Top 10 Times News Anchors Couldn't Keep a Straight Face

Yes, there is such a thing as the World's Ugliest Dog Contest! It takes place in Petaluma, California, and thousands of people attend every year to catch a glimpse of the not-so-cute doggies. In 2019, Fox covered the story, which was accompanied by pictures of the participating dogs. Anchor Bob Buckley can’t even get through the first picture without busting a gut. What follows is about a minute of straight, and incredibly infectious, laughter. Anchor Cindy Farmer tries her darndest to get through the story, but her words are almost incomprehensible thanks to the giggling.

We’re going back a ways for this news story about ‘plague season’. As anchor Laura Stephenson of News 4 Reno reported on rodents carrying the plague, she smiled her way through the entire report and let out a few giggles along the way. Co-host Jeff Moore has even more trouble when it’s his turn to report on the death of a prison convict, thanks to a line about whether or not a truck driver “was supposed to run over the inmate”. Perhaps the intended line was about whether the driver “meant to run over the inmate”? We don’t know, but Moore keeps cracking up throughout the segment.

Being a news anchor is a weird job! Sometimes you report on serious issues, other times you’re talking about a cat trying to lose weight. In this segment, anchor Susan Bahorich had to report on Holly, a 13-year-old cat that went swimming in a local pool as a form of exercise. Bahorich almost immediately gets the giggles, and struggles her way through the story. It doesn’t take long for her to descend into full-blown laughter, and she’s soon laughing so hard that she can barely finish the story. We don’t blame her - the footage of that terrified cat paddling around in the water and wearing a life jacket sure is truly marvelous.

Even the most accomplished professionals in the field get the giggles from time to time. Anderson Cooper is one of America’s most popular journalists and news anchors, having hosted “Anderson Cooper 360°” since 2003. For this segment in 2012, Cooper was reporting on Dyngus Day, a European celebration that occurs on Easter Monday. One bit in particular takes Cooper aback and makes him crack up … In fact, he has to stand up from his desk to try to reset. Even that doesn’t work, and he sits there wiping the tears from his eyes. He called the story “torture”, but for us at home it was comedy gold!

Dogs are always great for a laugh - never mind dogs that perform human activities. In a video captured by Yvonne Blankenship, a dog is seen stepping on a car horn and barking for its owner to hurry up in a nearby Subway. Anchor Laura Terrell nearly gets through the whole story, but eventually breaks and struggles with the conclusion. Todd Magel also gets in on the action, giggling throughout the segue to commercials. This is the kind of magical hold that dogs have over us.

This is an all-time classic news blooper. NBC’s Jim Vance was reporting on Paris Fashion Week, a designer clothing exhibition held semiannually in France. However, this wasn’t a report on the exhibition itself. Rather, it was about a model falling over on the runway. The model struggles with her platform shoes and stumbles more than once, causing Vance to break out into laughter. The slow motion shot of her flailing really gets the anchors going, and they never fully recover. Talk about infectious giggles.

We don’t know what’s funnier about this one - the story itself, or the reactions to it. The story is about a man who stunk up a Home Depot bathroom. While walking in, he warned others in the restroom that he was “fixin’ to blow it up.” One customer took him literally and alerted police! It turned out, of course, he was just being courteous! It takes a moment for anchor Lisa Rose to get the joke, but when she does she cracks up. Ethan Forhetz loses the plot too, as do a few people off-camera. We never truly lose our childish appreciation for a good poop joke, do we?

This might be the funniest name ever given to a pig, and we are in full support of anchor Robert Bradfield for laughing at it. The story is about a pig named Chris P. Bacon who visits children. Immediately upon reading the name, Bradfield loses his composure and never recovers. Unlike many of the other entries on this list, he doesn’t even attempt to soldier his way through. He simply laughs uncontrollably and tells someone to read the story. It’s this type of abandon - and yes, the name Chris P. Bacon - that makes the video a classic news blooper.

Sometimes the universe smiles upon us and gives us an amazing bit of unintentional comedy. This news report was about a woman recovering from a devastating lightning strike. The report cuts to an interview with the woman, only it glitches out in the most hilarious manner possible. She moves with quick jerks and speaks in a stuttery fashion, making it look and sound like she’s being electrocuted. It’s a perfect convergence of footage and story, and it’s enough to make anchor Mike Mickle crack. He tries his hardest to press on, but viewers can tell from the first smirk that he’s going to break. And break he does.

Behold, what might be the greatest facial composite in the history of humanity. Ethan Forhetz was reporting on a theft in Pennsylvania when he apparently received word that a sketch of the suspect had been released. The sketch, which was actually drawn by the victim, is displayed on the screen, and Forhetz’s stunned reaction is priceless. He simply stares at it in silence, probably thinking that someone behind the scenes is playing a joke on him. But things get even better when a photo of the criminal is put beside it. Forhetz finally breaks and lets out a little giggle before joking around with a co-anchor. It all comes together like an “SNL” sketch.