5 Of The Worst Meltdowns Seen On Australian TV

On Tuesday, October 14, 2014, Australian TV viewers witnessed arguably one of the single most uncomfortable things to ever transpire on a reality TV show (a genre renowned for being fundamentally based on the discomfort of everyone involved with it) and, arguably, the medium as we know it in our country.

For reasons best known to himself, ex-Australian Idol judge Mark Holden arrived on Dancing With The Stars dressed like a clown — looking a little too much like Pennywise from Stephen King's It, a film directly responsible for my childhood fear of storm drains and Tim Curry. He then proceeded to pretty much flop about the place to the point of breathlessness while Madness' House Of Fun played in the background.

It was... sad.

Like, "wearing a green shirt that just says 'PLEASE' to a traffic-light party and leaving alone anyway" sad. And kind of scary, because for a while there, it genuinely seemed like he might have a heart attack on the spot.

And then it just got outright awful.

For a quick summary, that is Mark Holden dressing up like a circus worker and flipping out on national television, after sprinting about the dancefloor and creating a giant mess with confetti that someone else probably had to clean up. Holden then gets all creepy-uncle with show host Daniel MacPherson, asking him if he likes balloons in a voice that would make small children (and some 28-year-old internet journalists) burst into tears. He also gets a tad too touchy-feely with his own stomach area for prime-time TV.

Then, just like many creepy uncles, he progressed from there to being verbally abusive, telling judge Kym Johnson, "Kimmy, I promised the full ‘Vlad’, but I didn’t give the full ‘Putin’ and you’re just pissed off at me. I’ve got to sit you down on my knee young girl and have a bloody good conversation,” while a clearly uncomfortable Johnson said as much and MacPherson nobly attempted to intervene.

And it goes on for another full four minutes after that, traversing everything from Holden's (faux) offense at the It comparison to Holden breaking the fourth wall while commending Channel Seven for the show's "swingers week" (actually "switch-up week", in which the partners... well).

This isn't close to being the only time our fair country has offered up some fairly mortifying moments on the small screen, however. Let us not forget...

the australia's next top model fiasco

Good lord, I would not wish what happened to Australia's Next Top Model host Sarah Murdoch at the conclusion of 2010's series on my worst enemy.

There are screw-ups and there are screw-ups, and it doesn't get much worse than building up a 19-year-old girl with the promise that she's just won one of the country's foremost (only?) modelling... things... and then having to rip that away from her minutes later in front of everybody.

So, understandably, she didn't take it all that well.

Yep, having mistakenly named Kelsey Martinovich as the winner of the show's sixth season, Murdoch had to tell everyone that it was in fact 18-year-old "runner-up" Amanda Ware who had taken out the crown, crushing Martinovich's dreams on a scale most of us could never even begin to dream about. She handled it. She didn't handle it well. But she handled it, so that's admirable.

the gretel incident, big brother 2006

During Big Brother's generally forgettable years — which were, you know, all of them — there was I guess you'd call it a controversy involving show host Gretel Killeen and exeunt housemate Michael McCoy during a post-eviction interview.

During the chat McCoy accused Big Brother of surreptitiously editing footage to make it look like he had kissed fellow housemate David, of whom I literally have zero recollection. So, Gretel did what any professional would do, and got kind of mean.

McCoy, crossing deep into 'doth protest too much' territory, gets flustered and hurriedly attempts to explain himself while Gretel casually needles and interrupts him for a solid ten minutes, which, duh, makes it worse.

To be totally fair to Gretel, McCoy is definitely a little too defensive about the whole thing — in fact, he consequently went on Rove Live and straight up told Rove that Peter Helliar was the funnier man after Rove had insulted him, so, you know — it's really not a big deal even if he had kissed the guy. And then, for all her protecting the franchise name, Gretel was replaced by Kyle and Jackie O after season seven anyway.

God, Australian TV really can be one big cycle of embarrassment, can't it?

jordan belfort's 60 minutes storm-off

Look, not to draw unnecessary attention to the fact that Channel Nine's 60 Minutes is a thing that still exists or whatever, but the time Liz Hayes tried — tried — to interview real-life "Wolf Of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort, only to have him flip out and storm off, was far too mesmerising a televisual wreck to not acknowledge here.

Belfort famously accused Hayes of executing a "hatchet job" after she raised questions about his income set-up, telling her she had "a lot of nerve" to be dredging up questions he felt he had answered time and again. Eventually he ramped up his indignation to the point of storming out altogether like the calm and collected professional he is.

jaymes diaz's zero-point six-point plan

All right, look - there has been at least some small degree of genuine awfulness to some degree or another in every other entry in this list. This one was just hilarious.

With respect to those who suffer stage fright, do not go into politics if you suffer stage fright.

And if you do go into politics, do not go into public without learning your shit, or else you may end up just like Liberal Party candidate Jaymes Diaz did when he forgot to learn anything at all about his six-point plan for stopping asylum seekers. It was a top-notch performance wholly representative of pretty much everything else the Liberal Party has put stock in lately.

bonus: that time karl stefanovic was still drunk after the logies

God bless you, Karl Stefanovic.