By Thor: The Uncomfortable News Deliverer

Today I learned that there’s a radio station that delivers uncomfortable news to listeners via celebrities.

This time around, they got Chris Hemsworth, AKA Thor himself, to deliver some uncomfortable news.

Not as Chris Hemsworth, celebrity, mind you.

No, he delivered this news as Thor.

For some backstory: this station has viewers write in with news they’d like broken to people in a humorous manner from a celebrity. In this case, “Fiona of West Hampstead” felt her husband’s father had overstayed his welcome in their house. Hemsworth gamely played along, and thus we have gems like this:

“He doth not wash the dishes. Nor doth he Hoover.”

“Thor, for the sake of Odin, would you please ask Colin to go back to whichever world he cometh, from never to return, except for times of celebrations, such as Christmas or birthdays.”

I don’t do this justice – it’s something you have to hear/watch. Hop on over to YouTube and observe the mighty Thor.

You back yet? OK, let’s move on.

First off, props to the radio station for coming up with an entertaining gimmick. It’s like something from The Onion come to life.

Now...Chris is a fine-looking man, and I liked his performance in Thor (and presumably The Avengers, which I haven’t seen yet), but I can’t say he really “does it” for me physically. With that said, his speaking voice as Thor is just...ahem. I believe “wow” suffices. Thor has a very distinctive sound. I can’t quite liken him to Darth Vader in terms of “OMG I KNOW THAT VOICE,” but he’s definitely close.

Hemsworth took it a step further by “Thorifying” the uncomfortable news he was delivering, dropping in “hath” and “thou” and “banquet halls” (instead of “dining room”). I think that’s what impressed me the most – I don’t know that he had time to rehearse this. It seems like he just dropped into character and threw in the Thorisms as necessary. Fine work, my good fellow.

I think this could be the start of a beautiful trend. Why can’t uncomfortable news always be delivered by interesting characters? Let’s take it a step further and give them categories. Thor, of course, can stick to uncomfortable news, since he’s so good at it.

·         Darth Vader delivering love notes

·         California valley boy reporting on grim current events

·         Tyrion Lannister explaining the birds and the bees

·         Zombie waiter discussing the vegetarian menu

Or we could just make Thor do everything. I wouldn’t mind finding out my dishwasher was broken...if the news came from him.