ABC's Monday finale is a night of reckoning
ABC's Monday Night Football ended the way it started its 36-year run: with controversial sportscaster Howard Cosell welcoming TV viewers to the brave new world of prime-time football.
ABC's announcing team of Al Michaels and John Madden were classy enough to give the show's most famous trio of Cosell, "Dandy" Don Meredith and Frank Gifford their due before MNF moves from ABC to sister Disney network ESPN for the 2006 season.
That trio was only together for 11 out of MNF's 36 seasons. But they're like the Ghost of Christmas Past for whoever steps into the MNF booth, whether they're Madden or Michaels, one of the many ex-jocks who flopped in the canary-yellow blazer such as Joe Namath, Fran Tarkenton, Alex Karras and O.J. Simpson or a professional comedian such as Dennis Miller.
Cosell influenced a generation of sportscasters such as ESPN's Chris Berman. During Monday's telecast of the New England Patriots-New York Jets game Monday night, we saw why.
Cosell was the first sportscaster to become bigger than the games he called, yucking it up in the booth with everyone from presidents Nixon, Reagan and Clinton to celebrities such as John Lennon, William Shatner and John Wayne.
The teasing, sometimes volatile chemistry between him and Meredith and Gifford, two members of the "jockocracy" he deplored, made viewers tune in to see what they would say or do next.
Recalled Gifford during a live interview with Michaels at halftime: "Howard pontificated. Don Meredith was the country guy who kept the big city slicker straight. I kept law and order."
Bill Carter, co-author of Monday Night Mayhem, said Monday Night Football started becoming football on Monday night when Cosell left under fire in 1984 after describing Alvin Garrett as a "little monkey" on the air.
"Cosell made the difference," he said. "It was not just football. It was really an entertaining package."
ABC, of course, had a game to telecast Monday night. But I would like to have seen more of what made MNF so groundbreaking.
Such as the night in 1980 that Cosell took it upon himself to inform a stunned nation of the murder of Lennon in New York. Or Cosell's exciting, rat-a-tat-tat recitation of "Halftime Highlights."
Or the unforgettable night in 1985 when incoming ESPN color analyst Joe Theismann suffered one of the most bloodcurdling injuries ever seen on prime-time TV, a bloody broken fibula and tibia in his lower right leg.
A look at other memorable moments during ABC's 555th and final MNF broadcast:
•Best live moment: The New York Jets' Vinny Testaverde, 42, becoming the first player to throw a TD pass 19 seasons in a row.
•Best taped moment: Dandy Don serenading viewers on tape with another rendition of The Party's Over, the Willie Nelson song he used to warble in the booth during blowout games.
•Funniest clip: David Letterman pointing at MNF analyst Dan Dierdorf and saying, "He's still wearing his cup."
•Say what? MNF's first play-by-play announcer Keith Jackson touting one of the show's first advertisers: Marlboro cigarettes.
Gifford told Michaels about the night both Lennon and Reagan visited the booth. He recalled the conservative politician with his arm around the peace-loving Beatle, explaining the finer points of American football. "That was something kind of special," Gifford recalled
So was this show.
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