Recently, NBC’s Bob Costas had to hand over anchor duties for the Sochi Olympic Games to Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, after contracting an eye infection. The National Protrusion asks, What are some other notable mishaps encountered by famous news anchors?
- 1963 – Walter Cronkite of CBS falls into a kind of mental trance where he is only able to say, “fucking Zapruder” for nearly two minutes.
- 1984 – The main camera operator for “World News Tonight” passes out, after swooning over Peter Jennings’ handsomeness. The audience is shown the studio ceiling for several seconds, until a replacement operator is able to take over. Four minutes later, that operator also passes out.
- 1997 – ESPN’s Chris Berman crushes the head of a sound technician who crosses in front of the camera during the filming of a promo.
- 2006 – Wolf Blitzer of CNN unknowingly consumes an alcoholic beverage at lunch, then gets confused about who he is. He opens “The Situation Room” by saying, “Hello, I’m Harold Pinter, and this is ‘The Situation Room.’”
