They keep calling him "Zach from Austin."
But he's our boy.
Zach Anner -- one of just two contestants left for tonight'sgrand finale of the "Your OWN Show" reality series -- is a true-blue Ted's hot dogs- and beef on weck-lovin' Western New Yorker, complete with an unwavering devotion to the Buffalo Bills.
Tonight, Oprah Winfrey, reality show producer Mark Burnett and co-hosts Carson Kressley and Nancy O'Dell will choose who will get to host his or her own show on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Anner pitched an idea for a travel show "for people who never thought they could travel."
Anner, 26, who became in Internet sensation with his incredibly silly audition video and drew millions of votes to be cast on the show, was born in Children's Hospital. He grew up in Kenmore and went to Lindbergh Elementary, Kenmore Middle and Kenmore West High schools.
He also spent a year at the University at Buffalo before transferring to the University of Texas in Austin to study filmmaking.
"I made the chilling mistake in my audition video," Anner fessedup Thursday in a phone interview on the eve of his big night.
The online form had an entry for "city," Anner explained. He wasin Austin at the time he made the video so he entered "Austin."
"I wasn't thinking what is your hometown," he said. But afterhis audition video became a hit, it was too late. "It was like oneof those things that once it got picked up, it was impossible tofix."
Not that he doesn't love Austin.
Anner has been splitting his time between Austin and Buffalo for the last five years, he said.
"I love this city," he said of Austin. "It's like a home to me."
But, he joked, "I think they can tell here that this accent isnot a Texan accent."
Anner is a proud Buffalonian, he and his family agree.
"Austin likes to think he's from there," said his mother, Susan Anner, who lives in Amherst and is a lecturer at the University at Buffalo. "He spent the first 21 years of his life completely here."
His father, Jonathan Anner, a bartender from the City ofTonawanda, explained his son had a hard time getting around in hiswheelchair when it snowed. It was much easier for him in Austin,and it was also a place where he could pursue his passion forfilm.
"You can have two hometowns," Jonathan Anner said.
Zach Anner believes that his Buffalo upbringing helped make himbe the man he is today.
"The loyalty of people in Buffalo, no matter who you are or what you're doing, is incredible," he said. "It's one of the biggest lessons from being in Buffalo: You just gotta hang in there. Everyone I know in Buffalo is, like, so proud to be from there."
Being a lifelong Bills fan has been part of that, he said.
"It's been difficult in recent decades," he joked.
Zach Anner said if that he wins the Oprah reality show, he hopesto do one of his travel programs about Buffalo.
Before he filmed the reality show in the fall, he gave a taste ofwhat he might do. He filmed a short video called "Zach in the Buff," which gives viewers a tour of Niagara Falls, Zach Anner-style.
In one scene, Anner points to a sign banning swimming in theriver as the Niagara River roars behind him.
"It's definitely the sign that dissuades me from going into this water and not the rapids," he quipped.
He also threw in a little shout to Buffalo in a video he put on YouTube a couple of weeks ago as a promo for the Oprah reality show.
In it, he says he has been doing something he isn't exactly proudof.
The camera cuts to Anner in a backlit silhouette, rolling ontothe screen in his wheelchair to Randy Newman's "You Can Leave YourHat On." On his head is a Buffalo hat. Yes, the kind with the twohorns sticking out.
It's a spoof of the sexy 1986 movie "91/2 Weeks," and Anner, withhis trademark silly style, slithers and gyrates a la Kim Basinger while Mickey Rourke cheers him on.
"So if you'd like to support my non-Mickey Rourke strippingcareer, because that only pays in shame, watch the show!" he urgeshis viewers.
The final episode of "Your OWN Show" airs at 9 o'clock tonight onOWN.
e-mail: mbecker@buffnews.com
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