I had a good friend of mine over yesterday and we got to talking about “breaking news”. She had read my post last week about how ABC felt the need to interrupt Charlie Brown’s Valentine’s special with news that certainly could have waited until the 11 pm broadcast – Whitney Houston died – and it prompted us to talk about other things that were actually newsworthy enough to break in for. Things like when Michael Jackson died, when JFK Jr died and when Princess Diana was killed. All of those people were much more highly regarded (in my opinion) and in all three cases, the news of their deaths was shocking. Not that Whitney’s death wasn’t shocking, but she was a crackhead and her death was inevitable. Right?
I digress.
When I think of notable “breaking events”, the one that pops into my mind above all others was the OJ car chase. It happened well before my first marriage and I was still living with my parents at the time. I remember coming home from work that night somewhere between 7 and 8 pm and the chase was already in high gear. When I got home my mother and brother, who was 17 or 18 at the time, were enthralled in it – so I sat down and watched it with them. I have to say, at the time it was pretty exciting. We all thought OJ was going to kill himself that night in his buddy Al Cowling’s car. Now that would have made for some great tv, right?
A little while into it, OJ finally surrendered and all of the sudden my brother pipes up. He said there had been something bothering him all night and proceeded to ask us a question that to this day, he will never, EVER be able to live down.
Ready?
He said: “What’s a cowling? A baby cow?”
Imagine? He sat there and watched the entire chase and had NO idea that Al Cowling was the guy driving the car.
That just brought freaking tears to my eyes.
That’s funny. I remember I was out at a bar watching my brother’s band play and that was on the tv. That was more interesting than the band! lol!
Interrupting a children’s program to announce the death of a crackhead… is “whack”.
I don’t want breaking news unless:
1. Major political leader dies.
2. Huge sudden natural catastrophe.
3.Terrorist attack.
4. Nuke meltdown.
5. Zombie outbreak.
GOOBER
The awesome thing about this is u came home from work. I came home from 6th grade
OMG, OJ has been abducted by BABY COWS!
And now I can’t get that picture out of my head…
Too funny! I remember watching that chase at some dive bar.
baahahahahaha!!! i love hysterical *family stories* like that & i would never let him live it down either!
a cowling… hahahaha!
Do people even drive Broncos any more?
Ugh….I hate the OJ Simpson chase. It happened on my birthday and my parents ignored me all day LOL
I paid so little attention to the OJ case that I had no idea that the SUV wasn’t his! LOL
ROFL that is awesome.
I am with you on the breaking news. I remember with 9/11 that of course it should cut in- but later that day, hours and hours after it happened, I was trying to find something for my kids to watch and even PBS was preempted. I wished they’d still showed kids shows but maybe threw a ticker along the bottom for grown ups that lived with their head in the sand.