner, and has anything surprised you?
Horne: It constantly surprises us, nothing more than this trip to America. We do have to pinch ourselves a lot when we see a picture of us — our manager took a picture of us on the sofa with Seth — and you do go, This is ridiculous, the places that you can go. But I think we have an attitude of, well, we’ll just see what happens, take each thing as it comes.
Davies: I think it’s pretty refreshing, because Alex and I have been doing comedy in the U.K. for a long time, and our road to the things that we’ve ended up doing has been long. And I can’t speak for Alex, but I think there’s a childish excitement that’s been rekindled in me for sure. Being in the dressing room at Seth Meyers, we were pretty giddy. I’m a 56-year-old man and I’m looking at Alex going [very excited eyes], so it’s quite refreshing
I imagine that must be nice, 19 series in on a program, to have that second wind.
Horne: We had that conversation yesterday. We were walking through the snow in Central Park going, “It is really cool that we are still excited.”
Davies: We’re still excited by this city and the chance to come over here and people just coming up to you and knowing you in this faraway land is so exciting, honestly.
Horne: And we’re quite shallow.
‘It was real cat wrangling’: Alex Horne and Greg Davies on Taskmaster’s ‘chaotic’ series 19 appeared first on Polygon.
