The other day there was a piece on NPR Morning Edition about the US Open tennis matches going on, and at the end the journalist (I can’t for the life of me recall who it was) said something about how if so-and-so wins, it will be his first major golf title. Huh, I guess he’d better practice his serve AND his putting!
The TV weatherman was doing his usual evening bit, and spoke of the approaching large warm mare ass. I’d always expected the possibility of horse’s asses around election time, but…
On the classical FM station, the morning man was chatting with the weather guy who described the motion of high and low pressure areas and accompanying fronts such that one was going to stall off the coast and put us in position for backside air flow. The morning man quips that consumption of excess broccoli can result in a similar condition. Both of them were laughing like schoolkids.
I’m not sure if this counts because it wasn’t on tv. Yesterday at the CNE airshow, the announcer was doing his running commentary of the stunts the planes were doing. With much awe in his voice he encouraged us to watch the beautiful cemetery of the planes. Of course, he meant to say symmetry. Both he and his partner as well as the crowd shared a good laugh while he corrected himself.
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The local weatherman was busy and when they cut to him, you cold see he had just sat down, the newscaster was saying something, then threw it over to him, he says, half out of breath, “Well, I think I’m done playing with my doppler”. The female newscaster, looked a bit embarrassed.
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A local politican ran a spell check on her leaflet, but forgot to run the logic check. It said something like “has actively participated in many local pubic groups”. No one caught it and it was handed out to one whole aldermanic district here. oops.
that’s it. I’ll go play with my doppler now. 
Voice heard right after a WWL-TV (New Orleans) newsbreak: “Can we go home now?”
Several years ago, when I first started practicing law, I was agruing the case of a man who was being prosecuted for “obscene and abusive language”. He called a police officer some nasty name, I can’t recall what. I was arguing to the judge that the statute under which my client was being prosecuted was intended to apply to racial epithets, not just angry words directed at someone who was making you mad.
The judge and I had quite a long discussion on the record about this- only he kept saying "racial epitaph". I had to use every muscle in my head not to correct him or burst out laughing. I kept picturing a tombstone with "HONKY" engraved on it. He eventually dismissed the charges against my client. He can't have missed the fact that we were both using different words- I'm sure he thought that he was right and I was wrong. I wonder if he ever looked it up, or if to this day he thinks I'm an idiot for using the "wrong" word.Jack Carney was an incredibly popular radio personality in St. Louis for years. He died unexpectedly in 1984. At the time, the ratings for his mid-morning show were often better than all of the other stations in St. Louis combined.
Some of the casinos in Las Vegas have giant slot machines which take bills. Somehow, one of these pays off every spring, just as people are making their summer vacation plans. Reading a story about the enormous payoff of this jackpot, he spoke of the “jack off”, then corrected himself without skipping a beat. Yep: heard it myself. And he later alluded to it–discreetly–on a later show. Then there was the time he ticked off a large part of his mostly middle aged, conservative audience by mentioning his trouble with the "God damn IRS).
Mike Shannon, longtime announcer for the St. Louis Cardinals, has a special way with words. One night during a lull in a game, he remarked that there was a particularly beautiful full moon hanging over Busch Stadium and then added “you know, it’s too bad people in other parts of the country can’t see that”. It’s always been a special source of pride for me that he and I went to the same high school.
A true story: a lawyer friend of mine wanted to establish how little his client earned, so while she was on the stand he asked her how much she made. Then he said “is that gross?” She answered “I think so.” (Yes, she meant it as a joke.)
This may only be funny to Buckeyes…
Last Saturday was the opening game for this season of Ohio State Buckeye football. An obviously new newscaster told the story of the new Buckeye towels last week. At the end of her broadcast, she said that the towels could be purcahsed at area stores and www.hang on SLOPPY .com. The achor quickly corrected her, "Of course, she means hang on SLOOPY .com.
Insignificant to most, but a HUGE faux pas to Columbus residents.
Back in the 70s, there was a horse racing at Aqueduct called “Brett’s Best Bet.” Once time, the announcer (maybe Dave Johnson), was calling the race and, called the horse as “Breast . . . Bet Bet.” The last two words were rushed, which made it clear he knew what he had said.
Supposedly, there was once a racehorse named Cunning Stunt, the name chosen to see if track announcers would spoonerize it.
