Celebrity Fit Club 2005 review
ITV 1
In a nutshell: Bloated ticks get squished.
The 411: I laugh my monkey ass off at fat people. I point at them in the street and sometimes chase them with a giant butterfly net playing Catch The Pigeon with a kazoo stuck in my mouth. This is partly because I live my life in a Warner Brothers cartoon but mainly because of my problem with fat people.
I. Just. Don’t. Get. Them.
Something I share with Celebrity Fit Club – the programme that asks celebrity fatties "what are you playing at?", tells them to stop hugging their inner moppet and start behaving like decent human beings instead of the lazy fat rides they have become. Sounds perfect.
"I laugh my monkey ass off at fat people. I point at them in the street and sometimes chase them with a giant butterfly net playing Catch The Pigeon with a kazoo stuck in my mouth."
This season saw another gaggle of stars take the challenge – a veritable "Who’s That?" of British public life. Paul Ross, philandering turd and elder brother of Jonathan, attempts to shift his gut – the result of years of free bars and munchies at countless media launches. GMTV soap expert (‘GMTV’ and ‘expert’ in the same sentence – frrrrrrrrrrrrrp!) Tina Baker heroically overcoming her childhood fear of trampolines. Strangely, she never gets round to conquering her fear of salads – tragic, really.
Andy Fordham – world darts champion and 33 stone of good loving. As long as your idea of good loving involves having his sweaty pie-encrusted hands fumbling around your drawers before the fat cunt suffers his 49th stroke of the day from the exertion of having to actually use his hand to do something other than stuff his face, the tubby bitch.
Through some strange loophole they included somebody with talent – tub of guts soul singer Kym Mazelle. This breaks the Geneva Convention on Reality Tv Contestants Having No Useful Ability but what the hell? Fit Club is nothing if not inclusive.
This week’s episode had Ken Morley (TV’s Reg Holdsworth) make a break for freedom from his hotel room causing an emotional Julie Goodyear to shout "come back you bastard!!". And causing an emotional Aerial Telly to shout "keep going you fat bastard!!"
Time spent with the fat celebs helps you realise that they are no different from the less well known flab goons – they all ponder the reason for their obesity as if it was some eternal mystery like human consciousness, free will or All About Me getting a second series.
They need to be told: "The reason you’re the way you are is not because you were touched up in a taxi that time or because mummy make you live under the sink until you were 12 or because Granny fed you raw liver while she was watching the wrestling. It’s because you couldn’t keep your fat, fucked up trap shut when the pies were being passed round."
It really is as simple as that.
Former US Marines drill instructor, Harvey Walden IV, clearly basing his life on the NCO from An Officer and a Gentleman, finally gets let loose on the celebs to kick some fat butt. That’s American for bottom or arse.
Given that Harvey has trained the most elite fighting force in the world you realise that the truly great self-restraint is being exercised by him. He so obviously wants to shout "fucking faggot motherfucker, I’ll eat your fucking face if you fuck with me". Maybe he does off-screen?
"It appeals to our worst voyeuristic tendencies and makes us complicit in the whole grotesque spectacle."
Celebrity Fat Fucks implicitly understands the schadenfreude appeal of the show. We don’t just want to feel superior to the tubbies; we want walking, living proof of our superiority. We want to see them grovel in the gutter in their own filth like Paula Radcliffe in Athens.
That’s the joy of Celebrity Fist Fuck. It appeals to our worst voyeuristic tendencies and makes us complicit in the whole grotesque spectacle. If you can’t get a cheap thrill from the discomfort of others then why watch? Slimfast plan and Atkins Diet apart, that’s what dieting is all about, surely.
Unless I’ve misunderstood horribly…
The best thing about it: The look on Harvey’s face as Dale Winton attempts to engage him in gay-ass banter.
The worst thing about it: bikini shots of Lizzy Bardsley
The verdict on Celebrity Fit Club: They’re living fat.
Marks out of 10: 7
