By Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Using looms to make bracelets is a new popular pastime among elementary school students, which prompted the host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” to suggest he’d hire his own team of child laborers to make him a suit he can wear on his late-night show.
Linda Mitchell had her own idea: Videotaping her daughter, Skyler Gaudio, a 7-year-old first-grader at Bower Hill Elementary in the Peters Township School District, weaving for Kimmel’s suit at Learning Express Toys at the Galleria in Mt. Lebanon, PA.
Their video aired Wednesday on Kimmel’s program, and they’ve since sent a completed tie (black and gold, of course, for the Pittsburgh Steelers) and are at work on a belt that they hope he will wear on the program with a loomed suit, possibly next week.
“They did tell me they had thousands of submissions,” said Mitchell, who emailed the video to Kimmel’s show earlier this week and received a response within 20 minutes. “For them to get this from us and call that quickly is, just, wow.”
It may have helped that some TV professionals had a hand in the video: Mitchell said she’s engaged to former KDKA-TV news anchor Bruce Pompeani, who called on WPXI photojournalist Ward Hobbs to shoot the video on Sunday.
Mitchell also appeared at the end of the video speaking directly to the camera, telling Kimmel the children would be working round-the-clock for four days to complete his suit.
“Thank you, Linda, Skyler and everyone at the Learning Express for violating all those child labor laws so I can own the world’s only Suit of the Loom,” Kimmel joked.
Photo via Wikimedia
