‘The kids didn’t subject me to violence … largely speaking’: inside the super-sassy world of Junior Taskmaster
‘The kids didn’t subject me to violence … largely speaking’: inside the super-sassy world of Junior Taskmaster
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The comedy hit conquered the UK, then the world, and now it’s taking over the nation’s youth. Its co-host Mike Wozniak talks being mercilessly mocked, fart mishaps and why kids make the best contestants. At one point in the first episode of Junior Taskmaster, a child takes a felt-tip pen to Mike Wozniak’s face. It’s quite the feat, seeing as they’re standing 6ft away, using a long-handled litter picker to grip the marker. But what’s even more impressive is that facial graffiti is in no way a requirement of the task at hand. “But why not abuse the assistant Taskmaster?” they chuckle.
![[Alexi Duggins]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2023/06/08/Alexi_Duggins.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“Some of them had the urge to kick me in the shins,” says Wozniak. “Some would verbally abuse me. But I wasn’t subjected to violence, largely speaking. There was probably only one moment when I thought I was in any real danger – but I live to tell the tale.”.
![[Mike Wozniak and competitor Anita.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2867f8f44b585c0c3c11ac791ac598c525aafe30/182_258_4090_2454/master/4090.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
This is the reality of being the host on the first child-based version of comedy behemoth Taskmaster. Greg Davies is gone, replaced as the show’s figurehead by Starstruck creator and standup Rose Matafeo. Instead of Alex Horne, Wozniak, a podcaster, comic and co-star of Davies’s sitcom Man Down, provides the contestant-enraging levels of pedantry as the task-setting assistant. The only other major difference is that it now takes place in heats, with different participants each week, two of whom go into the semi-finals. Well, that and the fact that none of the contestants have gone through puberty.
![[Wozniak with contestant Finley.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/778b3a1d79e90f1359ddffd7dfa0d8e8829c0adc/0_300_4500_2700/master/4500.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
There are children who have turned up in dazzling reflective shellsuits, cute martial artists who claim to have started their own coven and one child determined to evangelise about one of the world’s least-loved birds, wearing a T-shirt that reads: “I just really like pigeons, OK?” It makes for TV full of wild digressions and the rattling off of leftfield facts in that endearingly obsessive way only kids can manage. It’s adorable.
![[Tached master … Wozniak in Alex Horne’s role as the task setter.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/62693b8dbcb47ef1be97b1dc7dc2dc856f882aa8/246_150_4254_2553/master/4254.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
