Christian Television Network has a media crisis on it’s hands now that one of it’s children’s entertainers has been arrested. Ronald Brown, a puppeteer on the network’s long-running Joy Junction has been charged with conspiracy to kidnap and eat children.
CTN completely fails at crisis management.
According to The Tampa Bay Times:
Brown worked for years for the Christian Television Network in Largo, the state’s oldest Christian broadcasting station. He performed with puppets on a Captain Kangaroo-style show called Joy Junction. In one episode, a video excerpt of which is available online, he operates a puppet that talks disdainfully about how some bad kids tried to show him pornography.
A receptionist at CTN’s headquarters in Largo said Tuesday that the station had no comment on Brown’s arrest and would not make other officials available or allow a reporter into the building. It is not clear whether Brown still works there, though his Facebook page states he is employed as a control operator at the network.
That’s a huge mistake, CTN! You simply must do better than that. You need to *at the very least* assure everyone that you are cooperating with police investigations to the fullest. There are other reasons to assume they are seriously dropping the ball here.
CTN is apparently still airing Joy Junction!
Four days after the arrest… I noticed that according to their schedules, CTN is still showing Joy Junction. I assume that this blog post will inspire them to ‘fix this issue’, so I’ve preserved the schedules. Saturday mornings, the outraged Florida communities can have this monster entertaining their children in their homes.
CTN has not replied to my phone calls or E-mails. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.
Production Manager: 727.535.5622 | Email: Richard Wolfe
[Brown's mugshot is below the fold.]
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Matrim
July 30, 2012 at 6:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wait…what?
Puppeteers eating people, what’s next?
wholething
July 30, 2012 at 6:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Eating children is not unheard of in the Bible.
2 Kings 6:28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”
Leviticus 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.
This one looks like a commandment out of context, but it is a warning.
There are more like these in Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, Lamentations, and Jeremiah.
'Tis Himself
July 30, 2012 at 7:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I will never make another baby eating atheist joke again.
Justin Griffith
July 30, 2012 at 7:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m not arguing for strict puritanical dialog. I’m just concerned that his community is likely to stumble in here (or, more likely, the 32 LOL’s at Tampa Bay Times) and see people talking like Doug did on the other article. It’s context that counts. A ‘baby-eating atheist’ inside-joke without the context of being on a story about eating children is much more obviously a joke…
porlob
July 30, 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ll just leave this here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obiDOc2kM5Q
Aliasalpha
July 30, 2012 at 8:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yet more evidence of the superiority of the muppets
Also fucking horrible but that kind of goes without saying…
Nathair
July 30, 2012 at 9:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Christian Puppeteer Baby Cannibals.
Reality just keeps on getting weirder and weirder.
Ibis3, member of the Oppressed Sisterhood fanclub
July 30, 2012 at 10:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ve never cared for the joke in any case. It always seemed kinda stupid.
joyharwood
July 30, 2012 at 11:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Somebody on CTN’s Facebook wall asked if they couldn’t at least pull the show from the schedule for now, and they replied that they had.
Martin Wagner
July 31, 2012 at 1:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Here’s a terse statement from CTN that they’ve removed Joy Junction from their lineup, but they appear to want to say as little as possible regarding Brown at the moment.
Bob Dowling
July 31, 2012 at 7:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is hardly surprising. I imagine their lawyers issued a rapid all-points “shut up” memo the moment this came out.
kaboobie
July 31, 2012 at 11:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Absolutely. I don’t know when or where it originated, but I always found it tasteless and not at all funny.