Today show host Karl Stefanovic loses it on air over his 'long, stabby thing'

With two minutes to fill with carefree banter before Georgie Gardner was to read the 6.30am news bulletin, Karl Stefanovic made a reference to a “long, stabby thing” that he keeps by his bedside in the event of a home invasion.

"A bloke’s gotta protect his family, right?” he said.

Stefanovic then posed the question to co-host Lisa Wilkinson, enquiring as to whether she was lucky enough to have something similarly “long and stabby” in the bedroom.

Wilkinson confessed to harbouring a “swordy thing”, her hand movements suggesting something long and generally unmalleable. Then the query was thrown to Gardner, who, utterly straight-faced, declared: “Well, Tim’s my long stabby thing”, a reference to her trusty husband Tim Baker.

At this, Stefanovic appeared to be on the brink of losing composure, when Wilkinson, equally straight-faced, appeared to praise Gardner’s “excellent long stabby thing…a multiple of uses,” adding forlornly: “My husband’s useless,” a revelation that must surely have had hubby Peter FitzSimons howling at the TV over his breakfast.

But it was when reporter Ben Fordham decided to weigh in to the debate that the bubble really burst. Defending his own personal preference for golf clubs as weapons of defence against a home invader, Fordham argued the folly of getting “up close and personal with them”, adding: “I’d want to be standing back and whacking them off from a distance.”

Such candour proved too much for Stefanovic, who promptly stood from his chair and exited the set, with Fordham, realising what he’d said, following in hot and embarrassed pursuit.

This morning’s avalanche of feet-in-mouths comes hot on the heels of a shocker from Adelaide newsreader Belinda Heggen, who, during Mark Aiston’s sports report at the tail of Ten News at 5 last Monday night, delivered a mysterious quip that has now made world news.

Wrapping from a piece about England skipper Andrew Strauss arriving home in England with The Ashes in “a little urn”, Mark Aiston threw back to Heggen with the comment: “And, Belinda, I just can’t understand how something so small can be so impressive.”

Quick as a flash, Heggen sharply replied: “Well, Mark, you would know about that.”

At the time of going to publication, neither Aiston nor FitzSimons could be contacted for right of reply.

Watch the exchange between Heggen and Aiston below: