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Matthew Hoy
By Matthew Hoy on May 17, 2002

American Television has stolen shows from the British for years. "Whose Line is it Anyway?" has been on ABC for a few years, with much the same cast of improv comics and host Drew Carey replacing that British chap. "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" was also pilfered from the Brits and so was "The Weakest Link."

Unlike "Whose Line is it Anyway?" and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?," "The Weakest Link" doesn't have a question-mark in the title. No, that's not it...unlike the others, "The Weakest Link" came to America already stocked with an arrogant, acerbic, elitist wench named Anne Robinson. After NBC decided not to renew "TWL" for next season, Robinson got a little bitter and very stupid.

The headline of London's Mirror:

ANNE ROBINSON: AMERICANS ARE DUMB

EXCLUSIVE: Quiz Queen says: Only 5% of them have passports and they act as if Dubya's Einstein

Apparently, in Great Britain, getting a passport must be difficult -- something along the lines of an IQ test. Seriously, what does Robinsidiot think a passport is evidence of? Besides, I think she probably needs to get her facts straight.

Does she think Americans are definitively more stupid than the Brits? "You have to remember that only five per cent of Americans have passports," she says. "That explains a lot..."

While I cannot find the statistic (if the government even keeps this information) on the number of valid passports currently in circulation in the United States, I think it's probably safe to say that most of the passports issued in the past 5 years are still held by living persons. According to the State Department, more than 33 million (33,968,753 to be exact) passports have been issued between the years of 1997 and 2001. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's population clock at this moment, there are approximately 287 million people in the United States. This number includes resident aliens and illegal aliens alike. A little math and it would appear that more than 11 percent of Americans have a passport. Robinsidiot is off by a factor of two.

America, You are the Weakest Link, Goodbye! "On one US show I asked a young soap star how many minutes there were in half an hour," Anne says, wearily. "And she said 60."

First, does Robinsidiot really believe that a soap star is indicative of the intelligence level of the average American? If she does, then she is TWL. But notice that both Robinsidiot and the dim-witted soap star were both off by a factor of two. Separated at birth?

Last year she upset Americans by declaring that few US citizens knew anywhere outside of Idaho - and she despairs of her Stateside contestants.

"You can always tell Texans," she says. "They wear big, bright, multi- coloured sweaters. Every time I see one, I think God's made another rainbow. Then you get the clean-shaven Right-wing Christian types. The Jews on our team are always laughing at them saying: 'He wouldn't have let us hide in his attic.'"

Well, that sounds like a little anti-American, anti-Christian bigotry. Robinsidiot is just so smart.

Seriously though, if the Brits are so much smarter than us Yanks, then how would Robinsidiot explain this?

Bye-Bye!

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