Some of you may have seen the “Winnebago Man” video that’s been making the rounds on the Internet for a while. If you haven’t and are curious, a quick Google should turn up plenty of hits – although be forewarned that there’s a lot of swearing involved, so you probably shouldn’t listen at work!
Anyway, the video is allegedly outtakes from some sort of late '80s Winnebago promo video. It features the “Winnebago Man” blowing line after line and swearing up a blue streak. The story is that the video editors put together the outtake collection for their own amusement and later released it on the Internet.
However, the current debate at my office is whether it’s legit or not. One of my coworkers is convinced it must be for real, another is certain the whole thing was staged. After carefully viewing the video clip I have to say I think the footage may be legit, but the audio seems to have been dubbed in. It’s hard to be sure with a small-screen Quicktime file, but it seems like the speech isn’t always synched with the man’s mouth movements. The sound also seems much clearer than one would expect from a clip-on or camera mic.
A brief web search didn’t turn up anything other than people talking about how funny the whole thing was. So I turn to the Teeming Millions: is Winnebago Man for real?