Kent Brockman News - Television Tropes & Idioms

And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

—Kent Brockman, The Simpsons

If TV writers need cheap exposition, the easiest way is to have a news Show Within A Show do it. Usually, the news anchors provide a Practical Voice Over. Sometimes, they do more than that (see Coincidental Broadcast and News Monopoly).

Of course, it gets boring having bland talking heads give information, so animated shows spice up their Practical Voiceover with a little parody. On any animated show intended for adults, you are likely to see anything but a news anchor simply telling the news. Instead, you will see anchors who:

Bring way too much of their personal life into their discussion of the news.
Feud with each other, or with the field reporters.
Have a blatant political bias, and bring it to every story they cover.
Indulge in bizarre (usually sexual) habits when they think the cameras aren't on.
Try to make their stories more interesting with tortured metaphors and unfunny jokes, with bonus points when it's about something that isn't at all funny.
Speak in a weirdly smarmy monotone that never changes no matter what the story is (they say "eight hundred people died in an earthquake" and "happy new year" in the same way).
Segue without a beat from a horrific or bizarre story to a "lighter side" one. Especially if we only hear the wrap-up of the horror story. (As in, "...which if true, means death for us all. And now, preschoolers playing with kittens!")
Give all their air time to weird, random stories instead of anything important.
Ask leading questions to a few favored guests on their show, and ask randomly hostile questions to everybody else.
Skew any "human interest" stories to allow the most blatant emotional manipulation of their audience.
Are unable to finish their story because of sudden crises within the newsroom.

Though live-action comedies do them occasionally, these routines are much more common in animated shows. This may have to do with the fact that animated shows usually use multiple characters per actor, and can afford to have a diverse supporting cast.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

The characters on Cowboy Bebop sometimes got their info on new bounties from a news show called "Big Shot", which was aimed at bounty hunters. The cowboy hosts were a black man with a Mexican accent ("Punch") and a blonde bimbo ("Judy"). In one of the last Bebop episodes, it's revealed this was all an act:
Punch: We've been cancelled! Adios Amigos!
"Judy", in a very different tone: WHAT?!
- In the next episode, Faye sees Punch picking up his mother at the spaceport, but cannot figure out why he looks familiar. Probably has difficulty because he doesn't have the weird accent.
  - Note that Punch's weird accent shifted from Mexican to Texan whenever he said the show's various catchphrases - in the sub, he simply said the catchphrases in English.

Film

The live-action movie Anchorman had one of these as its main character, although he was a consummate professional until the events of the film take place.
Another live-action film example comes from The Kentucky Fried Movie, where between skits a newscaster would pop up with oddball news flashes like "I'm not wearing any pants, Film At Eleven."
The 1989 Batman film featured newscasters on a Gotham City news show, talking about a recent rash of killings by The Joker, when a female newscaster starts laughing uncontrollably and her astonished partner looks on in disbelief, trying to ignore her, before she collapses dead on the ground.
The two classic movie examples: Robocop and Starship Troopers.
Casey Wong: "On the international scene the Amazon nuclear facility has blown its stack irradiating the worlds largest rainforest. Environmentalists are calling it a disaster."
Jess Perkins: "But don't they always."

"Do you want to know MORE?"
- Both, not uncoincidentally, directed by Paul Verhoeven. He likes this trope.
The early Woody Allen movie Bananas had Howard Cosell himself providing live commentary on the assassination of the leader of San Marcos.
One of the news anchors in Die Hard speculate that the hostages have developed "Helsinki Syndrome, named after Helsinki, Sweden," and the other corrects him - Helsinki's in Finland. Then the cut back to Nakatori Plaza shows quite clearly that they're talking out of their asses.
- Considering the fact that they're talking about Stockholm Syndrome, and that it's generally only true in cases of emotional hostage takings, means that no one has any idea what they're talking about.
In Bruce Almighty, Bruce/God's "adjustments" to Evan Baxter's brain reduce Evan to babbling incoherence: "Kaa kaa poo poo pee pee..."
- Not to mention Bruce's own live televised reactions to the news that Evan got the anchor position...
  Bruce: Back to you, fuckers!!

