Just A Minute

Another prime example of the spontaneous nature of this program comes from our chairman.  Specifically from those moments when someone is in the middle of their flow, and you can clearly hear him whisper to one of the other panelists to challenge someone regardless of whether or not the panelist that was speaking actually breached any of the rules. 

 

One moment where this happens that results in some great hilarity was during one of the recordings that was in Ireland, and the panelists with Paul, Clement, Time Rice and Gerry Kelly.  I'm not sure what the subject was, but I think Clement was talking and during his talk Nicholas was trying to prompt Gerry into challenging.  Clement stops talking and says 'Can you hear me over there?  Cuz I can hear you.' 

 

Other times what Nicholas does isn't so much a stage whisper, but you can hear him yell at a panelist to challenge someone.  What I find strange is that he tends to select ONE particular panelist rather than say 'somebody challenge', and nine times out of ten it'll be someone fairly new, who usually tends to be either rather crap at playing the game, or isn't as confident as the others and somehow feels it is his duty to throw them a bone so they can get in and play the game. 

 

This tends to have a double edged effect, when Nicholas does this with first time lady players, they're grateful and sometimes actually act like they actually challenged on their merits, which Nicholas enforces by saying things like 'you were certainly on the ball there'.  For men, they have a tendency to fire back at Nicholas, usually saying things like 'I don't need your pity or your charity, and I don't want to be patronized'. 

 

I'm not certain how I feel about this, on the one hand I feel that Nicholas' prompts tend to be more harmful than helpful. in that it tends to inhibit people from thinking clearly and playing the game properly or even trying to come up with correct challenges, and just confuses the hell out of them. 

 

On the other hand, a great deal of humor is derived from the reactions of other panelists who pull Nicholas up for his blatant abuse of power.  One example that comes to mind I believe is from one of Tony Hawks' early appearances on the program.  I can't really remember who else was on the panel, but someone was talking, I think perhaps it was Derek or Peter, and Tony challenged because apparently Nicholas was 'gesticulating like mad' to get Tony to challenge. Even though Tony would then point out that Nicholas was incorrect anyway.  I think it had something to do with repetition of kind, but the person speaking said 'kind' and then 'kinds', I think.  And basically Tony only challenged to stop Nicholas from 'going completely mad', which I think is one of the funniest moments of the series as a whole.