Never underestimate how crafty moms can be. Four-year-old Anthony Smith of Salem, New Hampshire, was born with hearing abnormalities that left him deaf in one ear and with limited hearing in the other. When he told his mom he didn't want to wear the hearing device he calls "blue ear" because superheroes don't need hearing aids, his mom turned to Marvel comics for help. Amazingly, Marvel responded. The company sent over a Hawkeye comic, which stars a character featured in "The Avengers," who lost his hearing. Marvel took it a step further by creating a custom comic for Anthony about a superhero called Blue Ear who does in fact wear a hearing aid. The cover of the comic reads, "When danger makes a sound, the Blue Ear answers the call. Anthony Smith is Blue Ear." Needless to say, problem solved.
What happens when Jay Leno features your video on national television? Well, in the case of 27-year-old Travis Irvine, the outcome wasn't exactly what he expected. When Irvine was running for mayor of Bexley, Ohio, he shot a campaign video with his friend Brian Kamerer, which became a bit of a hit on YouTube. When Leno recently featured the clip in a rundown of local political ads, the duo were initially overjoyed at the attention. Recently, though, their very own video was blocked from YouTube for infringing on the copyright of the episode of "The Tonight Show" that it had been included in. The show never asked permission, and the reaction to the take-down has been mostly negative. Some commenters recommended Irvine and Kamerer sue Leno's show, and others suggested the culprit may in fact be YouTube software that blocked the clip in error. Irvine wrote Leno asking for an apology. We don't know if the letter worked or if a technical error was addressed, but we're happy to report the video has returned.