Tell Your Aunt Louise
Summary: A one-hit country wonder visits his namesake tiger at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. Reporter: Janelle Hall, WTAE Channel 4 Airtime: 1 minute, 41 seconds on Oct. 2 Visuals: * The über-unctuous Hall reporting "live" from Highland Park. * Country music, ahem, "legend" Billy Ray Cyrus working his way through the crowd. Highlights: * When Hall says, "You know, a lot of the people that came to the Pittsburgh Zoo today got quite a surprise when they didn't realize Billy Ray Cyrus was coming to meet 'Billy Ray.' The country-music man actually went behind what [are] normally locked doors to get an up-close-and-personal visit with this endangered species." * When Hall asks Ray if he's afraid of the 40-pound cub: "Billy Ray, are you afraid of Billy Ray?" and he replies, "No, not at all. I'm actually very excited." * When Hall elaborates, "The country-music man most famous for the song ["Achy Breaky Heart"] traveled to the Pittsburgh Zoo today to meet an Amur tiger a donor family named after him." * When Cyrus posits, "I'm sure you couldn't hear me talking to it out there, but [I] was petting that Billy Ray, saying, 'You're here for a reason -- to bring more attention to your species. You're down to 300 or 400 left in the wild.'" * When Hall elaborates, "While wearing a protective coat, Billy Ray Cyrus played with the [tiger] and captured every moment that he plans to share with his daughter, the star of the show Hannah Montana." She then asks Cyrus, "Do you think you'll ever bring Miley here?" * When he answers, "Oh, she's gonna be comin'. I can guarantee ya. ... The next time Miley's tour bus rolls through Pittsburgh, she's gonna come out here to the zoo." * When Hall wraps up, "Billy Ray Cyrus had a lotta nice things to say about the Pittsburgh Zoo, and he was also very touched by the move that the family made to name this tiger in his honor. The woman's name is Mrs. May. ... She died in her 80s a couple of years ago, and she was huge Billy Ray Cyrus fan. Billy Ray himself says he actually remembers meeting her in both '92 and '96, and again says this was quite an honor." What We Learned: Taking into account Cyrus' hairstyle at the time of his popularity, this has to be a Pittsburgh-mullet thing. Unanswered Question: Will the next cub be named "Hannah"? News Value: 2. There's a new cub in town -- but this high-school-level reporting leaves me wondering whether it's the tiger, or Hall.