Paul Linnman, the intrepid TV news reporter behind the  exploding whale video , retired from TV in 2004 and now works at Oregon  radio station KEX . In a recent article,  The Oregonian  newspaper asked several well-known Oregonians, including Linnman, about their coffee habits. Linnman started his comments by saying: I have only two remaining addictions: Coffee and ice cream, and I’m hooked on both for life. About the coffee provided by the radio station, Paul says: KEX provides very acceptable coffee, but I prefer to brew (with a Krups cone drip) my own each morning (around 3:30 a.m.) and pack my thermos to the radio station. It has to be Peet’s and it has to be French blend. Like many in the Northwest, Linnman clearly loves his coffee. For his afternoon “pick-me-up,” Paul downs a 12-ounce Americano with “two shots of espresso, the rest water… but only half-filled with water.” (As a non-coffee drinker, I’m not even sure what that means!)  Finally, when Linnman reveals that when he sta

TheExplodingWhale.com was mentioned in a  recent article  on the  Salt Lake Tribune  newspaper’s website. The article, titled  Viral Videos: Spread of Internet video clips is catching , points to the infamous 1970  exploding whale video (which, of course, is the focus of this site) as an early example of a so-called “viral video.” The author explains: More than five years ago, people were sharing an uproarious video, a 1970 TV news report from Portland of a beached whale carcass that authorities blew up into fleshy chunks (one falling piece actually struck a parked car). That sequence is now so famous it has its own fan Web site,  http://www.theexplodingwhale.com . Five years? It’s been at least  ten  years because my involvement with the Exploding Whale dates all the way back to the early 1990s, and I know I wasn’t the first one to see it! (For a history of this website, please see our  About this site  page.) No matter, is it possible that our favorite exploding whale video was, in f

The staff at the   Somerset County Gazette   newspaper in, of all places,   Somerset County, England , decided to play an April Fool’s Day joke on their readers. They ran a fake article titled   Beached whale draws crowds to Taunton park   in which they claimed a whale, named “Gotcha” by locals, “tugged itself out of the water and shuffled up the bank, across the foopath and onto the main grassed area” of a city park. Despite claims that whales can live out of water for up to a week and are actually quite friendly, “Gotcha” was purported to have eaten one woman’s Yorkshire Terrier. In response, a local farmer was hired to bring in a “fresh supply of newborn lambs” to satisfy the whale’s appetite. The next day, the newspaper ran   a story letting its readers off the hook   and asking to hear from anyone who fell for the joke and tried to go see the whale.   We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, here are links to the two articles: Beached whale draws crowds to Taunton park   – Somerset