TV host doesn’t want contestants mocked over ‘Birgu-shima’ howler

Presenter Etienne Schembri, whose quiz show Wonderball produced a moment of virality when two contestants ‘bombed’ on a history question as to where the A-bomb was dropped in Japan, has come out in defence of the couple subjected to social media notoriety.

The video clip of the two contestants went viral when they replied “Birgu” – in Malta – to Schembri’s question as to which were the WWII bombing sites chosen to drop the atomic bomb. The history question was to name the two places – Hiroshima and Nagasaki – which suffered the brunt of two atomic bombs in August 1945, the monumental event that effectively brought World War II to devastating end.

“This is nothing but bullying,” Schembri said on his Facebook profile. “You get so many suicide awareness messages running around on social media, but it’s nothing but hypocrisy. The same people putting up suicide awareness messages are the ones taking the mickey out of two contestants who answered a question wrongly – and perhaps made their life a misery.”

The Wonderball howler was immediately clipped into a video that did the rounds on WhatsApp and finally on social media apps.

Schembri was all out of banter when the couple answered with the astonishing reply, failing to make a light joke of the egregious error and instead proceeded with the rest of the questions. “Birgu? No, Malta wouldn’t even exist if it had to be Birgu,” Schembri replied.

Social media audiences were not as kind, and with Oppenheimer fever truly visiting the effects of the A-bomb on cinema audiences, many commentors ripped apart the hapless couple.