We’ve got a pretty good sense of humor at Six Apart, but I knew that Ben and Mena were understandably a bit nervous before their appearance on CNN Headline News’ Hotwired segment tonight. It’s one of their first appearances on a major TV network, and it was live broadcast to millions, so I didn’t resort to my usual "hope there’s no spinach in your teeth!" shenanigans.

Fortunately for me, PB had raised an unlikely but rather amusing specter before the broadcast, and that was the potential for CNN, ever watchful of the folks at Fox, to have sprung an ambush interview on poor little Ben and Mena. One wonders how this might have gone.

Erica Hill, CNN: We’re here tonight with Ben and Mena Trott, the co-founders of Six Apart and co-creators of the new weblog service TypePad. Thanks for being here tonight. The Trott: Glad we could make it. EH: So, I understand your current weblog tools are used by most of the presidential candidates. Are you trying to control next year’s election while hiding behind a cute facade? Trott:: What? No, we really think weblogs are for everyone, we’re not… EH: Spare me your lies. Your little perl script is trying to manipulate the election. Who hired you two to play the role of a young married couple? Trott: The role? This is who we actually are, we aren’t actors or anything. It seems like we’re getting off topic. EH: Yes, I bet you’d like to change the subject. Isn’t it true that you have publicly mocked Google? Who could hate Google? Only communists and murderers hate Google. Do you limit your murdering to adults, or do you kill small children, too? Trott: … EH: DO YOU KILL CHILDREN?! Trott: This is kind of making us uncomfortable, we were just going to talk about blogs… EH: Yeah, I’m sure you’re uncomfortable. Lying communist political manipulator baby killers often are uncomfortable under the harsh glare of scrutiny. Trott: I think we have to go. EH: Go ahead! Run! See if you can evade the long arm of weblog justice! Though we’re tired of your liberal lies, we’ll never be too tired to hunt you down!

Update: I originally wasn’t going to post this little joke, because i thought it wasn’t that funny and it was a little too unreal. Fortunately, we got this actual email through our web form while I was writing this post:

Subject: Forgot one more thing

How fitting CNN portray you as a legimate news story when the fluff piece was nothing but one left wing communist group pushing the agenda of another left wing communist group. It is very enlightening when I hear the Clinton News Network’s ratings are sinking faster than the Democratic party it supports. Good ridance.,,,

I love it when real life is funnier than the joke.