What's The Problem With Anne Robinson?

[The Mumbler]

How bad is this going to be, then?  Who's going to start the bidding?

Well, it's in the Have I Got News For You slot, which in recent times has given us some of the feeblest knee-jerk "satire" known to humankind.  It's got Anne Robinson in it, simply one of the most over-estimated television performers in the history of the genre.  She can wink.  She can put on that Weakest Link voice.  Otherwise she gushes like no-one on earth.  Is she a beacon of irony?  Or simply Piers Morgan with bad scriptwriters?

This has also got Marcus Brigstocke in it, probably being angry (when he remembers to be) about..."oh I dunno...politicians looking like...fish" or summat.  It can't possibly succeed.

Will it be live?  Will it have been pre-recorded the other day?  The marvellous thing is it won't matter.  I've only seen the trail so far - a tiresome barrage of images of the painfully predictable - Yes, that footballer!  And what about Michael Jackson?  And just look at him! - all accompanied by Anne in her just-off-Weakest Link drawl saying "What's his problem?" like she's Lenny Bruce or something.  

How bad will this be?  If anything, *worse* than I'm imagining.

[rjd2]

There is a 4-page interview with her on teletext ITV. Apparently nobody in the media is safe from her wrath and she also plans to hammer things such as Big Brother and the last election, really tough targets you have to admit. George Galloway is on it tonight as well.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

She clearly thinks she is hilarious which really physically hurts me. How can anyone stand the woman? The Weakest Link was a success for her, and it was more of a game show with the 'bonus' of Robinson's 'hilarious' insults but who the hell is she kidding with this? She isn't a comedian. She isn't funny. She should not be presenting this show, there just must be really funny people out there who aren't getting a chance because shite like this keeps being made.

[rjd2]

Has anybody seen that horrible clips show she does? Really bad not even Steve Penk is as bad at presenting clip shows. I must admit I had a very smug grin when she died on her arse presenting Have I Got News For You a few years ago, she was hilariously out of her depth with people who were genuinely funny.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

And she's a Tory. You know what they're like when they try and do comedy.

[The Mumbler]

A Maxwell lackey to boot when she was a Mirror columnist.  Even after he fell overboard, she insisted he was an innocent man.

[Mr. Analytical]

That and she was the Idiot's Champion for year and years on Watchdog.

What do you mean the fake designer watch I bought off of a market stall for a fiver isn't real?

What do you mean I'm not entitled to being waited on hand and foot because I paid £2.50 for a fortnight in torremolinos?

I'm outraged to learn that the bloke that rang my doorbell and offered to resurface my driveway "because he was in the area" didn't do a good job.

[Jon_Norton]

And she's a Tory. You know what they're like when they try and do comedy.

Are you sure? There was a PE roundup of her Mirror columns a few years back, and it turned out here main topic was to moan that "the rich" had it easier in life than other people. Not a standard Tory gripe.

Weakest Link would be a good show if they got rid of her. There was a "celebrity" edition once, in which the contestants were all hosts of other quiz shows. Magnus Magnusson was there, in a wheelchair because of medical reasons. She tried to have a go at him over some negative comments he'd made about her style. It was painful stuff to see him effortlessly outwit her.

The thing about Magnusson is he is quite different from his Mastermind persona. He could compere a comedy club and handle any amount of hecklers with no problem. He's really more of tough old-time MC than anything, how he ended up as a dignified quizmaster is one of those weird careers that happen in TV land. Like corporate journalist Will McDonald being allowed  to make programmes.

[Jon_Norton]

Does anyone else regret the fact that Watchdog didn't simply carry on as the serious investigative strand it was when Hugh Scully presented it on Nationwide, and instead got turned over into a whinger's corner in which any old moron could complain about swimsuits losing their colour in the wash, etc.

I demand the Scully years get a DVD release, so we can see such classic investigations like the bogus doctor who sold sugarlumps as a cure for arthritis, or the con-man who claimed he'd found Captain Kidd's treasure when in fact he spent all the money that idiots gave him on a new Ford Escort. Even the crimes were better in the early 80s.

[The Mumbler]

In any case, with Mastermind, it wasn't the host that was the intimidating aspect of it (something that John Humphrys singularly fails to realise).  It's the darkness, the silence, the isolation, the *questions*.   Magnusson was always utterly generous to the contestants, never insulted them, and regularly regarded them as heroic.  

Is Magnus in a wheelchair these days?  Poor chap.  I always liked him a lot.

[The Mumbler]

Robinson's 'hilarious' insults

Always scripted by other people, of course.

[Mister Cairo]

That and she was the Idiot's Champion for year and years on Watchdog.

What do you mean the fake designer watch I bought off of a market stall for a fiver isn't real?

What do you mean I'm not entitled to being waited on hand and foot because I paid £2.50 for a fortnight in torremolinos?

I'm outraged to learn that the bloke that rang my doorbell and offered to resurface my driveway "because he was in the area" didn't do a good job.

I think that`s unfair on Watchdog-it`s an important show which exposed a lot of dodgy cunts and did put things right in some cases.


I watched the trailer for this and she can`t make anything sound funny! Her voice is a monotone smug drawl.

