Where Are They Now?: Chris P. Bacon

Now to the story of a pig that is inspiring others. It's an iconic story made even more iconic with that unforgettable laugh. Chris P. Bacon was born without the use of his back. It's been 12 years now since then WPSD Local 6 anchor Robert Bradfield read or tried to read the story of a pig inspiring others. Since then, the clip has been watched millions of times on YouTube, and it still circulates to this day. I was just looking through my Facebook messages on my professional page, and I'm getting messages from people still. What started as a heartwarming gesture, you know, I said, I wonder if I can make him a little wheelchair. Has grown into an internet phenomenon. I mean, there's a reason that thing was just shared and shared and shared. This week on the Crossroad Suncasts, the story of Chris P. Bacon. What the anchor, Robert, thinks about the clip that made him famous after all these years. I don't think I've ever laughed like that ever since. I don't think I can replicate it if somebody says, hey, can you do that again? How a minor league baseball team hundreds of miles away keeps the name alive. There's something to it. There is a lore. There is a history. There's a reverence or air reverence about it that just like resonates with so many people. And answering the questions that everyone wants to know. Is Krispy Bacon still alive or, you know, how's Krispy Bacon doing? I'm Morgan P. Regal. January 27th, 2013. Dr. Len Lucero, a veterinarian in Florida, uploads a YouTube video called Pig in wheelchair, Chris P. Bacon. It's a six-minute video, no music, no voiceover, just Chris and his oinks.

Dr. Lucero adopted Chris when he was just a day old. A woman brought him into his clinic, expecting he'd have to be put down due to the condition of his hind legs. His joints are fused, so it'd be a form of arthrogyposis where the joints, you know, they're fused. They don't move. And what little range of motion he has is in his hips. But, you know, his knees and his heels, they're fused tight. You can't move them at all. Dr. Lucero decides to adopt him, but wants him to have a better life. I said, ah, I wonder if I can make him a little wheelchair. So the light bulb went off. He fastened his son's connects toys to some vet wrap to tie it all together. That original prototype didn't last long, though. And it served the purpose for... Oh, geez, I'd say maybe a month, two months, and then he just started growing so fast that I couldn't make them fast enough. Eventually, the wheelchair manufacturing operations get handed over to a company endorsement. But it all started with that first video. We were getting millions and millions of YouTube hits. And, you know, and quite honestly, I really didn't know what to make of it. Well, what goes along with that is you start getting lots of phone calls, you know, and media. books, schools, you know, everybody wants, you know, and to me, that was, that was a lot, you know, that was, that was a lot to manage. He and Chris P. do their first media interview with a Florida TV station, W-E-S-H. Meet Chris P. Bacon during what he loves best. Is it feeding time? It's always beating time for Chris P. Soon, Chris P has an internet following of his own. Several hundred thousand followers on Facebook, something Dr. Lucero was proud of. I tried to speak in his voice and make him as funny as possible. And it's just, you know... Comedy is something that I've always, you know, just enjoyed. I mean, how can you not be happy laughing? The fame takes Chris P. and Dr. Lucero across the country. We've been to California to Boston. We endorsed a lot of schools, and we went on a lot of hospital trips. We visited with kids in wheelchairs, you know, just trying to inspire. mostly kids, you know, because, you know, he was such a cute little animal. And if he can do it, you know, why can't they? So, you know, that was really our... Focus audience. It's in Boston where his story really blows up. Because how often do you get to see a pig in a wheelchair who loves munching on Cheerios? I want to take him home because he is funny. He is funny. Local station WHDH tags along as Chris P makes a visit to a children's hospital there. The story gets distributed among other NBC affiliates like WPSD. And as they say, the rest is history.

R-O-B-E-R-O-B-E-R-T, Robert last name Bradfield, B-R-A-D, F is in Frank, I-E-L-D. Currently at WCJB, the ABC Gray-owned station in Gainesville, Florida. That's where Robert's at now, but for six years, he called WPSD in Paducah, Kentucky home. Turns out it almost wasn't. The opportunity arose to work in Paducah. When I was recruited here, the recruiter said, how would you like to work in Paducah? And my first response was, huh? I did not officially apply for the job. A friend of mine did, and then he took a job somewhere else. And then our VP of News at the time, Bill said, if there's other people like you to my friend Miles, I want other people like you. So send me some names, and my friend Miles did, and I was on a plane. A couple weeks later. He starts in 2010 and works his way up to part-time anchor. Fast forward to February 2014. It's an ordinary night. Robert is anchoring WPSD's 9 p.m. news. The 9 starts now. WPSD Local 6th. Your breaking news and weather authority. This is the 9. Good evening, a shooting range under fire. It starts out like any other newscasts, but Robert remembers feeling unprepared. I was also filling in nightside for the reporter who had called out. I anchored the 9 to 930. Didn't. There was 30 minutes, really, that I was not devoted to the story that I was trying to turn for the 10. So I was rushing, didn't read a lot of stories that day. He says because he hadn't read the story, the uncontrollable laughter was his genuine reaction, seeing it for the first time. It was not really the name first. It was really the visuals of the pig being tiny in the hindwheels, trying to motivate students, I think is what the story was. And then I saw Chris P. Bacon in the teleprompter and I knew right away. Robert says about five words after that before losing it. Chris P. Bacon was born without the use of his back. It really was a belly laugh. I don't think I've ever laughed like that ever since. I don't think I can replicate it if somebody says, hey, can you do that again? Obviously, it was a genuine reaction.

