OLD Media Moves

Kernen's joke on CNBC fell flat

July 13, 2006

The New York Daily News is reporting that a joke CNBC anchor Joe Kernan made on Monday to discuss how much money the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie brought in fell flat with some people.

Reporter Richard Huff noted, “Fact was blended with fiction Monday morning on CNBC. That’s when CNBC anchor Joe Kernen reported that Disney was a big winner because ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ pulled in $132 million at the box office.

“The film, starring Johnny Depp did, indeed, take in that kind of loot.

Joe Kernen“But then Kernen added with a straight face: “The previous three-day record was ‘Aquaman’ at $120 plus, which beat out the $115 million which was set by ‘Spider-Man’ back in May of ’02.”

“Yeah, like only in the minds of la-la land scriptwriters did that happen!

“The only place “Aquaman” beat “Spider-Man” was on HBO’s critically acclaimed series “Entourage,” which is set in Hollywood. The first couple of episodes of this season were about the opening of the fictional film “Aquaman,” starring Vincent Chase, the “Entourage” character played by Adrian Grenier.

“Chase tells his pals he’ll buy them something “sick” if “Aquaman” beats “Spider-Man.” And so the story went, until that happened – on the HBO series. HBO placed an advertisement in Variety touting the “Aquaman” victory.

“Yesterday, a clip of Kernen’s report was making the rounds – and getting chatter on the blog marketingismymiddlename.typepad.com. and on the Web site TVnewser.com.”

Read more here.

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