Mr. Williams: Not Robin, but almost as Funny.
“There’s definitely ways to try and capture that personality without taking away from what is a very serious newscast in very serious times… There are ways to find little moments of absurdity or humor in life and we’re going to try and find ways to do that—but, we have to find the right way to do that,” ” NBC News chief Neal Shapiro
(From, Only When He Laughs, Don Kaplan, The New York Post, Dec. 6, 2004.)
Some suggestions:
-Accompany Iraqi death count reports with “Waw-waw-waaah” horn sound effect from Let’s Make a Deal
-Refer to the president as “Cuddles”
-Five Words: Rip Taylor, White House Correspondent
-Swap out hurricane clips with footage from Land of the Lost
-Goodbye, bespoke suits. Hello, tuxedo T-shirt!
-When analyzing reports with Tim Russert, pretend to be all stoned like Cheech and Chong
-End each broadcast with an America’s Funniest Home Video-type clip, possibly a “blooper” from the Iraq war or amusing footage of famine-torn nations.
-New theme song by “Weird Al” Yankovic
-Overdub foreign-language speakers with Peanuts-style adult “squawking” voices
-Knock knock jokes. Lots and lots of knock knock jokes
-Get Mo Rocca: Everybody finds that dude hilarious
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4 replies on “The Humorous Life of Brian”
Seeing as how I met Mo Rocca last week, I wholeheartedly agree. Someone needs to get that man back on TV for the public’s common good, and by TV I don’t mean VH1.
now that we’ve brought it up, why not do the Nightly News in the ‘best week ever’ format? You get a couple pundits, a Mo Rocca, MTV’s Kennedy and just riff on the headlines.
I thought that was somewhat what MTV news was for, except less funny.
Since the real allure of Mo Rocca is that he did write episodes of “Wishbone” and “Pepper Ann” for PBS and Nickelodeon while being editor of Perfect 10 magazine at night.
You really just need someone who’s all that. And has the intrisnic charm of Brian Gumble.
“From the Pentagon, this is Jenna Jamison.”