Though the Heat are struggling as of this writing against the suddenly Agent Zero-less Wizards, LeBron James’ clinical performance last night at Madison Square Garden was yet more evidence Miami hase worked out many of their early kinks. You’d expect Heat announcer Eric Reid to be an enthusiastic cheerleader during Miami’s current winning streak, but as the Herald’s Barry Jackson describes, he’s already generated an annoying signature catch-phrase. I guess it would’ve expecting too much to have Chris Bosh compared to Barney Rubble & The Cunt Stubble?
“Yabba Dabba Doo!” Reid exclaimed after a LeBron James dunk.
The aftershocks immediately reverberated through cyberspace.
“Did Eric Reid really just say Yabba Dabba Doo?” one blogger wrote.
Some loved it. Others, not so much.
“Eric Reid really needs to stop,” one Heat fan wrote. “His friends need to do an intervention.”
Very little that local announcers say stirs more reaction than catch phrases, especially new ones. Several Heat fans have stopped Reid, at Publix and elsewhere, and shouted “Yabba Dabba Doo” since he returned from the road trip.
Reid, who has done good work as a Heat announcer since the franchise’s inception, insists the reincarnation of the TV show The Flintstones was not planned.
“It came out of the clear blue sky,” said Reid, who used it again on a telecast last weekend. “For some reason, it made me want to say Yabba Dabba Doo! I can’t remember the last time I watched the The Flintstones. The response has been surprising. The real fun of the job is the spontaneity.”