We cannot. Oh my god. At this point, the camera comes out to Robert, face red, not even pretending to hide it. But he's not the only one with the giggles. The weather anchor at the time had them too. She couldn't finish the story either because she was at the weather center, really keeled over in laughter as well. And then also at the end, when you see a two shot, it's supposed to be me and the weather anchor to do a weather close. But I'm killed over the desk, and there's nobody standing where weather's supposed to be, and then it goes to commercial. Robert recalls it took about six months for the clip to gain traction and go viral. It started on Reddit and then celebrities caught on. I think Tyga, who was dating a Kardashian at the time, had many years ago posted it on his either Instagram, Facebook, some sort of social. And then it exploded, of course, again. It didn't take long for Chris P's dad to see it too. When I first saw that video, I was... You know, he has a very contagious laugh, so it didn't take me long to be rolling with him. Robert says it's an understatement to say this clip follows him everywhere now. I mean, that's part of who I am. Every station that I've worked at now, they all Google and they say, isn't that the crispy baking guy? So I've got to kind of set that standard in the beginning. Believe it or not, Robert said he still has not seen this clip in its entirety. Why? Because he just wants the moment to live in his memories. Maybe in the beginning, I probably was embarrassed. Because, you know, this was, WPSD was my only second station at the time. I wanted to be professional. But, you know, that happens. You know, and sometimes you get a little carried away. In our interview, he wanted to set the record straight. No, he did not get fired for the clip, as many have speculated. But when he did leave WPSD a few years later, Chris P made sure to say goodbye. And this is Chris P. Bacon right here telling you good luck. Overall, the feedback Robert still gets to this day is overwhelmingly positive. I was just looking through my Facebook messages on my professional page, and I'm getting messages from people still. This is one guy's name Jared saying, is that you, question Marco Rubio couple people have just said, thank you. You've made my day. So it's glad to see that. There was another man he lives in Florida, ironically now, saying that him, his family have watched it and they keep watching it when they're down. And it just brings a smile. There are two questions everyone wants to know. The first, do I eat bacon? And... The answer is yes, but it's turkey bacon, because I still have that thought that maybe Krispy could be on my plate at that moment. And number two? I still get the question, how is Krispy? Is Krispy still alive? And I don't know the real answer to that. Again, every time maybe I order a bacon cheeseburger, there's a little part of me that's like, you know. Like any good journalist would, I set out to get those answers, and I couldn't be happier to report. What's up, buddy?

That's an old man. He said he's 14 now? He's going to be 14, yeah. 14 years old and weighing about 75 pounds. Yes, Chris P is alive and well. His dad, Dr. Lucero, says he's old for a pig and isn't his social anymore. I would describe him now as a grumpy old man. He really doesn't like human interaction. You know, he'd rather be left alone. But he has no problems laying next to the dogs. You know, every once in a while, you'll hear him yell out to the dogs, you know, almost to get out of my bed or leave me alone if I'm not in the mood. But as far as humans go, yeah, he's a grump. He's not as active as he used to be either. As for those famous wheels? He'll use it every once in a while. It's not his favorite. Thing. His favorite thing is to lay down and pretty much do nothing. Dr. Lucero says the viral run ended several years ago after their Chris P. Bacon Facebook fan page got hacked into. It was never able to get back in. We decided, you know, that's a good time to retire. We, you know, if we changed anybody's life, it was a good run. And it was so much work, you know. And like I said, I'm not. very active in social media and it was really hard for me to make myself active. I figured it was a good time for us to, you know, hang up our hats and, you know, and just let him live out. I can't even say a normal pig's life because there's nothing normal about his life. but live in the lap of luxury, however long it'll be. While I had Dr. Lucero on the phone, I had to get the story on where the name came from. He wishes he could take credit for it, but instead it's his son that can take a little bit of it. We used to sit and play a game called Banjo Tuey on Nintendo. And, you know, he would play and I'd sit there and watch. And there was this little pig with a scuba outfit that, you know, went down into the water. And he said his name was Chris P. Bacon. And I couldn't stop laughing, you know. And this was well before I got crispy bacon. So it just so happened that when I got him, I remembered that and I said, you are crispy bacon from here on out. It's a funny name for a pig. But how about for a human? Everybody kind of Google searches themselves. You know, I used to try to be up there at least somewhat. I was in television before and what and I was like famous or anything. But like. Then all of a sudden you put my, I'm like on page 11. That pig has like the first 10 pages of like Google search results. That's Chris Bacon. Yep, just like the pig. I interviewed him for a different podcast last year. I remember asking him the same question that apparently everybody else asks. And the middle name is not Paul.

