Educating Karl

Educating Karl was a Series 1 feature where Ricky would set Karl a different task each week, motivated by Karl's poor GCSE performance. He would have to go home after the radio show and read up on someone famous. The following week on the show Karl would have to recount to Ricky and Steve what he had learnt about the person. Examples include Hitler (much discussion was focused on the fact he only had one bollock), Rasputin (Karl did not see why he deserved a book as he reminded him of his tank-stealing, womanising brother Mark) and Che Guevara. The last in the series was Winston Churchill, Karl's favourite of the historical figures.

After Gervais had run out of the autobiographical series he presented Karl with the Oxford book of Quotations which Karl turned down off-air, instead opting to purchase a quote book featuring quotes presented by popular children's television characters Eric and Ernie of Sesame Street. The following week Karl attempted to prove that anybody could construct a quote by issuing a challenge where he inserted one of his own quotes next to two correct ones, challenging Ricky and Steve to identify the Pilkington quote.

Karl's quote was as follows: "Catfood (cue raucous laughter from Gervais and Merchant), it stinks a bit but if you don't put up with it then the little kitten will die." Karl later explained that it referred to tolerating something out of love, as he did when taking Suzanne shopping. Ricky and Steve unsurprisingly guessed correctly.