40 Fun Facts About Look Around You

According to the spoof science series Look Around You, germs originally come from which European country?

Germany is blamed for germs in a module that treats the pun as scientific fact. It is the kind of straight-faced nonsense the whole series runs on.

Archive footage made which royal appear to present the Invention of the Year award in Look Around You?

Prince Charles appears to hand over the trophy because old footage of him was blended with new. Peter Serafinowicz dubbed over the voice with his own impression.

Which future Oscar winner played presenter Pam Bachelor in the second series of Look Around You?

Olivia Colman played Pam Bachelor years before The Favourite won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Pam is the show's friendly presenter with a liking for great outfits.

Which Star Wars villain was voiced by Peter Serafinowicz, co-creator and star of Look Around You?

Darth Maul was voiced by Serafinowicz in The Phantom Menace. Three years later he was playing a silent scientist in the first series of his own spoof.

Look Around You swapped its classroom films for a studio show in series two, spoofing which science programme?

Tomorrow's World was the model, so inventors arrive to show off their gadgets. Four presenters now chat in a studio where the first series had only a narrator.

According to the Food episode of Look Around You, what is Britain's favourite kind of fast food?

Casserole rules the high street in the Food episode. The team visits Big C, an automated restaurant where a computer brings it to the table within seconds.

The ghost of which Russian composer judges the Music 2000 song contest in Look Around You?

Tchaikovsky returns as a ghost to judge the contest, speaking through a translator. Three acts perform the songs they think people will be hearing in the year 2000.

Championess, a finalist for Invention of the Year in Look Around You, is which kind of animal?

A horse called Championess reaches the final with a gambling aid she designed herself. Her race-predicting computer is built mostly from dung.

Which Marvel actor played the doctor who brings robot surgeon Medibot to the Look Around You studio?

Benedict Wong played Dr Franklin Fu in the Health episode. More than a decade later he joined the Marvel films as the sorcerer Wong in Doctor Strange.

Look Around You claims that whisky is made by combining water with which gas?

Nitrogen plus water makes whisky in the show's garbled chemistry. Every subject is bent so far out of shape that it can no longer be recognised.

Which channel first showed Look Around You, originally as a run of ten-minute spoof science films?

BBC Two showed the eight short films of the first series. It then brought the show back three years later as six half-hour episodes.

Peter Serafinowicz created Look Around You with which writer, who later made the sitcom Friday Night Dinner?

Robert Popper was working as a commissioning editor at Channel 4 when the first series went out. In the second he appears on screen as the presenter Jack Morgan.

According to Look Around You, a synthesizer can copy almost any instrument, with which notable exception?

The bassoon defeats every synthesizer, the Music 2000 episode insists. The instrument keeps turning up as a running joke across both series.

Which Peep Show star played Pat Taylor, co-inventor of the winning entry in Look Around You's live final?

David Mitchell played Pat Taylor, who shares the trophy with fellow inventor Sam Macnamara. Their device is tested on a presenter live in the studio.

Which film director, who worked with co-creator Peter Serafinowicz on Spaced, plays a scientist in Look Around You?

Edgar Wright plays one of the hapless scientists who carry out the experiments. He returns in the second series as a technician called Eddie Yorque.

Ash Atalla, executive producer of Look Around You's second series, was already known for producing which sitcom?

The Office made Ash Atalla's name as a producer. He then joined Talkback Thames as head of comedy, where the science spoof's 2005 run was among his first shows.

The Sport episode of Look Around You visits America to see a new game that crosses tennis with which sport?

Golf and tennis merge into Gonnis, said to be taking Pennsylvania by storm. Its inventor went on to cross darts with fencing.

Look Around You was commissioned on the strength of a double-length pilot about which chemical element?

Calcium was the subject of the 20-minute pilot, twice the length of a normal module. The film later surfaced as an extra on the first DVD.

Which device is named Invention of the Year at the end of the live final of Look Around You?

A sex-change machine wins the trophy after the team tests it on Jack Morgan live on air. It was built from the parts used in laundry machines.

Which American cartoon creator called Look Around You one of the funniest shows he had ever seen?

Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, gave the spoof that praise. A decade after it began, the whole first series was screened at London's BFI Southbank.

Which song does Jack Morgan perform in the Music module of Look Around You's first series?

Little Mouse is the rock song Jack Morgan performs as an experimenter in the first series. Its full music video was added to the DVD as an extra.

Almost every object in Look Around You's first series carries a label made with which brand of tape?

Dymo labels are stuck on everything from hairdryers and magnets to a bottle of maths. The fussy labelling is a running gag throughout the first series.

The silent scientists in Look Around You's first series point out key details using which everyday object?

A pencil does all the pointing because the scientists never speak. The joke escalates until one is used to point out other pencils.

Look Around You's narrator repeatedly orders viewers to note things down in which item?

Their copy book is the notebook every viewer is ordered to keep. The details to be recorded in it are random and essentially worthless.

In Look Around You's Maths module, the performance-enhancing Garry Gum has which unfortunate side effect?

Diarrhoea is the price of chewing Garry Gum for a boost in performance. The cure is a second product, anti-Garry gum.

In Look Around You's Water module, a chemistry experiment about eggs turns into a lesson in which language?

French takes over the egg experiment without warning. The same module coined the word mafipulation for a gas bubbling through water.

Each Look Around You module trails a next module that was never made; which of these was one?

Reggae was promised but never filmed, like Champagne, Hitchhiking and Italians. The other three subjects here were all real modules.

In a Look Around You Maths puzzle, three future queens named Elizabeth risk wearing the same what to a party?

Dress choice is the whole puzzle: one queen owns forty and another four thousand. A servant then spends the night making copies of a stolen design.

Which ancient Egyptian is pictured as an Easter Island statue in a running joke in Look Around You?

Imhotep is always shown as a moai, one of the giant stone heads of Easter Island. The gag carries over from the first series into the second.

Which voice actor narrated the first series of Look Around You and later voiced Merle Ambrose in Wizard101?

Nigel Lambert supplied the earnest voice-over, since the scientists on screen never speak. The second series dropped the narrator in favour of four talking presenters.

In Look Around You, the boîte diabolique is a box at the top of a piano scale that holds what?

The forbidden notes are shut away in the boîte diabolique. It is one of many invented objects that resemble real ones just enough to sound convincing.

Which sketch comedian played the ghostly composer who judges the Music 2000 contest in Look Around You?

Harry Enfield played the ghost, who delivers his verdicts through a translator. His was one of several star cameos in the second series.

In Look Around You's Water module, which insects are shown to have amazing igloo-building skills?

Ants build the igloo in the Water module. The narrator's thank-you to them, squashed into a single word, became a running joke in both series.

Look Around You's creators recorded its incidental music under which made-up band name?

Gelg was the pseudonym the two creators used for the music they overdubbed onto the films. The BBC's page for the Music 2000 episode lists Gelg among the bands proving synthesizers are the future.

Which instrument plays the music over the countdown clock that opens each Look Around You module?

Guitar music accompanies the clock, which copies the one once shown before ITV's schools programmes. In the Brain module the player can be heard tuning up.

Mock pages from which teletext service appear among the extras on the Look Around You DVDs?

Ceefax pages were faked for both DVD releases. The subtitles on the first disc go further and copy the look of old teletext captions.

Which American cable programming block aired Look Around You from 2009, years after its British run?

Adult Swim picked the series up four years after it ended on BBC Two. The show even had its own panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2010.

Look Around You's Music 2000 episode opens with the real early-1980s theme tune of which chart show?

Top of the Pops lent the episode its introduction and its theme of the time, Yellow Pearl by Phil Lynott. The borrowing helps fix the series in the early 1980s.

Which Green Wing actor played Leonard Hatred, the difficult inventor of the spray Psilence, in Look Around You?

Mark Heap improvised Leonard Hatred's funny walk, which was never in the script. Hatred ends the series disqualified from Invention of the Year.

Britain's most powerful computer in Look Around You shares its name with which English seaside town?

Bournemouth is so powerful that it regards ordinary people as morons. Its challenge on the show is to escape from a reinforced steel cage.