News Bloopers That Actually Happened On Air
Everyone knows the feeling. The feeling you get when you do something both stupid and embarrassing, like sticking your tongue in a cotton candy machine or accidentally setting your pants on fire, and spend the whole painful, awful time praying no one films your viral-worthy humiliation.
News anchors don't have that luxury. Every single moment at work, they've got a massive great camera trained on their faces, just waiting for them to pick their noses, belch up last night's taco, or start sending unsolicited crotch pics to their local representative. When they inevitably do screw up, the whole world gets to see their hilarious fall from grace.
WLBT 3's newest weatherman predicts farts and toots everywhere
A boy named Houston is the weatherman every station needs. The pint-sized elementary school rebel is the son of a Mississippi lawyer who sometimes appears on WLBT 3, broadcasting out of Jackson. One evening, father brought son along to the studio a little early, while Patrick Ellis was doing his regular weather report, according to Mashable. Seeing an opportunity for viral immortality a really fun time, Houston decided to channel his inner Bart Simpson and crashed the heck outta Ellis' segment.
How he managed to get around so many adults to appear on screen is something no one can quite figure out, but the results speak for themselves. As Ellis is discussing the dewpoint over Mississippi, Houston suddenly bursts onto camera and accuses the weatherman of having no idea what's happening. He then impersonates a pterodactyl and pretends to fart on Ellis. Being a good sport almost to the point of negligence, Ellis good-naturedly tries to distract Houston by asking him to read the weather. Houston responds, as every good third grader should, by predicting "farts and toots everywhere."
The clip ends with Ellis still trying to laugh it off, and an unnamed studio hand picking Houston up and bundling him offstage. Later, Ellis took to Facebook to explain how Houston had got into the studio. Sadly, there was no word on if Houston would ever be returning to give Mississippi TV more of what it clearly needs.
A CTV anchor asks someone to 'canoodle' with him
It's annoyingly easy to mess up slang. Just ask anyone who has ever tried to act cool in front of their teenagers by dropping misunderstood acronyms into family group texts. But failing to be down with the kids enough to get their dope slang is different than screwing up a term nearly everyone knows is simmering with sexual tension.
Anchor Andrew Johnson for Vancouver Island's CTV found this out the hard way in 2012. After a segment on maple syrup production or something else adorably Canadian ended, he tried to banter with meteorologist Astrid Braunschmidt. This playful banter involved his newly learned slang term for "having a chat." Johnson gave a big smile and told Braunschmidt, "maybe we can canoodle."
If you can't see the problem, it's probably best you cut that word out of your vocabulary, stat. As those of you laughing already know, canoodle means to "kiss and cuddle amorously," which is the polite, dictionary way of saying "engage in some hardcore, body against body, clothes-on almost-intercourse." Braunschmidt reacts to this invitation almost exactly as you'd expect her to. We say "almost" because she looks confused and smiles nervously instead of projectile vomiting across the room.
As this delightful follow-up clip produced by CTV explains, the blooper went viral — in the most 2012 way imaginable. According to anchor Adam Sawatsky, it became the top trending video on Bing. Oh, wow. That's ... great?
Daria Gavrilova wants you to know that she's 'good from behind'
Daria Gavrilova is a 23-year-old Russian-Australian tennis player. In 2010, she became the No. 1 female junior player on Earth and, at time of writing, the Women's Tennis Association ranks her No. 25 in the world. We wanted to tell you this now while there's still a chance for you to think of Gavrilova as a world-class athlete. Because, once you've watched this video, you won't be able to think of her as anything but the "good-from-behind girl."
The setting is Australia, January 2016. Then-21-year-old Gavrilova has just beaten French player Kristina Mladenovic in a thrilling game which saw the Australian stage an impressive comeback. Being interviewed on the court, live on TV, Gavrilova tries to give an account of her playing that day. The line that accidentally drops out of her mouth? "I'm good from behind."
At this juicy innuendo, the crowd immediately goes wild. The audience, Gavrilova's fellow players, the presenter, and Gavrilova herself completely crack up, reducing pretty much the whole of Australia to helpless hysterics. There's applause. Laughter. Weeping. All these strangers, coming together to laugh at a young girl accidentally referencing the awesomeness of her own backside. In a strange way, it's almost heartwarming.
Robert Kelly's interview gets hijacked by his kids
Most of us probably crave some levity when discussing a heavy subject like presidential impeachment. That may be why Professor Robert Kelly's BBC interview became such a hit. In March 2017, Kelly, who lives in South Korea, was invited to do a Skype interview with the BBC on President Park Geun-hye's removal from office. What should have cemented his reputation as an expert wound up cementing the reputations of his children as gatecrashing legends.
