Thursday, December 22, 2005

Monday Night Football: RIP

Turn out the la-ahts, the parties overrrr.
Allll good things, must end some taaahmm.

"Dandy" Don Merideth, MNF, the 70's
I guess I hadn't thought too much about this, but Tony Moss, NFL Editor for The Sports Channel, is right. After this coming Monday's meaningless game the show moves to ESPN. It's over.

I've been watching MNF since its inception in 1970 and, I have to admit, it is a shell of its former self. Jump the Shark did a survey some time ago, I can't tell for sure when. It appears to be from 2001, sometime. In any case, the object was to vote on the time or incident which caused MNF to "jump the shark", or, in more common terms, self immolate. Some of the comments are hilarious. I'll rip a few of them here.
When they changed the theme music from da-da-da-da to that supid Hank whats-his-name country shit.

Years ago, one of the Dallas Cowboys was on the sidelines and proceeded to shoot pea soup vomit a foot from his body before he could get his helmet off. Priceless.

Who could ever forget. Giants vs. Redskins. Lawrence Taylor snaps Joe Theismann's leg like a chicken bone. It jumped further and further down that sharks throat with every replay (somewhere around two hundred.)

I think a great moment occured on MNF when some team (I think it was the Houston Oilers) was getting the hell kicked out of them like 40 to nothing and near the end of the game the camera focused on some fan sitting by himself with like nobody else in his section. The camera sat on him for a couple of seconds and the announcers were full of their witty banter and the guy looked straight at the camera and without changing his expression or saying anything, gave the camera the finger.

I think Leslie Vissar (sp?) ruined the show, not because she's a woman, but because she has the worst hair on television. I believe if you're going to be on the television machine, you should try to look as smart as possible. Her shamelessly negligent attitude towards her appearance reflects, I believe, her flippant attitude towards the program itself, and in turn the whole sports world. And the fact that this hairy (get it?) problem has gone undetected by the stuffed shirts at ABC only substantiates my belief that all eyes of that network are closely monitoring the subtle, yet still baffling, flirtations between Al Michaels and the Boomer.

When the brought in No Talent Boomer Esiason as a color commentator..that guy is dumber than a stump and full of himself.

I agree Dierdorf did suck, but he was ten times better than that robot Gifford. One of my favorite Dierdorf one-liners was from a game in San-Diego. They just came back from a commercial, and the camera was focused on a large full moon. Al Michaels says, "There's a full moon over San-Diego tonight." And then Dierdorf says, "Full moon pretty much everywhere, Al." Classic. F the Giff and that b!tch Kathy Lee.

The show is having enough problems trying to recover from the poor dynamic that the broadcast booth has had over the last few years. Now they are considering adding that fat bastard, Rush Limbaugh?!?!? Correct me if I am wrong, but don't you have to have some kind of knowledge of the game to be able to intelligently talk about it. That is all we need is to be in the fourth quarter of yet another stinker game from ABC and have this pumpkin-headed S.O.B. start spouting some political garbage. If I wanted to engage in a political discussion, I'd keep my eye on CNN. I want to watch football. Unless they plan on having him get kicked through the uprights during field goals and extra points, I don't see how this no-talent piece of crap can bring anything even remotely entertaining to the broadcast booth.

The day they canned Frank Gifford was the day I knew there was a TV God. The guy played back when they were using leather helmets for christsakes !! his only line was "great play" and "great player(insert name)"and the classic "great coach(insert name)" remember after they canned him he did the pre game show ? I got about as much information from him as you would on the back of a McDonalds burger bag. Just put him in a chair and stick it in front of a TV and let him watch the rest of those nuts he calls a family (remember Kathie Lee Christmas Special and he sang !!) and for another person on Monday Night Football I vote for Chris Rock. It would be great to see him rip on everybody.

Dennis Miller? Here's a preview...Al: "Eddie George breaks a tackle for a gain of six." Dennis: "What's with this country's obsession on losing and gaining...(6 minute pause)...and go to hell in your laundry basket, Dan." Dan: "Uh..." Al: "And that's the end of the third quarter..." Get used to it.

