If you read the headline, then you know that we're not discussing some big casting news or renewal announcement, and that this also isn't about a wise or insightful comment from one of today's leading TV brainiacs. And it's not about that Iron Man. No, it's a video in which a local news reporter suffers a horrifying (and undeniably hilarious) fate involving someone else's presumedly beer-infused vomit. Watch it now!
So much is wrong about the live broadcast clip seen above. And yet...so much of it makes perfect sense. KTLA's Wendy Burch definitely wasn't the most distressed person on location at Hermosa Beach for this year's annual Ironman competition, at least when she started. But by the time her report was finished -- with "finished" meaning "cut short due to abundance of projectile slop" -- Burch was almost definitely feeling as awful as a lot of the beach-faring Ironman contestants.
First established in 1974, Hermosa Beach's Ironman challenge has a deceptively short and simple set of instructions, which state that contestants must run the beach for one mile, paddle a surfboard through the water for one mile, and then down a six-pack of beer. And as it's proven on a yearly basis, someone can be amazingly athletic and conditioned enough to get through the running and paddling without a problem, but if they don't have the intestinal wherewithal to stomach 72 ounces of beer afterward, it was all for nought. And also all over Wendy Burch's shirt.
If you hadn't been familiar with Hermosa's Ironman challenge before, then there's likely a lot more understanding now about why that beach appears to be filled entirely with tattooed men screaming "Wooo!" (Not so different from many destination beaches, but possibly with more muscle soreness here.) And much power to Wendy Burch, who certainly went right into the thick of it to get a few words in with that 25-year veteran of the competition. Too bad for the both of them, though, that the thick of it decided to retaliate.
Whoever was holding the camera must have the reaction time of a machine, since the spew barely had time to make a proper splash before the footage stalled out. (Perhaps he or she was also a victim of the foamy output, hastening the movement.) The news broadcast's off-camera team did not react so quickly, however, with Burch's horrified face remaining frozen for a few seconds, as the audio continued to offer her incredulousness, before the visuals bounced back to her uncomfortably bemused coworkers at KTLA 5. Twas an accidental stroke of TV genius, if you ask me.
Thankfully, today's July 5 date means that it'll be another year before Wendy Burch has to worry about tackling coverage for Hermosa Beach's Ironman competition again. Although, pragmatically speaking, someone could vomit beer on her just about anywhere she could do an on-the-spot report. Mmm, beer.
While I can't tell you when and where your local news airs every night, or when the next ridiculous live TV moment will happen, I can tell you that heading to our summer TV premiere schedule will offer up all the new and returning shows hitting the small screen in the coming months.
