2013 – The year’s best Dr Mumbos

Mumbrella

December 30, 2013 9:00

1. Helen Kapalos

In 2013, Dr Mumbo’s highest rating moment was a two minute clip featuring what was best described as Today Tonight host Helen Kapalos’ “on-air screen death”. In the throes of a major news moment – Kevin Rudd’s challenge of Julia Gillard for the Labor leadership – Kapalos floundered. Twice she tried to throw to a story about a “radical muslim” before returning to the leadership challenge. The clip then went global with the likes of the UK’s Daily Mail picking up on the on-air TV disaster.

2. Best & Less & watermelons

A catalogue from clothing retailer Best & Less was one of Dr Mumbo’s most debated posts this year. Featuring an image of three black girls eating watermelons, the catalogue tapped into a racially insensitive stereotype that people of African-American descent have an unusual appetite for the summer fruit. A number of Mumbrella readers were unaware of the cultural faux pas with one comment summing up the sentiment: “Everyone likes watermelon…move on people.” While others were outraged: “You’ve never heard of this stereotype? What are you, 12?”

3. Ita and Ten Mornings on a broken down boat

In an attempt to grab some headlines (and no doubt some viewers) for Ten’s new morning programs Wake Up and Studio 10 the show’s producers came up with the ingenious idea to stick Australian national treasure Ita Buttrose on a speedboat and ferry her from Manly to Sydney’s CBD. The morning of the stunt saw torrential downpour in Sydney but that wasn’t the worst of it for Ita when the boat broke down mid-voyage leaving the host stuck on the harbour at risk of being washed up onto the rocks. It was a metaphor for the show that not even Dr Mumbo could have conceived.

4. Sunday Tele’s dance ode to Ellen

When TV talkshow queen Ellen Degeneres visited Australian shores, every media outlet and its dog wanted to get in on the act but the prize for most embarassing Ellen grab went to Mick Carroll, editor of Sydney’s The Sunday Telegraph. Carroll commissioned gossip columnists Jonathon Moran and Elle Halliwell to perform the Downunder Dance, choreographed to include more cultural cliches than Dr Mumbo could ever fit in his fictional joey pouch. Despite the newspaper’s attempts to get celebrities on board to perform the routine flashmob style, the craze never quite took off.

5. Peter Vogel does the Harlem Shake

While the internet meme the Harlem Shake had already hit it’s peak by mid-February, Dr Mumbo couldn’t ignore the sight of media agency boss Peter Vogel getting in on the act, particularly given his performance featured a shiny silver baton. Vogel challenged fellow agency bosses John Steedman, Mark Pejic, Jon Chadwick and MindShare’s James Greet to have a crack but much to Dr Mumbo’s disappointment, they never rose to the challenge.

6. Sum ting wong with this news item

Occasionally a broadcaster will commit an error so disastrous that the station’s credibility may never fully recover. Enter KTVU Channel 2, a Californian station that will likely be the laughing stock at its TV network affiliate Christmas party this year after broadcasting the names of the pilots of the Air Asiana plane crash that killed two people. The names, according to the report, were “Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow”.

7. Michelle Grattan’s publisher calls the election

The September Federal election was one of the events of the year and everyone had a theory on who would win. But it was New Holland Publishers that somehow could see into the future, a fact discovered by Dr Mumbo when he got his hands on the mockups for journalist Michelle Grattan’s book titled Australian Prime Ministers. On the cover was Tony Abbott leaving the publisher red faced and Grattan stating she wasn’t aware of the proposed cover.