Jake Byrd Strikes Again

I nearly fell out of my chair watching this:

The video above contains highlights (term used loosely) from a press conference by O.J. Simpson‘s lawyer the other day. Watch the guy on the right in the ballcap… see the oily lawyer squirm. You have to love it when some clown like this lawyer is trying to act like a big shot and puff up in front of the cameras, only to have someone demonstrate how utterly ridiculous and unimportant the whole circus is. The “high five” comment had me practically in tears from laughing. The bit with the cell phone also was a hoot.

Anyone who has ever watched “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (that would be Jimmy’s mom and… ???) has seen the crazy Jake Byrd and his antics in conjunction with celebrity court cases and their television coverage. Jake appears wearing a t-shirt and baseball cap with nutty sayings on them, and backpack all over a shirt and tie. He makes a mockery of press conferences and television reporting of celebrity court news ‘events’… not a very hard thing to do since most of them are mockeries in and of themselves… but he does it with style. He has managed to get on camera and been included in legitimate press stories and coverage of events like Micheal Jackson‘s trial and Paris Hilton‘s return to jail without being suspected as being an actor playing a character ala Borat. Frankly I think he comes off as being a little on the ‘special needs’ side, which automatically places a social/politically correct block on getting angry or taking action to have him removed. People like this lawyer are taken aback and not sure what to do, so they just try to ignore him and he just keeps going.

In fact he is an actor as well as a comedy writer. His real name is Anthony Barbieri, and MAD readers will recognize him as the writer of the long running “Monroe” feature in MAD, illustrated for years by Bill Wray and recently taken over by Tom Fowler. I had no idea that Jake Byrd and Anthony Barbieri were one and the same guy.

A shout out to Scott Gosar of The MAD Store and MAD Mumblings for the link.