9:45am — Updated to reflect more information clarifying John Auble’s status.

A couple of interesting and corroborating reports in our tip line inbox today about the two-headed local news team of Fox2 and KPLR (11). According to both our tipster and our other source, spring cleaning is in full effect in the on-air news department by both traditional firings and medical leave. Here’s a summary of what we’ve heard, starting with the slightly stale news and going from there:

A few days ago #2 or #3 sports guy Rob Desir disappeared from the station, but now reporter Sean Conroy, who had been rumored to be “leaving” to focus on the bars he co-owns (iTap), is gone as well. Fellow reporters John Gadsen and John Auble both would have also been shown the door according to our tipster, but are currently on the mend from major illness. On the KPLR side, rumor has it that Melanie Moon‘s job may be on thin ice as well…which brings us to the news team’s recent hire: Angie Mock. Who by the way, isn’t bad on the eyes:

Mock hasn’t listed the move from Oklahoma City to St. Louis on her Faacebook page yet, but she did announce it on the morning show she still co-hosts for the next couple of days.

Could Mock the less hard news experienced Mock be in line for the KPLR job if the cuts continue? Our tipster thinks so, but we couldn’t back that up other than confirming Mock’s hire. On the whole though, these cuts make sense in a trimming the books way because all of the names listed have been at the station for a while, so they make a little more money, but also aren’t “key” on-air faces most people will miss. Sadly, these moves were probably the “easy” decisions.

No formal confirmation on KTVI/KPLR at the time of this writing other than Rob Desir’s page being removed from the “News Team” page.

In a related story, Fox2 is advertising the fact that they have “the most meteorologists” in the market, which means if you work for Fox2 start brushing up on how to point to stuff on a green screen and highlighting green and red splotches on a map while telling everyone those are tornados. Nah, it doesn’t really matter if you’re right.

Update: A commenter brings up a good point…

Hot? She looks like someone poisoned by the Joker.

We hadn’t really focused on her face yet, but yeah…she kinda does.

It’s no secret our favorite member of the Fox2 morning show is John Pertzborn (file photo), but, as KTRS jock JC Corcoran points out, there’s more talent on that morning roster than Pertzborn.

Just as I was leaving Buffalo, N.Y. for St. Louis way back in 1984 there was a rising, young star on the local TV scene there by the name of Randi Naughton.  A native of Niagra Falls, she had the looks to have done a stint at the Buffalo Playboy Club.

Well look a that! A young Randi Naughton, all decked out and pushed up with the bunny costume. Just a traffic reporter back then, but now she’s derp-ing it up on a “big” market morning news show.

Of course, Naughton’s naughty past comes to no surprise to her old stalker, but for the rest of us it’s a fun, pink little nugget of local media trivia. Also, if you want a little extra news, Naughty Naughton accepts singles.

via JC on the Line

Did you watch the Super Bowl on Fox? Then you’ve already seen what we’re going to talk about: Those “One on One with Maria Spanguolo” spots.

Ahhhh! Damn Fox2, could have done any creepier lighting on the Rams head coache’s wife? All shadowy and has that effect where no matter what place you stand, she looks like she will put your child in a giant black pot with a boiling water and a few cut up carrots. Plus they showed the spot on seemingly every other commercial break, so that really helped in searing it to our brain just in time for bed! So much for our decade-long dry bed streak.

Actually, the frame above is probably the “best” one. Check out this:

Holy god. Kudos for Mandy Murphy, who still looks pretty good with her stock news lady hair, for hanging in there looking at that creepily lit woman with a spooky green background behind her for a whole interview. Check out this shot of Mandy they included in the spot and note the fake “Oh god how long do we have to do this?” smile.

