If you watched the halftime studio portion of the Oklahoma-Oregon West Regional Final game in the NCAA Tournament, you saw a rather bizarre two minutes and 14 seconds segment featuring puppets filling the roles of Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg, Kenny “The Jet” Smith and Charles Barkley. You heard the voices of Greg, Clark, Kenny and Chuck with the puppets. And they all played it straight. It was quite strange as this was not a promotion for an upcoming CBS or TBS show as far as we know.
If you were away from your television or flipping around looking for something else waiting for the game to return, luckily, we have the video for you:
Clark, Kenny + Chuck made their puppet picks for Kansas-Nova. https://t.co/SKc8UFYEhJ
— March Madness Men’s Basketball TV (@MM_MBB_TV) March 26, 2016
Following that segment, the guys were back on set next to the puppets and we got this classic Greg Gumbel gif:
— March Madness Men’s Basketball TV (@MM_MBB_TV) March 26, 2016
And Kenny Smith tweeted the puppeteers with the Greg, Clark, Kenny and Chuckster puppets:
FUNNIEST HALFTIME EVER! pic.twitter.com/cYFHapfF3z
— Kenny Smith (@TheJetOnTNT) March 26, 2016
It did lead to some reaction from those in the industry including former CBS NCAA voice Tim Brando, now of Fox:
Turner & CBS got Studio puppets into the budget! Beautiful. I was lucky getting a few coffee cups. 🙂
— Tim Brando (@TimBrando) March 26, 2016
And this one from ESPN’s Dave Pasch:
Can someone make me a @BillWalton puppet?
— Dave Pasch (@DavePasch) March 26, 2016
It certainly led to some interesting television. Now if leads to the return of Crank Yankers to TV, then we might be getting somewhere:
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