Barry Mitchell

Barry Mitchell

Barry Mitchell (born March 6, 1952) is the Brooklyn-born comedian, musician and TV producer known as "AccordionGuy" to viewers of ABC-TV's quirky, overnight broadcast, World News Now. Hestarted contributing topical song parodies to the program in 1992, and laterbecame its roving feature reporter, conducting celebrity interviews andscouring the country for oddball stories and personalities.

Mitchell played accordion in Long Island, NY wedding bands in the mid-1970s,and later worked as a radio newswriter for WHLI-AM. In the late 1970s heworked briefly for NBC Radio News and Information Service in Rockefeller Center before starting to earn a living as a stand-up comedian.

In 1992 Mitchell wrote and performed what was to become World News Now's signature closingtheme, the tongue-in-cheek "World News Polka". Many differentversions of the Polka were created over the years, the most famous being themusic video in which Mitchell was accompanied by two attractive femalesingers dressed in journalistic trenchcoats, who sang backup whilewaving large hand microphones, with many in-jokes acknowledging Disney's ownership of ABC. Other versions of Mitchell's Polka include one featuringan Elvis impersonator, another with an all-ukulele band, and onestarring a water-harpist. In May, 2007, Mitchell and ABC reunited to produce a new music video which included the updated lyrics: "They give us no budget, no respect or camera crews/We're the Ugly Betty of this high-class network's news," referencing the ABC-TV Network hit primetime series.

In the 1980s, Mitchell's uncanny impression of Woody Allen earned him partsin TV commercials and sketch work on Saturday Night Live, Caroline's ComedyHour, and in 2002, Late Night With Conan O'Brien. In between he has writtenmonologue material for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Wayne Cotter ofFox's Comic Strip Live.

In 2004 he was part of the writing team for That Was The Week That Was,ABC's short-lived attempt to revive the 1963 BBC satire series as a segmentof Primetime Live.

Since May, 2005, Mitchell has worked as a producer/reporter for CUNY-TV, thepublic affairs cable channel of the City University of New York, availablein the five boroughs of New York City on Channel 75 and online at cuny.tv.

External links

* [http://www.barryfunny.com BarryFunny.com] Mitchell's personal website
* [http://www.youtube.com/user/barryfunnytv Mitchell's YouTube page]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Barry Mitchell (footballer) — Infobox afl player | firstname = Barry lastname = Mitchell birthdate = Birth date and age|1965|12|7|df=y birthplace = originalteam = Mulgrave heightweight = 173cm / 70 kg dead = deathdate = deathplace = debutdate = 1984 debutteam = Sydney… …   Wikipedia

  • Mitchell's embedding theorem — Mitchell s embedding theorem, also known as the Freyd–Mitchell theorem, is a result stating that every abelian category admits a full and exact embedding into the category of R modules. This allows one to use element wise diagram chasing proofs… …   Wikipedia

  • Barry Dallas — Dr Barry Mitchell Dallas (? Greymouth, April 21, 1992) OBE JP was a Mayor of Greymouth on the West Coast of New Zealand.Mayor of GreymouthDr Barry Dallas was a Mayor of Greymouth on the west coast of New Zealand s South Island. He was awarded an… …   Wikipedia

  • Barry McGuigan — Fiche d’identité Nom complet Finbar Patrick McGuigan Surnom The Clones Cyclone Nationalité …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Barry Guy — Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is a British composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in… …   Wikipedia

  • Barry Kay — (born Melbourne 1932 ndash; died London 1985), who studied arts at the Académie Julian in Paris, was a stage and costume designer of international renown. In the course of his career, lasting almost four decades, he designed for the ballet, drama …   Wikipedia

  • Barry lindon — Barry Lyndon Pour les articles homonymes, voir Barry et Lyndon. Barry Lyndon Titre original …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Mitchell A. Seligson — Born 1945 Occupation Professor, Vanderbilt University; author Mitchell A. Seligson(born 1945) is the Centennial Professor of Political Science and Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University.[1] He founded and directs the Latin American… …   Wikipedia

  • Mitchell Highway — Proposed …   Wikipedia

  • Barry Lyndon — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Barry Lyndon Título Barry Lyndon Ficha técnica Dirección Stanley Kubrick Producción Jan Harlan, Stanley Kubrick, Bernard Williams …   Wikipedia Español

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”