About '8 Out Of 10 Cats'

8 Out of 10 Cats is a long-running modern topical panel show from Channel 4 in which the questions are based on statistics and the results of opinion poll surveys. The surveys are not on 'serious stuff' like voting intentions, or attitudes to the Euro - they're designed to root out the more important issues of the day, like 'What do the British public prefer, Kittens or Christmas?'. Of course, like all panel shows, the humour is not so much derived from a right answer but from the panellist's banter.

8 Out of 10 Cats is hosted by Jimmy Carr with two fellow stand-up comedians as the team captains. Sean Lock has always been the captain of the team on the left of the screen, whilst Jason Manford takes charge of the other. Manford is a fairly-new team captain, in the first four series Dave Spikey was in the regular in the middle of the team on the right.

Each year in August there is now also a special 8 Out of 10 Cats episode featuring contestants from Channel 4 reality TV show Big Brother.

The format of the show tends to follow this pattern. Which middle rounds appear normally depends upon which series it is (as the earlier episodes had some different games) and also the editors' decision (as more material is recorded than will fit into the half-hour broadcast).

Introduction: A voice-over introduces the contestants. Jimmy Carr then bounds onto the set with some quick gags based on statistics.

Round 1 - What Are You Talking About: The panellists must decide the British public's top five most popular talking points of the week. The results are based on a poll especially conducted for the show each week by the polling company Harris Interactive. This round tends to take up the whole first half of the show as is where many of the topical gags are heard.

Middle Round - Poll With The Whole: The teams are given statistics that are missing one 'salient piece of information'. The teams must guess what each statistic is about, or what the answer to the statistic is. For example: "60% of air passengers have had problems with ______" (real answer: "their seat")

Middle Round - Believe It or Not: The teams must guess if the statistic Carr reads out is true of false. This round is often illustrated using a funny related clip.

Middle Round - Word Association: The teams have to guess the top thing people associate with a particular word. This round is sometimes illustrated using a funny related clip.

Middle Round - What's the Poll?: An old round in which the teams were given, one-by-one, pictures of five famous people; the first team to guess what poll connected the celebrities shown won the round.

Middle Round - Face Off: An old round which saw the panellists having to guess who, from a list of famous people, came top of a particular poll.

Final Round - And the Winner Is: The last round sees Carr give the teams a series of opinion polls and surveys from around the world, it is then up to the teams to buzz in and tell him who or what came top of that poll. Example: "the thing that most annoys men" (answer: according to a poll by Goodfellas Pizzas it is someone hiding the TV remote)