TWILIGHT OF THE GOBS

 

There was a time when Benny Hill, Miss World, Mind Your Language and the Black and White Minstrels were prime time regulars but those days are rightfully gone. It seems that time is up for the prime time pomposity of a generation of big mouths. The likes of Keys & Gray are now on a foreign streaming service, Clarkson is now neutered and hosts a game show, Piers Morgan is out on his ear and Gordon Ramsey hosts an anaemic flop of a TV quiz. 

Is it that we just got tired of their bombast and out-dated mind set or is it that their type of badinage had worn so thin that it snapped?

The insipid replacements seem to be a cross between Paddy McGuinness and Tim Lovejoy; an unthreatening, albeit irritating, presence across all networks. We’ve traded in smug bombast for insouciance.

The TV personality is a strange creature. Their main skill is being able to read an autocue and hold a series of segments together and for a long time that ability was allied to having a pseudo controversial style and delivery and many revelled in this rage against the PC. But it was always going to fizzle out, it was always going to quietly deflate; pop rather than explode.

Like the dinosaurs before them they have been obliterated by a meteor of disinterest. They've been deprived of positive bad press, just bored press

The thing is that you can fool the public quite easily but the worst thing you can do is become predictable and stale and that’s what happened with these stalwarts of the caramac Slip on and boot cut jean.