On our latest podcast, we discuss some of the wide array of events covered on ABC's Wide World of Sports as it spanned the globe for decades. I spanned the Internet for a few minutes to seek out some of these sports, and these are my 5 favorites:
Cycloball: One of the many events listed here on ESPN. Wikipedia lists it as airing February 1964 and has it as two words: cyclo ball. I am pretty sure this is soccer on bicycles, which is impressive but not as cool as "cycloball" sounds.
Fireman's competition: Venerable Keith Jackson called at least one of these on the show.
Frog jumping: I remember when Peter and Bobby were prepping for a big frog competition on The Brady Bunch! This was presumably major league frog jumping, though.
Rattlesnake hunt: Does this have anything to do with Stone Cold Steve Austin?
International Bikini Sports Competition: This is listed on Wikipedia as being on the program in February of 1972, but it's not on the ESPN site, and it's not hard to imagine why. Please tell me Keith Jackson announced this.
1) Evel Knievel: The subject of our podcast this week broke about umpteen bones over the course of his career. Were you not entertained?
2) Jim McKay: One of the other stars of this week's episode, the classy McKay was the iconic host of Wide World of Sports, and it's hard to find anyone who said a bad word about him (except maybe in Mike's family?). So let's see of we can critique his performance in his commentary after the 1980 Miracle on Ice.
No, I can't do it. Classy as always.
3) Saturday Night Live: This day in 1975, NBC's venerable late-night comedy/variety series premiered, meaning it has been on the air for 45 seasons--many of them watchable.
4) Biography: I Want My MTV on A&E: I just saw this documentary this week, and though you have every reason to be skeptical--a network that lost its way produces a show about a network that lost its way--it's excellent and well worth your time if you enjoyed the early days of the network. Er, the one that lost its way. Er, MTV.
5) Happy Days/Brady Bunch/Cheers: Hey remember when MTV stopped showing videos and began a steady spiral into pointlessness? Why do I bring that up now? No reason.
Oh, by the way, these 3 classic sitcoms are coming to...Hallmark Drama.
6) Webster: On this day 35 years ago, the classic episode "Alien" premiered on ABC. Now, I have never seen this one, but I can tell it's a classic after reading this summary on IMDB:
While George prepares for an IRS audit, Webster becomes convinced that he is from Jupiter after reading an article in a tabloid newspaper that Rob shows him.
7) Frank Gifford: Let's also salute Wide World announcer and frequent Evel commentator Frank Gifford, who expressed genuine concern for the guy who exhibited self-destructive behavior. I guess it was good prep for being in the booth with Cosell and Don Meredith.
8) David Morse: Happy birthday to the hard-luck doc from St. Elsewhere, which we discussed a few seasons ago.
9) Who's the Boss: The comedy debuted on Antenna TV this week, and over-the-air television hasn't been the same since!
10) The New Twilight Zone: Decades' Weekend Binge is a marathon of the 1985 version of the show, which didn't exactly disprove our theory that anything with "new" in the title is probably going to disappoint.
One of the clips in our video playlist this week is a brief look at 1970s daredevil cyclist Super Joe Einhorn:
According to Cyclejumpers.org, Einhorn had a wild stunt jumping career that was cut short when he suffered brain damage in a crash in Illinois. The accident retired him just before his proposed jump over Niagra Falls in a cycle that looked a heck of a lot more like a cycle than Evel's Skycycle.
The same page mentions a challenge Einhorn made to Knievel to start with 16 cars and then keep adding cars until one of them crashed! Super Joe was even on Wide World of Sports (Evel was a commentator on at least one jump!) several times in the 1970s, though he seems forgotten to most nowadays.
After listening to this week's podcast, click below to enjoy our official video playlist for the episode. You will get all kinds of material from Wide World of Sports and of Evel Knievel, including: Celebrity Demolition Derby with Keith Jackson! Dandy Don for Lipton tea! Toys galore! Don Rickles! And who is Super Joe Einhorn? All this and more promos, commercials, and of course STUNTS!
(Note that we did include some of the longer-form material we talked about on the show, but we included it at the end of the playlist in case you just want to watch a bunch of shorter clips without interruption.)
And remember you can visit our official YouTube channel for past episodes of the podcast and video playlists like this for each one of them!
*Wide World of Sports premiered April 29, 1961 on ABC and aired as a regular anthology program until January 3, 1998.
*David Foster's Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire won a Grammy for best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1985 and reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100.
*The U.S. Olympics teams won 16 of the 48 medals at the 1984 Summer Olympics, well ahead of China's 11.
*Laff-a-Lympics aired 1977-1978 on ABC Saturday mornings.
*Though some didn't like the ABC Sports yellow blazers, others, uh, didn't, either. That second link is Esquire's look at sports broadcasting "uniforms."
*Evel Knievel (1938-2007) was on Wide World 7 times officially, and this piece on ESPN credits him with 5 of the 20 top-rated episodes of the program.
*An unaired 1974 pilot with Sam Elliott as Evel is on YouTube. Second lead Gary Barton makes this comment under the clip:
Being the second star of this pilot, I think I would have been a lot richer today had it gone to series (it actually was picked up as a series but canceled because of people writing in afraid their kids would try and imitate Evil on their bikes. Canceled 2 weeks before shooting the first season.
*Evel's final TV special, Evel's Death Defiers, was intended as a pilot, but when Evel crashed in training, the show went off as a live broadcast with footage from that jump and, as intended, stunts from others. The broadcast, January 31, 1977 on CBS, was a huge flop even though it was co-hosted by Telly Savalas and Jill St. John!
*Hanna-Barbera's Devlin aired 16 episodes on Saturday mornings on ABC in 1974.
*Team America debuted in Captain America in 1982, had its own Marvel comic for 12 issues, and later became Thunderriders. Ideal Toys created Team America after dumping Evel.
This week, we span the globe to bring you our most daring episode yet! Join us for all the thrills, spills, and chills when Evel Knievel meets ABC's Wide World of Sports!
