TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (334)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Telegraph (from Tuesday, August 23; link good at time of posting):

By his own admission, the Mastermind appearance was not Simon Curtis’s finest hour.

He notched up the BBC quiz show’s worst specialist subject score when he gave only one correct answer out of a possible 25 on the films of the actor Jim Carrey.

But yesterday Mr Curtis was dealt another blow to his pride when Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, ruled that his performance merited the description “astoundingly thick”. Mr Curtis had complained to Ofcom about a Channel 4 programme, Awfully Good TV, which featured clips of excruciating failures on quiz shows. David Walliams, the comedian, provided a commentary.

Introducing the clip of Mr Curtis’s appearance on Mastermind in 2006, Walliams said: “Sometimes in life, you have to know your limitations. If you’re not, let’s say, very bright, it’s probably not a good idea to go on a quiz show that tests your mental agility. And by 'not very bright’ I mean astoundingly thick.”

....

Last night Mr Curtis expressed his disappointment at the ruling.

He said: "Channel 4 and David Walliams have never met me and don't know anything about me, yet they called me astoundingly thick on national television. To me, that denotes general intelligence. How can you say that on the basis of one bad quiz show performance?

"I've never minded sending myself up but it never goes away - I'm still remembered as the bloke who only won one point on his specialist subject."

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