John Tesh's other fantastic NBC Sports theme: "Gridiron Dreams"

A few weeks ago, I wrote about John Tesh's "Roundball Rock" and how I was ready to move on from it. Don't get me wrong, I love the iconic NBA on NBC theme, but I wanted to show some love to the fab NBA Game of the Week theme ABC used in the Seventies.

Well, to show there are no hard feelings, I want to tout a Tesh composition that doesn't get the same kind of love: His dynamic song for the NBC's NFL coverage. Here's a nice clean copy of "Gridiron Dreams." This is electric!

And, yes, I chose that upload because of the shot of Tesh with the shades and backwards cap.

Here's a sample of it as aired on NBC: The opening to the 1989 AFC Championship:

Enberg, Tesh, NBC--I love it! The description of Browns QB Bernie Kosar as unconventional, even sometimes awkward, is great.

NBA Game of the Week > Roundball Rock?

This may be a controversial statement, but maybe NBC should not bring back John Tesh's "Roundball Rock" when it carries the NBA again starting next season. I am here to tell you that instead of looking back to the Nineties, the network ought to go to the Seventies:

I love "Roundball Rock," but here are some reasons for my suggestion:

1) It's already been played out with people speculating/celebrating/discussing it.

2) It's been used by Fox Sports for years and isn't as fresh as it otherwise would be.

3) NBC itself killed it with a cheesy promo announcing its return.

On the positive side of things, here is why I embrace the earlier song:

1) It has LYRICS! Every sports theme song should have lyrics.

2) And WHAT lyrics! "Sit back and do something nice for yourself." What could be more evocative of professional basketball?

3) The song combines several musical styles.

4) It still has some mystery. One of the joys of seeing that clip is reading all the comments wondering if it's Terry Kath on vocals.

5) Just imagine this song leading right to Keith Jackson and Bill Russell. That scenario makes me smile on even my darkest days.

If NBC won't do it, maybe new NBA TV partner Amazon Prime Video will. Someone should do it! If not, then please find a higher-quality clip of the original we can all enjoy.

Power Rankings: Summer Olympic sports I always mean to watch but don't

Each Olympics I have an informal list of sports I intend to watch but don't really. This year the dissonance is even stronger since it is easier than ever to watch whatever I want. I have no excuse!

this list is not meant to demean the events, but it is based on which sport would beat another sport if they competed in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania:

(Note that there are sports that I somehow do end up watching, like swimming, gymnastics, basketball, and volleyball)

1) Team Handball: I enjoy this sport. I really do. Each time I see it, I wonder why it isn't more popular. So why don't I actually watch it during the Olympics?

2) Water Polo: Shout-out to one of my college roommates, a Water Polo-er who talked about how physical the game was.

3) Badminton: This is an awesome event, but maybe I'd watch more if it were in a backyard.

4) Breaking: I really meant to watch.

5) Rugby: To be fair, this is a fairly recent addition to the Summer Games.

6) Judo: The only combat-related spot I watched for years was boxing, but I think that was because boxing was so common on TV coverage.

7) Table Tennis: See Badminton, but replace "backyard" with "dingy basement."

8) Trampoline: It is kind of cool, but it's not the kind of thing I seek out.

9) Archery: They could be allowing trick arrows like Oliver Queen uses for all I know, and I wouldn't be aware.

10) Taeknwondo: See Judo.

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago (July 1984 Part 2): ESPN in Summer 1984

Continuing our look at a 40-years-ago TV Guide:

I am fascinated by ESPN's schedule on this Saturday: July 15, 1984. The network had been around for years at this point, and it is a bit of a dead sports zone in mid July, but STILL, wow.

6:30 AM brings Horse Racing Weekly, kind of a filler show.

7AM is Inside the USFL, which I know is a filler show because it shows up many times in the weekend listings!

7:30 is Pro Karate, and while it's a title fight, it was taped June 30 in Atlanta-- TWO WEEKS AGO!