So that's the first thing. Everybody asked with Chris Bacon is like, is your middle name Paul or Pete? I was like, no, it's Alan. I asked a tongue-and-cheek question to Robert if he was sorry about ruining Chris's Google reputation. I don't apologize that far. Maybe if his middle initial was P. But if it's J, R, any other letter, you know, maybe he needs to advertise himself as Chris middle initial bacon. So maybe that could be his website, you know, to different. If it's not P, all these years later, you know, maybe he can contact Google and kind of change his algorithm. I don't know if that would change the millions of people who use Google each day. But again, maybe I'd start marketing myself with using my middle initial if I were him. You know what? I'm at that point in my life. I just lean right into it, man. I just, you know, you just have fun with it. And, you know, another like a little anecdote with it is. I think it's, I think it just shows to where local news and news and newscasters, sometimes you look at them as robots. You see them as people who just read the news or that's, they're impersonal, but that's the beauty of local news especially because. They are your hometown and they're human. And we all have human moments on the set. And it just shows that your anchors are human. And honestly, sometimes those funny viral moments, it just kind of puts the guard down and you see the human side of people. We are the AAA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It's just about an hour or so northwest of Philly. I recognize this is probably a little out of left field, no pun intended. But the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs is actually where I got the inspiration to do this story. Manager of Broadcasting and Media Relations for the team, Sam Jelinek, tells me the team name is rooted in that area's rich iron and steel production history. Iron Pigs is a play on word. of one of the things that gets produced during the steelmaking process, which is something called pig iron. It's when you pour, I'm hoping I'm getting this story right off the top of my head. You pour the iron, molten iron into this kind of trough-like thing. And when it's in there and molten, it kind of looks like pigs suckling at a trough. Like any good sports team, the team needs mascots. The first ones were named Fifi and Ferris. Play on words for the periodic table. of elements for iron. They also have alternate mascots for what's called the pork races, basically a mascot race that the team does at every home game. That group leans more into the pig side of the team name, and I'm sure you can guess where this is going. The story goes that back in the day, I believe it was the second year of the team. They crowdsourced from within the front office, okay, we're going to create some pork racing mascots. What should we actually name them here? And some people in the front office.

We're able to come up with Kris P. Bacon. If you're listening on the day this releases, the team is doing a Kris P Bacon Bobblehead promotional giveaway at the ballpark tonight. Named after the pig, well, only history knows the answer to that. As far as I'm aware, not direct inspiration at least, is there a way that probably they had heard it and thought that would actually probably look, that makes a lot of sense, probably, but it's now so apocryphal and so long ago, nobody knows the true story anymore. I asked the rest of the bunch, Robert the anchor, Dr. Lucero, and Chris Bacon himself about the mascot they're all tied to in some way or another. I think that's amazing, you know, and it's funny because I went on Google and I did a Google alert. You know, whenever you hear Krispy Bacon and social or on the internet, it'll send you a link to whatever is being said. And. Yeah, that mascot sure sent me a lot of Google alerts. That's the beauty of minor league baseball. And it's just fun. You have those opportunities to have fun with something. You have, and kids and families can laugh about it and lean into it. And, you know, that's the beauty of minor league baseball, the promotional aspect and getting people to the ballpark. You know, 12 years later, I'm happy that it's still out there. You know, it was supposed to be a positive news story to end a newscast, and it's made thousands of people smile and laugh. That's my big takeaway from doing this piece, whether it's a silly minor league baseball mascot. You know, it's not just our crispy bacon, uh, crispy bacon for everybody is like just there, there's something to it. There is a lore. There is a history. There's a, uh, a reverence or air reverence about it. It just like resonates with so many people. The viral moments. Sometimes we have to look at social media and there's so many. cruddy things out there and things that that kind of make you feel down or angry or whatever. But these are the good moments of viral videos of just having a laugh and showing human moments and just being something that's funny. Or Chris P. Bacon himself. When you're smiling and you're laughing, you know, you feel good. And if you had any part of that, it makes you feel good. So, and the fact that, you know, we're saving a pig's life in the process and, you know, maybe some children with disabilities, their life's changed a little bit. Well, then it was all worth it, you know, and... It's who I am. I love to make people smile and laugh every chance I get. Laughter is the best medicine. Robert, take it away. Now to the story of a pig that is inspiring others. One pot-belly pig has certainly entered his share of problems. Chris P. Bacon was born without the use of his...

You have to read this story. We cannot. Oh my God.