Tag: WREG

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1415

Mayor Stuff

Last week, Hernando, Mississippi Mayor Chip Johnson told TV reporters that the nude photo he texted a girlfriend, while embarrassing, shouldn’t interfere with his performance running city government. But what about everybody else’s performance? Who can even think about mayor stuff when all they can think about is mayor stuff? YIKES!

W[TF]REG?

According to an in-depth report by WREG, lunch hour was briefly disrupted at the Wendy’s on Winchester last Wednesday when employees got into an argument over a customer’s order. Grainy cell phone video made it difficult for the reporter to tell if “things got physical,” but it was clear to her that something went wrong with the French fries and people were yelling at each other “while helpless customers watched it all go down.”

W[TF]MC?

WMC, the station that received international attention for its report on demonically possessed hair weaves, shared this story about a South Carolina woman who saw an angel climbing a rainbow.

Meanwhile, not a single Memphis TV station picked up U.K. tabloid reports about a Derbyshire man who saw Elvis in the fire of his woodburning stove.  

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1392

Oh Shell!

We think management at the Shell Station on Poplar near Planned Parenthood may want to rethink what appears to be an awfully demanding list of requirements for service. According to this list posted on the door, all potential customers must wear shoes, shirts, masks, and hoodies, or they’ll get “no service.” While we here at Fly on the Wall love the practicality of hoodies, requiring customers to wear one seems a little over the top. And we think management will soon regret their strict position on masks.

WTFTV?

Last week Fly on the Wall made fun of WREG for reporting an unfounded news scare about drug dealers attempting to pass off colorful ecstasy pills as Halloween candy. We would officially like to apologize for singling out WREG. Not because the story wasn’t B.S. (it was!), but because, in the ensuing week, Fox-13 reported the exact same unsourced story. And WMC reporter Kontji Anthony posted it to social media. Like Mama Fly always said, better scared than informed.

Urban Art

Your Pesky Fly recently described the “Hell Naw” graffiti on Wagner Place downtown as the best bad graffiti since “Superman Dam Fool.” That tag has since been joined by other less than positive messages like, “AmeriKKK” and “Knee Deep in Sh#t.” And also by this adorable little cosmic clown.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1390

WTF WREG

I think we need to create a fun new internet game. First, we invent a bunch of wacko conspiracy theories (like illicit drugs being slipped into our prescription medicines or satanic brake lights leading to mild cases of bus-driver possession) and then we post them on Facebook to see if any of these silly fantasies are eventually passed along as news by local TV stations. The more ridiculous, the better. If WREG will run a story like this one, it’s hard to imagine what they won’t report.

According to WREG: “Just three weeks from Halloween, and already, many of you are spooked by a post you saw on Facebook. It asked parents to beware of criminals sneaking drugs disguised as candy into your children’s trick-or-treat basket. The post has been shared hundreds of thousands of times across the country. ‘I really truly believe somebody would do that,’ said Memphis mother of three, Porsha Tate, who saw the post the other day.”

Even imagined as some kind of weird retail promotion for drug dealers, ecstasy can sell for $20 (or more) a pill. That’s quite an investment in Halloween treats. It’s possible that a bunch of young candy-beggars might enjoy the free samples and want to spend their allowance on more trippy stuff, but mom and dad still have to drive them for a fix. A police raid seems more likely. Besides, anybody who knows their MDMA knows there have always been whimsically stamped variations to bring out the inner child in even the most buttoned-up rave kid.

There is a long history of Halloween-related media scares and hoaxes ranging from poisoning to sharp objects in apples and other unwrapped items. This seems to be the latest iteration of the same urban myth.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1360

Sweat Spot

A number of news outlets have reported that Jelly Belly Candy Co. plans to close its warehouse and visitor center in Prairie, Wisconsin, and relocate that facility to Tennessee. But only WREG-TV seemed to grasp the true hotness of this news story. According to Channel 3, it’s a “SWEAT DEAL.” It’s especially exciting for Memphians with a sweat tooth.

Big Ol’ Ratings

Speaking of WREG, News Channel 3 won the first Nielson “sweeps” period of 2015, topping the competition in almost all weekday and weekend slots. Maybe it’s because of their winter weather coverage. Or perhaps it’s because they have the SWEAT beat covered. Or maybe it’s because they know a “big ol’ snake” when they see one.