9 is Aerobatics, "Stunt flying in the Oshkosh (Wisc.) Fly-in, taped in August 1983." 11 MONTHS AGO!

9:30 is College World Series Highlights.

10:30 is Play Your Best Golf, another program that recurs throughout the weekend.

11 is Super Bowl Highlights, action from SBXII between Dallas and Denver. SIX YEARS--OK, this goes in the category of classic sports, but still it is kind of odd for 11:00 A.M. And this is the Central time zone, so it's Noon on the East Coast.

11:30 is Inside the USFL again.

Noon is Boxing, and it's Leonard/Duran from Montreal in June 1980. It's classic sports again, so we allow it. I actually welcome that sort of thing.

1:00 brings us some live sports! It's USA vs. Argentina in Davis Cup doubles action, and I very well may have been watching some of this event coverage this weekend.

4:00 is Play Your Best Golf. TV Guide notes the time is approximate.

4l:30 is Hydroplane Racing, action taped in Evansville July 1.

5:30 is Sportscenter for the first time today.

6:30 is Golf, third-round play at the Merrill Lynch Golf Digest Senior Pro-Am, but it's taped from earlier!

8:00 We get some more tennis action, as we return to the Davis Cup. Oh, wait, it's the same coverage from earlier on tape delay.

10:30 is Sportscenter.

11:30 is--guess what--Inside the USFL.

Midnight is another presentation of the Jerry Trimble/Tony Rosser Pro Karate Association fight that was on at 7:30.

1:30 is Sportscenter.

2:30 is another presentation of the senior golf coverage from 6:30.

4:00 is--care to guess? Inside the USFL was a spectacular answer, but, no, it's Pro Karate again.

Sunday isn't much more dynamic. I won't go through the whole listings, but I will tell you the day starts with ESPN staple Australian Rules Football, a match taped June 30.

This is before so many cable networks ceded sports to ESPN and other sports channels. All over the dial you see sports programs like The Baseball Bunch on TBS, Baseball USA (with Don Drysdale) on USA Network, and Vic's Vacant Lot (formerly an ESPN program) and Reggie Jackson's World of Sports on Nickelodeon. It's like in the early days of cable, the channels felt obligated to show some kind of sports. Even early premium channel VEU (Video Entertainment Unlimited) has a History of the Olympics program.

WGN had Greatest Sports Legends, Nashville Network had several auto racing programs, and even CBN had Athletes in Action. Of course, NBC carried Major League Baseball in the afternoon,

This Day in TV History: June 6, 1984: A great NBA game doesn't do so well

We hear each day about the value of live sports on broadcast TV and how sporting events are one of the only reliable audience draws left for the networks. The NBA is poised to announce a huge media rights deal which is based in large part on getting increased exposure on over-the-air TV.

Yet 40 years ago, June 6, 1984, an attractive NBA Finals match-up pitted the Lakers against the Celtics, Magic against Bird, Kareem against Parish, etc. in Game 4. The game started at 9PM EST and went into overtime, with Boston winning at The Forum to head back home with the series tied rather than being down 3-1. it featured memorable moments like some notable blunders by Magic Johnson and a hard foul by Kevin McHale that floored Kurt Rambis and nearly led to a riot.

Sounds like a ratings winner, with superstars and high-profile teams in a dramatic and hard-fought battle. According to TV Tango, which sometimes posts ratings numbers with its historical listings, the game finished third for the timeslot!

The winner was the execrable 1978 movie Moment by Moment, an ill-advised pairing of John Travolta and Lily Tomlin that somehow was the highest-rated program this Wednesday night. ABC showed it at 9:00 after a Fall Guy repeat.

NBC also beat the NBA game with a Facts of Life rerun and a new Duck Factory before ratings dipped a bit for a St. Elsewhere rerun. A D-Day anniversary special began the night.

In this pre-cable (mostly) and pre-streaming world, the country was more captivated by a Facts of Life rerun than the start of an NBA Finals game between Los Angeles and Boston.

