Their subsequent suggestions included a spaceship, national birthday party centre, giant waterslide and, best of the lot, bridge to Tasmania.

Upon returning to his office, Sitch is horrified to learn that all the suggestions have been widely circulated by his enthusiastic but inept secretary, the punchline being that the prime minister had discovered the space project might be a bit too costly but the bridge to Tasmania was definitely worth pursuing.

Greg Swann may have access to the same secretary.

The morning after that episode aired, the story broke that the Brisbane Lions were planning to introduce a live lion into their pre-match entertainment at AFL games.

At first it sounded like one of those setting-fire-to-a-dwarf stories that proliferate around Mad Monday time of year and appear too sensational to be true.

But true this was.

Swann, the club's new chief executive, confirmed he had dispatched a member of his marketing team to assorted Queensland zoos to investigate the feasibility of the idea.

"On the back of the AFL looking for greater supporter engagement and fan involvement, we think a lion would be a fantastic way to attract kids to the game," Swann said.

This was all in response to AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan's call for clubs to show a bit more innovation in how they engage fans before games, following the lead of Port Adelaide's rousing INXS singalong sessions.

So instead of Never Tear us Apart, Swann adopted a "Tear us Apart" approach.

If his intention was to provoke debate, it certainly worked.

Animal welfare groups and social media spearheaded the backlash, footy's greatest blogger Titus O'Reily inevitably leading the charge by suggesting Essendon didn't take kindly to being displaced from the headlines so planned to introduce live bombers to its pre-game entertainment.

Some questioned whether other sports teams would adopt a similar policy, such as the Cronulla Sharks, St George Illawarra Dragons and Chicago Bears, but probably not the Gettysburg Bullets.

And pity the poor member of the Tasmanian Tigers marketing team dispatched to track down a live thylacine.

By the end of the day, the saga had reached a point that Brisbane felt compelled to issue a statement at 4.08pm, which it promptly recalled 20 minutes later.

The statement it included from Swann smacked of the National Building Authority boss attempting to explain away a national birthday party centre featuring, as it did, the line: "We are only at a conceptual stage at the moment."

Swann reported there had been "a fair amount of hysteria" around the lion idea, adding: "Let me be clear in saying it is an idea and only that. It is one of a number of initiatives we have discussed as part of planning for the 2015 season, and it has found its way into the media." Textbook CEO-speak for: "Well I thought it was a good idea."

The following morning, Swann made another amusingly-worded statement (this time not retracted), which said: "After considering the strong public reaction to the suggestion of having a real lion at our home games next season, the club today took the decision to not pursue the idea."

Interestingly, about the only body not to react with outrage about the whole lion thing was the AFL, whose website covered the story under the amusing headline "Roar deal" and with a file picture from Getty captioned: "A lion yesterday." McLachlan even jumped on the radio to praise Swann for his "provocative" suggestion.

However, parading a live lion around the Gabba probably seemed quite tame to an organisation whose track record includes booking Meatloaf as the pre-match entertainment at the 2011 grand final.