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“The good news is that I can still feel my face right now,” he said. “The bad news is that I kind of wish I couldn’t.”
And as the sun began to rise, Woodley wondered aloud if the joke was on him.
Blizzards resulting in power outages and cancelled flights are being experienced across the US.Credit:AP
“Can I go back to my regular job? I’m pretty sure, Ryan, you guys added an extra hour to the show just because somebody likes torturing me,” he said. “Compared to 2½ hours ago it is just getting colder and colder.”
He signed off at daybreak — “thankfully for the last time this morning” — with large piles of snow behind him.
In an interview, Woodley, who has worked at KWWL on and off for 20 years, said that the previous 24 hours had “been insane” and that the response had been overwhelmingly positive, including from his employer.
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“The whole thing was incredible, I don’t understand how celebrities do anything,” he said. “It’s exhausting. I love it because it’s something new for me but I never saw anything like this coming.”
Woodley said he did 14 live stand-ups over the course of 3½ hours but selected the funniest parts to splice together “like a trailer for a terrible comedy” and post on social media. He originally posted the montage to his personal Facebook page, but his friends and family encouraged him to put it on Twitter. The next thing he knew, director Judd Apatow and actor Josh Gad were retweeting him.
While Woodley was a little worried that he’d get in trouble with his bosses at the station, he said “they know who I am on air”, and adding a little snark and sarcasm was not out of character. The station has been “completely onboard”, he said.
Woodley managed to talk his way out of doing a second round of coverage on Friday morning and instead planned to return to his regular 6 pm time slot to preview the Music City Bowl in which the University of Iowa will play the University of Kentucky in Nashville, Tennessee, next weekend.
“I was excited to not be that guy again, and if the good Lord is willing I will never do it again,” he said. However, if his team is short-handed, as was the case this week, he said he would grudgingly step in.
As a local reporter, Woodley said he imagined making it “big” someday.
“Being known for being the crotchety old sports and weather guy was not on the list,” he said, “but it is what it is.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.