Happy talk, also called banter, is the additional and often meaningless commentary interspersed into news programs by news anchors and others on set. It may consist of simple jokes or simply a modified wording in asking a question of another reporter. For instance, instead of a simple handoff to a sportscaster, an anchor might say, "So, Dave, what the heck happened out on that field today? Is our team going down the tubes?" "Happy talk" may also refer to a format of news which encourages such commentary.
Happy talk has been derided by some who prefer a more "traditional" and staid newscast, though it has been happening in some places since the early days of broadcasting. Many marketing experts believe that it increases viewership, and can therefore provide a financial boost to a local station, but it can also backfire—some newscasters are not comfortable with happy talk and fail in their attempts to do it, and some anchor teams may not have the chemistry or working relationship to be able to pull it off believably.
Happy Talk was created by Al Primo, who also created the Eyewitness News format.
Happy Talk was satirized by the Firesign Theater in their 1974 album Everything You Know Is Wrong. The "Where It's Happy" news team of Harold Hiphugger and Ray Hamburger also appear on Boom Dot Bust and Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death.
Read more about Happy Talk: Online
Famous quotes containing the words happy and/or talk:
“A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a barroom around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremarked seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and
oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“To know how to spend your money, have a talk with your purse.”
—Chinese proverb.