Rolling Billboards

As a TV News Photojournalist I have the pleasure of driving around town, gathering up all the news the viewers can stand, in a marked up, vinyl lettered, advertising toolbox, that we bottom dwellers like to call 'Rolling Billboards'.



So it's appropriate at certain times of the year when the pretty faces that you see on Fox 8 end up themselves, as 'Rolling Billboards'.



Let me explain the telephone call that I received this morning. While it's not unusual for my wife to call me several times an hour a day, the frenzy in her voice told me I'd better listen.



Seems she had just seen two overtly giant sized, smiling news anchors...the same ones she sees on the 5,6 and 10 o'clock news.



I laughed at her, explaining that I have the same dream about three times a week.

But when she called me back giggling, saying that they had followed her to Wal*Mart, I thought she might be high.

"Honey, that's funny. Are you OK?"



But seriously,I have seen this before. About 4 times a year these funny looking trucks can be found traversing the streets around our TV viewing area, giving drivers quite a shock to see their living room talking buddies in supersize.



The drivers of these Rolling Billboards tell about drivers wandering into their lanes whilst gawking at Nico or Jeff or Julie or Neill. And the kids, they don't quite know what to think, craning their necks to every portal on the car while the the truck is out of site.



As the pilot of the pint sized version of the rolling billboard, often with the real thing on board, I can relate to my wife's frenzied fascination, and the kids starstruck stares, when spotting the Fox 8 truck, whether a real news unit or a real Rolling Billboard.



So now Jeff Varner, Nico Bella and Julie Luck are getting their inaugural rides on the fancified advertising machine.



Coming to a street near you!