It's a fable!

When Crash (the Sandra Bullock one) was on general release, a number of critics attacked it for a lack of realism and said it was contrived. This infuriated Mark, who would insist "it's a fable!" during each Box Office Top 10 countdown.

Four years later, exactly the same thing happened again with Slumdog Squarepants. One listener at a screening in a cinema next to the Sydney Opera House heard an elderly woman in the audience declare at the end, "that wouldn't happen," only for someone else to shout, "it's a fable!" at her. The listener themselves followed up with, "yes, and it's the death of narrative cinema", which prompted a round of applause from all the Wittertainees present, and they all went off to the pub.

After spending much of the Slumdog Squarepants review saying, "it's a fable!", one listener wrote in to say that what Mark actually meant was "it's a parable!", as fables have to have animals in. Mark claims he was heckled on his way into the 2009 Baftas by people shouting "it's a parable!". However, another listener then wrote in to say that fables did not have to feature animals - that was just something Aesop did - so Mark was right first time.

Other films which are clearly fables, despite being misunderstood by other critics, have included The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas and The Silence Of Lorna.