University Challenge - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• David Nicholls' novel Starter for Ten (2003) was based around one student's part in a University Challenge team whilst at an unnamed university (based on Nicholls' own alma mater, the University of Bristol, and identified as such in the film adaptation). The title was, of course, taken from the programme's catchphrase. The novel was adapted into the 2006 film Starter for 10, (released on 10 November in the UK).
• The Undertones 1979 single "My Perfect Cousin" contains the line: "He thinks that I'm a cabbage,cos I hate University Challenge".
• In 1984, an episode of The Young Ones, entitled "Bambi" (a play on the host's name), centred on a parody of University Challenge with a match between the fictitious teams of Scumbag College and Footlights College, Oxbridge. The cast included Stephen Fry, who participated in the real competition in 1980 while at Cambridge, and fellow alumni and Footlights members Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie as part of the "Footlights College" team and Griff Rhys Jones as the host.
• A quiz themed around BBC science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf, broadcast in 1998, was entitled Universe Challenge. It opened as if it were a regular episode, but with Chris Barrie imitating Jeremy Paxman. Bamber comes from behind with a blaster gun and blows him out of the chair, so he can host. This was Bamber Gascoigne's last appearance as host.
• In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, University Challenge was placed 34th.
• Armando Ianucci's Time Trumpet did a parody of University Challenge, set in a future where students are 'too lazy to learn'; this parody was later referenced in an episode of the real series of University Challenge by the team captain of SOAS, John Joseph Perry, who, not knowing the real answer, simply answered "Venezuela?"
• In Series 8 of BBC TV series Waterloo Road, the school hosts a "School's Challenge" between themselves and local rival Havelock High. English teacher Grantly, who hosts the quiz, claims to have been team captain for the University of Manchester in 1974.