These are unprecedented times, and just when you think you’ve seen it all, Breakfast’s Matty McLean does the weather dressed as a dinosaur.
TVNZ 1’s Breakfast kicked off level two with a bang yesterday morning. As we viewers at home began to gleefully escape our own personal lockdowns, Matty McLean locked himself into a plastic sweatsuit of terror, just to tell us how hot it was going to be in Tauranga. This is how dedicated Matty McLean is to news and current affairs. Some might suggest he needs to contact his union rep, but to them, I say: talk to the tiny T.rex hand.
He was doing this for us, New Zealand. This is all our fault, and I’m not even sorry.
“I’ve done some stupid things,” Matty began, as John, Jenny-May and Anna explained the previous day’s news item about New Yorkers dressing up in dinosaur costumes to cheer people up. A Breakfast producer had a spare dino costume sitting around at home, and next thing we know, Matty McLean is taking one for the team, live on the telly.
“I can’t even see,” Matty protested, as his colleagues shouted instructions from the cheap seats. “You’ve got to point to Kapiti! Kapiti needs some love from the T.rex!” John yelled, but get in line, Kapiti. “This is ridiculous,” Matty wailed. The weather report had blown out of control before it even began, and in the eye of the storm was a big purple dinosaur, standing in front of a nation, asking it to love him.
But nothing stops Matty McLean, not even a cold front of shame about wearing an inflatable dinosaur suit on live TV.
From the Cape to the Bluff, T.rex McLean knocked that weather update out of the Jurassic park. His stumpy T.rex hands could barely hold the clicker, but he stood on his hooves to point to New Plymouth (sunny, high of 18), while his giant mouth ate Farewell Spit (also fine) and his puffed dino-neck made poor old Queenstown disappear off the map entirely.
Can you imagine such malarkey on the 6pm bulletin? Wendy and Simon wouldn’t put up with this, and frankly, that’s the nation’s loss.
The Breakfast studio hooted with joy through Matty’s forecast, as his plastic dino tail rubbed across the floor, sweeping up what remained of his broadcasting hopes and dreams. Matty didn’t care. Professionalism beamed out from the tiny square of plastic wedged into the dinosaur’s décolletage, and Matty unleashed the weather report of his life.
In fact, nothing sums up our Covid lockdown journey better than Matty McLean doing the weather as a dinosaur. At the beginning, it’s mystifying and a bit scary. Nobody know’s what’s happening or when it will be over, but after a while, you get used to it. It’s not so bad, and just quietly, you’re quite enjoying yourself. When it’s all over, everyone shakes their T.rex tales in a dino dance of celebration, and the sun just keeps on shining.
Matty McLean is a national hero. It might have been pissing down in Milford Sound, but a big, happy blob of purple sunshine beamed out of our screens this morning. Matty made that dino suit his own, and if there was an award for journalists who wear crazy costumes on live TV, then he would have definitely rated in the top three.
Matty McLean, your nation salutes you.