Flashback to 2010 – Funniest TV Moments

Article by Emma Brankin

As the excess fun and frivolity of Christmas and New Year starts to seem like a distant memory and the frugality and abstinence of January kicks in, what better time than to turn to the telly for a reprieve from the misery. But if all you can find while flipping channels this month are Z-listers hawking their weight loss DVDs on chat shows and weather reports about it being even colder tomorrow then let’s look back at happier times. Showbiz writer Emma Brankin takes a trip down memory lane to remind us all of some of the funniest telly moments of 2010.

Stig

Who would have thought the unmaking of a silent man who wears a white suit would have caused quite the stir that it did. But when racing driver Ben Collins outed himself as BBC2 Top Gear’s mysterious motorman it opened the door for some of the show’s funniest sequences – after Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May got over their genuine fury. In the trio’s brilliant USA Road special they repeatedly made digs as their “traitor” ex colleague with cardboard cut outs of him getting shot in the back in one sequence.

Wagner

It was the X Factor year that birthed the baby-faced joy that is One Direction but there was one man who made 2010 extra special. Step forward silver haired oddball Wagner. A man who yodelled his way through pop classics, had once owned a pet lion and got into a war of words with Judge Cheryl after he drunkenly told a journalist she was “just a lucky girl from a council estate”. Each week half the nation despaired and half the nation lolled as he scraped through. He once proclaimed after another survival: “With god by my side who is against me?” Xtra Factor host Connie retorted:  “Atheists?”

Anne Widdecombe

She’s currently ruffling feathers on Celebrity Big Brother but back in 2010  she was sashaying in  a canary yellow feather boa  instead on Strictly Come Dancing. The ex-politician was a sensation for all the wrong reasons as she stomped around the ballroom with long suffering pro partner Anton Du Beke. Her soaring onto the studio on wires to perform a Titanic themed rumba will live on long in the memory of those who watched through tears of laughter.