The disclaimer up front: I think Keith
Olbermann is the best sports anchor ever. The first time I saw him
on ESPN, he immediately became my favorite because he had unruly
hair, big glasses, a fashion sense that probably only made sense to
him, was smart on other subjects besides sports and wasn't afraid to
reference them, was funny, and if something really stupid happened,
was not afraid to say so. I wondered if I could be a sportscaster
before Keith, after Keith, I knew I could and was determined to make
it so (and it happened. I had unruly hair, big glasses, questionable
fashion sense, and... well, you get the point. And you understand
why Keith had such a big impact on me.)
Because I was curious, I just looked up
Keith's Wikipedia page, and since he left ESPN the first time, in
1997, I have watched at least one episode of everything he's ever
done, with the exception of 12 episodes as a guest on Hollywood
Squares in 1999. Mind you, this is not because of a compulsion to
watch my biggest inspiration to become a broadcast sports journalist,
but if I see Keith or hear Keith, I stop what I'm doing and I pay
attention. And that some of these shows were.... odd.
He anchored NBC Nightly News twice (not
was named host twice, but anchored it twice, period), and I saw one
of those. He had a very short-lived show on Fox Sports Net, and I
saw it (and thought it was bad). Even watched an episode of the
CurrentTV show that might have been on the air less than the FSN
show, which was his most recent network show before his new one on
ESPN2 (and that seemed like a hopeless copy of the MSNBC show, so I'm
glad it failed). On the radio I heard him fill in for Paul Harvey,
(“and that's..... the rest...... of the story”) for goodness
sake.
Page Two.... worth mentioning Keith's
politics, because that always comes up when Keith comes up nowadays.
The truth is that no matter who you are, sports bridges politics.
Always has and always will. My alma mater has produced some people
who are very, very much on the opposite side of where I stand
politically. Guess what? If we stick to talking how good KU
basketball is and how bad KU football is, politics doesn't matter.
And if it did come up, we'd probably both shrug and say, “you're my
friend anyway, even if you are totally wrong there.”
Another note on that regard, my two
favorite personalities at ESPN during the glory years (AKA, Keith's
first time there, 1991-1997) were Keith (duh) and Bob Ley. I did not
know until reading the oral history of the network (ESPN: Those Guys Have All the Fun) that Keith and Bob are polar opposites when it
comes to politics. All I knew at the time was that they were the two
best guys Bristol had to offer, as far as I was concerned. I still
think Bob is fantastic at what he does, and so is Keith. Again, my
point: politics matters zilch when it comes to sports. You should
try it sometime, you'll enjoy them both much better.
Back to our story.... when it was
announced that Keith was returning to sports by hosting baseball
postgame shows on TBS this fall (again, a tidbit I stumbled upon by
accident), I was excited to finally see Keith get back to where he
once belonged, doing sports. And only a couple of weeks ago, I found
out (again, not by looking) that Keith had reunited with the
Mothership to do a nightly show on ESPN2 called “Olbermann.”
(Another side note: Keith has done so
many shows by himself he's starting to run out of things to call
them. Keith and Dan Patrick jokingly called their edition of
SportsCenter “The Big Show,” so when he went to MSNBC the first
time it was officially called “The Big Show with Keith Olbermann.”
On FSN it was “The Keith Olbermann Evening News,” then there was
“Countdown with Keith Olbermann” for MSNBC part two and
CurrentTV. This one's just “Olbermann,” so the one after it will
probably be called “Keith.”)
So I watched the premiere this week,
and I thought he started it perfectly: with the line, “As I was
saying....” a nod to one of Keith's influences, Jack Paar. (Paar
was the host of the Tonight Show before Johnny Carson. Paar got into
a feud with NBC because one night he told a joke on-air that referenced a
bathroom- this happened in the early 60's, TV standards have changed
slightly- and NBC edited it out of the broadcast. The next night, Paar came on, told NBC to shove it, and walked off. When he returned to the show a couple months later, he
started with the line “As I was saying...”). (So you can imagine that I was more than a little perturbed that the New York Times reviewer- you know, from the alleged newspaper of record- did not catch this reference and put it down to Keith being self-aggrandizing.) Keith was visibly
nervous (flubbed a couple of the early jokes) and immediately went
into a rant, what he did so much on Countdown, and did it well.
But then, a bit into the show...
