Trading Places
I can’t even describe this one enough to do it justice. Very little about it relies on fancy production (the only example of elaborate graphics work being a careful bit of image manipulation to turn a Flood Warning into a Tsunami Warning). The rest of the explanation I will leave to the original shooting script:
Monitor shot - Charles in front of the blue wall on TV.
Charles: So you think this job looks easy?
Bo leans out of the open door of one of the 29 news vehicles.
Bo: Sure, no problem, I could do that!
Charles and Bo in front of the weather set.
Bo: We want to do your job for a day!
Charles: Write or e-mail us and tell us why you’d trade places with us for a day. You’ll get to do the weather -
Bo: - or sports -
Charles: - for a day, and we’ll do your job.
Bo: How hard could it be?
Bo sits down at the little weather desk and starts messing with the sacred Super Doppler Mouse.
Bo: This looks easy…
Sports set - Charles takes a crack at it.
Charles: And the Cardinals toppled the Brewers with a score in the mid-fifties…
Bo clicks the Doppler mouse and on a nearby screen, the entire viewing area lights up with a something ludicrous like a tsunami warning. Bo looks worried about this.
Bo: Oops…
Wide shot of the WX set; Charles stands out in front of it as Bo, with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression, looks around and sneaks out of the weather set.
Charles: Keep watching to find out how you can trade places with Bo and me, on ABC 40/29!
This promo worked out better than I expected it to, and thus far has gotten everyone’s attention. To give credit where it is due, Charles and Bo both threw themselves into this thing unashamedly, willingly pulling silly stunts that might have drawn “Wait, this makes me look stupid!” protests from a lesser on-air personality. Their unscripted contributions were as vital as anything in the script. Easily one of my favorite channel 40 promos so far.
