TOP Gear‘s Richard Hammond has apologised to Mexico in a clumsy Spanish-English hybrid that involved adding an ‘o’ to each word.
The unnervingly wide-eyed BBC mascot said he regretted his remarks that a Mexican car would be lazy and flatulent, but insisted it was simply his latest bid to become best friends with Jeremy Clarkson.
Earlier he had been accused of crude and offensive stereotyping by Mexican ambassador, Speedy Gonzalez.
Senor Gonzalez said: “I no like theese leetle man and hees tall friends with their meed-life crisees that goes on forever and ever.
“Ondalay! Ondalay! Yee-ba!”
Wearing an apologetic blanket and sombrero, Hammond said: “Mucho sorry-o, senoro dago. Nowo, two-o cervezo pronto.”
He then asked Clarkson if he had done it right before barking excitedly until his colleague fed him a chocolate-covered treat.
Top Gear has also promised to make amends by ridding a poverty-stricken village of rough, mustachioed banditos with Hammond and James May on a donkey while Clarkson uses a Lamborghini Murciélago.
The one-hour special will recreate the comedy Three Amigos!, with Clarkson replacing Steve Martin, May replacing Chevy Chase, Hammond replacing Martin Short and laboriously-scripted ‘ad-libs’ replacing jokes.
Meanwhile experts stressed that describing Mexicans as lazy was in itself lazy and that Hammond should have said a Mexican car would be full of cocaine and you would eventually find bits of it hanging from a bridge.