She can’t look away, she can’t ask a question and then look down at her notes until Mrs. Spagnuolo’s done talking, so she just locks on, staring right at it full-bore like those people on reality shows that have to eat something gross so they figure if they just don’t think about it and dive in they can get through it without barfing. Aaron Rodgers of the Packers had a good night Sunday, but Mandy Murphy probably did more work in that interview than Rodgers did all game.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re tired as hell and need a nap. We spent most of last night staring at the ceiling holding in our urge to pee, hoping that the shadow wasn’t Maria Spagnuolo coming out from under our bed and wondering why we hadn’t heard from our cat for a few hours.

Found on YouTube: KTVI Fox2′s John Brown gets bit by a Cardinal he was holding at the bird sanctuary.

He apparently had named the little red cardinal “Albert”…not sure why. Don’t see any connection there. If he was making a joke, he should really come off his high horse and do something more relatable, because who knows what he was referring to. Maybe John will explain the obscure reference needed to understand why naming a cardinal “Albert” would be funny. Naming it “Fart”or “Boob” would have been far more universally hilarious.

At least the bird bit him, that we can all relate too.

We love fanmail around here and there is no organization that sends better fanmail than your local Fox affilate, channel 2 on your sets and 1 in your hearts, Fox2!

I believe you all recall when Fox2′s Charles Jaco sent a letter of appreciation our way last December: “We Got a Letter From Charles Jaco Last Night!“ We remember it like it was yesterday. It was folded in to the shape of a swan and it smelled like bubblegum!

Then last night we were excited to see an email in our inbox from Charlie Marlow, also of Fox2! Was he returning our letters written lovingly each weekend and sealed with a kiss? No, he wasn’t. In fact, not only did he fail to mention them entirely, he also denied our request for a locket of hair! I guess John Auble’s hair will have to be keep being glued to our inflatable local news guy for the time being. Oh well.

Let’s get to that letter shall we? We better run it through the translate-o-tron 5000 first and then after we’ll respond to Charlie’s thoughts.

TWIMC:

This is cool texting guy way of saying To Whom It May Conern. Golly gosh he’s polite! …but you know, he’s polite but hip. Ladies eat this shit up!

A short while ago I was told about your website’s posting of a picture of me flipping off a cameraman.

Hmm. Charlie Marlow flicking off the camera…hmmm…we had a photo of that? ….

Found it!

That it Chuckles?

Now, why a number 4 sports guy in St. Louis jokingly flipping off a friend of his at an insidestl.com event (that I wasn’t working) is newsworthy,

Maybe you don’t understand Chuckie. Hell no it wasn’t “newsworthy”, neither is this letter  you sent, it is kinda funny though. Also, #4 seems a little high…could have sworn an intern got on the air once.

…is unbeknownst to me, but then again, I don’t run a crappy local gossip website that nobody’s heard of, like you guys do.

“I’m saying it didn’t get to me but it so did.”

I think its worth pointing out that Charles here has heard about it. So that’s one! Maybe in a year from now we’ll get a letter from Martin Kilcoyne, thus completing our life’s goal.

But, that’s not why I’m writing … I really couldn’t care less about the picture.

“I care so much about the picture I’ve spent half this email, that is supposed to be about someone else’s plight, talking about me.”

I’m writing because I also saw your posting about John Gadson

He’s referring to this: “John Gadson isn’t Very Good at Reporting Stuff” from March of this year.

… and I just wanted to let you know that that was John’s last on-air appearance before going to the hospital for a brain tumor that could have killed him. He hasn’t been on-air or at work in the last 6 months and is in recovery.

“Oh yeah, this email wasn’t supposed to be about me.”

Just thought your classy website would like to know that!

“Take that blogger! Man I’m such a good person.”

But, I’m sure, as the good “journalists” you are … you already did.

“You’re on the internet so you are a dumb. I’m on weekend television! That’s right weekend television, when everyone is home and still no one watches!”

It’s noble work that you do!

Oh my god! That is so nice of you Chaz! You know, you write post after post after post and you never hear a thank you until something like this comes along and…oh I get it. Damn you sarcasm and your intricacies! One day we will master you!

