Hold the Phone
This story originally appeared in the book Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter is the Best Medicine. You can order it from this link.
I love to watch bloopers on the Internet. The videos of unexpected or embarrassing events, usually from live television, often make me double over in laughter. I watch them not only because I think they’re funny, but because I can usually identify with the hapless souls who make the on-air faux pas. I’ve worked in television long enough to know many people who have fallen victim to an accidental, unforeseen and thoroughly hilarious incident on live TV. For the most part, I have been fortunate to have escaped the hugely embarrassing and mortifying on-air gaffes that bring out the biggest laughs, except for one memorable occasion.
The incident that is seared in my memory, and the one that was hardest to live down, occurred back in the late 1970s when I was a young TV news reporter and not yet accustomed to paying close attention to details. It was election night in Kansas, and I was getting ready to do a live telephone interview with Senator Bob Dole, who had just won re-election. Again, this was the 1970s, so technology wasn’t what it is today. Placed beside me on the news desk was an actual corded telephone that I was to pick up at the appropriate moment in order to talk to Senator Dole live on the air. The receiver was hardwired into the TV station’s audio system to broadcast our conversation to viewers across the state.
Election nights are always fast-paced and unpredictable, and as I slid quickly into place at the news desk that evening, I concentrated my full attention on my scribbled notes. Distracted, I positioned myself in front of the camera, failing to notice one important detail: Whoever had placed the phone on the desk had set the receiver into its cradle in reverse. This wouldn’t have been a problem except that one of our producers had written for me a last-minute and overly complicated introduction to the interview. In order to avoid verbally stumbling my way through it, I had to keep my eyes glued to the teleprompter. As I carefully read the on-camera lead-in, I casually reached over toward the telephone and picked up the receiver without looking at it. Placing it to the side of my head, I began speaking. “Senator Dole, thank you for joining us on the phone this evening.”
There was silence. Dead air.
I spoke again. “Senator Dole, are you with us?”
More silence. In my peripheral vision, I saw the floor director standing near the camera waving his arms and pointing violently to his ear. I had never seen such a cue before. Confused, I looked at him and spoke again into the phone, “Are you there, Senator Dole?” All the while, the camera beamed my puzzled expression into thousands of homes as I struggled to understand what sort of audio problem we were having. The floor director became more animated, holding his fist to the side of his head as if he were holding a telephone and began twisting it, another unfamiliar signal. Not comprehending the code, I looked past the camera at him and shrugged my shoulders, all the while hoping in the next second to hear the voice of the Senator in my ear. Finally, in a frustrated outburst, the floor director yelled, “Turn the phone around!”
That’s when I looked at the receiver. I stared at it a couple of seconds, at first not grasping what I was seeing. Suddenly, the light bulb in my head flickered on, and I realized that I had been speaking into the earpiece and listening through the mouthpiece. As my face filled the TV frame, I slowly turned the phone to its correct orientation and went on with the interview, so red-faced that some viewers at home probably rose from their sofas to adjust the color on their sets once they stopped laughing.
My colleagues didn’t stop laughing about it for a long time. For weeks afterward, I was the punch line to everyone’s favorite joke. As I walked past their desks, each of my fellow news reporters lifted their phone receivers, holding them mouthpiece-up, and shouting, “Nick, phone call for you from Senator Dole!” Every time, the entire office howled in laughter.
To me, it wasn’t nearly as funny then as it is now. But it did make me resolve to pay closer attention to details from that day forward. And to this day, I am forever grateful for at least one thing: In the 1970s, Internet bloopers didn’t exist.
© Nick Walker 2020
Have you ever been the butt of an ongoing joke? Any embarrassing “public” moments? I’d love to hear them. Please scroll down and comment.
This story originally appeared in the book Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter is the Best Medicine. You can order it here.
