Cackling Heat Miser Emerges From Oven-Hot Asphalt to Urge On Dehydrated Runner
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Main image via depositphotos.com
With parts of the nation battling intense heat, a shimmering image of Heat Miser appeared on a local road yesterday, goading a local runner to finish his run in blistering temperatures, despite the runner’s obvious distress.
Heat Miser is best known from the 1974 Rankin/Bass television special “The Year Without a Santa Claus,” in which he extols his love for hot weather, often in song, and battles his nemesis and brother, Snow Miser.
The runner, David Johansen, 51, encountered the vision around five miles into a planned seven-mile run; the temperature at the time was 98 degrees, with high humidity, and Johansen was dehydrated and showing signs of heat exhaustion and delirium.
“I was ready to stop and call my husband to come pick me up,” Johansen told Dumb Runner in a phone interview. “Then I heard laughter, and a familiar voice that said, ‘David! Don’t stop now, David! Keep going!’”
Johansen said it took him a moment to realize the voice was that of Heat Miser, the irascible comic character he remembered from his childhood.
“He was partly see-through and sort of rippling, but it was definitely Heat Miser,” said Johansen. “I was so happy to see him!”
The image remained for several minutes, Johansen said, egging him on and singing bits of his theme song:
I'm Mister Green Christmas, I'm Mister Sun.
I'm Mister Heat Blister, I'm Mister 101.
They call me Heat Miser, whatever I touch,
starts to melt in my clutch.
I'm too much.
Johansen finished the run, he said, and collapsed at his doorstep before being rushed to a nearby urgent care clinic, where he received intravenous fluids.
“What a great run,” he said. “Heat Miser. Ha ha!”
