Here’s the reason why ‘Harry Potter’ has been banned from ‘Mastermind’

It makes sense....

Harry Potter and Fawlty Towers are among the specialist subjects that have been ‘banned’ from BBC quiz show Mastermind – and there’s a pretty logical reason behind it.

In a nutshell, it’s all to do with popularity – and there’s an unsurprising amount of people that want to show off their knowledge of all things Hogwarts.

“Last year, 262 people wanted to take that as one of their three specialist subjects,” producer Mark Helsby explained to the Radio Times.  

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It’s also been confirmed that a specialist subject cannot be chosen in consecutive series too, which goes even further in diminishing the chances of Harry Potter being chosen.

Classic sitcoms Fawlty Towers, Father Ted and Blackadder were also subject to the same problem after proving similarly popular.

“Some of the shorter sitcom series have been exhausted for new questions,” Helsby explained.

“32 people wanted to do Fawlty Towers last year, 19 wanted Blackadder, and 22 wanted Father Ted. Some of the very popular literary subjects such as the Chronicles of Narnia or Roald Dahl probably wouldn’t be agreed to for the same reason.”

He added: “As a minimum, we would want there to be at least two good quality books on a biographical or historical subject. TV, film and literary subjects are a bit more subjective, but we would never allow just one book or one film.”

So there you have it, apply for Mastermind by all means – but don’t expect to be casting a spell over the show any time soon.

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