Monday, December 13, 2010

'Monday Night Football' Today Isn't Close to What It Once Was

by Milton Kent

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Frank Gifford, Howard Cosell, Don Meredith

The notion that the world would first learn of the death of a musical icon during the telecast of a mere football game seems laughable given our modern media sensibilities.

Yet, the confluence of the 30th anniversary of the shooting death of John Lennon this Wednesday - announced late in the fourth quarter of a Monday night game -- and the death Sunday of Don Meredith serves as a reminder that while the New England-Miami clash may have been just another football game, "Monday Night Football" was no mere telecast.

Indeed, the telecast that currently airs each Monday at 8:30 p.m. ET is connected to the four-act drama that kicked off each Monday at 9 p.m. then only by title and by the fact that there's a football game. Nothing else is the same.

The "Monday Night Football" of Dandy Don, Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford was part musical, part comedy, part satire and occasional tragedy with a football game thrown in for good measure.

Gifford, the former New York Giants golden boy, could only have been the sensible center, the Everyman, of sorts, in a world where he was partnered with Cosell and Meredith, the Vaudevillians.

 

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Source: http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2010/12/08/monday-night-football-today-isnt-close-to-what-it-once-was/

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