I thought I was imagining it when I heard Stuart Scott try to go mentally challenged “funny speak” during the late-night episode of “SportsCenter” on Sunday. So I played it back. Two or three times.
Not because it was funny. Because it was just so randomly … wrong.
It was right after the Dodgers-Braves telecast, and Scott, on “SportsCenter” duties with John Buccigross, was doing a V.O. on the lead story — Tiger Woods’ triumph at the PGA’s Buick Open.
“Putting for par at the 17th …” Scott begins, then says, “You see the movie, ‘The Ringer’?”
“I did,” answers Buccigross.
The reference is to the 2005 Johnny Knoxville flick (linked here), where he pretends to be a mentally challenged person so that he can win at the Special Olympics.
From there, Scott then goes into a dialect reminscinent of the character “Glen” (played by Jed Rees) … except it made no sense. It’s that halting, child-like voice that you hear from a mentally challenged person — in the context of the movie, it was funny in how they delivered the dialogue. But taken out of context, and attached to a clip that really has nothing to do with “The Ringer” — or golf — apparently was just too good for Scott to pass up.
Can’t find any clips on YouTube or elsewhere. Not sure how else to explain it. Anyone else catch it and have an opinion?
UPDATE:
As of Wednesday AM, still no official kind of response from ESPN damage control headquarters.
