If you religiously watch The Footy Show – and there’s no doubt in my mind that you don’t – you’ll be familiar with the boorish NRL panel show’s long running comedy segment Look-A-Likes which is pretty much what you think it is (hilarious) and typically always involves comparing someone with red hair to Paul Vautin or someone with no hair to Peter Sterling.
Producers stupidly opted for the latter Thursday night when an image of an 18 month old baby girl was used to illustrate just how bald Peter Sterling is. Answer: very bald.
As you can imagine, the parents of the infant – Michael and Melanie Richmond from Sydney’s Northern Beaches – weren’t too thrilled with the comparisons, specifically the part where their daughter was called “ugly” or the fact that the image of their beloved was pulled from Facebook without their consent, permission or knowledge.
The family is now considering legal action.
“We are going to seek legal advice because they (Channel 9) still haven’t gotten back to us,” Mr. Richmond said yesterday. “We were going to let it go but we can’t. Someone has put our baby on TV. We want to get some feedback on what our legal options are now.”
“I understand how Facebook works and that when you share photos they become public and there’s nothing you can do,” he said. “The fact is that somewhere, somehow, a producer has gotten a photo of my daughter and made the decision to put it on television. I know it’s supposed to be tongue in cheek but she’s just a baby. It’s not cool.”
The Footy Show washed their hands clean addressed the complaints by posting this statement on Facebook.
“Regarding recent articles in News Ltd papers, the Look-A-Likes photo was sent into The Footy Show by a friend of the family and was not taken off Facebook,” the post read. “We chose not to make a statement to News Ltd yesterday but we did not refuse to apologise to the family and we did speak to the family on Friday and will do so again today to reassure them we never intended to cause hurt to them or their child and of course apologise if it did.”
To the sin bin the lot of you.
