In a “Saturday Night Live” skit this weekend about a local news team shooting a promo (video above), a traffic reporter played by Fred Armisen is named “Hope Hines” — which was quite the surprise to the real Hope Hines, a former WTVF sports anchor who retired in July and happened to be watching “SNL” with his wife.
“When they said my name, I looked at her and said, ‘what in the heck is going on here?'” Hines said in an interview with WTVF. “Wow. It just blew me away.”
Hines, who found the skit “really, really funny,” did a little digging and was able to uncover how “SNL” settled on his name.
“When they do these skits, they walk out to the audience and say, ‘is there a sportscaster’s name someone would give us?’ So some guy stood up and said, ‘Hope Hines, News Channel 5, Nashville.’ And from my understanding, that’s where it came from,” Hines said. Watch his interview with WTVF here: