Kent Brockman News: Difference between revisions

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* The characters on ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' sometimes got their info on new bounties from a news show called "Big Shot", which was ''aimed at bounty hunters''. The cowboy hosts were a black man with a Mexican accent ("Punch") and a blonde bimbo ("Judy"). In one of the last ''Bebop'' episodes, it's revealed this was all an act:

'''"Judy", in a very different tone''': WHAT?! }}

** In the next episode, Faye sees Punch picking up his mother at the spaceport, but she cannot figure out why he looks familiar. Probably has difficulty because he doesn't have the weird accent. Note that [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping|Punch's weird accent shifted from Mexican to Texan whenever he said the show's various catchphrases]] - in the sub, he simply said the catchphrases [[Gratuitous English|in English]].

* The 1989 ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]'' film featured newscasters on a Gotham City news show, talking about a recent rash of killings by [[The Joker]], when a female newscaster starts laughing uncontrollably and her astonished partner looks on in disbelief, trying to ignore her, before she collapses dead on the ground. (In her defense, she's just been poisoned.)

* The two classic movie examples: ''[[RoboCop]]''

'''Jess Perkins''': "But don't they always." }}

** ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]'':

* The [[Woody Allen]] movie ''[[Bananas]]'' began with Howard Cosell himself presenting the "live, on-the-spot assassination" of the leader of [[Banana Republic|San Marcos]].

* One of the news anchors in ''[[Die Hard]]'' speculate that the hostages have developed "Helsinki Syndrome, named after Helsinki, Sweden," and the other corrects him - [[Completely Missing the Point|Helsinki's in Finland]]<ref> They're talking about [[Stockholm Syndrome]]</ref>. Then the cut back to Nakatomi Plaza shows quite clearly that they're talking out of their asses.

* In ''[[Bruce Almighty]]'', Bruce/God's "adjustments" to Evan Baxter's brain reduce Evan to babbling incoherence: "Caca poo poo pee pee..."

** Bruce's own live televised reactions to the news that Evan got the anchor position...

* In the Live-action/cartoon movie ''[[Osmosis Jones]]'', cellular newscasters get into a brawl against each other as the film peeks into the stressful climax. When the ordeal was over, we see them again, but this time with bandages as a comedic result of their feud.

* ''[[Sesame Street|Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird]]'' has a scene where an anchorman, played by Chevy Chase, reports on the disappearance of Big Bird from his foster family's home in Illinois. He responds to a question by Grover [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|(who is watching the broadcast)]], has to be corrected by someone offscreen on the pronunciation of the word "sesame", and finally gives the weather report as [[Mister Rogers' Neighborhood|"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine?"]] in a completely deadpan tone. It then cuts to Kermit the Frog reporting on the scene, and things just get more Kent Brockman-esque from there...

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' used 'Channel 27' News to explain the Better Than Life game. Featured subtle jokes such as having a month called 'Geldof'.

* ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' had the recurring "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBvbzQfMNik Muppet News Flash]" sketch, where a myopic commentator would deliver some odd bit of news, for example a downpour of anvils or localized tidal waves hitting people, and then [[Deadpan Snarker|snidely comment]] on how ridiculous it was. Whatever it was would then [[Dead Line News|happen to him]]. An alternate version had him interviewing some eccentric character played by that week's [[Special Guest]].

* In the '70s ''[[Sesame Street]]'' would frequently send reporter Kermit the Frog to cover the re-enactment of some classic fairy tale or nursery rhyme; these would never go as planned.

* Miranda Veracruz de la Jolla Cardinal from ''[[Married... with Children]]'', who really didn't like her job.

* ''[[The Fast Show]]'' had a repeating sketch where a news reporter would appear to offer a special report, which was always something inane such as her American friend pronouncing "yogurt" differently. They also had "Chanel Nine" news, which seems to use some elements of this trope. It's hard to tell, since it's done entirely in [[Foreign Sounding Gibberish]].

* ''[[Mock the Week]]'' has done "Things a newscaster would never say" as an improv sketch, naturally almost entirely composed of examples of Kent Brockman News.

* In the pilot episode of ''[[Just Shoot Me]]'', Maya gets fired from a news program after rewriting the teleprompter so that a pompous anchorwoman says that a decrease of gang violence was due "to the removal of the frontal lobe of my brain. And in related news, I wet myself."

* ''[[Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!]]'' has a carryover from their previous show ''Tom Goes to the Mayor'' in Jan and Wayne Skylar, the "Channel 5 Married News Team". They added John C. Reilly as Dr. Steve Brule (who has since gotten his own bits--and eventually [[Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule|his own show]]) who provides useless health information.

* An important part of Ken Finkleman's ''[[The Newsroom]]'', with Peter Keleghan's Jim Walcott serving as the Brockman.

* ''[[Lexx]]'' had a recurring anchor for the season set on present-day Earth, whose twin obsessions were fluff pieces and the US stock market.

* An episode of ''[[The Flip Wilson Show]]'' featured Flip and George Carlin in a newscaster skit that allowed Carlin to use this bit (and I'm paraphrasing) "Scientists discovered a new number between 6 and 7. They're calling it bleem."

* Pretty much the entire news team in ''[[Back To You]]''.

== Music ==

* [[Frank Zappa]]'s "Billy The Mountain" has running commentary from (a parody of real-life) "right-wing fascist radical creepo pig" newscaster [[Heteronormative Crusader|George Putnam]]:

 

== [[New Media]] ==

* Fehn Digler from ''[[Beyond Good & Evil (video game)|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' is a [[The Quisling|Quisling-flavored]] news anchor with a habit for outrageous propaganda, flip-flopping sides, and a tendency to get a bit too... "in your face," shall we say.

* [[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines|Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines]] has a TV in the protagonist's hideout. It's delivering pretty normal news... Except when you play as [[The Mad Hatter|Malkavian]], which turns the news into Kent Brockman variety.

* There was an old FMV PC game about art trading that would end each level with a news report on current events that would affect the values of certain paintings. The news anchor would smirk triumphantly while delivering tragic news and scowl while delivering upbeat news.

* [[GTA Radio]] is full of this, especially WCTR in ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas]]''.

* Jane Valderama in ''[[Saints Row]] 2'' speaks in the weirdly smarmy monotone and a WASPish accent that only slips when she says her Hispanic last name. Also indulges the tortured metaphors, especially while giving running commentary as an embedded reporter in the Gang War -- she rides shotgun with the Boss, bringing her own shotgun.

* The second ''[[Oddworld]]'' game, Abe's Exoddus, has the "Magog On March" news bulletins, where a Slig anchor (yes…) presents the latest crimes of the terrorist Abe and the declarations of Glukkon directors. Not forgetting the advertisement about Glukkon products sponsors.

 

 

* ''[[Something Positive]]'' had one strip starting with a news anchorwoman saying: "...And that's all for the Baby Pageant Massacre" and then segues into a report about [[Alpha Bitch|Kharisma]] getting arrested.

* The [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=980202 Nifty News 50] team from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' fits this trope pretty darn well (one of them is even named "Qwirky").

'''Reporter:''' Well, while we are waiting, let's speculate wildly. Is Torg forming a cult? Is Riff a lesbian in a man's body? And what happened to that annoying "Sam" character? Foul play? }}

* [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=20 This] ''[[VG Cats]]'' strip.

* Kelly, editorial cartoonist for ''[[The Onion]]'', is close to one of these. [http://www.theonion.com/content/cartoon/dec-08-2008 This] is a good example.

* The news reports from ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' sometimes seem to fall into this trope. The best examples are [http://egscomics.com/?date=2009-02-13 here] and [http://egscomics.com/?date=2010-01-21 here.]

* A news anchor in ''[[Tales Of Gnosis College]]'' shifts from a national security story to a discussion of deep issues about the meaning of human life to the local sports report, treating all as being about equally serious.

 

*** Brockman's story about the military. "Tonight, on 'Eye on Springfield': just miles from your doorstep, hundreds of men are given weapons and trained to kill. The government calls it the "army", but a more alarmist name would be... '''The Killbot Factory'''."

** ''Springfield Action News'' is ''made'' of said alarmism, usually thanks to double-entendre: "Tonight's top stories, a tremendous ''explosion'' in the price of lumber. President Reagan ''dyes'' ...his hair". He then proceeds to hype up the "killer storm" bearing down on them, whose death count is currently zero but "is ready to shoot right up"

*** When faced with the imminent destruction of Springfield by meteor, Brockman chooses to [[Last Day to Live|spend his final broadcast]] listing people who are secretly gay.

