For the past few weeks, the folks over at KGUN have been running a gimmick where they use the natural heat of the Sonoran desert to do silly things with food — baking, making smores, so on and so forth — on Fridays. Because, y’know. Fry-Day. As in, it’s hot enough to FRY things during the DAY, in case you needed that spelled out for you.
You probably didn’t.
But today’s Fry-Day event started out innocent enough, and now seems a bit, uh…weird.
Apparently, the idea was to correctly guess how many inches the cactus ice sculpture would lose as it melted in the heat during the 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts…then, this photo happened.
- KGUN/Facebook
- Nope. Nothing strange about this.
Why yes, that is KGUN news personality Liz Kotalik somewhat awkwardly embracing that large, tall, hard-looking cactus-esque sculpture — and maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s just our warped minds over here in Alt-Weekly world, but we just can’t get past how ridiculous (and awkwardly risque) this looks.
A sampling of opinions from the Weekly staff, KGUN commenters and other folks I showed the photo to:
– “I’m thinking of some COMPLETELY different captions for that photo”
– “It’d be more interesting to conjecture how many inches an erection would lose just by thinking about the ice sculpture.”
– “Aren’t they copying a Phoenix station? [Note: Cooking things with the sun isn’t a particularly original idea, but yeah, KSAZ is doing it too.] And isn’t that a bit phallic … at least by six inches. What happened to cooking eggs on the sidewalk?”
– “Their viewers will love it. She’ll need a shorter skirt, though.”
– “Well, there are all sorts of shrinkage jokes to be made there.”
– “This is hot on so many levels.”
– “Get Liz’ hot hands off of it or it will melt faster.”
– “Just the tip.”
Yeah, that’s a good one to stop at. Hopefully, the next ice sculpture they go with isn’t something that isn’t quite so phallic — or at least that maybe they rethink putting the pretty, young 23-year-old reporter next to it.
Oh, for the record: at last check (and admittedly, I’m not checking with great frequency) the statue went from 38 inches at 4 p.m. to something very determined to turn into a puddle, as seen here at 5:45 p.m.
Apologies to KGUN’s Liz Kotalik, hugger of the ice cactus.
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2013.
Who made the puddle; the cactus or the reporter?
Um even Viagra doesn’t help in this heat….lol
Gimmicks are all KGUN has.
Please, don’t put “news” and “personality” in the same sentence. She and the rest of the TV ilk are entertainers, somewhat attractive faces and not much else.
I always feel better after watching KGUN 9 news (not to mention its 15 minute weather segment). Thanks KGUN, and a special thanks to Jennifer Wad-dell.
So the editors of Tucson Weekly are cool with publishing comments that amount to sexual harassment of another reporter? This article and the innuendo would have been just as amusing without tripe like “she’ll need a shorter skirt”. And while I realize this offense is relatively small in the grand scheme of things (and only a tiny part of the article)- it was still disappointing to see it here.
Oh grow up! It look like nothing more than a cactus ice sculpture………….
I am sweating, and its not because of the heat
Risque? Three-headed phallic symbol?
Perhaps it’s time for the estimable Mr. Mendez to leave the dark room and get out in the world.
GVGeorge, so we’re clear, this is the real world where news stations photograph their young, attractive reporters on their knees, hugging ice sculptures and post them onto their Facebook in an attempt to draw people into their latest summer gimmick, correct?
Frankly I find the fact that the majority of comments on that photo are centred around hilarious ‘cactus looks a bit like a cock and is next to hot girl’ jokes really, really tedious. If it was a picture of a male reporter hugging the stupid thing, would you all be making gay jokes? Or would it never have ever entered your head at all? Bunch of sexist asses. And before you ask, I’m a man. Grow up FFS.
CML, I see your point.
But the thing is, they knew what they were doing with the photo. If I put an image of one of our young, female interns (not that Kotalik is an intern, but work with me here) on her knees in tight clothes hugging something, I would expect for people to rag on me — and I’d deserve it for being either that tone-deaf or that hungry for eyeballs.