It wasn't a good morning for anyone with a spider phobia on Wednesday., October 5. In fact, before the opening titles had concluded on ITV's This Morning programme, some viewers were turning off.
Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield returned to the daytime show with Holly taking the lead to instantly apologise to viewers. The titles and theme tune had run, but with a difference. Spiders were crawling across the screen.
The TV host began: "Hello, good morning and welcome to your Wednesday's This Morning. As you might have noticed from our titles it's all very spooky and scary in her today, especially if you're not a fan of spiders". Phillip added: "We will be putting up spider alerts for anyone who doesn’t like spiders throughout the show." But admitted: "Although we didn’t warn you that they were going to be running across your screen at the beginning." Holly let out a 'sorry' as her co-star carried on speaking.
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The hosts continued: "I can imagine you were looking at your telly and thought, 'Oh my God, there’s a spider on the telly!' We didn’t warn you about that," Phillip continued. "Sorry!" Holly chirped again before Phillip triggered the 'spider alert' claxon which saw a note appear on screen and a loud alarm ring out.
But it was too late for some viewers. One person tweeted: "@thismorning are you kidding. SPIDER SPECIAL. absolutely not, turned off for today. No thank you!" With another adding: "@thismorning urghhhh HATE spiders … see you tomorrow guys … just can’t watch today."
Phillip Schofield, 60, explained that the upcoming spider-focused segments were the result of Richard Hammond's appearance on This Morning last week, according to Manchester Evening News. "If you were watching last week you'll remember that Richard Hammond told us how he was pinned to the back of our green room by a big, bad, Barry we called it. An eight-legged imposter."
They then replayed the clip of the former Top Gear star on the show telling Phillip and Holly how he had spent half an hour 'locked in combat' with a spider, showing them a photo he had took on his phone. "I've called him Barry," he said as the creepy crawly appeared on the screen.
"So he pinned you in the corner of the dressing room?" Phillip asked to which Richard said: "Well we've been moving around each other for the last half an hour." He then joked: "I reckon I could have trained him up, saddled him up and rode him in," to which Holly laughed in horror.
Holly, 41, also introduced viewers to 'big, bad Betty' who appeared in her home and saw her enlisting the This Morning team for help. "I found myself with a visitor, let's call her big bad Betty, and had to call in the This Morning team to have her removed." A video then played out, filmed by Holly, of the spider in her dressing room. "That is an actual monster," she could be heard saying.
They were then joined by spider expert James Logan who offered people some advice before Nick and Eva Speakman joined the presenters for the latest phone-in, encouraging viewers to call in for help with their spider phobias.
But all the talk of arachnids didn't impress some viewers. One said: "Whose daft idea was it to have the “spiders” running across the screen? Any phobic person who could have been helped by this section will have turned over! #ThisMorning." Another declared: " #ThisMorning just nearly smashed my TV when that spider ran across the TV. Aahhhh another one Stop it." With a third adding: "Spiders do not bother me but come on stop with spiders running across the screen #thismorning."
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