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The thrill of live TV is that you never really know what’s going to happen, and nowhere is this more apparent than on local news programs. Interviews take unexpected turns, technology fails to cooperate, and broadcasters slip up spectacularly. Here are nine moments that will give you a good laugh.
- The worst police sketch ever
- The cougar that was just a house cat
- The reporter who was “joined by a beautiful lady”
- The multiplying meteorologist
- The Pennsylvania man whose math was not correct
- The “apparently” kid
- The Portland runner’s snowy wipeout
- “Deedee Megadoodoo”
- The anchor who warned us about panties
The worst police sketch ever
In 2018, a reporter for Springfield, Missouri’s KY3 learned just how hard it is to keep a straight face when describing a police sketch that looks like this one—especially when it’s juxtaposed with a photo of the culprit.
The cougar that was just a house cat
In 2017, Scott Madaus of FOX 13 Memphis reported from Hernando, Mississippi, where a cougar had been spotted. Then he pointed to … a house cat. “It had come out from this brush from underneath a tree, and it was just standing there, staring at me, and I thought how ironic is this that we’re doing a story about a 100-pound-plus possible cougar and here’s this small, little house cat,” he told BuzzFeed News.
The reporter who was “joined by a beautiful lady”
Also in 2018, British sports commentator Derek Thompson lived out a cautionary tale about the dangers of assuming someone’s gender. “Oh, you’ve been joined by a beautiful lady!” he said to Bob Cooper, poised to interview someone in the field. “That’s a man, actually, Derek,” Cooper replied after a pregnant pause.
The multiplying meteorologist
Jennifer McDermed of FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul found herself in the middle of a cyberpunk fever dream in 2021 when the screen started spitting out countless graphics of her, all moving on a slight delay. She ended up having a lot of fun with it.
The Pennsylvania man whose math was not correct
This man really thought he was onto something when he noticed that his local parking meters charged four quarters for an hour but one quarter for 15 minutes. “So if my math is correct, that’s not an hour,” he told WNEP’s Carmella Mataloni, who clued him in to his mistake on camera. He took it well (no, really!).
The “apparently” kid
In 2014, young Noah Ritter shared what he thought of the rides at Pennsylvania’s Wayne County Fair with WNEP 16. Did Ritter know how to use the word apparently correctly? No. Did that stop him from saying it every other sentence? No.
The Portland runner’s snowy wipeout
During a snowy night in 2014, a couple of runners in Portland, Oregon, paused their progress to tell KOIN 6 why they loved running in the snow. One of them explained that it was just “the perfect texture for running”—and then immediately invalidated her point by wiping out as she jogged away. (To be fair, it looked like she slipped on a patch of ice, not the snow itself.)
“Deedee Megadoodoo”
The worst time to mispronounce someone’s name is when reporting that they’ve passed away. Even worse is when you mispronounce it as “Deedee Megadoodoo.”
The anchor who warned us about panties
In 2016, Eric Philips of Richmond, Virginia’s NBC affiliate delivered a very important alert to viewers: “Check your panties.” He should have said “pantries,” which he realized as soon as he got to the following sentence about rice cookers. It was all the teleprompter’s fault (or rather, the person who wrote the copy for the teleprompter).
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