CBS had an acclaimed nature documentary, Lions of Etosha, leading into the game. Today, of course, you would have a pregame special or at least something a little more compatible. In 1984, CBS didn't bother building its whole night around the NBA game, and while 40 years later we can see that it was a key series for the popularity of the league and this was the key game, it wasn't a blockbuster.

Inside the Guide: TV Guide 40 years ago this week (April 28-May 4, 1984) Part 3

You know what happened on May 1, 1984. The NFL Draft. Yes, it was televised, but it was only on ESPN, and it was on TUESDAY, May 1, 1984, in the daytime. 

It was not the big TV event (and ratings-grabber) it is today!

By the way, I always loved it when something went on so long that TV Guide decided it had to put in another listing. "1984 NFL Draft Continues."  "We gotta put something there, or people will think ESPN went off the air."

Great Moments in 70s and 80s TV History: Jessica Fletcher has eyes for...Dick Butkus?

In a first-season Murder, She Wrote, "Sudden Death," Jessica Fletcher, who has inherited a share of a pro football team, "accidentally" wanders into the shower area, and it sure looks like she has wandering eyes. The late great Dick Butkus happens to be on the team, known in this episode as TANK MASON!

Tank looks great, but the "defensive captain" of a pro football team at the age of 43? Impressive!

Jessica is asking about a possible theft in the locker room, but she just happens to do it when the team is in the showers, leading to a run-in with Tank Mason, who says (and, yes, I am taking this out of context), "They don't call me Tank for nothing," even as he takes haste to cover himself with his towel.

His eyes are up THERE, Jess!

OK, so when Tank says he didn't expect to see her there at that time, during the showering, she feigns modesty and runs out. We know better, though, right?

The entire cast for this episode is top notch, featuring known 70s performers like David Doyle, Jan Smithers, Tim Thomerson, then Bruce Jenner; and character actor standouts like Allen Miller, James MCeachin, and Warren Berlinger. I'm on Season 9 of a series watch, and those days of exciting loaded casts like in the early seasons are long gone.

Dick Butkus never returned to Murder, She Wrote despite the simmering tension that is so prevalent in this episode.

YouTube Spotlight: John Tesh's "Roundball Rock"

I have to cheat a little bit on this week's Spotlight post. This clip is from just outside our timeframe. Yet with the NBA Finals underway, this takes me right back to the NBA on NBC and how much fun it was to watch Jordan and Da Bulls. I don't watch much anymore, but back in the day, it was a different story!

Any game was improved by the presentation that began with John Tesh's "Roundball Rock," but take a big match-up like this...I get chills, I tell ya!

In Memoriam: Vin Scully

Somehow I left Vin Scully out of the top ten list on Sunday, but I intended no slight. I think I planned to do a separate post last week. At this point I don't have a lot to add, but I want to share a clip of one of my all-time favorite TV sports moments, something that still gives me chills:

This clip begins a little too late. My favorite part is not the climactic homer, but actually the build to the at-bat--specifically the very beginning, when Scully says, "And look who's coming up," and then lays out a bit. I was rooting for Oakland in that Series and could not stand that Dodger team. Yet today I appreciate the moment and the spectacle and treasure this as one of baseball's most amazing finales.

One thing that amazes me is that Scully's stint as a national TV voice of the game was basically one decade. In fact, it was less than that. He took over as main man on NBC's Game of the Week in 1983, and the network lost that MLB package after the 1989 season. 

Of course, if you're on this site, you will understand that with my Eighties-centric viewpoint, I always thought of Vin as THE voice of baseball. I grew up on him, and so there you go. Makes sense, right?

R.I.P., Vin Scully!

Power Rankings: NFL color commentators of the 1980s

The recent passing of John Madden inspired me to rank my favorite NFL color guys of the BOTNS era. Hey, the former coach thrived on competition, right?