Highlights. My God, Keith doing baseball highlights again. It was
the reminder, right there, of what Keith was born to do. (Not to mention that he loves baseball more than any other sport.) Many a catchphrase from the Glory Days made it in there on night one, and
they didn't sound stale, they sounded as fresh as the day I first
heard them.
Is that a little much? Yeah, probably.
The thing is, Keith has been on the political side so long, getting
angry, yelling at people, that I almost completely forgot how good he
was at just doing the highlights. (The “Sunday Night Football”
co-hosting with former tag-team partner Dan Patrick was doomed from
the get-go and everyone knew it, so he wasn't exactly trying there.)
There are no highlights in politics, it's just reading a script while
there's video. Highlights are an art form. Everyone thinks they can
do it, but not everyone can. That's why “Boom Goes the Dynamite”
exists. The great ones make it look so easy that everyone thinks
they can do it. Keith is the greatest.
Naturally, I appreciated all the clips
in Episode One from his previous days on ESPN. Finally, ESPN can
show Keith Olbermann in their highlight shows again (in ESPN's 25th
anniversary and 30th anniversary shows, Olbermann, who
almost single-handedly turned SportsCenter into the behemoth it
remains today as far as highlight shows, got barely a mention). The
unruly hair, the big glasses, the questionable fashion... but the
razor sharp wit and the intelligence was still there, just like I
remembered it.
Nevertheless, there were an awful lot
of flashbacks to the old days. I'm cool with pulling the old video
out of the archives on Day One, and every week or so, (there was the
claim that there would be a segment called “This week in Keith
History”) but I don't want “Olbermann” to turn into watching a
rock'n'roll band at the county fair. Loverboy has to play “Working for the Weekend” at every show. Night Ranger has to play “Sister Christian” at every show. Even Paul McCartney has to play a bunch
of Beatles every show, and his lead guitarist, a really good 30-year
music veteran, cannot change the solos in any song at all whatsoever,
or there will be a flipping riot. I do not want to watch “Keith
Ranger” show a bunch of “Hey everyone! Come and see how good I was!” clips all the time.
Night two, it already seemed like Keith
was bored. (Keith? Bored? Never!) However, the first interview of
the night, with Tony Kornheiser, was good, it was two grumpy fellows
agreeing with each other. Nevertheless, some of the show seemed
pushed and it felt a little like Keith was not into it. The Russell
Wilson interview was a certified snoozer. Part of that was Russell
refusing to have fun with any of Keith's “I'm trying to ask you
interesting questions, please give me interesting answers” line of
questioning and instead, answering them as if he couldn't hear the
joke.
Night three was better than night two.
Keith seemed more comfortable with it, like, okay, here we are, this
is what it is. He got personal, talking MLK, racism, baseball and his Dad, (the clip is worth three and a half minutes of your time) and who wouldn't have fun with John McEnroe? The Peyton Manning interview was miles better than
Russell, mostly because Peyton answered Keith's questions the way
you're supposed to answer Keith's questions, by playing around with
him and not answering him as if you can't hear the joke. If Keith
brings on more interviews like Peyton and Johnny Mac and fewer like Russell, the
interview segments will seem fun, and not like a drag.
I also realized on night three that he
entire hour features an awful lot of Keith talking. The show is
called “Olbermann,” so I guess that's the point, but it seems
like it should be broken up. I originally thought “maybe he should
bring someone in to do the highlights so he can have a break,” but
then, the highlights are Keith's specialty, so why bring in somebody
worse than him to do something he's great at doing? Then I thought,
maybe bring in someone for him to talk to and play off of like an Ed
McMahon type might be the answer. But then, it just turns into a
nighttime version of PTI, and that's no good. I'm here to watch
Keith. I can deal with Keith doing everything for an hour.
I have high hopes for Keith's return to
ESPN to be a long and fruitful partnership, but we all know how it
will end: it'll crash and burn, like it did the first time, and like
it has happened everywhere else he's been. He made it almost a
decade on MSNBC (take two), it's probably the longest job he's ever
held.
I hope that I'm wrong, that Keith will
find his niche (the show is based in NYC, and he hated ESPN's
hometown of Bristol with a burning passion, so that'll help), and go
on like this until he decides to quit in a decade and a half. He'd
be almost 70 by then, so there's no way in hell that will happen.
But however long it lasts, I'm just glad I got to see Keith doing
baseball highlights once more. You should watch them yourself
(especially if you've never seen the master at work), you'll be glad
you did.
Photo courtesy: news.yahoo.com
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