That's just a badly written question to begin with. It should have more information in it to pin down the right answer they want, eg. "In TV comedy, who is..." etc. Even if they were thinking about the sitcom, there should be something to clarify whether they want character or actor. And if they're thinking royal, do they want "the sovereign", "the monarch", "the king/queen" or their actual name?

On today's Tipping Point

Q:The flesh of a blood peach is which primary colour??

A: Yellow

Typical example of a vague question. What if someone gave the name of the head of a foreign Royal Family?

Quite a good one on The Chase today.

Q: Alastair Campbell was Director Of Communications for which PrimeMinister?

A: David Lloyd George

I can't see how that is stupid.
He hasn't been in the picture since Blair and if you have little interest in politics then you may have no idea who he was anyway.

At least they guessed a British Prime Minister.

Yes but it's a hundred years since Lloyd George was Prime Minister. They didn't have such things as Directors of Communications then, or if they did, their names wouldn't have been well known to the public, and certainly wouldn't be expected to be known by a contestant on a quiz show a hundred years later.

It was probably not until the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister that the PM's press secretary (in her case Bernard Ingham) became well known and the idea of "spin doctors" came into common usage in the media, although that phrase was not used until after he retired. So says Wiki anyway.

As you say the player may not have heard of him so will be guessing, but any recent PM is likely to be a better guess than Lloyd George.

Most questions along the lines of "Which Prime Minister" in the Cashbuilder round in The Chase are likely to have the answer Churchill, Thatcher or Blair, or maybe Cameron or Brown. I can't remember ever seeing a Prime Minister question in the Cashbuilder round where the answer was Anthony Eden or Stanley Baldwin, for example.

Is that really what they said? i only caught the David bit and assumed they meant Cameron

I suppose each person has to make their own line in the sand about when a specific example of ignorance can be described as "stupid".

They had a limited amount of time and were under pressure, they clearly had no idea so just guessed a Prime Minister. They were clearly ignorant about politics as it wasn't a difficult question but I wouldn't classify it as stupid - "Katy Price" would have been a stupid answer.

I think there's a huge difference between not knowing an answer but on the other hand being as thick as a brick and giving an answer that shows a state of ignorance beyond belief. For example :

Anne Robinson " Who wrote the political treatise ' Das Kapital ?".
Answer - " John Major".

From ' Blockbusters' - " What 'K' is a suicide mission for a pilot?".
Answer - " Kama Sutra".

[quote=Stockingfiller;81655773]I think there's a huge difference between not knowing an answer but on the other hand being as thick as a brick and giving an answer that shows a state of ignorance beyond belief. For example :

Anne Robinson " Who wrote the political treatise ' Das Kapital ?".
Answer - " John Major".

From ' Blockbusters' - " What 'K' is a suicide mission for a pilot?".
Answer - " Kama Sutra".[/QUOTE]

Although trying to act out the Kama Sutra while flying a plane could be seen as suicidal

As proved in the famous report on a fatal aircraft accident!

Blockbusters

Q: What S is the country whose national flag is yellow bordered by two horizontal red stripes?
A: Scandinavia

Not a stupid answer but quite surprising and this thread seems appropriate to post it in.


Blockbusters
Q: What E is the name of an English monarch who was excommunicated from the church of Rome by Pope Pious the 5th?

One of the girls buzzed in and said Edward.

Bob gave the question in full to the guy, giving him a bit of time to think.

He thought, shook his head and said 'nope'.


Bob, in a sarcastic tone says, have any of you heard of an English monarch called Queen Elizabeth the 1st?


I was just amazed he didn't have a punt on Elizabeth or even Ethelred

On Tipping Point just now:

The word "cyborg" is a combination of "cybernetic" and which other word?

Contestant: Robot

Oh dear

Tipping point the other day question was along the lines of

"Billy Flynn is the name of a character in which musical?"

Contestant replies Billy Elliott because of the name Billy

It's Chicago of course, but if you aren't a Musical Theatre fan, it's as good a guess as anything else.

The chances of two characters in the same musical being called Billy must be millions to one, to be fair.

There's no reason why there shouldn't be. But I suspect this was just a case of somebody saying any musical off the top of their head, rather than being confused by the Billy bit.

I thought it was Carousel, or the other musical from that period, set on a riverboat, I think. Anyway, somebody called Billy dies, and then comes back.

That's Billy Bigelow

Correct. And if his child had been a boy, he would have been another Billy!

"My boy Bill, I will see that he's named after me".

On Tipping Point yesterday;
Q:Who is the subject of the Andy Warhol artwork
known as the MARLON Quartet?
A: Marilyn Monroe?

To be fair, Andy Warhol did do a Marilyn work - and the contestant could just have misheard...

Im assuming the answer's Marlon Brando, but I'm certainly not aware of him doing one featuring him. Not one of his better known ones.

I'd never heard of the Marlon Quartet either, and probably wouldn't have made the link to Brando.