@jjofriends @weatherchannel Love hearing from @TheOnion fans – thanks for tuning in!
— Kyla Grogan (@KylaGrogan) February 13, 2014
Tonight, while sitting in a hotel room in New York so I could avoid fighting my way into the city tomorrow due to the weather, I had The Weather Channel on and one of the anchors looked familiar: Kyla Grogan looked an awful lot like an Onion News Network anchor that was part of the brilliant team from their New York years. Turns out, it’s the same person! She’s been anchoring and delivering forecasts for the network for a couple of years now, following a multi-year run as regular Onion anchor Andrea Bennett.
It’s not unusual for The Onion to use those from journalism for their segments; they famously used Bobbie Battista, previously of CNN fame, above, to deliver a hilarious segment about the worst airport ever, while, below, Suzanne Sena of Fox News was transformed into anchor Brooke Alvarez, below, for the IFC Channel series.
As far as Grogan, she was previously a reporter in local news, but her run as Bennett on ONN was long-running and high-profile: She anchored some of the most famous segments of the video series for years, including the “War for the White House” coverage.
She was also the anchor in the newsroom for the infamous “Macbook Wheel” tech report that went viral. (The tag headline, about the sudoku killer, also happens to be one of my favorite from the series.)
She was involved with ONN early and lasted for pretty much the entire New York run, along with many of the other long-running characters that drove that version. ONN ended in New York in 2012, around the time she began her Weather Channel stint.
It was fun to see a familiar face back in action, and doing something that continues to accentuate strengths shown on the Onion video clips – the ability to deliver information in a clear, energetic way. Of course, now the jokes are traded for important weather information, but it doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to watch.