We’re always here for local news segments gone wrong, from Atlanta’s snowmageddon coverage to horrible mistakes from falling for obvious trolling to terrible openings to scooter crashes and very friendly cows. And boy, oh boy, does this segment from independent San Diego station KUSI on an inflatable run (a run that includes inflatable obstacles) deliver; it even wound up topping Reddit’s “cringe” subreddit Tuesday, with the very appropriate title of “Perhaps the worst newscast I’ve ever seen.” Here it is; good luck making it through the whole thing in one watch:
The reporter in question is Dave Scott, whose Twitter bio describes him as a meteorologist, feature reporter, and creator and host of the “World of Wonder” segment, but the main wonder here is “What is he doing?” From the cringeworthy interviews to start to his attempts to try to pump up the crowd and lead the people he’s interviewing in an awful cheer he just made up on the spot (“Abracadabra, 1-2-3, now it’s time to see what we see!”) to a serious interview with someone in a “Mr. Wacky” costume (who might be the most intelligent part of this whole thing), this just keeps getting worse and worse. Especially when it comes to Scott asking “Now, does that mean that everyone here becomes an inflatable today?” and Mr. Wacky responding “Do they want to be inflatables?” And this all ends with everyone doing “The Mr. Wacky dance.”
It looks like this clip is a couple of months old, as the Inflatable Fun Run in question appears to have taken place April 14. And it’s sort of amazing it took this long for it to take off. Because this is definitely a prime example of local news going disastrously wrong. But, it should be noted that this isn’t exactly that far from the norm for Scott. Let’s explore some of his other work:
Stay classy, San Diego.
[Vice]