Best on air mistake ever?

Anybody got that one where the fill-in anchor doesn't give enough of a pause between the intro "(Name here) is off tonight" and the lede-in "He was killed, his body set on fire and dumped in a creek..."

 

Nevermind... aqui esta:

 

Oh my gosh, so many...... Off the top of my head in no particular order.....

** When Steve Levy said an injured player had a "buldging dick" and Olbermann couldn't stop laughing for 10 minutes.

** When Krya Phillips was wearing her wireless mic in the bathroom at CNN and somebody took her audio live during a Bush presser. Amid sounds of toilets flushing, she discussed how her sister-in-law was a "control freak."

** One that happened at my station is an all-time favorite. The producer ordered a graphic that said "U.N. -- War Crimes" for a story about a U.N. tribunal. But the UConn Huskies had just won the National Championship, and the graphic artist thought the order said "UConn War Crimes," so as the anchor read the story, you saw over her shoulder the Husky mascot with the tagline "War Crimes."

** In the CNN studio, they used to have a large hand-held mirror for the anchors to check themselves during commercial breaks. Well once an anchor was checking his teeth in the mirror while the other anchor read her story. Then the director accidentally cut to the anchor checking his teeth in the mirror... priceless.

** An older Atlanta news anchor was reading a story about a man who died, and reading off prompter he ended the story with a very sad, serious, "the man was 78 degrees." Then he got all flustered and said, "Excuse me, the man was 78 degrees."

** When NY reporter Arthur Chin (sp?) was doing a live report and some assholes were goofing off behind him. He finished his report with, "And they're trying to put a stop to it. WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM!" Obviously thinking they were off him after he sigged out.

** My #1 all-time favorite belongs to Van Earl Wright. The video editing machines at CNN Sports could be very hit-or-miss, and back when Van Earl was a Headline Sports Anchor, he was cutting together his sportscast under a tight tight turnaround. He had recorded his voice tracks in true Van Earl over-the-top fashion, mangling the word "Los Angeles" to sound like, "Aaaaand in Lohse Angle - eeeeezzzz..." Well, Van Earl couldn't get the machine to take his edit, so in frustration, he banged the machine as hard as he could with his hands and shouted, "EAT ME !!!!!!!" Somehow, some way, the mic picked it up and took the edit, and it got recorded on there. So what aired was, "Aaaaand in Lohse Angle-eeeezzz EAT ME!!!!! as the Raiders beat the Rams...."

**Then there was the time the Headline Sports Anchor let his girlfriend screw around in the sound booth and record a fake sportscast. She really "played it up." Then he delivered his sportscast, but he grabbed the wrong tape.

** Late Add -- This one is short and must-see. Sue Simmons, longtime NY anchor.

That's just off the top my head.

 

Personal favorite:

OK, this next one is kind of ugly... but the person involved was OK, and the anchors' reaction kills me every time:

 

That's a classic.

Several years ago we did a feature on a little girl with a bizarre ailment known as "Maple Syrup Syndrome." The body doesn't process sugar properly, and one of the early warning signs is that the child's urine smells like maple syrup.

I needed a graphic for the monitor behind the reporter, so I gave the artist a picture of the girl and asked him to add "Maple Syrup Syndrome" as a title. He did... but he also added a big stack of pancakes, with a golden liquid drizzling down onto them.

Thankfully I caught it about 5 seconds before it would have hit air and we replaced it with a generic station logo. I got a lot better about checking my graphics after that.

 

Graphic artists are the best, aren't they? Especially the ones that don't pay any attention to the news, watch The Simpsons most of the night and can't be bothered to THINK.

Reminds me of another one -- when Princess Diana's death was just breaking, graphic artist speedily made a death graphic that had Diana's picture with the line, "Princess of Whales."

 

I've worked with some who were brilliant and some who were mediocre.

But in 20 years in the business, I've never worked with one who could spell.

 

I remember when Bobby Cremins accepted the South Carolina job and then three days later decided to go back to Georgia Tech. Channel 19 had gone to commercial but there was some kind of glitch and his mic was live. All of Columbia was in an uproar about this and Shields said, "unfuckingbelievable" for all to hear. He didn't lose his job but had to apologize on air.

 

I have been in and around TV for years, since college in the late 1970s, and what you say is true.

 

Might be an urban legend, but I'm told Harry Caray once welcomed Cub fans to the start of a three-game series with the Cardinals from Busch Memorial Hospital.

 

Oh, that is funny.

But for an entire piece to be so bad...

It's a Leprechaun!!!

 

This one might not be too hilarious if you're the victim's family.