Sincerely,

“If I close ‘sincerely’ I’ll look so polite! Wait, is there a texting acronym for ‘sincerely’? Screw it. I’ll just go old skool.”

Charlie Marlow
FOX 2

———–

Ok Chuckie, here’s your response:

Yes, in fact we did hear a few months after that post that Mr. Gadson had surgery because of the symptoms displayed in the story we mocked him in, and if you would have done some “journalism” yourself and simply scrolled down a bit, you would have seen a comment from a reader stating that fact. Of course we hope nothing but the best for John in his hopefully successful recovery.

However, if your “goal” was for us to take the story down, that will not happen. Though, once again, we wish nothing but the best for Mr. Gadson, we don’t feel bad about the story. Here’s why:

1. The fact that he had surgery was noted by our commenter and we felt that it was clear and enough of a notice for a post seven months old, though to be fair, it wasn’t enough for you. It’s clearly enough for everyone else though, and we even are even taking it a step farther by posting your fanmail which we could have simply ignored.

2. It was funny. Yeah dude, it was funny. No one knew he had a problem and when someone goes up that and drops that on TV, it’s funny and that’s what we cover here.

A little mean? Sure, but all the best humor is. If there’s no edge, you get the last four seasons of Friends, which sucked. Doesn’t mean we don’t like the guy, just means that he did some funny crap. It sucks that the reason was because he was sick, but there’s always a reason behind weird stuff like that last piece of his. You telling me you only laugh at stuff after you take the time to research the whole backstory? We know you moonlight on KFNS in the mornings and have heard you guys make fun of weird callers. It’s funny! ..but, and I don’t want to alarm you Chas, some of those people can’t help it either. [Editor's Note: This is when you should turn off the lights in your room and play Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" Don't want to be bossy, but it would really set the stage right about now.]

Does it sting more when you or someone  you know is the target? Of course! But tomorrow is a new day and we move on to someone else. It’s not as though we did a daily feature on Gadson. We covered one odd local news shot and then moved on. Frankly if anyone can’t get over this thing it’s you. No one is attacking anyone, it was a post in freaking March (That’s for reading our back issues though!) that we never mentioned again.

Dig that 7-month old tampon out of there Charlita and lets move on! We have. What’s your address? You want some Punching Kitty stickers?

Thanks as always for reading and lastly, good luck to John Gadson!

“Live in the Web Center. This is George Sells, Fox2 news.” The Web Center?!

We were going to do exactly what every pseudo-news outpost is supposed to do in St. Louis and bite on this story that some St. Louis company is going to map Ozzy Osbourne’s DNA and will undoubtedly uncover amazing truths and far too many bat head biting references to count, but when watching the clip about the story on Fox2′s site just now, something else caught out attention…

Fox2 calls a room in their office “The Web Center”.

Here’s reporter George Sells in there now doing web stuff on his multiple monitors which we can only assume doubles as a emergency NASA launch center in St. Louis when the need arrises.

I know. Its really crazy in the Web Center. Its tough to take all in. Here’s an annotated version of the shot.

That’s three monitors showing all kind of Web Centery stuff like Ozzy photos, and lets not forget the tape in the background.

…

Ok this thing is a converted closet isn’t it?! It has to be. Somewhere there is a janitor pissed off he can’t keep his mop there anymore. Why go the trouble of calling this clearly random room with an outlet on one of the walls the “Web Center”…is it because this room has the good power strip?

It would be another thing if this was 1987 and this was the only room in the whole building that had the internet, but come on! Every intern in the station has a computer, making every cube in the farm a little “mini Web Center”. Hell we have internet on our phone…are we always in a Web Center where ever we go? You tell us Fox2, you’re the ones that had to get all fancy with the names for closets.

Oh wait. Is calling it “The Web Center” how you convinced George to move to the room in the basement with those boxes of Jaco Report tapes?