** In Brockman's defense, there ''are'' times when he is fairly competent in the newsroom, and his editors and camera crew are the ones who are screwing up. There was the time, for instance, when he wanted to show his interview with Pope John Paul II - and instead was presented with footage of ''a baby goat being fed a bottle of milk''.

*** Amusingly enough, when he ''is'' trying to be professional, he has to deal with Arnie Pye in the Sky, who can't seem to keep his personal feud with Kent off the air

'''Arnie:''' [[I Am the Trope|You're not the time, Kent!]] ''YOU'RE NOT THE TIME!'' }}

** In the episode ''You Kent Always Say What You Want'', it is also subtly implied that he was not happy about having to interview Homer in regards to winning his 1,000,000th Ice Cream cone at the ice cream parlor, especially when it forced him to abandon doing a heated discussion on the War in Iraq, but he ended up having to do so due to one of his show's sponsors being the same Ice Cream company that Homer won the contest in.

* ''[[Futurama]]'' has co-anchors Morbo and Linda. Morbo claims to be a scout for his species' upcoming alien invasion, and regularly voices his hatred and contempt for all things - especially humanity - on air. His co-anchor, Linda, always responds to his threats with an empty-headed laugh.

'''Morbo:''' (presiding over a presidential debate) "I now present puny human #1, puny human #2, and Morbo's good friend [[President Evil|Richard Nixon]]" }}

** The casual attitude taken to his threats could be explained by his behaviour with his wife - at a party she adjusts his bow-tie and he snaps at her, "Stop it, it's fine, I will DESTROY you!" This would suggest that's just the way his species acts normally. Then again, he has also stopped reporting to take a note about human weaknesses and referenced his people's mighty space fleet readying for an attack in the near future. You can't help but love him though; indeed, Fry said as much when seeing the news back in the 20th century in Bender's Big Score. "I miss Morbo."

** Also poked fun at is the tendency of news organizations to relegate minorities to support staff, with "Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa", and black weatherman Ollie Williams and his "Blacku-Weather Forecast," where he just yells out a succinct description. ("ISS GON' RAIN!" "ISS RAININ' SIDEWAYS!") Apparently he talks like that all the time, as demonstrated in his cooking segment ("EGGO!"), his helicopter traffic report ("EVERYBODY LOOKS LIKE ANTS!") and his adopt-a-pet segment. ("WHO WANTS THIS DAWG?!") One episode explains Ollie's speech patterns as the result of alcoholism.

** The second episode of ''Family Guy'' involves the TV transmitter getting destroyed, taking out TV for all of Quahog. This results in the following situation:

'''Camera Operator:''' [[Is This Thing Still On?|Uh, guys, we're still on in Boston.]]<br />

''Cut back to Tom and Diane, who have [[Oh Crap]] looks on their faces.'' }}

** Then there was when the transmitter was fixed:

''Cut back to Tom and Diane, who have [[Oh Crap]] looks on their faces again, but this time, Tom has a wooden paddle in his hand and Diane is bent over'' }}

** Drunk Billy was the Quahog 5 News Traffic Cam helicopter pilot. In the episode "Dial Meg for Murder", Drunk Billy tragically dies in a fatal collision with a highway overpass. In anticipation for this moment, colleagues Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons present a pre-prepared collection of accidents and near misses from Billy’s career.

* A Realistic Fish Head from ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]''.

** Also the regular newscasters (Bob and Barbara), who tend to laugh at whatever they report the few times they've shown up.

'''Barbara''': Thank ''you'', Bob. }}

* ''[[The Proud Family]]'' has Marsha Mitsubishi, who very clearly hates her job and frequently comments about it on air.

* In an episode of ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (TV series)|Legion of Super Heroes]]'', two announcers cover the 343rd Intergalactic Olympics fairly well...but when a brawl between the winners, the Legion of Superheroes, and the Fatal Five break out, they cover it with no change in tone at all, even stopping for commercial breaks midway through the fight.

* ''[[Cow and Chicken]]'' had an instance when everybody in the world believes the planet is about to get hit by a comet (it's actually a golfball suspended in front of an observatory's telescope).

* ''[[Generator Rex]]'' has the tabloid news show "Ultimate Exposure", which is also the focus of the episode "Exposed."