Not really a blooper, but in the 6th game of the 1986 World Series, Vin Scully was critical of the fact that the Mets had sent up Howard Johnson as a pinch hitter in the ninth. At the top of the tenth, with his mic on, you could hear him arguing the point with Joe Garagiola, saying, “If he is good enough to pinch hit, why isn’t he good enough to start?”
Probably a repeat… but I saw a “Newlywed Game” episode that featured the following exchange…
Host (was it Bob Ewbanks? I don’t remember his name): Where is the most unusual place you have ever “made whoopie”?
Contestant: In the butt
A million years ago when I was a kid I used to watch a soap opera called THE EDGE OF NIGHT. Never could figure out why it was the only soap I liked until I grew up and realized it was a mystery while all the others were essentially romances.
Anyhoo every year or so there would be a murder trial on the show and there would always be a few episodes in which we saw the courtroom crowded with everyone in the fictional town. This was always popular because it gave them a chance to bring back all the actors they had fired over the years. “Hey! THere’s whats his name!”
So anyway, on this occasion the camera was panning lovingly across the courtroom and it stopped facing a guy who was wearing headphones and carrying a clipboard. Obviously not part of the courtroom scene. He saw the camera, did a doubletake, and dived back out of sight. I cracked up.
The show, of course, went on.
Fifteen Iguana
Actually the other night I was tryin’ to fall asleep and had the tv on. It was a late-night call in show, and some woman was going on and on and on about her problems. (Which is fine, but I’m surprised that the host didn’t cut her off at some point… they usually don’t take a huge chunk of time with one caller.)
Anyway, as they cut to a video, the host, thinking his mike was off, said, “ooh, I really gotta pee!”
tee hee
I didn’t personally witness this one but it’s a goody! A little backstory… this was up north somewhere they actually get snow… the weatherman had predicted 8 inches of snowfall on the previous nights forecast, snowfall that didn’t happen… on the night in question the bubbleheaded info-babe threw it to the weatherman by saying
“So, Bob… Where’s that 8 inches you promised me last night?”
Sorry, verbenabeast, we’re not looking for jokes.
d’oh!
still funny, though…
This isn’t really a blooper but once on Family Feud in the final round the person was asked for a “topping” to go on ice cream and she said broccoli and her family members actually clapped and said “good anwser” Then they seemed genuinly disappointed that it had 0 points for that response.
Back in 1998, the name of Karla Fay Tucker was in the news a lot, since she was about to be executed.
The DJ’s on my radio station were probably NOT the only ones to say Karla Tay Fucker… The funny part is their own reaction to the mistake!
verbenabeast: no offense, but are you sure you remember hearing that episode of The Newlywed Game? It’s a good story, a lot of people insist it never happened.
On the other hand, I recall as a kid back in the 60s hearing an episode of the show in which wives were asked what “thing” of theirs their husband liked best (e.g. her car, her basic black dress…). The first woman paused, then said that contestants had been warned about “good taste” back stage. Then she said “my derriere?”
Then there were the women who guessed “toad” and “dinosaur” as their husbands’ favorite mammal.
KMOX-AM, the CBS affiliate in St. Louis had an announcer whom they passed off for a time as their resident intellectual. He got so popular that the local PBS station gave him a talk show, and featured him on the front cover of their viewer magazine. They told him to be “controversial”. On his first show he talked about his disgust over young black hoodlums taking over our cities. That was also his last show.
They should have been tipped off in advance. Earlier he had been on the radio one day when the subject of Banned Book Week came up. Another personality observed that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often cited as the greatest American novel, yet it is widely banned in this country. He laughed and corrected her. As he explained, “everybody” knows that the book is called "The Adventures of *Huck *Finn; she obviously must be thinking of Huckleberry Hound.
I missed it, but a friend treasures the memory of seeing Hugh Downs interview Tom Wolfe, author of The Bonfire of the Vanities. The usually erudite Downs kicked off the discussion by asking Wolfe about his earlier work Look Homeward Angel. Wolfe patiently explained that this had been written by an author who signed his name Thomas Wolfe, and who had been dead a long time.
Hugh Downs is said to have appeared on television more often than any other person in history, so I guess he’s entitled to mess up now and again.
It did happen all right, just not with that exact wording.
You probably heard it, with the offending term bleeped out, sometime since 1988. I estimate that is when they may have started showing the blooper shows that never aired on network tv.
If you think you remember it before that date, please supply date and a frame of reference. Thanks.