Unmissable show?
I have written down a list, because I love television! I loved every episode of The Newsroom. I didn’t care where it leaned politically, I just thought those people were fantastic to spend time with. Episodes, that sitcom about a US network buying an English show and then bastardising it into oblivion. I’m an Anglophile when it comes to TV. All the UK shows are on Netflix. I just watched The Fall and Happy Valley, which were amazing. Talking of English people, you know who I love? John Oliver. His HBO show is an amazement. He’s maybe the smartest guy on television. And how they take a subject and dissect it and draw details from every angle? Oh my God!
Earliest TV memory?
A kids’ show called Howdy Doody. There used to be a space for the audience called the peanut gallery, and I remember being able to go. My mother took me. We got a candy bar from the sponsor of the show, and on the way home I wanted to eat that candy bar and I was not allowed to. My favourite action hero when I was growing up was Zorro. I wanted to play him but I never got the call!
TV turn-off?
I don’t get Survivor, Naked And Afraid, Bear Grylls. Those sort of shows just don’t get my interest. Maybe it’s because I know I couldn’t do them. As soon as it got rainy and cold, I would go home. I’d say: “Thank you so much, but I’m not going to eat that fishy thing I’m having to peel off a rock. Goodbye.”
Mastermind specialist subject?
How to fail at school. I’d win by knowing the fewest correct answers ever. I studied geometry at school for four years. I finally passed with a D, the lowest grade possible. That was in 1963, and now we’re in 2015 and you know what? Not one human being in that entire time has ever said the word “hypotenuse” to me! You find out that you’re doing pretty well, you’re a success, and you think: “What did I need that for?”
Hank Zipzer airs Thursday, 4.30pm, CBBC
