Micophonic Mishaps

Watching a DVRd "Whose Line is it Anyway?" tonight, a sub-theme developed as the cast repeatedly made fun of the host, Drew Carey, for wrongly stating that Africa was a country.

One of the potential dangers of having a microphone in your hand is the potential to say something stupid, or unintentionally funny. Here's two recent real-life examples:



At a recent all-school assembly, I was called up to read a list of about 100 student names. (It was a loooonnnngggg list.) Usually I know this ahead of time, and I practice.

I was told ahead of time, but it slipped my mind until they called me up to read. Since we have many Hispanic students, I used my best Spanish accent to properly read their names; however, it seems I got a bit carried away and began to read even non-Hispanic names with a Spanish accent. To make matters worse, I occasionally threw out a name with a nice Scottish accent: names like Riley!

I thought I was doing a great job, but what I was really doing was butchering some names and putting the staff in stitches, because they couldn't figure out if I was doing it on purpose or not. (Only later did I find out how funny it was... to them.)



The second example was a recent set of morning announcements. The principal consistently starts out with a "Good Morning School! Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready, begin... I pledge allegiance..."

But one day it went like this: "Good Morning School! Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready, begin... Good Morning School... oops... I pledge allegiance..."

Watch out for the microphone! It can make you say the darn'dest things.