Comedian Mick Molloy has light-heartedly threatened to cancel The Front Bar’s Adelaide show after a ‘dumb and stupid’ politician criticised a joke he made about smuggling fruit into the state to celebrate the AFL’s inaugural Gather Round. Molloy, Andy Maher and Sam Pang are planning to record their hit show from Adelaide Oval next month but the move hasn’t gone down well in South Australian parliament.
‘I love travelling to South Australia. I’ll be bringing fruit over in my boot anyway, so it’s a good excuse to watch some footy as well.’ MP Frank Pangallo of the SA Best party didn’t see the funny side of Molly’s remark and criticised the comedian in parliament for the ‘lighthearted poke at our biosecurity border controls’.
Last week Molloy announced how excited he was to be making the trip to Adelaide. ‘Keep it under your hat, there may be some outstanding warrants for my arrest over there,’ Molloy joked.
‘Mick can be a funny bloke, but it appears that he has dropped the ball as to the consequences of his reckless joke,’ he told his fellow MPs. ‘Should others take him literally and bring fruit in their car boots and expose our state to yet another costly fruit fly outbreak, which endangers the fruit fly-free status?’
‘I’ve had no joy in this state,’ he said on Triple M’s Mick & MG in the Morning show. ‘I think it was a quiet news day in Adelaide is my official comment. ‘Look, you know what, I haven’t been there for a while. In fact I haven’t been there since the Crazy Horse [strip club] has closed down.
Very strict laws prevent vegetables and fruit being taken into South Australia in an effort to protect the enormous horticulture industry in the state. Molloy fired back on Thursday, saying that he won’t be apologising for the statement ‘because it is a joke and I’m a comedian’ as he labelled Mr Pangallo’s argument ‘dumb and stupid’.
‘Look if the weight of opinion in Adelaide is that they would not like me to attend, the [Front Bar] show won’t go.’ ‘I find this a dumb and stupid argument. I don’t know if he [Mr Pangallo] is attention-seeking and feels everyone out there is silly as he obviously is.
The Adelaide Advertiser ran an online poll which found that three quarters of people believed Molloy was making a joke. The Richmond Tigers tragic thanked the people of Adelaide who participated in the poll, saying he ‘always had faith’ in them.
‘But I’m happy not to distract from what should be a great weekend and a celebration of football. But I do find the whole thing a little stupid. ‘Wouldn’t it be great to be deported, stopped at the border or turned around at the Airport again.’
