The Hazards of Live TV: #25,019…or not?
This is a preliminary entry since I’m still not sure Beck really threw a live frog in there.
Update: Apparently it was a fake frog. Real or fake, it wasn’t funny either way…
Update 2: I’m not convinced. I watched that video again and those frogs in the container were moving around. He pulled a live frog out of the container. Now whether he quickly substituted a fake frog for the real one and tossed that in is still a possibility. But that seems rather remote. The controversy continues…
Update 3: Watching it yet again, I’m wondering whether Beck pulled anything out of that container. One appears to jump into his hand but one appears to jump out of his hand as he pulls his hand out of the container. So did Beck have anything in his hand?
Update 4: There’s this from Jason Linkins at The Huffington Post…
What just happened? By all appearances, Glenn Beck had murdered a frog. But he quickly offered, “Forget about the Republicans, because most of them are fake. Forget about the Democrats, because most of them are fake. And forget about the frog, because it was fake!”
The only way the frog was fake is if one of three things happened:
1) The shot of him pulling out the frogs was a taped cut scene. Those frogs in the container were moving around. They were real and they were live. The scene was done to make him look like he was pulling a real frog out of the container when in reality he wasn’t.
2) The shot of him trying to pull a frog out of the container was live and Beck indeed pulled a live frog out but then dropped it and pretended to throw a live frog in. I can’t tell since the video is so small that it makes it impossible to tell whether Beck did or did not throw anything into that pot.
3) The shot of him trying to pull a frog out of the container was live but Beck didn’t actually pull anything out of the container. This video is too small to accurately tell whether Beck indeed had a frog in his hand. The empirical evidence, what there is of it given the tiny video, suggests the frog that landed in his hand escaped before his hand was out of the container.
In any case I’m counting down the minutes until someone makes an allusion to that classic WKRP episode…
Update 5: According to a comment by J$, Beck revealed what happened with the Frog incident. Apparently Option 1 from above was what happened. So there was no frog…
You realize where I’m headed with this don’t you?
Inside Cable News 
September 23, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Well, sh!t on a shingle. His choo choo’s just booking toward the bend, isn’t it?
September 23, 2009 at 8:28 pm
SOURCE: jason@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
“What just happened? By all appearances, Glenn Beck had murdered a frog. But he quickly offered, “Forget about the Republicans, because most of them are fake. Forget about the Republicans, because most of them are fake. And forget about the frog, because it was fake!”
September 23, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Ummm….
Sh!t on a shingle? And I thought my Brit idioms were a little weird.
September 23, 2009 at 8:35 pm
OK, you’re the second person that doesn’t recognize that fairly-common term. Creamed chipped beef on toast. It’s a military thing, from years past.
September 23, 2009 at 8:39 pm
I know now. Had to look it up. Love that term. Not sure I can get myself to bloody say it, though.
September 23, 2009 at 8:39 pm
^
Welcome to The South, Al. She’s got dozens of ’em, only half of which will make a grown man blush. A regular Dan Rather, she is.
If it was fake, it wasn’t convincingly so. Fake or not, the whole thing is tasteless and weird…not unlike the man himself. Has anybody at FNC checked his clinical mental status?
September 23, 2009 at 8:41 pm
— tasteless and weird —
Like it’s a bad thing?
September 23, 2009 at 8:42 pm
^
So I’m guessing chyt on a shingle is a bad thing?
September 23, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Ok, that was weird.
September 23, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Only if they serve it all the time.
September 23, 2009 at 8:47 pm
He did a pretty convincing fake-out, with the look into the pot and the walk-away. Man can act, if nothing else.
September 23, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Nothing wrong with a good show-man to get people talking. Well, typing nowadays.
September 23, 2009 at 8:52 pm
More News! And Les Nessman!.
September 23, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I always wanted to have a pretend office door.
September 23, 2009 at 8:54 pm
He’s still the showman that thought calling the president a racist’ and joking about poisoning a congresswoman, was acceptable talk-show material…so I would say there’s something wrong.
September 23, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Since Glennn Beck doesn’t appear to take himself too seriously, I won’t, either.
Never sure just how many “n”s are in his name.
September 23, 2009 at 8:57 pm
— pretend office door. —
Momma Carlson – ‘A man with a ‘pretend office door is so much more fascinating than one with a real one.’ How do I remember that??
