For your weekend amusement, this 1994 clip from NBC’s Today show where a perplexed Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel struggle to understand this new thing called “Internet” live on the air. Hey, how do you pronounce “@”?
Jan 29
2011
06:49 PM ET
NBC discovers the Internet (video)
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James Hibberd
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TV Finale Highlights
Five days at a glance*
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Tuesday, May 1
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Friday, May 4
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Sunday, May 6
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Tuesday, May 29
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*Times are Eastern Daylight and subject to change
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At
“They have the internet on computers now???” – Homer J. Simpson
Oh my, lol.
Honestly, I could barely explain to anyone now what the internet is.
Just ask Ted Stevens (might have to dig him up) and he’ll tell you it’s a series of tubes through which trucks run!
Bryant Gumbel will always be an @$$.
Katie Couric thinks that means, “about money!”
EW discovers reddit
What’s funny is that the “at” is shown as an a in a complete circle, rather than @, which had been a common symbol on typewriters and computer keyboards for decades.
Yet another article EW got from Gawker.
Hard to imagine a time when the internets was some strange, highfalutin concept eh?
Its so funny watching these respected journalists struggle to understand something that’s so commonplace to us now.
This is pretty excellent. We laugh, but those of us over 25 were once there ourselves. (Of course, we weren’t on a national television program designed to provide up-to-date information to the general public, but I digress.)
Hahahaha. I’m too young to have gone through that weird phase of having to learn the Internet and its purpose but this was pretty funny.
Psh, Internet will be a fad. MARK MY WORDS.
I think @ is an arobas (not sure of the spelling) “arrow-bah-ss”
This makes it clear that these types of jobs are held by third-grade dropouts. I’m sure there are some real ‘journalists’ out there who would be offended that these people are thought of by some as journalists rather than barely function members of society.
James Hibberd, this is news? An old video of a video on a TV monitor? This belongs on an amateur blog, not EW.
The 11:00 hour of The Today Show before it even existed. Where’s the alcohol???