Minneapolis news accidentally discovers footage of little kid Prince, presents it 4 U to watch
WCCO in Minneapolis came across footage of an 11-year-old Prince while researching a recent story
Music Features Prince
Although local Minneapolis news stations all too often fail to hire dedicated Prince archivists as core members of their teams, WCCO, a regional CBS affiliate, has managed to unearth important video documentation of a pint-sized His Royal Badness completely by accident.
While looking through old footage of an April 1970 school strike for a story about a similar work stoppage from last month, WCCO production manager Matt Liddy spotted a portrait of The Artist as a young man. In order to verify Liddy’s discovery, anchor Jeff Wagner set out on a mission to find corroborating details that would cement the fact that the little kid in the video is, in fact, a pre-mononymic Prince Nelson.
The child appears on the camera just long enough to provide some clues, but doesn’t state his name, which makes it tough to be sure if it’s actually him. Determined to back up their findings, WCCO and Wagner restore audio from the video, try to track down a fellow student, compare the footage with a school photo of Prince in fifth grade, and head to a Prince fanatic’s home in order to show her the footage.
After stating that videos of pre-teen Prince are “almost nonexistent,” she watches the clip with the kind of joy that comes from discovering seemingly vanished home movies. One of Prince’s friends (and a former bandmate) is even more struck by seeing old pals and hearing the voice of “Skipper from the North Side” in the video.
Wagner takes that reaction for confirmation and we’re assured that the kid in blue who says teachers ought to strike and “get some more money because they work extra hours for us” is, indeed, Prince.
Hopefully, as a result, WCCO will now have the appropriate motivation to spearhead a new Prince research division—a team of archaeologists in purple pith helmets and ruffled silk uniforms dedicated to unearthing further material from Minneapolis’ past.
[via Digg]
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42 Comments
Who should be on there with him? Himself?!!!
Baby, that’s much too fast.
“Later that day, legends tell us, Prince’s blue jacket and headband would get washed with a red” what now?
I can’t remember the last time the internet actually deserved a “Great Job”, but this properly does. But primarily: Great Job, WCCO.
In this case, local broadcast television deserves a “good job.” The fact that it wound up on the Internet is kind of incidental, but I’ll take it, since being on Youtube means I don’t have to live in the Twin Cities to see it.
Indeed. Having worked for some major broadcasters (in Canada mind you), I am SUPER impressed that WCCO maintained such an extensive archive of their old film reels.
Damn even kid Prince is still cooler than anyone alive
At 11 he was on the pulse of education policy and government failings.
On June 7, 1958, a woman named Mattie Shaw went into labor. But, this was no ordinary labor. When her water broke, it came out purple, and a purple light emitted from her womb. At the hospital, Mattie gave birth to a son who slid out of her vagina in a sexy pose and wearing a full purple suit. The baby stood up, said “Let’s get funky,” and then grabbed a guitar that appeared out of thin air. The baby then played an hour-long guitar solo that cause all the nurses in the hospital to simultaneously orgasm for the entire solo. That was the day that Prince Rogers Nelson was born.
“…washed with a red shit?”That’s a hell of a typo.
Not when you remember that red and blue make purple.
Yeah, but red shit? That might make more of a puce than purple.
If you’ve seen Purple Rain, I think “washed with red shit” actually describes bathing in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.
I…have not. So it’s not a typo? I guess I need to go see Purple Rain and stfu.
HAHA, they changed it! It was a red SHIRT all along!!!BAHAHAHA!!!!!
Do you live anywhere near Lake Minnetonka? It’s affluent as fuck. That shit is definitely not in the red.
This is awesome, and great sleuthing by all involved. But if that so-called journalist had just done his job and asked those kids their names… woulda saved everyone a buncha time!
I’m assuming he was thinking “this soundbite is unusable, so no need to waste time asking the name.”
Interview protocol for children should be, “What’s your name, in case you become famous in the future?”
What’s sad is after almost 50 years, teachers are STILL fighting.Same shit, different decade.
Turns out that despite all the surface celebration of Brown v. Board of Education, white folks really didn’t want integrated schools. You can trace the demise of America’s public schools, and the rise of voucher/charter/private/academy hustles to that point in our history.
I was hoping he was going to say that he supported the teachers’ strike so he wouldn’t have to go back to school. That’s what I would have said at 11 years old, or 10, or 13, or at any age when I’ve been forced to go to school.
Ha ha that’s exactly what I was expecting!
Don’t wanna sound too ghoulish, but were Prince alive right now, he’d buy the rights to that film and destroy it….
“..on accident..” annoys me way more than it should.
As well it should. It might be more of a midwest thing, but yeah, I fucking hate it.
Same. Also, “leaning in,” “pivoting,” “going forward,” and “TOXIC.”
There should be hefty fines for the non-essential use of “literally” and “actually.” I mean, seriously.
Ugh. Usually pronounced “litrally.”
“on accident” has annoyed me for a while. I grew up in Scotland and hadn’t heard anyone say this until ‘the internet’. It’s a lot more widespread now!
Another one i’ve noticed is “Welp” which i assumed was some internet slang, but no; people actually use it in writing and everything. What the fuck is ‘Welp’???
Ah well, I’m no word facist, but fuck it’s annoying
I amazed by how emotional this made me. Great job, internet.
Headline should really say “4 U 2 watch”
Headline should really say “4 U 2 watch”
This is really cool. Doing archivist work can be fun and when you stumble upon something its actually really cool. When I went to Eastern Illinois University I got a job in the media and computer support labs. One of the first jobs I had was working on the digitally archiving of pictures, audio tapes and film they had stored. I was working a stack of boxes that was all media from plays that the college had put on in the 70s. I am just loading negatives into the scanner and watching them load one by one and I am like “That guy looks familiar”. It was totally John Malkovich, who I had not even known went to the college for a few years. We ended up printing out a bunch of the best ones, framing them and and tracking down how to send them to him. We got a really nice letter back from him saying how happy he was that we had found pictures of some of his earliest acting and asked that we send him copies of anymore he found. Apperently he even visited the college the year after I graduated and even stopped specifically by the computer labs to thank everyone who sent him the pictures.
Next up? Newly-rediscovered 8mm footage of the pre-teenaged Replacements drunkenly setting fire to a sofa in a vacant field.
“Bastards of very, very, young.”
Nice Joyce reference that was subtle and much easier to understand than Ulysses. Four stars.
You can tell it’s him by the way he screws up his face when he talks. Gah, look at the little guy!
That side eye look…
I love the Minneapolis pride pulsing through every second of that segment. A real bright spot, this find.