Thursday, November 17, 2005

The greatest game ending never seen...

Okay so you're watching this hard hitting, classic shootout of a game between the Jets and those dastardly Oakland Raiders. It's a see-saw affair with the Raiders ahead at the half 14-12. In the second half both teams trade punches and scores several times and then Jim Turner connects on a 26-yard field goal putting the Jets ahead 32-29 with 1:05 ticks left on the clock. The Jets kick off to the Raiders who bring the ball up to their own 23 yard line. Oh, what's that, a commercial, okay I'll wait. It's worth waiting a couple of minutes for what promises to be a classic ending. Commercials over, okay here we go. Wait a minute who's that little girl in an apron ? Heidi ? Heidi who ? Must be some mistake. No mistake, the legend of "The Heidi Game" is born...

NBC-TV executives had instructed Broadcast Operations Supervisor, Dick Cline, to cut to "Heidi" at 7pm whether the game was over or not. Seeing what a great game this had become, the powers that be, changed their minds but couldn't get through to Cline to break the news to him and why was that ? How about thousands of complaining viewers who blew out NBC's phone line ?...

And the game, what happened in the game, you might ask. Here's what you didn't see. The Oakland Raiders scored 2 touchdowns in 9 seconds and held on to win, 43-32 in what fans have voted as one of the 10 most memorable games in football history. The final score of the game ran as a crawl across the bottom of the screen at 7:20 during, what else ? "Heidi"...

Some interesting "Heidi Game" factoids follow in my commentary...

More November 17 Memories...

1934) Future President Lyndon B. Johnson marries Claudia Alta Taylor, better known to you and I as "Lady Bird"...

1956) Jimmy Brown finishes his college career at Syracuse by running for 6 touchdowns and kicking 7 extra points in a 61-7 shellacking of Colgate...

1965) The Supremes top the charts with "I Hear A Symphony"...

1968) "The Heidi Game" (feature story)...

1973) At an Associated Press meeting in Orlando, President Nixon gives his famous "I'm not a crook" speech (full quote: "people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.")...

1975) KC & the Sunshine Band are #1 with "That's the way (I Like It)"...

1980) John Lennon's two-record set "Double Fantasy" LP is released...

1984) Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (which I worked on) tops the charts...

1985) Howard Stern starts at K-Rock (WXRK)...

1990) David Crosby breaks his left leg, ankle and shoulder in a motorcycle accident in L.A...

1997) Mario Lemieux (who's still playing) is voted into the NHL Hall of Fame...

2001) "Toys "R" Us" opens a mammoth store in Times Square...

2003) John Allen Muhammad is convicted of two-counts of capital murder in the Washington, D.C. area sniper shootings...

2003) Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes the "governator" by being sworn in as the 38th governor of Cahl-if-forrrr-nee-uh...

Happy Birthday To...

1938) Gordon Lightfoot...

1942) Bob Gaudio (Four Seasons)...

1942) Martin Scorsese...

1943) Lauren Hutton...

1944) Danny DeVito...

1944) SNL producer Lorne Michaels...

1944) The Mets "franchise" Tom Seaver...

1960) RuPaul...

Commentary...

While NBC-TV executives frantically tried reaching Dick Cline, the thousands of protesting callers started calling the police, the telephone company and the New York Times (hmmm). At 8:30 NBC made a public apology and the next morning, just take a wild guess what the headline of the New York Times screamed ? "The Heidi Game" was treated like the major event it became...

In a poorly executed cover-up NBC bought ads in several major newspapers proclaiming rave reviews for "Heidi" along with this quote from Jets quarterback Joe Namath: "I didn't get a chance to see it, but I heard it was great." Good thing NBC never ran a political campaign is what I'm thinking...

The end result of the botched ending of the Jets-Raiders thriller was the vow by the networks never to interrupt the ending of a local game, however to this day the networks break away to the 4pm game whether or not the 1pm game is over. The only exception is for the local team, which is protected. Now we need the networks to let the 1pm game finish with a split screen of that game and the 4pm game until the first game is over...