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.
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Famous quotes containing the words happy talk, happy and/or talk:
“The only happy talkers are dandies who extract pleasure from the very perishability of their material and who would not be able to tolerate the isolation of all other forms of composition; for most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable; they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own, to dispense it in noises upon the air.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“What else are we gonna live by if not dreams? We need to believe in something. What would really drive us crazy is to believe this reality we run into every day is all there is. If I don’t believe there’s that happy ending out there—that will-you- marry-me in the sky—I can’t keep working today.”
—Jill Robinson (b. 1936)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)