Her casual racism is not funny either.
(http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=11875180&method=full&siteid=50143)

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

God, she needs scriptwriters to come up with them? She's even more talentless than I thought.

[The Mumbler]

At the end of each episode of the Weakest Link, you'll see a list of people called "programme associates".  They do all that.

She's a cunt, she really is.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

She's always struck me as somebody that Tory MPs would consider top totty. Someone who reminds them of nanny.

[sick as a pike]

God, she needs scriptwriters to come up with them? She's even more talentless than I thought.

I had a chance to go for that job and even being the shameless hack I am, I couldn't face it.

[Jon_Norton]

God, she needs scriptwriters to come up with them? She's even more talentless than I thought.

I had a chance to go for that job and even being the shameless hack I am, I couldn't face it.

Which one are you? Bob or Barbara Boulton?

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

I thought WL had had it's day a year or two back, culminating in her appearance on HIGNFY. But then she got that surgery, and was back in the news - then once again, silence. Now she's got a new series in primetime *and* a big cross-promotional appearance in the Beeb's new flagship Dr Who? Argh. Who deserves the most blame in this - Robinson or the Beeb? Or are they equally guilty, a la Gervais?

[The Duck Man]

Does anyone else regret the fact that Watchdog didn't simply carry on as the serious investigative strand it was when Hugh Scully presented it on Nationwide, and instead got turned over into a whinger's corner in which any old moron could complain about swimsuits losing their colour in the wash, etc.

We'd only get Matthew fucking Allwright presenting it now though.

And I've never seen John Humpreys being mean to people on Mastermind? Maybe it's because I only watch the kids version, where I can answer all the general knowledge questions.

[grundie]

Given the number of ordinary people who have been contestants on the Weakest Link, I always wondered why no one ever really stood up to her and became moderately famous because of it. Then I met someone who had on the show and he told me that the producers told the contestants not to fight back too much or else risk being thrown off the show.

She can give it, but she can't take it.

[Lookalike Mark Chapman]

Surely the programme title is just inviting critics to list exactly what the problem with Anne Robinson is?

[The Mumbler]

Given the number of ordinary people who have been contestants on the Weakest Link, I always wondered why no one ever really stood up to her and became moderately famous because of it. Then I met someone who had on the show and he told me that the producers told the contestants not to fight back too much or else risk being thrown off the show.

She can give it, but she can't take it.

Ah - so *that's* why no-one ever said, "Yeah, well at least I never drank vodka for breakfast like you did".

It's clearly edited to fuck as well.  And Anne Robinson, like Paxman, can't read the questions properly.  They gulp in air for half the sentence and then wonder why the contestants ask them to repeat the bastard question.

[Paul Dee]

Ah - so *that's* why no-one ever said, "Yeah, well at least I never drank vodka for breakfast like you did"

I know! That's why I could never take her taunts seriously anyway. I was always praying someone would say something like that to her.

Surely the programme title is just inviting critics to list exactly what the problem with Anne Robinson is?

Well, yes. The show is actually called 'What's the Problem? With Anne Robinson'  though. Mumbler's just proving he's rubbish at punctuation again. <some sort of jovial smiley>

[The Mumbler]

I do it deliberately!!!





(I don't really.)

[The Duck Man]

Am I really watching Marcus Brigstocke make jokes about David Beckham not being to speak Spanish?!

[Lee]

The problem with Anne Robinson is... she isn't funny.

There, now anyone else who says it is just copying off me.

This is dire.

[Consignia]

This is really painful.

Let's get a French person on and make him look silly, to prove we're not racist.

[Banana Woofwoof]

This is vacuous.  Did they tell their guests this was a serious show?  Coleen Nolan was upset about losing jobs, gets cut off then waved off, and now George Galloway saying he'd get "a fair hearing".  It's awful, Anne Robinson is a waste of space and Marcus Brigstoke is an unfunny cunt, delivering stock faux shock fodder in that tone that tries to convince people they're being really scathing but are just treading out the old flimsy, meaningless topical cack everyone does.  The format is awful too.

[The Mumbler]

I thought it would be terrible, but that wasn't even trying.  Was that really a mainstream terrestrial channel I was watching?  It felt like an ITV2 spin-off programme with 40 people's laughter being washed over every mention of the word "swastika".

The number of attempts to ingratiate La Robinson was vile.  Weakest LInk, When I'm 64 over the end credits - what's left?  Watchdog and Chronic Alcoholism I think.  The Panorama clip was lovely for anyone who hasn't seen it 100 times already, but what was it illustrating?  Newsreaders' outrageous fees?  What the fuck's Anne getting paid?

Hat Trick's fault, though - again.  Robinson's big mates with Denise O'Donoghue (she said so in the autobiog) so a straight line can be drawn with horrifying ease.  

There was a production person on that called Horatia Lawson - any relation to Nigella and Dominic and NIgel?

God that was so bad Will MacDonald could have produced it.

[Paul Dee]

There was a production person on that called Horatia Lawson - any relation to Nigella and Dominic and NIgel?.

Her younger sister, I believe.

I knew all that stalking would eventually pay off.