DA-DA-DA - ASDA POWER!

We're not impressed that Channel 4 is even bothering to put together yet another programme where pranks are played on "celebrities"; and even by the standards of the genre, squirting Tom Cruise with a water pistol disguised as a microphone is a bit dense. Having said that, though, Cruise's complete inability to process what was happening, and then his total over-reaction to a lame stunt which really required little more than a quick "I pity your mother" and a dignified turn about heel was probably the most entertaining thing he's been involved in for a while:

The star struggled to maintain his composure and confronted the man, taking his hand and saying: "Why would you do that ... why would you do that ... why would you do that?"

As the prankster offered a barely audible excuse, Cruise said: "Do you like thinking less of people, is that it?"

After an uncomfortable silence the Channel 4 man went to walk away but Cruise said: "Don't run away."

He told his assailant: "That's incredibly rude. I'm here giving you an interview and you do that ... it's incredibly rude."

Cruise then said forcibly: "You're a jerk ... jerk ... you're a jerk."

Cruise was in town for the premiere of his movie, Yet Another Version Of War of the Worlds. There has been some talk on the internet that the film isn't a genuine movie at all, but is in fact a PR stunt designed to promote his new project, getting married to Katie Holmes, in which Cruise plays the part of a heterosexual bloke.

So, lame gag rescued purely by the pompous over-reaction of the target. (The water pistol team were, of course, thrown into prison - and quite right too; it's unthinkable that any man should squirt into Tom Cruise's face and be allowed to walk away). But could the story get any better?

Enter Sharon Osbourne. She's been got by the same team, with the same gag (this really is a low-rent TV show they're making); only Sharon has decided being hit by a waterpistol is such an assault to her dignity, she's suing. And she's offered Tom Cruise the chance to join her in a kind of irritating class action brought by damp self-publicists.

The only thing worse than not being able to take a joke is to not be able to shrug off a pisspoor joke. Inadvertently, Osbourne and Cruise have turned a gag which would have just made the perpetrators look like childish twonks into a rolling, yelling ongoing situation in which everyone looks bad. The pistol holders have won.

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