...And Mrs Merton leads the field

Mrs Merton’s quip: ‘What first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?’ has been named the top TV putdown of all time.

Caroline Aherne’s line, directed at the magician’s wife Debbie McGee in 1995, topped a poll conducted by UKTV Play.

It is also the only insult in the list delivered to someone’s face, rather than directed at a fictional character.

Here is the top 20, compiled from 2,000 votes.

1.     Mrs Merton, to Debbie McGee (The Mrs Merton Show): ‘But what first, Debbie, attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?’

2.     Del Boy (Only Fools and Horses): 'Dear old grandad, bless him. He was about as useful as a pair of sunglasses on a bloke with one ear'  

3.     Edmund Blackadder (Blackadder): 'Your brain, for example, is so minute Baldrick, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.’

4.     Captain Mainwaring (Dad's Army): 'You stupid boy!’

5.     Basil Fawlty (Fawlty Towers): 'Oh dear, what happened? Did you get entangled in the eiderdown again? Not enough cream in your éclair? Hmm? Or did you have to talk to all your friends for so long that you didn't have time to perm your ears?’

6.     Patsy Stone (Absolutely Fabulous): 'I told her the only thing she looked good in was a body bag' 

7.     Del Boy (Only Fools and Horses): 'Look at grandad. His brain went years ago, now his legs have gone. There’s only the middle bit of him left!'

8.     Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock): 'Don’t talk out loud, you lower the IQ of the whole street'

9.     Father Ted (Father Ted): 'Dougal, is there anything on your mind? Let me rephrase that…’

10.   Margaret Meldrew (One Foot in the Grave) on Victor: 'He’s the most sensitive person I’ve ever met, and that’s why I love him and why I constantly want to ram his head through a television screen.’

11.   Edmund Blackadder (Blackadder): 'The eyes are open, the mouth moves but Mr Brain has long since departed, hasn’t he, Percy?’

12.   Jim Royle (The Royle Family): Norma: 'Is this hat too far forward? Jim: 'No, we can still see your face'

13.   Patsy Stone (Absolutely Fabulous): 'One more facelift on this one and she’ll have a beard’

14.   Alan Partridge (I’m Alan Partridge): 'Would it be terribly rude to stop listening to you and go and speak to somebody else?'

15.   Edmund Blackadder (Blackadder): 'Right, now; the sort of person we’re looking for is an aggressive drunken lout with the intelligence of a four-year-old and the sexual sophistication of a donkey.’ 

16.   Violet Crawley (Downton Abbey) to Lady Cora, about her American mother: 'I’m so looking forward to seeing your mother again. When I’m with her, I’m reminded of the virtues of the English' (10%)

17.   Will (The Inbetweeners): 'A few years ago I went to see King Kong at the cinema, now I’m on a date with her.’

18.   Edmund Blackadder: 'Even when we were babies, I had to show you which bit of your mother was serving the drinks.’

19.   Maurice Moss (IT Crowd): 'I can see why she’s divorced, she’s very divorceable. As soon as you meet her you can’t wait to take her to court to get rid of her.’

20.   Victor Meldrew (One Foot in the Grave): 'It’s like hiring a man-eating a shark as your children’s swimming instructor.’

The findings were a blatant PR stunt to mark the release of all four series of Blackadder on the on-demand service UKTV Play.

Published: 18 Apr 2017