Look Around You
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40 free Look Around You trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Look Around You is one of the strangest comedies British television has produced: a dead-straight spoof of the science films once wheeled into classrooms, where every fact is wrong and every object is carefully labelled. Its first series ran to short modules on subjects such as Maths, Water, Germs and Ghosts. This quiz covers both series. Expect questions on the Maths module and its impossible puzzles, the Water module that gave fans the word mafipulation, Garry Gum, the silent scientists and their narrator, and the second series with its studio presenters, weekly inventions and star cameos. It is written for fans who can still hear the countdown clock, and for anyone who has just found the show and would like to test what stuck. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up the details you missed.
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Q 01According to the spoof science series Look Around You, germs originally come from which European country?
Germany
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.
Q 02Archive footage made which royal appear to present the Invention of the Year award in Look Around You?
Prince Charles
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.
Q 03Which future Oscar winner played presenter Pam Bachelor in the second series of Look Around You?
Olivia Colman
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.
Q 04Which Star Wars villain was voiced by Peter Serafinowicz, co-creator and star of Look Around You?
Darth Maul
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.
Q 05Look Around You swapped its classroom films for a studio show in series two, spoofing which science programme?
Tomorrow's World
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.
Q 06According to the Food episode of Look Around You, what is Britain's favourite kind of fast food?
Casserole
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.
Q 07The ghost of which Russian composer judges the Music 2000 song contest in Look Around You?
Tchaikovsky
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.
Q 08Championess, a finalist for Invention of the Year in Look Around You, is which kind of animal?
A horse
A horse called Championess reaches the final with a gambling aid she designed herself. Her race-predicting computer is built mostly from dung.
Q 09Which Marvel actor played the doctor who brings robot surgeon Medibot to the Look Around You studio?
Benedict Wong
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.
Q 10Look Around You claims that whisky is made by combining water with which gas?
Nitrogen
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.
Q 11Which channel first showed Look Around You, originally as a run of ten-minute spoof science films?
BBC Two
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.
Q 12Peter Serafinowicz created Look Around You with which writer, who later made the sitcom Friday Night Dinner?
Robert Popper
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.
Q 13According to Look Around You, a synthesizer can copy almost any instrument, with which notable exception?
The bassoon
Q 21Which song does Jack Morgan perform in the Music module of Look Around You's first series?
Little Mouse
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.
Q 22Almost every object in Look Around You's first series carries a label made with which brand of tape?
Dymo
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.
Q 23The silent scientists in Look Around You's first series point out key details using which everyday object?
A pencil
A pencil does all the pointing because the scientists never speak. The joke escalates until one is used to point out other pencils.
The bassoon defeats every synthesizer, the Music 2000 episode insists. The instrument keeps turning up as a running joke across both series.
Q 14Which Peep Show star played Pat Taylor, co-inventor of the winning entry in Look Around You's live final?
David Mitchell
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.
Q 15Which film director, who worked with co-creator Peter Serafinowicz on Spaced, plays a scientist in Look Around You?
Edgar Wright
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.
Q 16Ash Atalla, executive producer of Look Around You's second series, was already known for producing which sitcom?
The Office
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.
Q 17The Sport episode of Look Around You visits America to see a new game that crosses tennis with which sport?
Golf
Golf and tennis merge into Gonnis, said to be taking Pennsylvania by storm. Its inventor went on to cross darts with fencing.
Q 18Look Around You was commissioned on the strength of a double-length pilot about which chemical element?
Calcium
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.
Q 19Which device is named Invention of the Year at the end of the live final of Look Around You?
A sex-change machine
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.
Q 20Which American cartoon creator called Look Around You one of the funniest shows he had ever seen?
Matt Groening
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.
Q 24Look Around You's narrator repeatedly orders viewers to note things down in which item?
Their copy book
Their copy book is the notebook every viewer is ordered to keep. The details to be recorded in it are random and essentially worthless.
Q 25In Look Around You's Maths module, the performance-enhancing Garry Gum has which unfortunate side effect?
Diarrhoea
Diarrhoea is the price of chewing Garry Gum for a boost in performance. The cure is a second product, anti-Garry gum.
Q 26In Look Around You's Water module, a chemistry experiment about eggs turns into a lesson in which language?
French
French takes over the egg experiment without warning. The same module coined the word mafipulation for a gas bubbling through water.
Q 27Each Look Around You module trails a next module that was never made; which of these was one?
Reggae
Reggae was promised but never filmed, like Champagne, Hitchhiking and Italians. The other three subjects here were all real modules.
Q 28In a Look Around You Maths puzzle, three future queens named Elizabeth risk wearing the same what to a party?
Dress
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.
Q 29Which ancient Egyptian is pictured as an Easter Island statue in a running joke in Look Around You?
Imhotep
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.
Q 30Which voice actor narrated the first series of Look Around You and later voiced Merle Ambrose in Wizard101?
Nigel Lambert
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.