Mora’s gone, but The Panel is still bedeviled with bland and brainless blather. (Jan. 16, 2019)

Morrissey10

16 January 2019 at 4:42 pm

“I feel a bit sorry for Theresa May”…”I think she’s acted honorably.”
Mora’s gone, but The Panel is still bedeviled with bland and brainless blather.
The Panel, Wednesday 16 January 2019
Wallace Chapman, Joe Bennett, Emma Espiner, Caitlin Cherry

This tired light chat show has been shaken up a little over the holiday period. They’ve rejigged the format a bit. And as we saw yesterday, Wallace Chapman seems a little bit more rigorous than Jim Mora, and seems to have at long last developed a backbone, in contrast to his supine behaviour in 2014, when he let he-man author Lee Child rhasodize insanely about how in real life “we all” want to see violent thugs like Jack Reacher torture and murder people.

Sadly, however, the vapid chatter of the Mora era has not gone away.

The first discussion topic in today’s pre-show chat was the vexed question of how to get boys and men to read books. This was the chance for perky producer Caitlin Cherry to put in her two cents worth:

CAITLIN CHERRY: You just have to introduce them to Lee Child books!

….Awkward silence….

EMMA ESPINER: [awkwardly] Ha ha ha.

CAITLIN CHERRY: Well, he’s a manly man.

….Awkward silence….

JOE BENNETT: [grimly] “Lee Child book” is an oxymoron.

Significantly, perhaps, Wallace Chapman did not spring to the defence of the man he had allowed, unchallenged, to spout such disgusting bilge four and a half years ago.

After that encouraging moment, it was back to the baloney. The subject was the Brexit vote in the U.K. parliament, and the Panellists competed for the most banal and brainless utterance of the day….

EMMA ESPINER: I feel a bit sorry for Theresa May.

JOE BENNETT: I think she’s acted honorably.

Then he burbled that “it’s a KNOWN FACT that Russia interfered in Brexit.” Wallace Chapman demurred at that: “Are you sure?” And Bennett doubled down pompously: “Oh YES….”

ad nauseam….

[1] https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-01-2019/#comment-1571765

Reply

• greywarshark10.1

  16 January 2019 at 4:48 pm

  Morrissey you should put your name forward and suggest that they have a regular spot for a stirrer of some sort who might make some outrageous, to the bland,
  comment. There wouls be a circular wheel which the stirrers could hop on for a swing and be replaced so they never appeared more than once. And offer yourself for the first. That would ginger it up.

  Reply
  • te reo putake10.1.1

    16 January 2019 at 5:12 pm

    Bomber tried that. Didn’t last long!

    Reply
    • Morrissey10.1.1.1

      16 January 2019 at 8:07 pm

      He didn’t last long, but Michelle Boag will never forget being humiliated by him on the program. You can be sure she lobbied fearsomely for his removal when the opportunity presented itself. That opportunity was, of course, his display of lèse majesté in 2011, when he foolishly dared to point out the Prime Minister’s loutish imbecility in the House.

      Gordon Campbell, another eloquent critic of the Key regime and therefore banned from The Panel, wrote an admirable account of the censoring….
      http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2011/10/10/gordon-campbell-on-rnz%E2%80%99s-banning-of-bomber-bradbury/

      Reply
  • Morrissey10.1.2

    16 January 2019 at 8:04 pm

    Been there, Shark, and done it. Back in 2013 I was an excruciatingly incompetent, utterly tongue-tied, nervous, giggling, useless Panellist. It was an April afternoon that will go down in infamy…

    CHRISTINE RANKIN: Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

    MORRISSEY BREEN: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Um.

    JIM MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha! It’s time to find out what our Panelists have been thinking about. Christine Rankin, what’s been on YOUR mind lately?

    CHRISTINE RANKIN: Well, Jim, look, I’ve been so busy working for the reintroduction of corporal punishment for the under-fives that I haven’t had TIME to do any thinking at all for several years now. I really can’t think of one thing to talk about.

    JIM MORA: [long, irritated silence] Mmmmm-kay. Morrissey, have YOU got something on your mind?

    MORRISSEY BREEN: Ummm, ahhhh, I’m going to abandon my, uh, carefully prepared speech about foreign policy, and comment on Christine’s failure to ummm, errr, honour her, ummmm, commitments to your show.

    CHRISTINE RANKIN: [indignant] I’ve been BUSY.

    MORRISSEY BREEN: Ummmm, ahhhh, yeah. Ummm…to paraphrase Dr. Johnson, I will say this about Christine: “This woman’s thinking is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

    JIM MORA: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! That’s very funny! I think he’s talking about you Christine!

    MORRISSEY BREEN: And that’s all I have to say, Jim. Um.

    JIM MORA: Short and sweet. That’s the way we like them on the Panel! Okay, next up, Lanthanide will tell us why he thinks a nuclear reactor in the middle of Christchurch would be a good idea. First, though, what do the Panelists think of this?

    RANKIN: [fervently] That’s a SPLENDID idea. At last, somebody talking some sense….

    https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-victims-rights-advocate-garth.html

    Reply
    • greywarshark10.1.2.1

      16 January 2019 at 10:12 pm

      Ummmm. Hahahah. Morrissey – have you ever been on Jim Mora’s show?
      Yes or no.

      Reply