Comments on: "Scats in the Woods"

"Scats in the Woods"

zarq — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:50:53 -0800

Following a 30-year trend, bear sightings and human encounters in certain US cities seem to be on the rise. But when Cleveland's Fox Channel 8 (WJW) needed to report about recent black bear sightings in a NE Ohio neighborhood, they had to get a stand-in. Perhaps the bear refused to sit for an interview with intrepid reporter Todd Meany?

The video gets surreal and hilarious at about the 40-second mark. Here's a YouTube link, if the station takes the report down. More. For more info about bears in North America, check out the North American Bear Center, Wikipedia and Defenders of Wildlife.

By: DU

DU — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:58:26 -0800

It turns unsurreal and obviously-intended-to-be-funny(-although-not-really-that-funny) when the bunny declines to be eaten.

By: orme

orme — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:05:59 -0800

Bears scat in the woods? I thought they just sang jaunty little songs about necessities and such.

By: dunkadunc

dunkadunc — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:07:28 -0800

Is there any reason why intrepid reporter Todd Meany is actually Ferris Bueller in disguise? They must have had a lot of fun with this one.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:09:00 -0800

The beauty of this is that they just happened to have a bear cutout handy. It's easy to want to be absurd but it is a lot more difficult to be well prepared to be absurd.

By: dunkadunc

dunkadunc — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:09:35 -0800

This has to be the next step in Operation Mindfuck.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:09:47 -0800

Needs moar Colbert.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:18:26 -0800

[fixed the link!]

By: zarq

zarq — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:22:03 -0800

Thank you, jessamyn! :)

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:29:01 -0800

The beauty of this is that they just happened to have a bear cutout handy. Well, that's how Todd Meany gets to work every day - behind a waving cutout of a black bear.

By: a robot made out of meat

a robot made out of meat — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:32:24 -0800

I want to see the argument between the reporter and the higher-up which lead to this. BOSS: We need some footage for the bear story! Rabble! REPORTER: We don't know where the bear is. How am I supposed to get footage? It's a bear that comes every year and went away; there is no story. BOSS: Think of something.

By: Flood

Flood — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:33:54 -0800

the recreation of the bear movement is fantastic - journalism at its best

By: jabberjaw

jabberjaw — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:37:19 -0800

Someday my shark cutout will come to similarly good use. For now it just collects dust under my bed.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:38:14 -0800

I wonder if the guy running the bear across the field and up the tree was making faces at everybody.

By: Debaser626

Debaser626 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:39:05 -0800

Bah! You can barely see it! wah wah wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:54:30 -0800

Just wait 'til Carl Monday's story is filed. Cleveland is a hotbed of hard-nosed investigative reporters.

By: 445supermag

445supermag — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:54:48 -0800

Crime recreations are a TV staple, the effects will improve when it's called Abearica's Most Wanted. In other wildlife news, toddler that was attacked by a mountain lion complains "Why didn't the kitty play nice?"

By: Krrrlson

Krrrlson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:59:16 -0800

Ah, someone already beat me to Carl Monday and his upcoming expose: "Does a bear masturbate in the woods?"

By: uncanny hengeman

uncanny hengeman — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:05:33 -0800

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside. But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail. For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:24:52 -0800

The video is funny. But is it just a Chrome bug or can Fox 8 not get the aspect ratio for their video right on their own damn website? What is wrong with people that they think squishing video is OK?

By: uncanny hengeman

uncanny hengeman — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:28:40 -0800

They went for the cheap lulz with the toned down "does a bear shit in the woods?" reference. Is the talking rabbit possibly a hat tip to this reasonably famous joke? Bear and a rabbit were taking a shit in the woods. And the bear turns to the rabbit and says, "Excuse me, do you have problems with shit sticking to your fur?" And the rabbit says, "No." So the bear wiped his ass with the rabbit.

By: Oddly

Oddly — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:48:52 -0800

Tina was too stoned to get a picture. Excellent.

By: dubold

dubold — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:08:41 -0800

Bears scat in the woods? I thought they just sang jaunty little songs about necessities and such. Nothing is more terrifying than hiking along a forest trail and then hearing "skeedeedeedlybop-I-shit-in-the-woooooods... da doo doooo doooo"

By: Baby_Balrog

Baby_Balrog — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:12:36 -0800

Gah. I hit a black bear with my Ford Focus last fall. It was pretty much as horrible as you'd expect. I was heading south on US 131 in the middle of the night with a car full of friends who had "promised" they'd stay awake until we got home. They woke up with a roaring black bear pinned to the front of my car as I swerved toward the median. The bear was about the size of a Newfie. It flipped off into the bushes and I went down the road a bit before pulling over. When we got out to inspect the damage, one of my crunchy friends explained, with tears in his eyes, that we needed to go back and check on the bear. It was probably badly injured. We all wished him the best and got into the car.

