Pun City: A Winner Even With Stupid Human Tricks

Good evening. It's been an interesting week.

Wednesday morning, on my way to work, 99.1 WMYX, a Milwaukee radio station, was taking calls on their morning show for people with stupid human tricks. The winner would get a guaranteed audition with CBS 58, a Milwaukee TV station that would send the tapes in to The Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman's producers would then judge the submissions and potentially invite you on to the show. This blog knows a few stupid human tricks, 3 of which are really unique, so Pun City figured it would call in.

The Jane and Kidd's show producer liked the thought of 3 tricks, so he said he'd call back since they were about to go to a break. He called back in around an hour and they taped an interview with this blog. Both deejays seemed to like Pun City and they had this blog hang on the line so they could potentially call back and have Pun City on as a finalist Thursday. This blog was taking off Thursday afternoon anyway, so it asked for the whole day off and was fortunately granted as much. Pun City was then called back and told it was indeed a finalist.

Thursday morning was pretty cool, got to go on Jane & Kidd's show on 99.1 WMYX. They had Van McNeil, an afternoon deejay and major David Letterman fan, in to judge. The other finalists this blog was up against were a double-jointed white trashy woman and a huge tattooed guy that had trained his Scottish Terrier to carry a bowling ball. (The call had been for both stupid human tricks and stupid pet tricks).

Had a decent interview with Jane and Kidd, demonstrated the stupid human tricks (one-handed clap, an eye trick Pun City has been encouraged to call "the eye-brator", and sucking this blog's upper lip flush with its nose). Van was freaked out with the eye-brator, he'd never seen that one before, plus the one-handed clap played well on the radio. Pun City had been the first one to go.

The double-jointed woman had the standard double-jointed tricks, bending her thumbs back to her wrist, fingers all the way back, did the dishrag thing where she grabbed it with both hands and rotate her shoulders all the way around without letting go. This blog can't do that, but tons of double-jointed people can, and even more people have seen that.

Scottish terrier guy had us go outside and the dog pushed the ball around for a minute, then found the holes and carried it for a few seconds. The guy then had it go to the bathroom (#1) while carrying it. Dude seemed pretty proud of the #1 part of it, apparently had just trained him to do that the day prior. Everyone else just kind of thought it was weird.

We went back inside, they hadn't had their camera for this blog's segment so they re-shot a similar interview, this time for their website. All of the above-mentioned segments had been taped first, then aired about 4 minutes later on the radio. The next segment was live, however, and none of the contestants had been informed of what Van was about to say.

He made a comment about how he'd seen double-jointed people before but it was a good talent. He then said that he was still freaked out by the eye-brator, and then said he didn't see too many dogs carrying around bowling balls. (He was working from left to right in the sound booth, in the order the contestants were standing). At this point, Pun City was figuring he was going to give the win to the dog, since everyone loves a dog, and this blog was thinking there was no shame in losing to a dog in this case. But then Van says "But you know what, I gotta give it to (Pun City)."

That was pretty cool. Decades of using stupid human tricks vindicated. As it turned out, all 3 of the contestants got to audition privately, but it was still cool to be the winner.

Saturday this blog had to go to a car dealership where CBS 58 was holding the auditions. This blog had briefly spoken to a station representative earlier; WMYX had said that 58 would be calling Pun City, but no call had been made by 4:30 on Friday. This blog called 58 and spoke to the rep, who was unaware that he was supposed to be calling the 3 of us. It wasn't a huge deal since this blog pretty much knew the relevant information; however this was the first time this blog became aware that Letterman's producers would not be there in person.

This wasn't ideal, but whatever. This blog went to the dealership Saturday and it was a strange scene. A combination of overbearing TV personnel, overbearing car salesmen, people with weird talents, and perhaps strangest of all, people who came just to watch the festivities. This blog was waiting a little while and saw the bowling ball guy, and a dog that hadn't quite learned a trick where it plays dead after hearing "bang". There were a couple other strange tricks, one involving whistling like a bird and one person using her mouth as a trumpet. This blog appreciated the effort of those two, but it really doesn't think those are especially unique or difficult. Hopefully they aren't too much competition.

This blog went, and the 58 guy must have liked it because he encouraged Pun City to continue the tricks for a longer duration after the first run-through. The assembled crowd did have a big round of applause for Pun City after it went, so this blog is crossing its fingers. No way of knowing for a while here, so this blog is going to have to let you know if it gets a call some time down the road.

UPDATE: The video has been posted for WMYX, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAwKrSVKAr4

It didn't pick up the eye trick very well, but the other two are good.