STLMedia is passing on a rumor from their anonymous tip line that KMOV she-anchors Vickie Newton and Jasmine Huda are involved in a brewing mess that one can only hope ends up in a Dynasty-level brawl with a 40% clothes-ripping-off-and-a-boob-popping-out chance.

Says the STLMedia source:

Jasmine Huda to anchor the 6 at KMOV, Vicki Newton is furious and had a fit in the middle of the newsroom. The tension between the two has been fun to watch.

…and that’s when Larry Conners makes his move pushing in that baby pool filled with chocolate pudding. They said “Larry, why do you always have so much chocolate pudding mix in your office?”, “When are you ever going to eat that pudding Larry?”, “Come on Larry, take that inflatable baby pool home. You got that thing like 10 years ago.” but they were all fools…fools! Larry Conners: 1, Everyone Else: 0

So that’s cool and all that you want go out and drive around pretending to be Bill Paxton or Helen Hunt from Twister KMOV weather people, but you’re annoying your Twitter followers that really just want the weather. They didn’t sign up for…

They signed up for:

Going to be rainy today. Bring a jacket.

They really don’t care that…

They just care if the ball game is going to be rained out.

…and lastly, they could care less about…

…wait. Nevermind. Kinda want to see where this goes now.

Watch out Virginia Kerr, your spot at the top of the “cute TV news reporter” food chain might just be in trouble.  Yes, Kerr still has the KMOV crowd on lock, but the overall title isn’t quite the blowout it once was and what some people think it still is.

We always knew April Simpson from KTVI Fox2 was cute, but after her Twitter picture (below) flashed across our desktop the other day betwixt the other updates of the day, we might have mentally broken up with Kerr and moved to Team Simpson.

Now if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to talk with Virginia.  Unless you are Virginia, please turn away from  your screen.

Ok V, we’re alone now.

Virginia…we’ve had some good times haven’t we?

Look, its not you.  Actually its not me either. Its April Simpson. She’s attractive. That’s not either of our faults! Its completely out of our control, but that doesn’t mean I can ignore it.  Its like a tornado of hottness:  No one caused it, but at the same time you can’t ignore it because it breaks a lot of crap.  Also there’s a loud whistling sound, which doesn’t really come in to play here.  I’m just going to throw this out there too: I’ve started to wonder if  you’ve taken your title for granted.  Look at April, that’s a photo from someone thats putting in some work.  Your photos, are cute sure, but nothing you have on your Twitter account can touch this.  This is good for you V!  It’s competition, and that makes everyone raise their game.  Who knows, 6 months from now I could be back on your team.  Good luck to you!  …don’t cry.  Here’s a tissue.  …you know what?  Take the box.

Ok, turn back around  Its over.  The deed is done.

Local news is pretty rough to watch these days as the people in charge continue to claw at the walls of the well they keep falling down, but maybe I’ll start Tivo-ing the Fox 2 mid-day report…you know, just to keep up on the important things, like state fairs and…car wrecks?  …I don’t know what the hell they talk about on local news these days and I don’t care….which is where the mute button comes into play!

Come to think of it, how did you “hear” me write to turn back around to finish reading this?  Total dick move on your part.

Found older KMOV clip on YouTube last night.  It a clip of one of those “throw away” stories that all local TV news stations do about stupid things like a squirrel that can water ski or whatever.  This time it was about a monkey in Japan that roamed free and eventually took a cat hostage.

Take a peak (its all over at the 1:00 mark, the rest is just bad editing):

If you missed it, here’s a freeze frame of the kitten rape:

The female anchor there (don’t recognize her, anyone got her name?) apparently doesn’t think getting humped by a monkey 10 times your size in the bushes is definition of “harm” but we, and we’re guessing, the cat, would staunchly disagree!  We’re betting that anchor is fun at parties though.

My second favorite part is Larry Conors, explaining it by saying the monkey “had never seen a cat before, and just wanted to know what it was.”  Well Larry, we’ve never met, but if we do, I’d prefer and hand shake.

A St. Louis couple decided to sell off their Jacko memorabilia on EBay, and actually netted some pretty good dough for the stuff.  Not only that, but they got on TV!  Thats right, they made the local news and took the time to record the news broadcasts with their camera and upload it to YouTube.

…they also, inadvertently, managed to illustrate how lame and formulaic local TV news has gotten.

Notes:

- In the Fox 2 segment, does John Auble sound even more drunk than normal?

- The “family friend” that modeled the jacket, seems to be pretty attractive.

- How the hell is something “almost leather?!”

Discuss amongst yourselves.

I can remember begging my parents to let me stay up to watch the Zippo Awards.  Feel free to relive the glory from one magical night in February 28th, 1997: 

You’re welcome.

Our friends at the Riverfront Times’ blog STLog broke the news that channel 4, KMOV, have dropped the hammer on yet another employee.  This time it was veteran of 13 years John Mills.

John left a note to his…fans? …I guess…on his website:

“I am deeply grateful to the people of St. Louis for all their support over the past 13 years.

“Most especially, I want to recognize the victims of crime, discrimination and natural disaster. Thank you for trusting me to share your personal, painful stories with the public during some of the most difficult times of your lives.

Mills closes with (emphasis mine)…

“I have also enjoyed celebrating with you during many good times – the Cardinals winning the World Series, the Rams winning the Super Bowl and this great city’s continuing transformation for the better.

Ah, thats why he was fired!  He’s a drunk…or high or something.  We at Punching Kitty.com hope John can get and stay clean.

[Editor's Note:  We kid.  St. Louis is a great town.  By the way I just heard someone got jacked at gun point in front of my old apartment in the CWE.]

KMOV has cut 10 jobs, the majority of which are salespeople we hear.  The only “name” we’ve heard being cut is Tim Tialdo from our favorite show “Great Day St. Louis”

Anyone else have any word on this or know the others that were let go?

Somehow I’ve managed to missed the insane bad TV brilliance of Great Day St. Louis until recently, and now I’ve been nothing but obsessed with watching clip after clip of a show that I keep waiting to end with “Gotcha!” or Will Ferrell announcing ”the weather man is dead!  I killed the weather man!”

Take this little segment for example:

Apparently this segment, and I use that term loosely, is so that everyone’s favorite ambulance chaser tells us about some lawsuit and we are all supposed to pretend this isn’t an advertisement.  This time he told us the true story about that lady that spilled coffee on herself on and then sued and won.  Turns out, she’s a sad figure says Crouppen…oh and try to find out if Terry thinks the news people in the US are doing their jobs right or not.

[Editor's note: We wouldn't make you watch the whole thing!  ...plus they don't have embed code at their site, so we present the PunchingKitty Video Summary!]

Third degree burns over 6% of her body?!  Well, 6% of an old lady’s body is more than I would want on me at one time, but really not all that much.  Could have been a thigh’s worth.  The third degree burns part is what’s a little hard to believe.  From wikipedia:

Third-degree burns occur when the epidermis is lost with damage to the subcutaneous tissue. Burn victims will exhibit charring and extreme damage of the epidermis, and sometimes hard eschar will be present. Third-degree burns result in scarring and victims will also exhibit the loss of hair shafts and keratin. These burns may require grafting.

Coffee charred her skin?  Whatever.  The point is…I don’t know what the point is.  Really dumb intro to a commercial though…yeah!  Ok, that will be the point.

USA Today reported yesterday that Amtrak is reporting that their trains going between St. Louis and Kansas City are 96% on time.  Seriously.

This is a fucking joke right?  Who could possible give a shit about this?!  Maybe the article will tell me…

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Amtrak trains traveling between Kansas City and St. Louis turned in a stellar on-time rate for January.

The Missouri Department of Transportation said Tuesday that the trains were on schedule 96% of the time. MoDOT credits better dispatching by Union Pacific and $400 million in track repairs that allowed the trains to move faster.

From July through October, Amtrak recorded a 62-percent on-time rate. But since then the trans-Missouri run has been performing much better, with on-time rates of 70% in November and 84% in December.

Amtrak’s last comparable performance was 91% in September 2006.

In recent years, Amtrak lost riders as trains between St. Louis and Kansas City were held up by freight traffic on tracks it shares with Union Pacific.

Nope.  Thats the whole thing above, and I see no reason why this is news.   However, all of St. Louis’ “News” sources see it differently:

KSDK: Amtrak KC-St. Louis on-time rate 96 percent in January

KTVI: Amtrak KC-St. Louis trains on-time record for Jan. 96 percent

KMOV: …  Wait, they actually didn’t post this worthless excuse of P.R.

+1 KMOV.