He’s not a flight attendant, but plays one on the internet. Duct tape spoof goes viral.
At least one person finds the outbreak of unruly passengers on board flights funny.
Louisiana comedian James Bates, 29, posted a video playing a flight attendant who was forced to tape an out of control passenger to his seat on a Frontier Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Miami last week.
According to a Miami-Dade police report, Max Berry had just finished two cocktails and wanted to order another. Things began to go awry when the Ohio man “inappropriately” brushed his cup against a female flight attendant’s backside. That’s when things really spiraled, and the recent Ohio Wesleyan University grad allegedly grabbed two crewmembers’ breasts.
The YouTube star’s spoof of a recently aired Local 10 newscast, with anchor Calvin Hughes doing the voiceover, went viral and even has celebrity fans like Beyonce’s mom, Tina Knowles, who reposted his hysterical skit. Her caption: “That’s one way to control an unruly crazed passenger,” with laughing emojis. It’s unclear whether Knowles realized the bit was a joke.
Many viewers of the widely shared satirical post thought it was authentic and The Real Spark, as Bates calls himself, was an actual flight attendant as the caption says on the “newscast.”
But Bates was nowhere near the flight that day when Berry had such a nuclear meltdown that he had to be restrained with tape. The 22-year-old was arrested once on the ground and charged with three misdemeanor counts of assault.
“Now understand something. I’m a flight attendant,” Bates says in his skit playing actual witness Alfredo Rivera, who had been interviewed by the local station. “That means I attend the flights. Sometimes our job has us attending to crazy people. If you push us too far, you’re going to have to attend this a-s-whooping.”
He then hysterically “recounts” what led up to the taping incident: “This man smelled like a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, four shots of Everclear alcohol and regret — so I know something’s about to go down.”
Bates continues: “I said, ‘Yeah, we’re about to m-m-m-m-m-mummify your a-s now, boy.’ So we wrapped him up better than any Christmas present you ever seen. He wont be coming on anymore Frontier flights, at all.”
Bates hopes this newfound fame (the video has since reached more than 4 million views) puts him on the worldwide map, so to speak.
“Hopefully, what’s next for me is cameo appearances in TV or film,” the comic told the Miami Herald. “I would love to see what that world has in store for me but, in reality, whatever.”
This story was originally published August 9, 2021 at 6:17 PM.