Putin in Memphis

Your Fly Team is pretty sure that

Russian President Vladimir Putin spent at least some part of his mysterious 10-day absence in Memphis, where he was spotted on Poplar pretending to be an Illinois tourist and testing out a new title.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1344

White Castle

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) has had some good ideas in his time. We’re glad he finally got Congress to apologize for slavery, and it’s really troubling to think about how many lives might be lost every day in dangerously fast-moving convenience store lines if Cohen hadn’t fought for the popular state lottery. But Cohen raised a few eyebrows last week when he asked Acting Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy about recent White House security failures. “Would a, uh, a moat. Water. Six feet around, be kind of attractive and effective?” he asked.

“It may be,” Clancy answered, weighing the merits of medieval castle fortification. Cohen later told NBC News that he looked up the definition of “moat” and realized his vision for a protective water barrier was something else entirely. Then Cohen walked back his walkback in a tweet to NBC’s Andrew James. “Upon further research I was right,” Cohen wrote. “Moat need not be medieval 360. Look up zoo moat. Trench. Memphis Zoo moat is what I recalled.” The Congressman failed to mention something else they have at the Memphis Zoo that would definitely discourage would be fence-jumpers: Bears.

Verbatim

WMC-TV collected man-on-the-scene responses to news of yet another Elvis-related auction. Presley fan Lewis Clark, who may need to get out more, had this to say: “If you can have the ability to buy Elvis Presley’s driver’s license and have it in your house, it just doesn’t get any better than that.”

Illness As Metaphor

Here is a photo of WREG’s Stephanie Scurlock modeling the season’s hottest fashion trend — Ebola suits.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1343

Verbatim

Finally, after years of uncertainty regarding bathroom habits, the citizens of Memphis know where MLGW CEO Jerry Collins stands on the issue of public urination. When WREG ran a news story about some guy from East Memphis who took pictures of another guy from MLGW peeing in the street, Collins responded with unambiguous language. “If an employee was using the bathroom in public, it would be inappropriate and would be subject to disciplinary action.” Thanks to Channel 3 for finally clearing this up.

Hot Hair

Let’s face it. There comes a time in every person’s life when they must weigh the facts and determine whether or not they are going to buy some cheap and probably stolen hair from a street weave-hustler. In very few sentences, this police report from an attempted wig theft at Memphis’ Chic Beauty supply illustrates why buying hot hair is a bad idea: “Both suspects went to the rear of the store looking at wigs. Suspect Blair Crumes started stuffing her wig (The Straight Flush, valued at $30) down the front of her pants. Suspect Sarah Metcalf started stuffing her wig (The Niki Menaj, valued at $35) down the front of her pants. Both then went past the point of sale without paying for the wigs.” Remember people: Stolen hair is crotch-warmed hair. And nobody wants that.  

Timberlake Tweets

And speaking of stolen hair pieces, Justin Timberlake recently answered a Twitter critic who accused J-Tim of being a “bandwagon” Memphis Grizzlies fan. Timberlake’s response: “Uh … I’m from Memphis and I’m an owner. Anyone else? #WigSnatch.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1342

My Memphis

Never have five words broadcast by a TV news outlet said so much about Memphis TV news. “It’s about some hot wings,” Louis Primer, told WREG in a segment titled, “Argument Over Hot Wings Leads to Brawl at Birthday Party.” Primer was explaining why 45-year-old Angel Murphy was in jail and their 13-year-old daughter was headed to juvie. The altercation, which began as a fight between siblings, started after the daughter asked if there were more hot wings and was told there weren’t. Doesn’t that make you nostalgic for the days when newsmen reported stories about total strangers fighting over important things like karaoke? But that was October, and this is now.

Hot Wheels

Speaking of Memphis news guys, we’re not sure what to make of a segment about drag racing in which WMC reporter Nick Kenny reclines provocatively and plays with Hot Wheels cars to set up the punchline, “What could happen is anything but child’s play.” It sure looked like fun. Well, creepy uncle fun, anyway.

