TV producer Jeff Hoover of WGN news station in Chicago tried to get into the spirit of “Talk Like a Pirate Day” and gave up when the teleprompt-ARR couldn’t keep up with him.
The producer and occasional on-air personality dressed up as Long John Johnny Johnson to do an annual segment during which he tells pirate jokes. It started off smoothly enough, until he paused with exasperation: “If you could stay with me on that teleprompt-ARR, that would be very, very helpful,” he groused.
He fumbled through the rest of the skit, unable to get back on the horse (or the ship) and said, “What the hell is going on?” but still stayed in character as he berated the person operating the teleprompter. “I’m going to strip the barnacles off your ass!” he said, waving his sword.
The swashbuckler still did better than he did in the same segment last year, when he broke character and went into a rant, demanding to know why he was forced to do the segment.
