Philly mashup video shows wildest local footage in recent memory

The Philadelphia skyline.
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice

The last few years in Philadelphia have been a doozy. We've had a Super Bowl victory, a papal visit, the Democratic National Convention, an Amtrak derailment, flooding streets and runaway peacocks, to name a couple of notable events.

This city is best known for its history, its passion, its blunt manner, its parks, its universities and its cuisine. What it needs is a little more recognition for its absurdity. 

Where else do students provide a glossary of slang terms to incoming teachers? Where do solar trash cans get taken over by invasive car ads and then get blown up—or turned into public art? Who snatches birds in the middle of a park, and who films it?

In a quest to highlight Philadelphia's bizarre news cycle over the past few years, one YouTuber mashed up a long series of clips to the soundtrack of "Move Closer to Your World," the theme you know best from 6ABC broadcasts.

This video has a little bit of everything to take you down memory lane.

The man behind the video explained to PhillyVoice that he's been a hobbyist monitoring radio traffic in Philadelphia for several years. He said it took him a few hours to make the mashup and several casualties — including the guy who ate horse poop after the Super Bowl — were left on the cutting room floor. 

"The top news stories are typically negative," said YouTuber WhyHelicopter. "Shootings, fires, protests, accidents, etc. But for some reason the news intro clips are always happy positive things like people smiling and eating ice cream, playing basketball, visiting the zoo. I figured it would be funny to make a more realistic (although exaggerated) action-news styled intro with crazy news and other ridiculous Philly clips."

Is there anything major you feel got left out? How about HitchBOT? Let us know in the comments. What is the wildest video to surface in Philadelphia in the past few years?


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