As Kelly talks in the video, his young daughter shoves her way into the room, doing a funky little dance. Kelly tries to laugh it off, only for his baby son to also appear on his stroller. His wife then comes literally sliding into the room, grabs both children and bodily drags them out, all while trying (and failing) to keep out of sight of the camera. As his wife finally slams the door shut from her hands and knees, Kelly gives a tiny internal sigh that manages to convey as much despair with his eyelids as many accomplished actors manage with their entire faces.
Kelly would later tell a press conference, according to The Independent, that he thought the blooper had ended his career. Far from it. The video went viral, and Kelly's entire family was invited back on the BBC for a follow-up interview, where his scene-stealing daughter stole the show once again.
Reno hosts inexplicably find the plague hilarious
Back in the halcyon days of enormous hair and fuzzy VHS recordings, in a time before "local news" meant "terrible graphics," two reporters from News 4 Reno managed to wreck three whole stories with uncontrollable fits of the giggles. The hilarious thing that got them so worked up they nearly collapsed? Uhh ... the plague.
Yeah. That plague. The one that killed over a third of medieval Europe and still infects several Americans a year. For whatever reason, it triggers a bout of laughter in the video above, one that then infects the entire studio, passing from Patient Zero Laura Stephenson to co-host Jeff Moore with all the virulence of government-engineered super-Ebola.
It doesn't help that poor Moore's follow-up story includes the line: "right now, no one seems to know whether or not the truck driver was meant to run over the inmate, as he was trying to escape," which triggers a fresh fit of giggles. Impressively, Moore manages to keep a straight face while apologizing, before collapsing again the moment he returns to the story.
While the laughter in the News 4 Reno studio is seemingly inexplicable, one YouTuber has a pretty convincing theory. Plague is also known as "beaver fever" because it infects a number of beavers each year. "Beaver fever" is also slang for someone who really, really likes beaver and, yup, that is totally a euphemism. Realizing this in a high-pressure news environment could have been enough to make both Stephenson and Moore crack up.
Guy Goma gets 'interviewed' for the wrong position
BBC News is top dog in the factual-programming game. It has a hard-won reputation for integrity, honesty, and not making hilarious blunders. Which is what makes the story of Guy Goma so simultaneously unbelievable and awesome. In 2006, Guy was at the BBC News studio for a job interview in the IT department. Mistaking him for Guy Kewney, an IT journalist, the BBC accidentally stuck him live on air.
Guy sits looking at the cameras, probably thinking this is the strangest job interview ever. He's then introduced by presenter Karen Bowerman and the penny very publicly drops. In an instant, you see Guy's facial expression pass all the way through "bowel-evacuating panic" to "I'm in a dream" before finally settling on the look of a dude caught sneaking into a Playboy pool party and still heroically thinking he can blag his way into the VIP hot tub. In this case, that means attempting to answer Bowerman's questions on the future of music in the internet age without any specialist knowledge or any clue of what's going on.
As pointed out by Time, when viewed from the crazy future world Guy's being asked about, perhaps the most impressive thing is how accurate his fumbled answers are. Like a viral Nostradamus, Guy predicted people being able to easily download music while on the go, a revolution that then seemed as unlikely as MySpace ever falling out of fashion.
A Swedish presenter cuts the cheese live
Newsroom bloopers aren't highbrow. They're not the sort of thing guys like Gore Vidal or Woody Allen or V.S. Naipaul get their kicks watching. They're lowest common denominator stuff, and what could be lower and more hilarious than laughing at some smart-looking woman cutting the cheese live on air? Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for Swedish presenter Charlotte Burstroem, the answer is "nothing."
The video itself is as straightforward as it sounds. Shot around 2007, it shows Burstroem wrapping up some news story on how the Swedish Chef is running out of Ikea meatballs, or how the King of Sweden's Volvo has broken down, or whatever it is Swedes make news about. She wraps up, signs off with a smile, and then lets out a studio-engulfing toot that will go down in the annals of flatulence.
Burstroem's fart is so blatant there were probably fishermen in Copenhagen who thought the Last Trumpet had just sounded. To her credit, she immediately dissolves into a fit of giggles rather than trying to keep a straight face, even as the outro music starts playing and the lights go down on whatever's left of her career as a serious newscaster.
Fox 5 has President Obama report his own death
The death of a president is a big story. Bigger still is a story about a dead president rising from the grave to announce his own passing on national television. When Fox 5's Will Thomas reported this zombie presidential announcement, it must have crossed his mind that he was dealing with the scoop of a lifetime, that one day, other journalists would gather at his feet to hear him tell of that mythic day.