Neverending Elvis

Elvis fans marked the 60th anniversary of the singer’s commercial for Southern Maid Donuts recorded for the Louisiana Hayride on

November 6, 1954. Okay, so maybe the world didn’t raise a Krispy Kreme in celebration, but isn’t it time to launch a global donut initiative? Also, it was announced that Kevin Spacey and Michael Shannon have been cast as Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley in a film about the spectacularly weird day when Presley dropped by Tricky Dick’s White House offering to help the president with drug-addicted, anti-American, Beatles-loving hippies.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1337

W(TF)REG

#Rockbone started trending Tuesday morning after an official tweet from WREG News Channel 3, generated ostensibly to encourage viewers to use the station’s interactive weather radar, was loosed into the twitterverse with an attached link for pornhub.com/users/rockbone …

We’re guessing somebody at WREG just got a new nickname.

And while we’re tuned into WREG, let’s take a quick look at a textbook example of how some easily made typos are more troublesome than others. Case in point, a WREG web package headlined “Rick Ross’ upcoming Memphis Madness performance stirs controversy.” As Fly on the Wall has previously noted, when you book apologetic rape-rapper Rick Ross, you book some baggage, which was the basic theme of the WREG story right up until the point where this happened: “Date tape is a huge problem on college campuses and often times goes unreported.”

Is “date tape” like duct tape? Or is it a mix of smooth jams by artists other than Rick Ross?

Memphis Vs. Philly

And the winner is … Philly. And that’s a good thing, we think. The first round of Gawker’s “America’s Ugliest Accent” contest pitted the Bluff City against the city of brotherly love, and Philly trounced us, 7,515 votes to 1,472. The Memphis accent was described as “delicately Southern.” Gawker further explained that the “Appalachian influence is present,” which means we sound country, but we don’t drop our Rs so we don’t sound like Foghorn Leghorn either. Notable examples of our “ugly” accent included in-demand actor/voiceover titan, Morgan Freeman.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1323

W(TF)REG

A story on WREG’s website headlined “Increased health problems with illegal immigrants” is summarized with the following text: “The head of Homeland Security will head to the border to see the U.S. response to the influx of illegals. Meanwhile, some doctors are concerned about the increased health problems immigrants may be bringing into the country.” The video consists of one doctor, an infectious disease expert with Baptist Hospital, explaining that there is no immigration-related health threat increase and that the threat comes from poorly informed Americans not getting their kids vaccinated.

Campfield Revue

The Stacey Campfield musical Casey Stampfield: The Musical, a lampoon of Tennessee’s most talked about politician, opened in Nashville last week, and The Tennessean loved it. Sort of. The takeaway quote: “There’s an unmistakable cringe factor as Stampfield reminds us why Tennessee so often ends up being used as a punchline on late-night television.”

Seeing Red

Sammy Hagar, the Red Rocker who can’t drive 55, is opening a sports bar at Southland Park. Will neighborhood speed limits force the Van Halen frontman to be airlifted to and from his own club?

Cheesy

Either I’m going crazy or the cheese at Ms. Cordelia’s grocery store on Mud Island is trying to communicate with me. I think that’s its way of saying, “I’m with stupid.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly On The Wall: Awkward Superheroes and Candy

Super Awkward

I really can’t show you the entire photo that a WREG reporter tweeted last week from a charity 5K. As they say on the internet, it’s just NSFW. I can, however, show you the top half of the photo and tell you just enough about what you’re not seeing to make squeamish readers really wish I hadn’t.

As you can see, Melissa Moon had her photo taken with Superman, Spider-Man, and Batman impersonators. Who wouldn’t, right? Well, judging by the uncropped R-rated version of the photo, which is floating around the internet, if you really need to see it, Spidey and Bats both seem to have forgotten their underoos and are going “commando.” Insert your own Peter Parker joke here.

Sweet Adventures

A recent Commercial Appeal feature spotlighting Mayor A C Wharton’s “Blueprint for Prosperity” yielded this charming anecdote from the Whitehaven Christmas parade. Once upon a time Wharton was riding in a convertible through the streets of Whitehaven tossing individually wrapped pieces of candy.

“I don’t want no damn candy. I want a job,” one woman called out, causing the mayor to think. “We’ve been throwing them candy,” he was quoted as saying. “What they want to do is to be able to buy their own candy.”