My reaction to the first half of this article, even before getting to the denouement, was that the Shuttle "gag" was totally inappropriate but the Mercury one w

My reaction to the first half of this article, even before getting to the denouement, was that the Shuttle "gag" was totally inappropriate but the Mercury one was hilarious. And I'm not entirely sure why. Was it because the latter involved Gene Kranz, or because flipping the video feed showed them putting in more effort?