Er ... rather, that other journalists would one day gather to laugh at what a total nincompoop he'd been. In 2011, President Obama solemnly addressed the nation to say that Osama bin Laden was dead. With a masterful foot-into-mouth maneuver that even the most flexible yogi couldn't manage, Thomas managed to report that President Obama had been killed (via CBS local affiliate WPGC).
The video is a master class in how to report the news like an imbecile. We see President Obama detailing the momentous news. He leaves the podium in dignified silence. Cut to Will Thomas in the studio, who solemnly intones, "President Obama, speaking from the East Room in the White House, telling the nation and the world that President Obama is, in fact, dead." We're just amazed there wasn't a sad trombone standing by in the studio to highlight Thomas's massive fail.
God's giant cloud dong leaves a studio in hysterics
It's a question great minds have wrestled with. Can God create a comedy sky wang so hilarious that even God can't stop laughing at it? Thankfully, we have an answer. It comes from this blooper from one of New Zealand's news channels.
During a routine report, meteorologist Sam mentions someone managed to capture a waterspout on camera. He brings up the image, only to realize far too late that it looks exactly like a gigantic gray pecker descending from the heavens to probe your nightmares. Faced with photographic evidence of God's unstoppable monster member, Sam does what you'd expect any Kiwi in his situation to do. He starts dropping innuendos about it, all while wearing a grin like a 10-year-old who's just been told his new teacher is called Dr. Farts.
In some ways, this whole "accidental johnson" thing feels like a litmus test for the personalities of different nations. New Zealanders cracks jokes. Americans don't even realize what's happening. British presenters would probably snort tea out through their noses. If you could find a clip from every country of news anchors having to deal with this, you could probably map the psyches of the world.
In the case of Sam's co-hosts, his overly pleased grin is enough to prompt a giggle-filled argument over whether Sam had to mention the sky schlong at all. It's a dumb question. Of course he did. Just look at those playful, mischievous eyes. What else would Sam do?
Fox News 45's traffic reporter takes time out for a fish sandwich
Traffic updates are important. Know what's even more important? Getting your greasy mitts on a McDonald's fish sandwich. That's the logic Baltimore Fox 45 reporter Jimmy Uhrin (aka "Traffic Jam Jimmy") has chosen to live by, professionalism be damned. In 2015, studio anchor Candace Dold cut to Jimmy, expecting a traffic update. Instead, she got Jimmy at a McDonald's drive-thru, trying his darndest to order a fish sandwich.
What's great about the video above is how totally unrepentant (and unafraid for his job) Jimmy seems to be. Even after figuring out he's live, he simply shrugs it off, saying he hasn't eaten for hours so they better let him get his breakfast. Rather than cut away, the studio then follows poor Jimmy's trials as he's forced to replace his fish sandwich with an Egg McMuffin, before finally giving a traffic update that simply amounts to "it's bad out here." By the time we return to the studio, Candace Dold is in stitches and the whole segment is kaput.
The blooper was so ridiculous that it got picked up by outlets across America, leading to a storm of publicity for Fox 45 Baltimore and McDonald's. Not everyone thinks this was accidental. The Baltimore City Paper reports Jimmy has a strangely close relationship with McDonald's, often inserting their products into perhaps deliberate on-air bloopers, like the awkward time he tried to present a security guard with a free patty and wound up getting a lecture on Fight For $15.
Russia's most adorable dog is totally pumped to be on TV
Never work with kids and animals. Whoever said that should have qualified it with "unless you want to become a viral sensation." According to Today, in spring 2017, newsreader Ilona Linarte was, as her job title may suggest, reading the news for viewers of Russia's Mir 24. It was at this point that the most excitable dog in the history of television decided to gatecrash the studio.
The video itself is a work of magic. As Linarte obliviously talks, the adorable black Lab appears behind her and peeks its nose over the top of the desk. Linarte drones on. Sensing his opportunity, the dog lets out a bark to alert viewers at home that now is the time to stop paying attention to their vodka and start paying attention to the screen. Linarte just has time to look absolutely perplexed ...
And then the jumping starts.
If you think you've ever seen anything more adorable than an ecstatic dog appearing mid-leap from behind a news desk, his face pulled into a doggy grin of happiness as he fulfills his dream of appearing on live TV, we're here to tell you that your memory is wrong. This dog is not just pleased to be on TV. He is so pumped you could bottle his excitement and sell it as an aphrodisiac. After a brief, one-sided, battle to be heard above the jumping and barking, Linarte caves in and, with a "don't blame me" expression, finally gives the doggy the pat he so clearly deserves. Awww.