Warren Flax, now CEO of an artists’ brush manufacturing company in Yardley, started as a Fort Myers, Fla., sports reporter. While there, he embarked on a broadcast spree that may have invented the viral video. Paul Greeley tuned into the story for TVNewsCheck.

It was 1994, and Flax’s on-air reporting at WINK was hampered by two high-profile sports strikes: MLB and NHL players had both walked out over contract issues.

Flax, in protest (and lacking both baseball and hockey content), went on strike himself. “They are not doing their job, so I will not do my job,” he explained.

He continued covering sports but refused to appear in-studio or dress professionally.

On the initial night of the protest, he lounged in a cot in the newsroom, wearing pajamas. And for the next 103 days, he presented live, unscripted content centering around nonsports activities: fishing, guitar lessons, a gubernatorial run, delivering pizza.

He even volunteered for a night in jail, appearing behind bars.

Fan letters poured into the station “every day from people in the community, with different suggestions,” Flax said.

When the strikes ended, Flax returned to the newsroom, arriving by limo and accompanied by a marching band.

Flax’s media career eventually evolved into real estate and then sales. He moved to Yardley in 2003 and became CEO of Silver Brush Limited in 2021.

More on Warren Flax and his viral (for the time) videos is at TVNewsCheck.