A BBC newsreader has become an instant social media hit after he threw to a colleague reporting live in the US and mistakenly muddled the chap’s name as Ally McBeal.
Ally McBeal was, of course, a legal comedy-drama television series that last aired back in 2002 and starred Calista Flockhart in the lead role.
This time around, BBC presenter Clive Myrie was reporting on a story involving US actor Justin “Jussie” Smollett who has been arrested on charges of filing a false police report after claiming to be the victim of a racist and homophobic attack.
Throwing to his US correspondent, Aleem Maqbool, for the full story, the hapless Myrie introduced Maqbool as Ally McBeal.
Ally McBeal??? ???pic.twitter.com/7ew2xE30Ed
— Ryan Love △⃒⃘ (@RyanJL) February 21, 2019
Despite the clanger, the ever-professional Maqbool smirked and simply soldiered-on.
Twitter – as it so often does – noticed Myrie’s mishap and #AllyMcBeal soon began trending. No more so than Myrie himself, who soon tweeted, “I got my mucking words fuddled!”
Thankfully, Maqbool appeared good humoured about it too, later tweeting:
However, other Twitter followers were less kind: