After more than 100,000 views, the “We Are Bangor” video is a certifiable hit. The hilarious clip, produced by local marketing company Sutherland & Weston, parodies the ’80s charity single “We Are The World” and teaches folks from away how to pronounce Bangor correctly — a bone of contention for many native Bangorians.
It’s such a hit that now, two weeks after the video came out, NBC News has taken notice and will showcase the video in a segment on “Nightly News.” Harry Smith, a “Nightly News” correspondent, was in town Friday, when he appeared on video director Ric Tyler’s morning show on radio station WVOM-FM, then taped a segment with several folks featured in the video at Dysart’s on Broadway, including Bangor economic development director Tanya Emery and Julia Munsey, a partner at Dougherty Project Management in Bangor.
Tyler said the segment is expected to air on the NBC “Nightly News” broadcast at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 9, though he cautioned plans can change at the last minute, depending on breaking news, and could be bumped to a different night in the coming days.
At Dysart’s, Smith asked owner Mary Dysart Hartt if he could get some blueberry pancakes — he admitted he was a huge fan — and asked a few Bangor firefighters on hand to watch the taping if they’d help him get snow off his car.
“I haven’t been here in Maine in a little while. … You guys sure did get a lot of snow,” Smith said. “We thought this was a really fun story, and the video was very, very funny.”
As of Feb. 6, the video, which was shot as the opening video for the 2015 Bangor Area Chamber of Commerce awards banquet, has received just shy of 108,000 views on YouTube and features an array of people from Bangor, including Alex Gray and Chris Rudolph of Waterfront Concerts, Lucas Richman of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, former State Sen. Emily Cain, Todd Simcox of WABI, Steve McKay of WLBZ, the Bangor police department and its Duck of Justice mascot and many others — as well as a cameo from some BDN staffers.
Though fans of the video petitioned various media outlets to show the video on national TV as soon as it debuted on YouTube on Jan. 21, it didn’t become a reality until “Today” weatherman Al Roker routinely butchered the pronunciation of Bangor while reporting on the record snowfall the city has received in the past two weeks.
“Every three minutes Al is saying ‘Bang-er,’ and our social media is blowing up because of it,” Cary Weston, president of Sutherland & Weston, said. “It was perfect timing, because people started sharing the video all over again. … Finally, Sam Singal, who is a senior producer at NBC ‘Nightly News’ and is from Bangor, tells Harry, ‘You’ve got to watch this.’ They got in touch, and here we are.”
Smith originally planned to come last week, but his flight was canceled because of the snow. It worked out for this week, however — though there’s still plenty of snow to be found in Bangor.
Weston also noted that Dysart’s, where part of the NBC segment was shot, was itself the subject of another viral Bangor video — the “Buttery Flaky Crusts” blooper video, featuring longtime Dysart’s patrons John and Sonja Palmer who were having a hard time saying a line during the filming of a Dysart’s commercial, also produced by Sutherland & Weston.
“The Dysart’s video has had over 2 million views, so it’s really cool to have that be the place where they film the segment,” Weston said. “It’s been great to let Bangor have some national spotlight. And now, hopefully people will start pronouncing it right.”
