Ofcom enquiry expected after record complaints pour in for presenter’s poor taste antics.
Following the record number of complaints received concerning last week’s episode of The Great British Bake Off, which featured a segment where zany co-host Noel Fielding hid in an empty fridge in order to surprise co-presenter Sandy Toskvig, producers at Channel 4 have been met with a fresh deluge of angry correspondence from disgruntled viewers after last night’s episode.
Last week’s complaints, totalling twenty five strongly worded Twitter messages, focused on the irresponsible message that hiding in empty fridges was sending to younger viewers. “way 2 go Channel 4” tweeted angry viewer @microcephalicDave1992, “what a gr8 message to send out to my 4 yr old. I know fridges haven’t had externally locking doors since the 1950s, but all the same, I AM INCENSED”. The broadcasters reported having received literally units of similar messages from irate parents across the country.
Last night’s episode, the Caramel Special (a new slant for the show), opened with Fielding pouring household bleach into an empty lemonade bottle, which he then proceeded to take regular swigs from throughout the show. Numerous cutaways from the familiar marquee kitchen setting showed Fielding in various off-set situations, including flying a kite dangerously close to an electricity pylon while pontificating on the benefits of millionaires shortbread from the perspective of a wasp, playing footie on the railway tracks while discussing with himself what Dutch stroop waffles must taste like if you were an albino ferret from the Moon, and getting into a car with a stranger on the promise of going to the woods to see some puppies on the promise of a Cadbury’s Caramel bar. From Venus. On mushrooms.
As of going to press, Channel 4 have received an unprecedented 26 complaints, mainly from viewers angry at how fat Fielding has now become. Reportedly having gained approximately twelve stone in weight over the course of four episodes, presumably through having eaten nothing but cake in the past month, Fielding has now reached the state that he’s starting to spoil viewer’s appetites. To put this into context, the highest number of complaints previously recorded for a Channel 4 show was during the 2008 series of Celebrity Big Brother, when Jade Goody set fire to an outsized wooden crucifix outside Shilpa Shetty’s bedroom on-set. On that occasion, the channel received four complaints.
“I take it all back” tweeted @microcephailcDave1992 last night, “can he please just get back in the effing fridge and stay there? Please?”. Ofcom are expected to investigate, whatever that means.
Pru Leith is 106 (degrees fahrenheit/gas mark 4 on the middle shelf for 45 minutes to avoid a soggy bottom).
