Now! Live Tonight news, the number one news source on your channel eight gateway to the stories that matter most to you, our number one viewers from across all seven counties in the greater metro area at six o’clock!

Good evening, and happy hump day from myself–Brad Blowdry and…

…me Brenda Breathless here at the channel eight news desk.

Brenda, we start with a quick look at the weather. So over to Sonny Lightfoot.

Good evening, everyone. Right now it’s fairly mild out there but temperatures are expected to fall tonight, making for less mild conditions, with the possibility of some rain. We’ll have our team coverage of area roadways for our 10 o’clock broadcast so that anyone on the roads later can quickly hear about any flooding in the city and in those super boonies. You may all recall that super soaker that dumped  seven inches of rain in fifteen minutes last year, and resulted in five people drowning in spite of climbing into an abandoned treehouse.  I’ll have a complete weather report later in this broadcast. Back to you, Brad and Brenda.

Thanks, Sonny. Breaking news! A man has barricaded himself inside his Wazoo City home after reportedly losing his job in Boonesville earlier today. He has apparently brandished  a gun from his rear window, which faces into the wooded area near Calhoon Creek. Neighbors say he may have some cats or a hound dog or other pets in the house with him, and he is threatening to kill himself or anyone trying to stop him if he decides to do that. Police are at the scene, trying to negotiate with the man, who neighbors say they think his name is Ray Bob Tucker. Or Bobby Joe Tucker.  Our live tonight reporter, Charlene Shane is at the scene. Charlene…

Yes, Brenda and Brad, the police say the man who–as you have noted is possibly one Ray Joe Tucker of  Marshwater Road near the county line–has repeatedly flashed a gun through a window, threatening to shoot anyone who tries to enter his property. The man, according to what I’ve gathered by talking to the sheriff, Chester Monroe, lost his job as a chimney sweep with Clean Sweep by being replaced by what is called a “sweep bot”.  As you can see, police have cordoned off the area surrounding his house, and a SWAT team is on the way from Marfaville. We are told that Joe Tucker Ray  worked as a sweep for thirty-three years, according to his supervisor, Max Shaft. Police are trying to establish a phone connection to Ray Bob Billy’s house, but he may have cut the line. It’s believed that Joe Ray has never owned a cell phone. One neighbor has stated no one has ever seen the inside of his house, and that he’s usually not very talkative when encountered and his clothes always seem sooty and tattered. Oh, and that he may have once served prison time for operating an illegal moonshine operation in Beauford county when he was quite younger. Police say they have not had any trouble with Joe Billy Ray since he moved here two months ago from East Wazoo City. However, he had to be rescued after being trapped in a chimney in a South Wazoo cannery, and was quite drunk at that time. That’s the latest here from Marshwater Road. Back to you Brenda and Brad.

Brenda, what’s our next news flash? 

Well, Brad, The Wazoo city council today voted to outlaw the wearing of any sports apparel bearing team logos. Evidently there’s been a series of fights and strong armed robbery concerning these warm-up jackets and sneakers at Wazoo High. The council is concerned that these shoes and jackets could lead to more violent outcomes, as is the case in urban centers such as Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Tulsa, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Jersey City, Denver, San Antonio, St.Louis, Minneapolis, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, and New York City, where last year over two hundred teens have been murdered for these items, especially those never out-of-fashion Air Jordans and Jordan’s number 23 jersey, each of which cost nearly two hundred dollars. Jordan has evidently made an appeal to those who covet his shoes and jerseys to not wear them in public after purchasing them through his Air Up There virtual sportswear emporium. Also, in an official statement from  the National Association of Sporting Apparel and the NRA, jackets and shoes don’t kill people, people with guns kill people, or people with baseball bats and knives or bows and arrows kill people. Over to you Brad…