Live Action TV

On The Weird Al Show, while flipping through channels, Al would always pass by a newscaster (also played by Yankovic) who would be reporting on a mundane, nonsensical, or just plain pointless "story". ("This just in...Ping-Pong spelled backwards is Gnop-Gnip.")
Red Dwarf used 'Channel 27' News to explain the Better Than Life game. Featured subtle jokes such as having a month called 'Geldof'.
The Muppet Show had the recurring "Muppet News Flash" sketch, where a myopic commentator would deliver some odd bit of news, for example a downpour of anvils or localized tidal waves hitting people, and then snidely comment on how ridiculous it was. Whatever it was would then happen to him. An alternate version had him interviewing some eccentric character played by that week's Special Guest.
In the '70s Sesame Street would frequently send reporter Kermit the Frog to cover the re-enactment of some classic fairy tale or nursery rhyme; these would never go as planned.
Miranda Veracruz de la Jolla Cardinal from Married With Children, who really didn't like her job.
The improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway features the game "Weird Newscasters," where the actors perform a quick bit of Kent Brockman News.
- Not to mention "Newsflash", where the twist is that the 'reporter on the scene' has no idea what he's reporting on. The two "anchors in the studio" usually open the sketch with a vaguely sexual comment before they "realize" the cameras are rolling.
The spoof news show The Day Today and its documentary spin-off Brass Eye both used pretty much every single one of these tropes.
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, spoofs of "traditional" news shows, use these tropes frequently.
- And were naturally delighted to discover a Real Life example on MSNBC, when anchors segued from footage of a cute jumping squirrel to the Columbine school shooting using the words "On a serious note..."
Monty Python's Flying Circus sent up BBC News in a great many ways.
- This is helped by the fact that Richard Baker, an actual BBC newscaster, often appeared in this role on the show.
Jimmy Mcdonald's Canada portrayed a 1960s-era conservative pundit gradually going mad because of the liberalism of the time. The last episode ended with 'technical difficulties' as Jimmy went Ax Crazy on set.
In classic first season episodes of Saturday Night Live, Chevy Chase was responsible for the "Weekend Update" news segment. It would always begin with him on the phone with an unidentified lover, saying things like "No, lots of people scream." This is unique in that the implied perversion is at the start of the report, rather than interrupting it.
- From then on, "Weekend Update" has often incorporated this trope; the most memorable examples being those in the Not Ready For Prime Time Players era (seasons 1-5) that had such characters as Roseanne Roseannadanna, and John Belushi's editorials where he started off quite well but then breaks into his trademark catchphrase: But nooooooooo! and goes into a flurry of madness.
The Fast Show had a repeating sketch where a news reporter would appear to offer a special report, which was always something inane such as her American friend pronouncing "yogurt" differently. They also had "Chanel Nine" news, which seems to use some elements of this trope. It's hard to tell, since it's done entirely in Foreign Sounding Gibberish.
Mock The Week has done "Things a newscaster would never say" as an improv sketch, naturally almost entirely composed of examples of Kent Brockman News.
In the pilot episode of Just Shoot Me, Maya gets fired from a news program after rewriting the teleprompter so that a pompous anchorwoman says that a decrease of gang violence was due "to the removal of the frontal lobe of my brain. And in related news, I wet myself."
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! has a carryover from their previous show Tom Goes to the Mayor in Jan and Wayne Skylar, the "Channel 5 Married News Team". They added John C. Reilly as Dr. Steve Brule (who has since gotten his own bits) who provides useless health information.
Robin on How I Met Your Mother has done numerous silly things on the air, especially when Barney's getting her to do a bet.
- Metro News One was made of this trope — ridiculous Could This Happen To You stories, Incredibly Lame Puns, and bizarre fluff pieces. When she transferred to Japan, Robin got to report actual news — with a chimpanzee.
Minor version on Pushing Daisies, where after the Coincidental Broadcast, the follow-up is bizarre: "Up next: kittens on parade!" and "Can apes drive? We'll find out!"
Drop The Dead Donkey was mostly about the chaos behind the cameras, but occasionally Henry's temper or Sally's idiocy would carry through to the broadcast. There's also Damian's sensationalist field reports (which always resulted in the cameraman being injured).
Occasionally seen in sitcoms set in TV/radio stations: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, WKRP In Cincinnati, Murphy Brown, News Radio, Back to You, etc.
The cases on Boston Legal are occasionally commented on by outspoken legal analyst Gracie Jane, a parody of Nancy Grace. One episode also featured a reporter named Wolfgang Blitzkrieg.

