RYAN BAKKEN: Baby’s hair ‘tornado’ grows wild on YouTube

• Hudson Bata

Hudson Bata of Adams, N.D., reacts to seeing a video of himself that was seen on CNN recently. The video was shot and narrated by his mom, Christina Bata. Herald photo by Eric Hylden.
• Ryan Bakken

Ryan Bakken

Talk about it

More...

• CNN video
• YouTube video: McBata family (original)

ADAMS, N.D. — When Christina Bata was pregnant with son Hunter, she had two wishes. One, of course, was that he would be born healthy. The other, less important hope was that he would have hair.

The adage about being careful what you wish for is appropriate with Hunter, now 14 months. He has grown so much hair that, if baled, it might be enough to feed the family’s Simmental herd.

He has had seven haircuts in his 14 months and is in dire need of an eighth. When visitors came last week, his mop was shaggy, but not screaming of static electricity like normally.

“His hair does what it wants,” mom said. “It’s lying down today, abnormally calm, but usually it looks like a tornado has hit.”

An apparent F5 tornado on the Fujita Scale hit 11 months ago, just before Hudson’s first haircut. To inform grandparents and friends that Hudson was making his maiden voyage to the barber, Christina posted a video on YouTube.com that compared his hairdo to that of actor Nick Nolte’s infamous police mug shot. Since Hudson was barely able to hold his head up at three months old, his bobbing head also mimicked Nolte’s addled state.

Christina and husband Mark Bata figured the comedic comparison would remain as a family inside joke. But, two weeks ago, when Nolte’s mug shot controversy hit the news again, CNN News ran footage of Hudson’s video, with Christina’s voiceover.

“I didn’t care about my voice being on it,” she said. “My thought was that my baby is on CNN!”

CNN’s feature addressed how Nolte’s mug shot has become part of pop culture. The television news channel apparently found Hudson via a Google search. Before the CNN broadcast, the Hudson hair video had only 20 views.

“In these times, you can’t put anything on the Internet and not expect it to be seen,” Christina said.

That’s often a bad thing. But for the Bata family of tiny Adams, it meant 15 seconds of fame.

Given Hudson’s prodigious talent for growing hair, it might not be their last 15 seconds.

Reach Bakken at (701) 780-1125; (800) 477-6572, ext. 125; or send e-mail to rbakken@gfherald.com.

Tags: ryan bakken, christina bata, news, updates, hunter, youtube, video, homehead