A "Dumb" Stunt

So, the OMW inbox was peppered with notes from folks telling us about the streaker who interrupted a "19 Action News" live shot in snowy downtown Cleveland during this past week's storm. The clip made it onto, among other places, ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live", and MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann".

Basically, a large, apparently naked man cavorts around 19's Jon Loufman as the weather forecaster interviews someone else in the snow out at East 12th and Chester Avenue.

That's otherwise known as The Convenient Downtown Live Shot Location Right Outside Reserve Square - the home of Raycom Media CBS/MyNetworkTV combo WOIO/19-WUAB/43.

Given the Naked History of "19 Action News", we wondered if WOIO itself had put the man up to it. Now, the station has generally been known to parade around or hire naked female anchors, but maybe this time, they thought a naked man would be funnier in a major snowstorm.

We weren't THAT far off.

No, it wasn't WOIO management who put the streaker up to it. It was another media outlet.

The now-world-famous streaker is known only as "Dumb" (sometimes the shoe just fits so easily), and he's the phone screener for WXRK/92.3 "K-Rock"-based morning drive show "Rover's Morning Glory".

"Dumb" ended up talking to Loufman later, clothed, thankfully, for a follow-up piece, which brought the forecaster into the WXRK studio.

And a German TV crew, with apparently nothing better to cover in the United States, visited Cleveland Friday and interviewed both men in front of Reserve Square.

(We sure hope the crew was already in the States. Sending a TV news crew from Germany to Cleveland to cover this "story" may be the definition of television idiocy.)

We say "apparently naked", by the way, because there's at least one shot of the guy wearing a small pair of shorts after the "romp". Thank goodness for, uh, small favors. That can't be seen on camera in the original shot because, again, thankfully, the station's on-screen graphics obscure that part of his body.

Oh, and one thing?

In all the plays on network or cable TV, or in any of the clips seen all over the Internet, not once do viewers find out that the naked man in question is the employee of a radio station doing a stunt...let alone find out the name of his employer.

We thought it was Radio 101 that such stunts needed to include some sort of sign or visual display or audio getting publicity for the radio station and the show.

Maybe the folks in Rover's "kennel" need to call up "Opie and Anthony" (heard in afternoon drive on WXRK) for some pointers on that...

Various video links to the stories are prominently displayed on Rover's website, and the "19 Action News" site has its own video links to the original story and follow-ups.

Speaking of Rover's site, we've noticed it has excised the section on the show's syndicated outposts. Well, really, are there any left? We thought "The Nerve" in Rochester NY was still along for the ride...