The Eggheads (Chris Hughes, Daphne Fowler, CJ de Mooi, Barry Simmons, Judith Keppel and Kevin Ashman) by Cartoonists' team member Chris Burke

The Cartoonists, a team put together by the Professional Cartoonists Organisation, stormed to victory on the TV quiz show Eggheads last night, after winning each of their head-to-head rounds. Egghead Kevin Ashman described it as “the most comprehensive defeat we’ve ever had”. Here, team captain Alex Hughes explains how it all happened

A little over a year ago, I was approached by the makers of BBC quiz show Eggheads and asked if I’d like to put together a team of cartoonists for the upcoming series. I’ve done the odd pub quiz in the past, so accepted the offer and duly went about recruiting a team from the ranks of the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation – a team comprising myself, Chris Burke, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell, Royston Robertson and Martin Rowson. We sailed through the December audition and subsequently were invited to record the show in January of this year.

For the uninitiated, Eggheads itself is a fairly straightforward quiz. Each day, a new team of challengers goes up against the Eggheads, a team comprising past winners of other TV and radio quizzes such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Mastermind, Fifteen to One, The Weakest Link and Brain of Britain – the cream of British quiz talent.

The Cartoonists (Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson)

For our bout, the Eggheads team comprised Kevin Ashman, CJ de Mooi, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes and Barry Simmons. Judith Keppel was waiting in the wings and Chris Burke was the stand-in for the Cartoonists.

The first four rounds are a series of head-to-head questions from a given category, where we pick one of our team to go up against our pick from the Eggheads. The contestants then go into the “question room” (in reality, a bench behind the main set) and are given three multiple choice questions each. If there’s no outright winner, it goes to “sudden death”.

The winner of each round is “safe” and allowed to compete for their team in the final round, whilst the loser is not. The final round is a general knowledge team round with the surviving challengers competing directly against the surviving Eggheads for the prize money, which, if it’s not won is rolled-over to the next day.

The Cartoonists (Alex Hughes, Robert Duncan, Royston Robertson, Chris Burke, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson) outside BBC Television Centre

On the day of the filming we arrived bright and early on a crisp January morning with, as requested, a selection of light, brightly coloured non-patterned shirts at BBC Television Centre in White City, London. After resting in the former Top of the Pops Green Room we were ushered into the studio, which is when the nerves kicked in. Make-up was applied, microphones were attached and we met host Jeremy Vine.

There wasn’t much time for chit-chat though (up to five episodes are shot per day), so we went straight into the contest …

…and we won! We were only the sixth team out of the ten series to beat the Eggheads in each of the first four rounds. But to top that, we are the first team to have beaten the Eggheads outright, winning in every single round plus the final – we only got three questions wrong between us in the whole show.

And best of all, the last question, which surviving Egghead Kevin Ashman could not answer, was a cartoon question.

So, well done, team, we did brilliantly! Congratulations to Robert, Royston, Graham, Martin, and Chris in reserve. And our thanks to Al Capp’s Shmoo…

The editor adds: The BBC iPlayer recording of the show should be available online until November 5th 2009.

A team representing the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation, the organisation behind the Bloghorn, is set to appear on the BBC quiz show Eggheads tonight (October 29) at 6pm on BBC Two.

The Cartoonists are, left-to right, Chris Burke, who was team stand-in, Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson.

See the Bloghorn tomorrow for a full post-match report.

As mentioned previously in the year here on Bloghorn, a team representing the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation is set to appear on the BBC quiz show Eggheads. The team, comprising Chris Burke, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell, Martin Rowson and myself, Alex Hughes, will air on BBC2 at 6pm on Thursday 29th October. Obviously, we can’t let you know how we did, but you can expect full coverage here on Bloghorn the following day…

One: Jonathan Pugh in The Times on teacher re-training

Two: Peattie and Taylor from Alex in the Daily Telegraph on forward thinking

Three: …and Bloghorn’s own Royston Robertson in the Readers Digest on student hijinks

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
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A team from the Professional Cartoonists Organisation, which runs The Bloghorn, is to appear on the daily BBC Two quiz show Eggheads.

The team, called simply The Cartoonists, will challenge the Eggheads team, who are all winners from other quiz and game shows.

Pictured (seated, left to right) are PCOers Chris Burke, Alex Hughes, Royston Robertson, Robert Duncan, Graham Fowell and Martin Rowson.

Stood behind them are the host Jeremy Vine (second left) with the Eggheads team – CJ de Mooi, Barry Simmons, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes, Kevin Ashman and Judith Keppel.

As soon as we know the transmission date of the programme we’ll let you know, via The Bloghorn.

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent
Subscribe to The Foghorn – our print cartoon magazine

The Forbidden Planet blog has a nice piece to mark six months of The DFC, the subscription-only kids’ comic launched earlier this year. Instead of canvassing the opinions of grown-up comic fans, they’ve interviewed a member of the target audience: Molly, nine.

This was interesting to me as my son, who is six, reads The DFC. He loves it, but of course he only knows about it because his cartoonist Dad wanted to see it. His friends are largely unaware of The DFC because it has such a low media profile. It really needs to get into the shops permanently (it’s currently on a one-week trial at Tesco).

Like Molly in the FP piece, he also goes for the funny ones rather than the more serious, adventure ones. I think I did much the same thing with comics as a child.

Forbidden Planet blog

The DFC

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent