BBC viewers were left in complete shock after watching a new Lee Mack hosted quiz show end with a contestant’s head exploding.
The new gameshow was a last minute schedule change as comedy-drama Inside No 9 was due to air the 5th episode of its latest series, but it was pulled and replaced.
The comedian, 54, told viewers: ‘Hello I’m Lee Mack and welcome to 3by3, the brand new quiz show that gives three teams of three people, three chances to win a big money prize.
‘Well, I say big money, this is the BBC. In fact if the set doesn’t fall down we’ll be happy.’
The show involved three teams of three contestants competing to win a cash prize of £20,000.
Shocking: BBC viewers were left in complete shock after watching a new Lee Mack hosted quiz show end with a contestant’s head exploding
The three teams – which included a mother and daughter – were then introduced to viewers before the first round began.
It ended with the gruesome death of the mother who was locked in a glass box and her head exploded – which was all scripted thankfully.
Lee then ran off set screaming ‘get the producer’ before the camera cut out and the credits rolled.
It turned out to be one massive prank on BBC viewers as it had been the episode of Inside No 9 all along.
Lee was starring as the fake gameshow host and Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton had written the whole thing.
Viewers were left confused by the show, with one penning: ‘What the heck am I watching? Why is Lee Mack presenting a fake quiz? Where is Inside No 9? Who is going to die?’
Another wrote: ‘I noticed a new game show with Lee Mack and I’m a fan so I stayed. Imagine the SHOCK I got when her head exploded?’
A third added: ‘3 by 3 with Lee Mack is one of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen. Is this a comedy? Am I hallucinating? Have I gone back in time?’
It comes after Lee was slammed by a stuttering charity after he ‘ridiculed’ and mimicked the speech impediment on the TV panel show, Would I Lie To You?
The comedian’s actions were branded ‘thoughtless’ by STAMMA, the British Stammering Association, after he mocked his co-star Rob Brydon when he stumbled on the word, ‘She,’ during Friday’s episode of the BBC programme.
He proceeded to compare the host to Ronnie Barker’s character Arkwright from the 1970s and 80s sitcom, Open All Hours, who was depicted as having a stutter for comedic effect.
‘What is she? What is she, Rob?’ Lee joked before adding, ‘The suspense is killing me.’
Stunt: Lee then ran off set screaming ‘get the producer’ before the camera cut out and the credits rolled
Actors: The three teams – which included a mother and daughter – were then introduced to viewers before the first round began
Fake: It ended with the gruesome death of the mother who was locked in a glass box and her head exploded – which was all scripted thankfully
Viewers were left confused by the show, with one penning: ‘What the heck am I watching? Why is Lee Mack presenting a fake quiz? Where is Inside No 9? Who is going to die?’
By this point, the audience had erupted into laughter and continued to cackle as he repeated, ‘She,’ seven times while squinting his eyes.
‘Are you auditioning for Open All Hours?’ he continued as Rob attempted to finish his own sentence.
Lee then repeated, ‘She,’ four times more, much to the amusement of the crowd and his fellow panellists.
It is unclear whether Rob has a stutter, himself.
Following the broadcast, STAMMA issued the following statement to MailOnline: ‘It was disheartening to see Lee Mack and the Would I Lie to You crew mock stammering on Friday night’s show.
‘Around 8% of kids and at least 1% of adults stammer. This is our voice, it’s how we talk. The thoughtless ridicule we saw on WILTY offers us a stark choice between being laughed at or being silent.
‘We know it wasn’t meant to hurt or offend, but for many who stammer, it does.
‘To all those adults and teens out there who stammer, and all those parents who have kids who stammer, know that there are many people who accept that stammering is simply the way some of us talk. Who make space and time for us in conversation and value our fabulous, stammered voices.’
CEO Jane Powell added, ‘Stammering isn’t a joke, and this isn’t the 70s.
‘Thousands of people who love WILTY – and who stammer – will have watched the show on Friday, and felt uncomfortable and embarrassed watching Lee Mack mock how they talk. It’s a shame the BBC didn’t see that this was worth editing out.’
MailOnline has contacted Lee’s representatives and the BBC for comment.
Various theories have emerged about the cause of stuttering , including that it’s a genetic condition or caused by volatile family dynamics.
A 2017 study conducted by researchers at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles posited stuttering was linked to limited blood flow to the region of the frontal lobe linked to speech.
The more severe the stutter, the more limited the blood flow in this region is.
In addition, a greater abnormality of cerebral blood flow in the posterior language loop, an area associated with processing words that we hear, relates to more severe stuttering.
More than 70 million people stutter worldwide — including about 3 million in the U.S. alone — and the condition is four times more common in men than women.
Well-known people who stutter include Emily Blunt, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe and King George VI.
In 2021, Emily told The Mail on Sunday she was drawn to acting after realizing ‘one of the ways I could speak normally was if I did a silly voice or an accent.’
EXCLUSIVE: Lee has been slammed by a stuttering charity after he ‘ridiculed’ and mimicked the speech impediment on the TV panel show, Would I Lie To You?
During a CNN town hall in 2020, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, who overcame a childhood stutter himself, called it ‘the only handicap people still laugh about.’
At least prior to his inauguration as president, Biden mentored more than a dozen people with problems speaking.
‘The point I make to these young people that I still work with is that it is critically important for them not to judge themselves by their speech, not let that define them,’ Biden said, adding that stuttering has nothing to do with your ‘intelligent quotient’ or your ‘intellectual makeup.’
Children with stutters score just as well as other kids on tests assessing language, thinking skills, and temperament.
