science

The Worst Idea of All Time

The Worst Idea of All Time is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Worst Idea of All Time rather than just read about it. In short: The Worst Idea of All Time is a podcast hosted by New Zealand comedians Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery where they watch and review the same film every week for a year. In each season, the film chosen is one neither of the hosts have seen before and is generally considered to be a bad film.

Key takeaways

The Worst Idea of All Time belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Worst Idea of All Time to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Worst Idea of All Time from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Worst Idea of All Time is a podcast hosted by New Zealand comedians Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery where they watch and review the same film every week for a year. In each season, the film chosen is one neither of the hosts have seen before and is generally considered to be a bad film.

Background The original concept, as stated in the first episode of season one, was to watch Grown Ups 2 "until it became worthwhile". The hosts adapted the scope of the podcast to watching the film once a week for a full calendar year. Some other films that were considered for season one were Con Air and The Room, but they were passed over for being too good and too bad respectively. In episode two of season one, Montgomery claimed that his main reason for hosting the podcast was to become better friends with Batt.

Seasons

Season 1: Grown Ups 2 In the first season, the hosts watched the Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups 2 once per week for 52 weeks. Neither of them was familiar with the plot of the first Grown Ups film. The final viewing occurred in Los Angeles. Batt and Montgomery began an Indiegogo campaign promising that, if they reached their goal, both would have a picture of Patrick Schwarzenegger, who has a small role in the film, tattooed on their bodies. They fulfilled this promise when their goal was passed.

Season 2: Sex and the City 2 In the second season, the hosts watched Sex and the City 2 every week for a year. The film was chosen off the back of a gag that was hastily included at the end of a video Batt made about finishing the first season. Sex And The City 2 has a run time of 2 hours and 26 minutes, making it a full 45 minutes longer than Grown Ups 2.

Season 3: We Are Your Friends In the third season, the hosts watched the 2015 drama We Are Your Friends 60 times. In the first episode of the season, Batt mentioned that they had received a lot of feedback about how they had broken the spirit of the podcast by not choosing a sequel or a particularly terrible film, but both hosts concluded that there were never any rules stating that the film had to be either.

Season 4: Sex and the City In the fourth season, the hosts watched the 2008 movie Sex and the City.

Emergency Season: Home Alone 3 During a lockdown in New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic, the hosts watched Home Alone 3 every three days to produce a nine-episode season, plus a spoof of a director's commentary.

Season 5: Emmanuelle At the end of September, 2020, Montgomery and Batt have undertaken the fifth season, and instead of rewatching the same movie every week they are watching a different movie from the same film series. The film series they pick from are the French/American Emmanuelle series of softcore pornography films.

Season 6: The Fast and the Furious From December 2022 to December 2023, Batt and Montgomery watched The Fast and the Furious franchise in reverse, with each film watched the number of times matching its number in the series (F9 nine times, The Fate of the Furious eight times, etc.) They have since announced that this is the final season.

Season 7: Joker: Folie à Deux Beginning in November 2025, Batt and Montgomery released episodes of a "method film review" of Joker: Folie à Deux, a process that involved 14 watches of the film over five days while living in the Classic Comedy Club (in Auckland).

Season 8: Grown Ups 3 In June 2026, Batt and Montgomery announced that upon the eventual release of Grown Ups 3 (whose production was confirmed in May 2026), they would bring back the original format of the podcast, watching the movie once a week for a year; Batt stated that, fulfilling a promise he'd made in the early years of the podcast, he would watch it weekly for two years.

Other episodes

Friendzone and Family Time Friendzone episodes began during the second season as a way to thank contributors to the podcast. The hosts read emails and social media messages sent in. These episodes were later renamed "Family Time" during Season 6.

Reviews and DirComms Halfway through the second season, Batt and Montgomery created a Patreon page where subscribers could vote on a movie for the hosts to watch and record a directors commentary on. At the conclusion of season three, they decided to begin releasing the Patreon podcasts as part of their regular feed for free. Episodes released discuss the films:

Jingle All the Way (1996) Batman & Robin (1997) Southland Tales (2006) Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004) God's Not Dead (2014) Toys (1992) Pass Thru (2016) Fateful Findings (2013) Jack and Jill (2011) I Am Here....Now (2009) Lost in Space (1998) From Justin to Kelly (2003) Nacho Libre (2006) Double Down (2005) Love on a Leash (2011) Foodfight! (2012) The Watch (2012) Gigli (2003) Jersey Girl (2004) Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas (2014) Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa (2002) Van Wilder (2002) D.C. Cab (1983) Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (2011) The Book of Henry (2017)

Reception As of 2024, Worst Idea is New Zealand's most successful comedy podcast at over 18 million downloads. The hosts have attributed the success of the show to a shout-out from the host of another podcast about movies, How Did This Get Made?. This in turn led to a front-page story on Vice, which described the contents of the podcast as "extended bouts of maniacal laughter, existential reflections, and self-loathing." In an interview with The Spinoff, Montgomery attributed the show's success to "the fact it was a pair of New Zealanders reflecting back American culture" - similar to the success of the TV series Flight of the Conchords - as well as the pair's comedic chemistry. The show has received a number of recommendations from various publications. Peter Wells suggested the show for a column in The Sydney Morning Herald, calling the show "part endurance test, part performance art" and praising its accessibility to new listeners. Hannah Verdier also reviewed the show positively for The Guardian, noting its constructive criticism and genuine humor that elevated the show above "men taking down a chick flick."

Related media In 2015, the hosts teamed up with Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy, hosts of the podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me, to create the annually recorded 'Til Death Do Us Blart, in which the hosts must watch Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 every Thanksgiving for the rest of their lives. Each host has a replacement host who takes their place when they die.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Worst Idea of All Time

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Worst Idea of All Time claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Worst Idea of All Time before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Worst Idea of All Time ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Worst Idea of All Time

In research: The Worst Idea of All Time appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Worst Idea of All Time in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Worst Idea of All Time is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2014 podcast debuts, Audio podcasts, Comedy podcasts, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Worst Idea of All Time outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “The Worst Idea of All Time” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study The Worst Idea of All Time in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Worst Idea of All Time means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Worst Idea of All Time out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Worst Idea of All Time in simple terms?

Why does The Worst Idea of All Time matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Worst Idea of All Time?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Worst Idea of All Time.