An enjoyable but fairly run-of-the-mill satirical news quiz (8 Out of 10 Cats)

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	8 Out of 10 Cats
Date:	20/10/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Carr and Locke are pretty funny, simple accessable format,

Disadvantages: Jason Manson is a bit mediocre, guest quality varies

A topical-news based quiz show in the vein of the BBC's Mock The Week, 8 out of 10 cats is hosted by low-brow comedian Jimmy Carr, flanked by team captains Sean Locke and Jason Manford and four different celebrity guests each week. The show's content is based around independently-conducted opinion polls, hence the name, which is a play on the famous slogan employed by Whiskas cat food.

The show is broken up into a number of fairly similar rounds, including one in which they have to watch clips of people in the street giving their opinions on something and guess the subject of the poll in question, a round in which they have to guess whether a particular poll result is true or false, a round in which they are given a poll topic and have to guess what the top answer in that poll was and so on.

Its all pretty formulaic stuff to be honest, but it can still be mildly diverting to second-guess the opinion polls and the show can be pretty funny, particularly Sean Locke, with his unique brand of surrealist and self-depricatingly middle-class humour, whilst though Jimmy Carr's relentlessly low-brow comedic style can grate he remains incredibly witty and quick off the mark. Unfortunately Jason Manson somewhat lets the side down, coming across like a poor man's Peter Kay most of the time, (his predecessor Dave Spikey was much better) and the guests also frequently vary in quality. Whilst not as good as either Mock the Week or Have I Got News For You, 8 Out of 10 Cats is nevertheless a consistently entertaining satirical news quiz and well worth taking the time to watch.

Summary: An entertaining if unremarkable topical quiz