New Media

Micah Tannenbaum from Muggle Cast throws in snide remarks and personal opinions, all while being a Deadpan Snarker.

Radio

The 'weird, random stories instead of anything important' version was a staple of radio satirists Bob & Ray, usually personified by inept roving reporter Wally Ballou (Bob). Sent to meet interesting people at the airport, Wally manages to find the guy who was headed to Paris to lobby for tunafish as the traditional meal for Bastille Day. Even when Ballou found himself pursuing an actual legitimate story, it quickly lapsed into absurdity - as when he discovered that a paperclip company was able to keep costs down because they only paid their workers 14 cents a week. ("How in the world could they live on that?" "Well, we don't pry into the personal lives of our employees, Wally...")
- Additional amusing touch: Wally's broadcasts always started in mid-spiel. "-lly Ballou here.."

Real Life

Video Games

Video game example: Ratchet: Deadlocked had a male alien and female robot (Dallas and Juanita) as news anchors, who alternated between snarky comments about each other, showing off their extreme personality flaws on camera, and slandering the titular character (until they required him for survival after the Big Bad's going crazier, that is).
- Earlier Ratchet And Clank games had recurring robot reporter Darla Gratch.
Fehn Digler from Beyond Good And Evil is a Quisling-flavored news anchor with a habit for outrageous propaganda, flip-flopping sides, and a tendency to get a bit too... "in your face," shall we say.
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines has a TV in the protagonist's hideout. It's delivering pretty normal news... Except when you play as Malkavian, which turns the news into Kent Brockman variety.
There was an old FMV PC game about art trading that would end each level with a news report on current events that would affect the values of certain paintings. The news anchor would smirk triumphantly while delivering tragic news and scowl while delivering upbeat news.
GTA Radio is full of this, especially WCTR in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.

Webcomics

Penny Arcade occasionally features stories by anchorman Randy Pinkwood, who will report on gaming news with the comic's characteristic farcical style. He ends each one by making some sort of reference to his incredible, and often bizarre, sexual escapades.
Something Positive had one strip starting with a news anchorwoman saying: "...And that's all for the Baby Pageant Massacre" and then segues into (IIRC) about Kharisma getting arrested.
The Nifty News 50 team from Sluggy Freelance fits this trope pretty darn well (one of them is even named "Qwirky").
Reporter: We have just received word that news is breaking on the set of Sluggy Freelance. We are not sure what the news is at this time, but we wanted to beat the other networks to it. I'm sure we will have more information any moment.
(pause)
Reporter: Well, while we are waiting, let's speculate wildly. Is Torg forming a cult? Is Riff a lesbian in a man's body? And what happened to that annoying "Sam" character? Foul play?

Western Animation

Anchorman Kent Brockman of The Simpsons (for whom this trope is named) had it all, and may have been the first example of this trope (or at least the character who popularized it). He blatantly skews reports to fit his political or personal interests, and his helicopter newsman hates him. He has been fired in mid-story at least once, quit in mid-story at least once, and always brings his personal views to a story. In "Radio Bart," he ignores the rescue of Bart from a well to cover a squirrel that looks like Abraham Lincoln (soon afterwards, the squirrel is assassinated, and a shaken Brockman pledges to "cover this (story) all night if we have to").
- At one point it's implied that Brockman only covered the fall of the Berlin Wall because his infant daughter convinced him to.
- This troper's favourite is the tail-end of a report: "...leaving the vice-president in charge." It's accompanied by a very small picture of the White House, with a thin trail of smoke leaking out. He then goes on to cover some plot-rlated local issue.
Futurama has co-anchors Morbo and Linda. Morbo claims to be a scout for his species' upcoming alien invasion, and regularly voices his hatred and contempt for all things - especially humanity - on air. His co-anchor, Linda, always responds to his threats with an empty-headed laugh.
Morbo: (all the time) "I WILL DESTROY YOU!"
- The casual attitude taken to his threats could be explained by his behaviour with his wife - at a party she adjusts his bow-tie and he snaps at her, "Stop it, it's fine, I will DESTROY you!". This would suggest that's just the way his species acts normally. Then again, he has also stopped reporting to take a note about human weaknesses and referenced his people's mighty space fleet readying for an attack in the near future. You can't help but love him though, indeed, Fry said as much when seeing the news back in the 20th century in Bender's Big Score. 'I miss Morbo'.
In the South Park episode "Krazy Kripples," the reporter tries to liven up his story with creative metaphors ("If irony were strawberries, we'd all be drinking smoothies now, Tom.") Possibly a reference to Dan Rather.
- In an episode of South Park where a whale is stolen from an aquarium, one on-site reporter makes a fairly on-topic joke: "It certainly is a WHALE of a problem down here." To which the reporter at the desk responds, "Yes, I can hardly BEAR it." Cue odd looks.
- South Park also has a variety of weird field reporters to do remotes, the form is usually "Live, with that story, is:"
- "A quadraplegic Swiss man on a pony." (He's lashed to it with ropes)
- "A midget in a bikini." (A very short man in a polka-dot two-piece)
- "A normal-looking guy with a funny name." (His name, "Creamy Goodness")
- "R. Kelly"
The Kids Next Door episode "OP CAKED-FOUR" features an annoying, pointlessly judgemental reporter who speaks in a smarmy monotone remniscient of Howard Cosell no matter what's happening — until he gets scared, which promptly reveals that the monotone isn't his real voice.
The reporters on Family Guy are constantly blurting out odd things that they would never say if they remembered that the cameras were still on. They also have a blatant hatred for one another ("We now go live to Diane being a bitch. Diane?").
- Also poked fun at is the tendency of news organizations to relegate minorities to support staff (try and find an anchor on national news who's not white), with "Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa", and black weatherman Ollie Williams and his "Blackuweather Forecast," where he just blurts out a loud one-liner. ("ISS GON' RAIN!")
  - Thank you Ollie.
  - In response to the parenthetical above, I present Lester Holt.
  - He still ain't prime time, baby. He's the WEEKEND anchor...fewer people watch the national news on the weekend than they do when it's a weekday and they're cruising in from work.
- Lest we forget, the second episode of Family Guy involves the TV transmitter getting destroyed, taking out TV for all of Quahog. This results in the following situation:
  Tom: Since we're not broadcasting, we can say pretty much whatever we want. I'm the Lord Jesus Christ! I think I'll get drunk and beat up some midgets. Diane?
  Diane: Well, Tom, I just plain don't like black people.
  Camera Operator: Uh, guys, we're still on in Providence.
  Silence from the anchors
In The Oblongs, the local TV news show is completely biased in favor of the mayor, who in turn is completely biased in favor of the town rich.
A Pup Named Scooby Doo used a newsflash wherein the newscaster conversed with the Scooby gang.
Darkwing Duck features news anchor Tom Lockjaw, arguably inspired by the same real life personality as Kent Brockman, the famous Tom Brokaw. Lockjaw is considerably less often used than Brockman, but is nonetheless very much a whimsical addition to the show.
The Fairly Odd Parents has Chet Youbetcha, who like all the other grown ups, is very dim. He's also very short, and has size issues. He often reports on the aftermath of Timmy's wishes. He has a daughter called Yvette who takes his job when the kids take over the world. In the episode, "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker!", his mother, Nanette, was also an anchorwoman, and in the episode "The Good Old Days!", his grandfather, Chester, was a radio announcer.
The two cheerful sports commentators in Celebrity Deathmatch.
Sheep In The Big City had two anchors, one of whom would give "unrelated" stories that were obviously related, once repeating the same story.
American Dad features two news anchors who are gay and married. They often bring their domestic lives into the news.
Drawn Together, of course, has several versions of Kent Brockman News, which, like every other aspect of the show, is deranged and non-sensical. The anchors usually state something that either Crosses The Line Twice or inexplicably correlates to the characters directly.
Ace Palmero from The Replacements.
Hank Anchorman from Johnny Test.
Talking Fish Head from Spongebob Squarepants.
The Proud Family has Marsha Mitsubishi, who very clearly hates her job and frequently comments about it on air.
Tovah Hernandez Carlson on Clerks: The Animated Series is a newscaster of the monotone variety.
Mike The TV from Re Boot fits this role, often with huge amounts of Large Ham.
Planet Sketch has Mike Today and Sally Van who have gender related arguements when they do their newscasting.
Hector Ramirez, the parody of investigative reporter Geraldo Rivera from GI Joe and Inhumanoids
Stan Blather from Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers is a parody on both Dan Rather and Walter Kronkite.