I was watching the night Cosell referred to a black running back as 'that little monkey.' (Only the classic Dick Vermeil "John Elway on the sidelines getting blown by a fan" was better!) There was around 10 seconds of silence after the remark as Dandy Don, Giff, myself, and around 5000 others thought, "Oh God, it's on the fan now." I think that was Cosell's last year and when Psycho OJ came on after that, the show never recovered.

I remember a classic line that Meredith once used. There was a receiver for the old Cleveland Browns named Fair Hooker (This is true, I am not making the name up). Well Don says, "Fair Hooker" and then after a short pause adds "Never met one".

I'll never forget the night when Simpson made this astute comment about the Jets-Dolphins game: "The only way the Jets are going to beat the Dolphins is if they outscore them!" DUH!!

Eric Dickerson: Can anyone decipher his mumblings? Thankfully someone is working with him because for a time I thought it was some sort of joke. I can understand every word coming across the lovely Melissa Stark's kissable lips ...sooooo cute....but E.D. "?????" Am I wrong people? listen to this guy. "What the %#&* is he saying?"

Dennis Miller is the worst addition to a show in the entire history of television. My favorite Dennis Miller reference was when he mentioned Sylvia Plath. Unless you are a professor of English at Vassar, you have no idea who Sylvia Plath is. (I think she's a poet who killed herself--I looked it up) But, what's worse is he doesn't talk to the guys in the booth or the audience, he makes instead these obscure, unfunny pronouncements. I also didn't like the way they replaced the older woman with the younger one. What kind of anti-woman Taliban-like behavior is that? Granted the younger one is prettier but still.

There are a lot of comments here about Cosell's "Little Monkey" quote, but does anyone remember the following week? Howie deadpanned his "apology" to the camera about how some things are said that are misconstrued blah blah blah (never actually mentioning the incident specifically). Well after he was done, Dandy Don turned to him and said "Well, that's OK you big baboon!"

MNF flinched when Cosell left, but it JUMPED when they hired that dumbass eye candy Melissa Stark. I don't care, call me sexist, but NO WOMAN should be involved in a MAN'S sport. Too bad we can't see the college intern working minimum wage holding the cue cards she's reading every time they go down to those sideline reports. And I don't give a flying f*ck about this player's mom or that player's previous armed forces service or some other bullsh*t feel-good story that she reports on every freaking game. I just watched last night (11-26-01) and she's talking about how Tampa Bay's John Lynch's wife puts a f*cking inspirational note in his bag before he leaves the house on game days for him to read later after he gets to the stadium. Most guys think she's hot and I don't disagree but for criminey's sake, cut the bullsh*t!! It's so bad!! Tell me about the whores John Lynch has on road trips that his inspirational f*cking wife doesn't know about. Now THAT would be a great sideline report.

To be honest I haven't watched in a few years...but someone help refresh my memory.....wasn't it Howard Cosell who once told O.J., after one of O.J.'s insipid remarks, that he had "a firm grasp of the obvious".

Coincidentally this was the same night that Redskins safety Tony Peters was injured and Cosell said "The Redskins will have to play with Peters out".

John Madden is equally as tiresome and retarded as Dennis Miller; the difference is John Madden actually understands the game. But it doesn't mean he'll talk about it. He is just as likely as Dennis Miller or anybody else to go off on a tangent about the amount of steam that pours off a bald man's head in the winter or how a jock will ride up your ass in the 4th quarter.

Is it just me, or has Al Michaels' toupee started growing like a giant spider crawling down his forehead? Every year he gets more and more hair. Scary!

Michelle Tafoya. Gawd is she annoying. She adds absolutely nothing to the sideline reports. She makes John Madden look like some sort of prophet, with her useless commentary.

Napoleon McCallum of the Raiders was injured in anextremely grotesqe fashion(painful looking leg thing)and the DIDN'T SHOW THE REPLAY! SI actually gave the thumbs up to these jokers for not showing the replay because it may have been to sensitve for some viewers. I don't watch football because it is some sensitve crap, I watch it because it is violent, dangerous sport and I want to see the injuries. Pansies

As someone once pointed out in the years following his departure in 1984, "without Howard Cosell, it's not Monday Night Football, it's football on Monday night."


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