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:58:50 -0800

Oh Cleveland, my fair hometown...home to the craziest damn reporters ever. (Answer, in case Carl Monday is listening, to "does a bear masturbate in the woods" is, of course, yes).

By: uncanny hengeman

uncanny hengeman — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:13:39 -0800

Does the Pope shit in the woods?

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:19:33 -0800

I just realized that four of my top-ten favorite jokes all involve "bears in the woods". 1.) "Where's that eskimo woman you wanted me to wrassle? " 2.) "You're not really here for the hunting, are you ..." 3.) "Grizzly bear feces smells like pepper and has little bells in it." 4.) "You have trouble with poop sticking to your fur?" Bears: high comedy.

By: mygothlaundry

mygothlaundry — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:28:41 -0800

Finally, a place on the blue to link the video of bears at the Governor's Western Residence! The Governor's Western Residence, while sporting a lovely medieval name, is actually a big ranch house on Town Mountain Road in Asheville, NC, by the way, and it's supposed to be used by the governor on her infrequent trips to the mountains in case she's too tired to be driven the five or six hours back to Raleigh. The house, which is located in a swanky neighborhood about three miles from downtown sort of looks like it was designed by Mike Brady and is full of weird gifts that people have given the governor over the years. It's available to nonprofits for events and stuff, which is how I know all this. ANYWAY, turns out there are lots and lots of bears up on that mountain, as you will see from the video. And the governor saw one in March.

By: Kronoss

Kronoss — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:31:11 -0800

Nice to know that that villager from The Wicker Man is faster than a bear.

By: nevercalm

nevercalm — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:36:46 -0800

My wife and I moved from Brooklyn to seriously rural NJ last year. When we went to visit her father this past April, we left her mother and step-father (also from Brooklyn, late of one of those weird "oldster" housing developments) in charge of the house and the pets. On their first night, a bear was in our yard raiding the bird feeder. We have a huge (2+ acre) front yard, but only a 15x30 fenced back yard, so the bear was pretty close to the house. They freaked. They barricaded all the doors, not just locking them, but putting chairs under the knobs. They not only blocked our bedroom door (to an outdoor room) but then barricaded the door TO the bedroom. Then they called the police and every neighbor's number we left for them. They slept upstairs in a spare room for the whole week and a half rather than in our bedroom with the big comfy king-size bed. They utterly failed to take any pictures, which both my wife and I would have loved to have seen. Needless to say, we are now a neighborhood anecdote.

By: zarq

zarq — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:08:59 -0800

mygothlaundry, that's a lot of bears. Yeesh.

By: dunkadunc

dunkadunc — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:21:57 -0800

This would all be so much more noteworthy if the lady had seen the Pope ambling around on all fours in her backyard.

By: fuzzypantalones

fuzzypantalones — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:31:47 -0800

this gives me an idea of a pitch for a tv show: america's most wanted: cutout reenactment version

By: pracowity

pracowity — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:51:34 -0800

It would be cool if they come come up with a cardboard cutout reporter to pretend to be delivering a real story. (Then he could ride off into the cardboard cutout sundown.)

By: potsmokinghippieoverlord

potsmokinghippieoverlord — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:04:07 -0800

Ra for Bear Emulation Devices! Stunt bears!

By: homunculus

homunculus — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:18:04 -0800

Bear Pole Dance

By: Atreides

Atreides — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:33:02 -0800

I unexpectedly learned about a gay subculture one day when I went to google images of bears. That, I had to share. That and a bear ate all my parents' bird food last year and a neighbor attempted to shoo it away with a lacrosse stick. Now I can go to heaven unburdened.

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:13:31 -0800

So furries are really fast runners. That's good to know.

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:09:04 -0800

Absurd, yes, and mildly entertaining. . But in all honesty...it's probably a better story than if they HADN'T used a cut-out bear. At least this way we got SOME visuals and a few points of reference for size. In fact, I'd wager that our intrepid reporter received a commendation for original thinking - the Kobayashi Bear-u scenario, eh?

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:09:28 -0800

Upon reflection: that should have been Ko-bear-ashi Maru.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:33:30 -0800

Bear Breaks into House, Devours Box of Chocolates