Andy’s alternative nature documentary
Andy’s presentation takes the form of a nature documentary about geese, in which he takes many liberties with the facts.
As he begins by describing the goose as “one of nature’s rarest and most enigmatic creatures”, an actual flock of geese coincidentally flies directly over the garden of the Taskmaster house, honking loudly, prompting him to yell “Go away! Fucking impostors! Away!”
After a reset, Andy begins the segment again, claiming “We know so little about them, apart from that they’re distantly related to this guy [holds up a plastic toy dinosaur], and they shouldn’t be trusted near car windscreens”.
Andy then pops up from between a hedge and a bush, and asks “So, how do gooses – or, as the scientists call them, geese – actually mate? Well, until now, no-one has ever got footage of geese getting their goose on.”
As he narrates the mating ritual of the goose, the footage shown involves a model of a seagull labelled with a ‘G’, representing the male goose, and two different owls (one decorative, and one scarecrow owl, introduced to the show by Ardal O’Hanlon) representing the female (on the official Taskmaster companion app, it was revealed that the seagull was a prop taken from the living room, which then had to be replaced immediately for the sake of continuity).
Andy says “As we see, the male goose – or gooch – attempts to attract the attention of the female goose – or google. And it does this with a display of its physical prowess... [at this point, the seagull is seen lifting a paper cut-out of a barbell with its wing]… range of flight… [he chucks the seagull as hard as he can across the garden] …and, of course, its sense of humour [footage is shown of the seagull apparently telling a joke, prompting laughter from the owl].”
The seagull and owl are then seen leaning towards one another, as if to kiss, before the camera footage becomes blurred and cuts to a different shot, as if to give them some privacy. However, footage of the seagull humping the owl on a hedge is then shown, accompanied by soft funk music.
Several shots of a golden goose egg are then shown, demonstrating how the egg apparently grows over time from the size of a regular hen’s egg at one week, to the size of a rugby ball after eight months’ “egg-station”. As Andy states that the mother goose waits for something to crack the egg, he is seen kicking the egg across the garden as hard as he can.
Cradling the seagull labelled with a ‘G’ in his arms, Andy then claims “They’re so like us. In fact, this goose shares 99% of the same DNA as William Shakespeare. And maybe that’s why there’s such a deep and mutual bond of respect between humans and geese. Blood brothers in the ballet of evolution.”
In the studio, when Greg draws attention to Andy’s decision to cut back to the goose mating footage, Andy explains that the initial cut-away was to “give those who don’t want to see geese… goosing [an opportunity] to go and make a cup of tea, whereas, those people who can fucking handle reality can… see how nature works”.
Greg ultimately decides to award Andy 3 points for his documentary.
(Written by Karl Craven and proofread by M3 / Andres Sanchez)
(Illustrations collected and adjusted by: David Fuller)