This ranking is a very personal list of what I felt back then combined with a wee bit of adjustment for the decades of sports watching I have enjoyed since. Note that I didn't watch the NFL on TV on a regular basis until the early 1980s, and I also cheated to include a couple guys who started early Nineties-ish.

Also keep in mind that there was no Sunday Ticket, I was too young to roam the sports bars, and bonus coverage wasn't as much a thing. I just remember there were less games, period.  So regular folks didn't necessarily get a lot of exposure to the full network announcer rosters beyond the top teams and the guys who happened to be calling the local game.

1) Merlin Olsen: I was an NBC guy growing up. I liked the Steelers and the AFC anyway, but I also just liked NBC. So my team of choice was not Summerall and Madden, but Enberg and Olsen. Merlin seemed like a decent guy, and I didn't even watch Father Murphy.

2) John Madden: It's impossible to miss his importance and his impact, but back then I didn't appreciate him as I would later. Even now, I think this rating is as much because of his great commercials as much as his work on CBS.

3) Paul Maguire: I liked him a lot on NBC, and for a while, I thought he even made the ESPN broadcasts tolerable. He was a funny guy and a likable presence. Is there an alternate universe in which HE is the star of Father Murphy?

4) Dan Dierdorf: I thought he got a little full of himself on Monday Night Football, but in retrospect, it couldn't have been easy dealing with everyone else on that show. I liked his work on CBS teaming with Verne Lundquist, but that was wayyyy outside the time period. However, he did do work before MNF on CBS, so I am including him!

5) Todd Christensen: Boy, whatever happened to him? He went from a rising star in the NFL booth lauded for his use of big words to something like the 12th team on ESPN college football coverage. I mean, Roy Firestone loved him. ROY FIRESTONE, people! I really dug him and his pairing with the venerable Charlie Jones.

6) Don Meredith: But I admit it's more the idea of Dandy Don since I was well aware of the myths of the glory days of Monday Night Football in the 1980s but didn't always watch much of it.

7) Terry Bradshaw: It's easy to forget his color commentary run on CBS after he's been on the FOX pregame show so long. It wasn't easy at the time to forget his playing career as a Steeler fan watching the likes of Cliff Stoudt and Mark Malone (who himself became a play-by-play guy).

8) Dan Fouts: He had a heck of a career in both pro and college football broadcasting.

9) Hank Stram: Another one where it's more the idea of Hank Stram and the fun of imitating him because I don't think I actually got to watch too many Jack Buck/Hank Stram games.

10) Beasley Reece: Nothing against the guy, but he kind of became a punchline for us when we saw the announce teams in USA Today the weekend of the games or when he actually turned up on an NBC game: "Who the heck is Beasley Reece?" Pretty sure I somehow had at least 4 or 5 football cards of him, though.

Bowl season just ain't what it used to be

I miss the old days when pre-New Year's bowl games weren't all (or at least 95%) on ESPN, but when many of them were scattered throughout the dial at random times. Did they mean more then? Yeah, it seemed like they did. But they also meant nothing, and that was part of what was cool about the experience. It was just more football, and you often had no idea when or why it was on a given channel.

Here are some old promos for bowl games that were syndicated:

I mean, don't you miss the days when a bowl game could be on "Channel 46"?

And my beloved Channel 11 got in the game, too.  After the New Year's Run portion of this clip, hear the sounds of "Dancing in the Dark" as WPIX hypes the upcoming "Blue Bonnet Bowl."  And, man, when was the last time anyone on TV referred to TCU as "Texas Christian"?

Finally today, I posted this before, but I love it so much I am sharing it again. Hugo Faces, the great account that gave us that WPIX video, uploaded this clip from 1984. I didn't remember WOR being a major college football player, but they had the Aloha Bowl! I wonder if they ever had the short-lived Garden State Bowl.

Happy National Play Outside Day (Redux)

 (Note: This was supposed to publish Saturday, November 6, but due to a technical error--I botched it--it ran Wednesday morning. Please accept my apologies and enjoy National Play Outside Day on its true milestone date, now with a bonus embedded commercial.)

