Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Christmas Weather Report

winter trucks

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful,

But the fire is soooo delightful…"

Although it should come as no surprise to everyone that it's Winter in Canada, for some reason the top stories on any newscast you watch in this country are all about blizzards and snow and ice and heavy rain.

TV Meteorologists speaking in hushed, cautionary tones predict snowfalls most of us casually sweep off our driveways without a second thought.

Meanwhile, dour special reports are filed by serious journalists either listing all the items you must carry in your car to survive any once in a generation freak snowstorm or how to find out if nearby seniors are warm enough without looking like a D-bag.

The best philosophy on all this was uttered by Scots Comedian Billy Connelly, "There's no such thing as bad weather. There's just the wrong clothes."

In other words, yeah it's cold and slippery, deal with it. Toss another log on the fire and top up the brandy glass. And don't spend as much time watching depressing weather reports.

Assisting with that, and helping to make Christmas a little merrier at the same time, are the wonderful folks at NMA.tv.

Most of us first learned of this whacked group of Taiwanese animators when they released their chronicle of the Tiger Woods domestic car wreck video that went immediately viral.

The boys have kept at it, now dispensing almost daily segments on current events (All in Mandarin with English subtitles). 

I'm not sure if this stuff is meant to explain complex North American stories to Asian audiences or just to make us look as ridiculous as possible. Either way, it's bent out of shape fun.

One of my recent favorites depicts Barack Obama using a version of the Bat Signal to summon ex-President Bill Clinton for some assistance.

bat signal

And now NMA is also offering their fans a daily weather report wrapped up in a pretty little Christmas package and frankly, who cares that it doesn't cover any Canadian cities.

Y'know, if Newsworld took this approach they'd get much better ratings and nobody would really care how bad the weather got.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim,
hi.. I finished watching "The Charnel Pit" recently.. and wanted to tell u how much I dig that episode. I remember watching it as a kid & thinking that it was the best episode of the series, and now re-watching it as an adult, I still feel the same way. It was strange to me, that the best episode (in my opinion) came at the series end.. The scene where Mickey is writing (and narrarating her letter) is my favorite scene from the show, the way she describes how deSade turned her value system upside down was perfectfully written.. anyways, I just wanted to share that with you.. good stuff. peace.

Joe Clark said...

“TV Meteorologists” (sic) do not “speak… in hushed, cautionary tones.” Who on TV does?

You realize “hushed” means quiet, right? Who was the last quiet weatherman you watched? And when?