Although it makes me want to chuck the TV out the bedroom window, I inevitably wind up watching a few minutes of one of the network morning shows each day. You know -- Good Morning America, or Today, or whatever the heck CBS calls their show. Usually, spending a little time with one of these shows makes me feel angry, depressed, and insulted, but I watch anyway. I attribute this to my weather obsession: I will sit through ten minutes of inane chitchat and hyped-up human interest garbage to hear the daily weather forecast.
Virtually everything about these shows is annoying (if not actually nauseating), from the lame semi-scripted banter between the hosts, to the syrupy, drippy piano music that underscores each day's tragic story of a courageous survivor with a surprise happy ending. But the thing about these shows that I really don't get at all is the omnipresent wall of screaming people waving handmade signs standing outside each show's studio. It's usually the weather guy who has to make conversation with these people, letting them yell into the microphone for a few seconds about their Aunt Beulah's 85th birthday, or their cousin Joe's college graduation.
Why do people do this? What's the appeal? Just imagine yourself on vacation in New York (unsurprisingly, these people seem to always be tourists, never locals). You have a week or two to see one of the greatest cities in the world, and you decide that what you really want to do is to get up before the crack of dawn one morning so you can stand outside a TV studio (possibly in inclement weather) waving a paper sign, hoping the weather guy will talk to you? I just don't get it. Is there something going on here that I don't know about? Are these people actually extras earning a paycheck? Your explanations are welcome.
Posted by at June 11, 2005 9:52 AM | TrackBackThey are more into weather than you - and the weather person! I thought it was funny when that lady flashed the camera and Katie laughed on air.
Posted by: Tiberius at June 12, 2005 3:35 PM