"You look like a Malasyian transexual"
Posted on 09/07/2006 6:12:37 PM PDT by TaxRelief
CHARLOTTE -- Fox Sports will give Greg Good, the Carolina Panthers fan who dresses up as "Catman" at home games, a new pickup truck, after an on-air practical joke by the network's broadcast team during a preseason game went wrong.
In the second half of an Aug. 24 game at Bank of America Stadium between Carolina and Miami, Fox announcers Dick Stockton and Daryl Johnston started billing a car giveaway as a reason for fans to stay tuned after the teams' starters left the game.
"Now all you fans out there, you might be thinking, 'Well, the starting units are out, we might change the channel.' We're going to do something special to try and keep you here tonight. We're giving a car away tonight," Johnston told viewers.
With 1:56 remaining in the game, the telecast went to a shot of sideline reporter Tony Siragusa standing in front of the 6-foot-4, 340-pound Good, who sits in a front-row end zone seat and wears an electric blue wig and black-and-blue cape.
"The car is coming in right now," Siragusa said. "Here it comes. Beautiful. It's white. It's a Porsche."
He then handed a toy car to Good.
Good, 49, of Winston-Salem, says he believed the toy was a token of the real car he was to receive and expressed excitement and joy. That turned to anger after Good, who counsels troubled youths, found out it had all been a joke.
A Charlotte Observer sports columnist took up Good's cause, writing a front-page column in Wednesday's newspaper that resulted in outraged fans e-mailing Fox Sports.
That led Fox Sports Chairman and CEO David Hill to announce he would personally give Good the keys to a new Ford F-150 pickup.
"I'm coming to Charlotte Friday to apologize to Mr. Good for a joke that went terribly, terribly wrong," Hill said.
Hill said there would be punishments at Fox Sports over the incident, but said none of the announcers involved will be taken off the air.
"I take the reputation of Fox Sports very seriously and I don't want it to be sullied," he said.
Good expressed excitement at the turn his story had taken.
"I'm so surprised and so happy," he told The Observer. "I thought all I was going to get was an apology."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1696325/posts
(Thanks to all who helped.)
That's like the Hooter's contest to give the best waitress a "Toy Yoda".
Good.
The joke wasn't even funny. (at the least the TOY YODA was a pun)
Even though it was a terrible joke, you gotta respect Fox Sports for ultimately doing the right thing.
Very stupid to give in to crybaby whiners. That's what gives liberals the power they have - the louder the whine, the more the money.
What a shining example he must be for his charges.
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