So a little more than a month ago, I decided I wanted to have a Taskmaster birthday game night. I've been watching Taskmaster as my evening comfort show for years now and Joe seems to genuinely enjoy it, as well. He's also got a mind for games, so I was really excited when he offered to be the Taskmaster. After making sure our friends were free on the night of the event, Joe sent out tasks with the trademark red seal as an invitation to everyone, and their first task was to text him their email addresses so he could start sending out tasks for us to do ahead of the party.
He fretted for weeks that people werenāt even going to show, because no one was responding on the pre-party tasks. He sent an email out a couple weeks after the first ones went out, saying not to worry about doing those tasks, and that it'd just be a game night. But we did have a prize task to participate in.
The prize task was ābring the best bubbly thingā and very few people actually did anything for this because no one read the email Joe sent in time to get something other than sparkling wine, so that was three people. I let my friend who didnāt bring anything pass off the bottle of Gruet I had as her own. I told her it was from New Mexico, which she told Joe, and she got an extra point more than the others who brought bubbly wine. Another friend brought a bath bomb and got 3rd, I put a TON of research in and brought a dry ice bubble making kit and got 2nd, and the guy who won brought a small bubble wrap baggie. Joe liked the simplicity I guess. š¤·āāļø
There were 12 tasks, including:
Sausage or Finger? (Wear a blindfold and guess whether the person behind you touched you with a finger or a sausageāappropriate ahead of EEAAO's big Oscar win!)
A two-parter: 1. Using finger paint, sign your name on the bottom of your page that you will be adding art to; 2. Paint the Taskmaster using the hand you didn't use for signing your name. (So most of us wound up painting with our non-dominant hands.)
Throw a rubber ducky the farthest without it going off the rug (5 out of 7 bounced off on the first attempt! Went way faster than expected)
Wearing a blindfold, blow up and tie the biggest balloon
With your butt on the wall, blow up a balloon but donāt tie it off. Then let it go. The furthest one from the wall wins (this was obviously chaos!)
Write a 10 word story; then mouth it to the Taskmaster, who then has to guess what the 10 words are
Pick a spot to put a small, medium, or large hula hoop; then try to throw a frying pan into the hoop without it bouncing out; furthest wins (mine was the only one that stayed in its hoop!)
Draw the median beaver (like the Median Duck task, but Joe's from Oregon and went to Oregon State so he picked Beaver over Duck); extra point goes to the best beaver
I got second place in most of the tasks, but everyone else was all over the place- so I won the night with the most points. It helps that Iāve seen several of the tasks on tv, though Joe had made variations on them, so I didnāt automatically have an advantage. But also I know Joeās favorites and so I tried to appeal to him on several occasions, which might have helped.
I think the only person who wasnāt having a TON of fun was our non-drinking friend whom Joe got to know by playing board games at work withābecause this was not the kind of game night where you can figure out a strategy. Too chaotic for that!
Some friends stayed until 2am and then suddenly it was 3am because of Daylight Savings. šµāš« We also had plenty to drink, so there's definitely stuff I'm forgetting. But overall, it went off really well and I kind of got the sense that people would want to do it again!