Brenda, the Wazoo City Zoo discovered its two giraffes have apparently been stolen. Zookeepers this morning were shocked to find the two animals where nowhere in sight when employees went to feed them. As our viewers may know, the giraffes are the most popular of the zoo’s animals, even more than the primates or Missy, the bob-tailed mountain lion captured in the Ozarks by some survivalists who had planned to kill and eat her before she killed and ate the three of them, all wanted for the Molotov cocktail attacks on government buildings which seriously injured dozens of people. Missy was awarded a medal for bringing those three to justice after she was placed at the Wazoo zoo a year ago. But the giraffes attract more attention seemingly because of those amazing long necks. The two animals, named Chester and Millie-Mae, according to zoo officials may have been taken by pranksters from  Wazoo Automotive Tech School. The zoo says the two animals always respond to their names, and are asking anyone who sees them to call their names. If they fail to respond, the zoo says it may be a matter of stumbling across the wrong giraffes. Over to you Brenda…

Brad, in another unfortunate incident, three people in Goodwrench Plaza were seriously injured today when a skateboarder lost control of his device during the noon hour lunch crunch. The skateboarder, whose name is being withheld owing to his being only seven years-old, said he was trying to perform a “triple three sixty” when he and the skateboard went their separate ways. The injured were taken to city hospital and all are expected to survive. Police say the skateboard had a pointed front edge, with Ren and Stimpy cartoon figures pasted onto it. Authorities are trying to determine who Ren and Stimpy are. 

Brenda, let’s go to Estelle Lipscomb, our roving reporter, who has a report from where, Estelle?

Brad and Brenda, I’m here at Lovers Leap, on the edge of town. The leap a gorge of over seven hundred feet, has long been a hangout for amorous couples and in some cases a jumping off point for the fatally smitten, though wingless, lovebirds. But no fatal leaps have occurred in over five years, and the gorge has taken on another type of leap into its abyss temptation by becoming part of the bungee jumping craze. You can see here behind me,  a young man has the bungee cord secured around his right ankle, and he’s about to take the plunge! The operators of the bungee experience, named Go Ahead, Jump! charge seventy-five dollars for the thrill ride straight down into the gorge. Let’s watch as this one takes off. There he goes! Why would anyone do this, Brad and Brenda? Our camera is following his descent, with the bungee cord at his leap-off point unraveling rapidly, and in a moment or two it will be completely stretched out. The jumper, according to the handler at Go Ahead, Jump! says the jumper should stop falling about twenty feet from the dry river bed at the bottom. He’s still falling, and the bungee cord is about totlly unraveled, Just a few more seconds. There! Wow. I can barely make out the person down there, as he bounces up and then down and up and down as the cord relaxes moment to moment. I can hear him shouting, maybe screaming from way down there. A winch will start hauling him back up. That will take about ten minutes. Medical personnel are always standing by just in case, both up here and down there. The things people will do for a thrill! Insane, hun? It looks as though someone, a young woman, may have fainted near the jump-off point. She’s being attended to. Maybe it’s her boyfriend down there. I can still hear him. He sounds excited. We better cut away, guys, I think I just heard some rather vulgar shouts coming from down there. That’s it from Lovers Leap. If anyone is interested in taking the plunge, well you know how this works. It’s a breathtaking experience, as far as I can tell, Brenda and Brad. Back to you two.

Brenda, let’s go back to Charlene Shane and that barricade situation…

Brenda and Brad, police have defused the situation here as that SWAT team arrived and stormed into the house. No shots were fired, and in fact it turns out that Mr.Ray Joe Billy Bob Tucker III, did not have a real gun. Rather he was brandishing a cigarette lighter shaped like a gun, about the size of a Derringer. The police commander on the scene has called for a ban on all fake guns, saying they serve no purpose other than to make a fast buck by the manufacturers in China, which seems to make everything and anything.  He said, China probably made the sweep bot that took Bob Ray Bill Joe’s job from him. There goes Billy Joe, cuffed and tucked into the squad car. I wonder if those cuffs are made in China. I’m not going to ask though guys, okay? Back to the studio…

Wow, quite a newsday and we still have more stories to come, including sports and an update on that possible gullywasher Sonny Lightfoot mentioned at the top of our newscast…