Barry Mitchell

Who is Barry Mitchell?

Barry Mitchell is a Brooklyn-born comedian, musician and TV producer. Mitchell is also known as "Accordion Guy" to viewers of ABC-TV's quirky, overnight broadcast, World News Now. He started contributing topical song parodies to the program in 1992, and later became its roving feature reporter, conducting celebrity interviews and scouring the country for oddball stories and personalities.

Mitchell played accordion in Long Island, NY wedding bands in the mid-1970s, and later worked as a radio newswriter for WHLI-AM. In the late 1970s he worked briefly for NBC Radio News and Information Service in Rockefeller Center before starting to earn a living as a stand-up comedian.

In 1992, Mitchell wrote and performed what was to become World News Now's signature closing theme, the tongue-in-cheek "World News Polka". Many different versions of the Polka were created over the years, the most famous being the music video in which Mitchell was accompanied by two attractive female singers dressed in journalistic trenchcoats, who sang backup while waving large hand microphones, with many in-jokes acknowledging Disney's ownership of ABC. Other versions of Mitchell's Polka include one featuring an Elvis impersonator, another with an all-ukulele band, and one starring a water-harpist. In January, 2011, Mitchell appeared live in studio, singing special lyrics celebrating World News Now's nineteenth anniversary: "Brand new year and brand new set, same old tune you can't forget."