Yes, it's National Play Outside Day, which is the first Saturday in November, just in time for...the temperature to start falling dramatically. Well, hey, kids can bundle up, right?

What better way to get pumped up for playing outside than by watching The Baseball Bunch, which you recall we talked about this season.

Could The Baseball Bunch be in line for Batty consideration? Will there be a Batty for Outstanding Demonstration of Outside Play? Stay tuned!

If football is more your thing, how about picking up one of these sweet Nerfs?

AND if you aren't into those sports, why not just pretend it's summer and get this one out of the garage:

Promo Theatre: Hot soccer action on USA Network!

Anyone remember the Major Indoor Soccer League on USA Network?

Actually, I don't. I remember college basketball, boxing, pro basketball, college football, even hockey (it goes without saying that we all remember professional wrestling on USA), but not the MISL.  But here it is!

I like how it won't be seen in the Wichita and STL areas. Why? Was the MISL that concerned about protecting its attendance? Was there LOCAL coverage of the MISL?

Notice the solemn way Al Trautwig (I assume) says it: "Our coverage will not be seen..." Hey, cheer up, Al.  That leaves about 245 other major markets that can hear you call the game

And the St. Louis Steamers?

This Day in TV History: MLB's strike season of 1981 gets its All-Star game

Labor battles made 1981 one of the most bizarre seasons in Major League Baseball history, one in which playoffs were determined by split-season "winners," and the team with the best overall record didn't even make the postseason. The in-season strike delayed the annual All-Star Game in Cleveland from July 14 to August 9, 1981. NBC had the broadcast with Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek on the call.

The disastrous 1994 strike and the dread in the air of another work stoppage after this season makes one think of turning the fans away, but in 1981, fans were hungry to get the sport back. This game actually set a new attendance record.

The complete game broadcast is available below and in shorter form elsewhere on YouTube!

If you don't want to watch the entire game, here is something from the "it Was a Different Time" Dept.: Morganna the Kissing Bandit running on the field to nab Len Barker. Check out the reaction of several luminaries in the stands afterwards.

YouTube Spotlight: The Soul Train Basketball Championship

One of the best clips in this week's video playlist is this 9-minute segment from a May 1977 episode featuring "The Soul Train One-on-One Basketball Championship:"

With it being 1977, you might think NBA stars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton face off, or maybe college superstars Marques Johnson and Bernard King.  How about Marvin Gaye and Don Cornelius? And why not throw in Smokey Robinson as the ref?

I tried to find more info about this but came up short, unlike Gaye, who beats Cornelius despite giving up several inches in height. The Motown legend was enough of an athlete, or considered himself enough of an athlete, to try out for the Detroit Lions (better than Gary Danielson cutting a cover of "What's Going On"). It's tough to judge his skills here, though, because Cornelius seems gassed after the first bucket!

Was this an open invitational? Who else was in the tournament? Did Cornelius ever make a skyhook? All these questions remain open for now.

This day in TV History: The heavyweight_championship_of the world

40 years ago tonight, Detroit hosted the WBC Heavyweight Championship bout between undefeated champ Larry Holmes and Olympic gold medalist Leon Spinks. The fight occurred just a couple months after the death of boxing legend Joe Louis, for whom the venue was named.

ABC, led by Howard Cosell, broadcast the fight live in prime time. Holmes won by a third-round stoppage to retain the title. After the fight, he inadvertently--at least everyone is pretty sure it was an accident--busted Cosell in the mouth while rushing to get at ringside observer/future challenger Gerry Cooney. You know, weird stuff just found a way to happen to Holmes.