September 23, 2009 at 9:04 pm
^
Because it’s true.
September 23, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Where the hell is everybody? Three people read this blog, now?
September 23, 2009 at 9:06 pm
For those on the right coast, joe, it’s 1:00am.
September 23, 2009 at 9:08 pm
— Three people read this blog, now? —
And at least two of them are off-the-beam.
September 23, 2009 at 9:09 pm
^
Pansies.
September 23, 2009 at 9:10 pm
I was thinking “PETA” the whole time he was doing it, until the end, when he claimed the frog was fake.
Anyway, the analogy was good (although we really didn’t need to have a live demonistration to get the point). He was talking about his comment to Katie Courie, that John McCain would have been worse as POTUS.
And he did get his point across. He was stating that the 0bama presidency is like a boiling pot of water – a very drastic environment, one in which the occupants would quickly want to escape. But with a McCain presidency, we’d get to disaster, but more slowly, and the speed of such disaster would be slower such that we’d actually grow to tolerate such horrible policies.
So Beck’s just saying that 0bama’s racidal policies are so extreme that we’re all react sooner, because he’s taking us to ruin in a faster, and more obvious manner.
September 23, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I am here. I took the other computer back and am thrilled to be on this older one, with my Symantec anti-virus, XP and the old keyboard.
September 23, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Thank you Missy. I don’t even care if I agree with you or not.
September 23, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Missy is racidal with old keyboard.
September 23, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Hey Missy, Glenn Beck is a racist nutjob! Oh, right…both girls are righties. This could be bad…
September 23, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Racist nutjob, or frog frier?
September 23, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Fake racist frogfrier?
September 24, 2009 at 1:17 am
Damn. A virus guys my computer so I’m away for a few hours and spud pulls out a WKRP reference. My favorite alltime show.
I remember the dead frog episode. Herb’s daughter’s frog got spraypainted and he brings it to work and has a foot doctor look at it. It dies, tragically, much like the Thanksgiving turkeys.
September 24, 2009 at 4:45 am
For the record, I would like to point out that this thread went off the rails well before I posted that WKRP clip….
September 24, 2009 at 6:25 am
I haven’t read the above… but I’m just going to jump in feet first.
1) Come on… even Beck isn’t dumb enough to boil a real frog live on television.
2) It was clear to me (I just happened to walk by a television with Beck on at this time), that he didn’t actually grab anything out of the container.
3) It’s Beck… he’s all theater. So knowing he’s all theater, it was just part of a skit.
4) Didn’t his next guest (I think it was John Bolton) talk about the frog, and verify it was okay, or fake, or something… I only saw that part in passing, and with no audio.
Now, the girl who was watching Beck at the moment started squealing because she thought it was real… but what she didn’t do was change the channel. So that will be the rational… it was compelling television, that will give Beck some more buzz.
BUT… in my mind… this was a really stupid stunt. I get what he’s going for, but come on… you’re a “news-ish” show, not a magic show. And magicians always suck… don’t be a magician, Beck.
September 24, 2009 at 6:35 am
I love threads like this. Conspiracy theory stories like this make the entire “Glenn Beck is a conspiracy kook” argument hold no water.
ICN, I suggest you watch the Zapruder films a few more times. Maybe you’ll see the real killers of JFK–you know, those MIB-alien hybrids from Pluto.
September 24, 2009 at 6:51 am
I really wish people would grow up! And what thew heck, Ill bet Rachel Ray could have cooked them on TV and got away with it. MMMMmmmmm frog legs………..yummy. LOL
September 24, 2009 at 6:52 am
Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being not a frog… we need to stop attributing humanity to animals … if this frog were 3x your size he would more than likely murder you and then eat you survival of the fittest….
September 24, 2009 at 7:00 am
He didn’t actually pull anything out of the container. As I was watching you could also tell he didn’t actually drop anything in. No disruption of steam…
September 24, 2009 at 7:24 am
It was fake, and he knew he would get the blogs buzzing with it. Glenn Beck making a not to subtle point about the blogosphere. Hey look what I can make them do…watch while I pull a rabbit out of my hat. Too Funny he is making fun of bloggers. Hold on I am a blogger LMAO!
September 24, 2009 at 7:27 am
I admit at first he did have me going….I kept saying to myself, don’t you do it, don’t you toss a live frog in that boiling water. For a minute I thought he was capable of frogacide, he is a showman after all.
September 24, 2009 at 7:42 am
I was in Hong Kong last year at the markets, there was a basket full of plump frogs in the middle of all the vegie stalls. you would pick out your frogs and they would chop them up fresh for you right there. I am guessing it was for the legs. Talk about FRESH Yummmm. Chickens and ducks as well! The meat stalls w/ all the pig bits hanging on hooks were lining the street on both sides. Pretty cool to see where your FOOD comes from. Nice and Fresh! You could pick out a live chicken and come back later and it would be plucked and chopped and ready for cooking!
Funny to see people jump on this fake frog thing.
September 24, 2009 at 7:42 am
…off the rails…
Owned, pwned, whatever the phrase is these days…
September 24, 2009 at 7:46 am
I’m glad y’all find it funny. I find Mr. Beck to be a couple cards short of a deck, and his stunt…not so funny.
September 24, 2009 at 8:02 am
Just put a little hot sauce on it & let’s eat the damn thing.
Tastes like chicken.
Anyone wanna bet we hear from PETA whining about this? Even though it was fake?
September 24, 2009 at 8:08 am
Anybody wanna bet conservatives will complain about PETA complaining? Predictable on both sides.
September 24, 2009 at 8:37 am
^
PETA complaints often involve nakie babes. No complaints from me.
September 24, 2009 at 9:37 am
Yes, dummie, the cut of Beck’s hand getting the frog was taped and cut into place. Is this what you do all day? Watch Fox News and “stun” us with “Frogate.” Please, get a life.
September 24, 2009 at 9:56 am
It was a staged frying of a frog, dummie. This is a cable news blog, it happened on cable news, and if you had any “virtue”, you wouldn’t be calling the blog-owner a dummie just because you disagree with him. Dumba$$.
September 24, 2009 at 10:01 am
I repeat — Is this what you do all day? Watch Fox News and “stun” us with “Frogate.” How utterly pathetic. Please, get a life.
September 24, 2009 at 10:10 am
^Trolls from Hotair.
One of my favorite websites, but there’s a good reason I don’t bother reading the comments.
Telling someone else they need to get a life is beyond laughable.
Pot meet kettle.
September 24, 2009 at 10:12 am
Frogate! Frogate! Frogate!
LOL.
September 24, 2009 at 10:56 am
Calm down, Kermit.
Is that a boiling kettle, BR?
September 24, 2009 at 11:20 am
Well, now we know why the air is so hot over there… Steam!
September 24, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Spud, the Randi Rhoades radio show did a spoof of this today…with the WKRP clip at the end. You’ve been plagiarized.
September 24, 2009 at 1:10 pm
^ In any case I’m counting down the minutes until someone makes an allusion to that classic WKRP episode
Prophetic
September 24, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Well Beck just did a reveal on the Great Frog Controversy, sort of like those old tv specials where the “masked magician” showed how women get sawed in half, etc. Spud’s first theory (1) was correct: a pre-taped shot was intercut with the live show. He also showed how some sites used a youtube video which was edited in mid-paragraph to remove his clear statement that the frog was a fake. Little Green Footballs embarrassed again.
September 24, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Glenn Beck is just embarrassing. He’s a huckster.
September 24, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Glenn Beck is just embarrassing
No, he attracts a different kind of audience.
September 24, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Beck is a huckster – but he does know how to keep his name in the news during his book debut.
September 25, 2009 at 4:28 am
The frog was fake, you morons. I mean, PETA goes nuts if someone eats a hamburger, and they have been quieter than Lewinsky wearing her presidential kneepads on this one.
You lefties are hilarious…in that “white padded cell” kinda way.
September 25, 2009 at 5:37 am
^
unclear thur’s alter ego.
September 25, 2009 at 6:24 am
Who cares if Beck said the frog was fake? Here’s a cautionary tale: an ex roommate of mine was a pretty good stage magician, and he told the following story: another magician he knew was performing an act in Vegas, in which he was supposed to make some doves appear and fly away after he lifted up a cover from a tray. One night, he opened the thing up, and the doves did not move, because they were dead. So he picked one of them up and started banging it against the tray, saying, “Haaah, it’s just a fake!”
September 25, 2009 at 7:46 am
Good one, Al. More Hotair refugees, I presume? And that guy called other people morons. Irony police on the way…