After 50 years on the air and 36 years with NBC4 Washington, legendary reporter Pat Collins is retiring.
Collins is well-known in the DMV and beyond for his signature attention-grabbing storytelling style. Several of his reports have grown well beyond his typical News4 audience, and his stories have been turned into memes since at least 2011.
D.C. may know Collins best for his annual Snow Stick Challenge, when viewers guess when the first inch of snow for the season will fall at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in exchange for the chance to win a yardstick with markings for all the biggest D.C. storms of the past.
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But he's made waves in the District, and beyond, in other ways.
His 2011 story about a high school student who donned a banana costume, ran across the football field at halftime, and was subsequently suspended, made quite an impact. That's in part because Collins, in solidarity with then-14-year-old Bryan Thompson, wore a purple grape suit on air.
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The unforgettable fruit duo spread far beyond News4's typical audience, and resurfaced in memes for years afterward.
Ten years later, in a follow-up piece with "Banana Man," Collins said "There's one story that just keeps hanging around."
He shared the origins of the legendary costume last March during a March 2021 interview with Doreen Gentzler about his book, "Newsman."
"The real truth of the matter is, I got the assignment to go way down in Virginia where this poor kid was being disciplined, suspended, for wearing a banana outfit... and I said 'This is wrong,'" Collins said. "'How are we best going to tell the story?'"
"So I call back to a guy on our [assignment] desk, Charlie Bragale, and I say, 'Charlie, I need a grape outfit.'"
Charlie then frantically called around and managed to find a costume shop en route — and the rest is history.
"Sometimes I think that in television, which is a very visual and visceral medium, that sometimes, if you go over the top, sometimes if you really want to drive something home, you take it out of the box," Collins explained. "You take it off the charts, and you drive it home that way."
It's another aspect of Collins' distinctive reporting style. His long pauses and overemphasized words caught the attention of comedian John Oliver, who created a segment for his HBO show "Last Week Tonight" that featured "Beat Poetry from NBC4 Washington's Pat Collins."
One segment began with Collins' story about a vandal who tried to take revenge on an alleged cheater named Mike. Unfortunately for the car's owner, that vandal targeted the wrong car.
"Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike," Collins said mournfully. "See what you've done?"
The story has 87,000 views and counting on News4's YouTube channel. It was even songified and posted to YouTube by the Gregory Brothers. "Play this in the club until Mike hears it and changes his ways," the group said when they posted the video.
"I think it all goes back to that old Washington Daily News," Collins explained. "We had very short spaces to tell a long story in, and it is almost like poetry. It is almost like that rhythm, that story that sings, that sinks into people's minds, in their hearts and their soul, and gives them something to talk about the next day."
"That's me," he said.
And when that poetry is paired with props, it sticks in people's minds all the more.
In 2013, for example, when Rusty the Red Panda made his infamous and daring escape from the National Zoo, Collins recounted Rusty's adventure. But first, he made sure viewers knew which panda he was talking about with the help of two stuffed animals.
People in the District have known for years they have something special in Collins. Even when he doesn't go viral, his reports always show the same flair.
There was the time a flight from Ghana had to turn around and go back to Dulles when a fight broke out — and Collins had a couple of volunteers demonstrate with paper airplanes.
Or the time he celebrated the Washington Capitals' journey to Las Vegas to win the Stanley Cup — and donned a full Elvis costume.
Or, each holiday season, when a 2015 recording of Collins once again graces our screens with his dramatic reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas."
There's no one who does it quite like the grape, the Newsman, NBC4's resident beat poet: Pat Collins.
We'll miss you, Pat!