This Day in TV History: An Evening with the Harlem Globetrotters (1971)

50 years ago tonight, NBC kicked off an annual series of specials with the world-famous sports entertainers by premiering An Evening with the Harlem Globetrotters. According to Ultimate70s.com, 

Joe Garagiola hosts the first of what will be a series of yearly specials with the famed basketball clowns. The Trotters perform many of their familiar routines, plus some new ones developed during their 43-year history. The antics of Meadowlark Lemon and Showboat Hall will benefit from TV sports techniques of slow motion and instant replay. Nipsey Russell and a 5-year-old basketball whiz named Steve Christry are guests.

I can't find video of the special, but I have this great 1971 Vitalis commercial that made it to our recent YouTube playlist devoted to our 1971 Saturday Morning bonus episode.

And here is some more footage of the guys in 1971:

And here is that great theme song to their cartoon series:

1971 was also notable for the team because it suffered one of its rare losses to the Washington Generals that year, blowing a big lead and giving up a buzzer beater in Martin, Tennessee.

This Day in TV History: Controversy at the Indy 500

It seems like no one can mention the rise of the NBA in the 1980s without mentioning that in the darkest days of the league, the Finals aired on tape delay. Remember that in that era, major sporting events didn't have the perceived God-given right to live broadcasts across the nation. 40 years ago tonight, the venerable Indianapolis 500, aired at 9:00 P.M. on ABC after a repeat of a documentary called Mysteries of the Sea.

The Sunday, May 24, 1981 edition of the race became one of the most memorable in its history due to a controversial finish. The initial declaration of Bobby Unser as winner didn't hold up, and on Monday runner-up Mario Andretti became the official champ. Officials made that call after reviewing an illegal pass by Unser during a pit stop.

ABC took full advantage of the tape delay. During the race coverage, announcers Jim McKay and Jackie Stewart, calling it as if it were live, highlighted the infraction knowing a protest was in the works. Andretti appeared on the telecast after the race in a live segment and talked about his side of it.

According to the great Wikipedia coverage of the event, ABC's production garnered criticism for a slant towards Andretti. A similar infraction by him was ignored while the announcing of the Unser move made it seem like it was obvious at the actual time.

However, on October 9, an appeals board overturned the overturning, making Unser once again the winner. Today the official victor of the 1981 Indy 500 is indeed Bobby Unser. Andretti tried another appeal before giving up.

This Day in TV History: Stay tuned after the Super Bowl for...

For a long time, the Super Bowl was not seen as a launchpad for future hits and would-be hits by the TV networks.  On this day 40 years ago, NBC broadcast Super Bowl XV, in which Tom Flores' Oakland Raiders became the first Wild Card team to win the big game by beating the Philadelphia Eagles 27-10.

Just under 69 million viewers tuned into the game, but NBC didn't take that audience for granted. It kept the night going with CHiPs--and not even a new episode, but a repeat of season 3's Thrill Show, which had aired nearly a year earlier.  Perhaps the strike that delayed much of the 80-81 season affected NBC's plans, but, wow, that sounds like an unimpressive Super Bowl leadout.

Promo Theatre: Y'all ready for some football?

 This 1985 college football promo just doesn't feel like TBS...until halfway through:

Yes, veteran broadcaster Lindsay Nelson shows up and I think, "Ah, yes, this feels like TBS." It's SUPER Football Saturday Night! "I'm Lindsay Nelson, and I'm part of it!" "All riiiight."

It's easy to forget the Superstation showed college football games in the 1980s, but in fact it was the first cable outlet to show games on a national basis, even beating ESPN. it was a limited package, but it was football! Then TBS began showing SEC games in 1984, but as you can see from this promo, it also showed key intersectional match-ups like...Boston College vs. Army.

(For more about TBS, check out our episode about the Superstation here!)

In case you're curious, Army crushed the Eagles 45-14. B.C. was coming off a great season culminating in a Cotton Bowl win but had lost star QB Doug Flutie to the USFL. Army would go on to finish 9-3 (but with a loss to Navy!), including a narrow victory over Illinois in an exciting Peach Bowl. 

Here's a glimpse of the B.C.-Army match-up . Notice that Harry Kalas leads off the highlights by mentioning the national television audience: