Mastermind is a British television quiz show for the BBC, currently presented by Clive Myrie.

Its creator, Bill Wright, drew inspiration from his experiences of being interrogated by the Gestapo during World War II.

In the early years of the programme, finalists were allowed to reuse their first-round subjects in the grand final.

The winner of the final of the BBC version is declared "Mastermind" for that year and is the only contestant to receive a prize, in the form of a cut glass engraved bowl.

[5] The original series spawned many specials: BBC Radio 4's Mastermind (1998 and 2000) was hosted by Peter Snow.

The contestant with the highest score after two rounds would win a cash prize, and would have a chance to double those winnings by correctly answering the untimed "Question of Great Significance," as host Kenny Mayne called it, from a speciality category chosen by the winner (usually a particular athlete or sports team from the past).

Like Mastermind, 2 Minute Drill featured a leather chair, dramatic lighting and sound effects.

In addition he holds the record for the highest ever score on Brain of Britain and has been a member of the Eggheads since that series debut.

On Junior Mastermind in February 2007, an 11-year-old schoolboy called Callum scored 19 points on his specialist subject, cricketer Andrew Flintoff.

The current record for the lowest score in the specialist subject round is jointly held by Troy Deeney and Dana on 22 December 2023, Harry Pinero on 2 February 2024 and Aaron Evans on 16 February 2024, all of whom scored no points when answering questions on the Sam Raimi trilogy of Spider-Man films, UK hit singles of 1969–76, Lewis Hamilton and cephalopods respectively.

In 1979 the original black chair was taken by a group of students during the BBC crew's evening meal break, and held to ransom to raise money for charity; this delayed the recording of two programmes.

The BBC commissioned a duplicate chair which was kept locked in the scenery truck at every recording to thwart similar ransom demands.

[14] Home Computing Weekly reviewed both games and gave them two out of five stars and said: "I have no doubt that someone, somewhere, will find these two programs of use.

A different sketch featured Monty Python alumni Michael Palin as Magnusson and Terry Gilliam as a contestant whose speciality was "questions to which the answer is two."

In 1974, Morecambe and Wise performed a sketch based on Mastermind, which featured Magnusson and the black chair.

In the late 1970s, Noel Edmonds' Sunday lunchtime radio show featured a send-up called "Musty Mind" where a phone-in contestant would be asked ludicrous questions on a parody of a serious subject, such as the "Toad Racing" or, on another occasion, "The Cultural and Social History of Rockall" – Rockall being a bald lump of uninhabited rock in the eastern Atlantic.

The 2003-onwards version has been spoofed by the Dead Ringers team, with Jon Culshaw playing John Humphrys.

[16] Another spoof was featured in Armando Iannucci's 2004: The Stupid Version, where a contestant's specialist subject was "The television series Thunderbirds and Lady Penelope's Cockney chauffeur".

In the final show of the series, Magnus Magnusson took over as the quizmaster — it was the last time he would utter the catchphrase "I've started so I'll finish" on any form of Mastermind.

The twist was that Archer's puppet, being incapable of answering questions about himself without exaggeration or evasion, ends the round with zero points.

he followed on from this performance with a sketch where he was a contestant on Mastermind, and it was implied that his specialist subject was the microwave cooking instructions on supermarket ready meals.

As the camera panned out it became evident that the chair itself was on a platter, slowly turning in a giant microwave oven.

The Channel 4 Prank programme Balls of Steel parodied Mastermind with its sketch The Alex Zane Cleverness Game, in which experts were quizzed on their specialist subjects (included were "The Life of Anne Frank", "Eurovision Song Contest Winners", and "Hercule Poirot").

The BBC Three comedy show Snuff Box had the two main characters Rich Fulcher and Matt Berry both appear on Mastermind.

Berry chose his specialist subject as Alton Towers and only scored 3 points before a blackout, in which he apparently shoots the host after being told to sit down.

Fulcher chooses 'Anglo-Saxon architecture', though displays no knowledge of the subject and makes up answers such as "Toto from The Wizard of Oz" and "Elvis", and scoring no points.

The specialist subjects were The World of Glee; UK dialling codes; U2; Husky Dogs and Back to the Future.