Color commentaing is a very hard gig. I do it for local football games and at times i know I say stupid stuff. Look, the idea of “color” is that you are supposed to make all tuning in feel as if they are there with you, that and fill time so the “play-by-play” guy doesn’t lose his voice. Personly I think Madden is ok, I do agree Terry Bradshaw needs to be shot, but overall this is a job where basically you have to B.S. pretty well. There is only so much you can say about a play. Producers expect you to talk even if you have nothing helpful to add. Thus you get “Maddenisms”. I challenge any on this thread to talk for three hours straight in the public eye and not say one stupid thing. Hey at least he is not Jerry Glanville, if I hear “hitch in his get-along” one more time I thought I may have to find a rifle and a bell tower.
How about this new concept in announcing/
commentating/giving color/etc…shutting up?
If I hear one piece of analysis a game that I don’t already know I would be surprised. I want to know down, distance, time, and score–that’s about it.
MY fantasy (in regards to announcers) is to have them pinned in cement. As I beat them, they have to announce it, while sometimes bringing out the telestrator.
Madden: And then, BOOM! Bucky hits me with a pool cue! Pool cue, suppose they use that in swimming pools?
Vitale: Yeah babay! That’s a real CCC, a cranial concussion causer!
Dierdorf: What I like about this Bucky is that he came to play. You ask around the league, he came to play. That’s what players do.
And just who came up with the idea for TWO-HOUR pre-game shows?!?!?!? When there were only 26 teams in the league, a half-hour was enough. Now that there are 31, we need 120 minutes?
I think ABC has a FIVE-hour pre-game show scheduled for the Super Bowl.
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!
Oh, how I miss Howard Cosell. (I’m not joking, I liked him because he knew what he was talking about. And he had guts.)
Bucky, didn’t one of the networks (I think Fox) try broadcasting games with minimal voice-overs a couple of years ago?
I think your point is well-made about minimal information – maybe somebody could put that on the closed-caption window. The play-by-play would identify players solely by team& number, describe the action very simply in terms of ‘run’, ‘pass’, ‘hand-off’, etc. When the down is over, state the yards gained, any penalties, then insert the minimal statistics. Hell, each time player influences the outcome, they could probably automatically flash how the play changes his statistics, then go back to the standard information on each play.
Also, I don’t even watch most football games, so I may be wrong about the venue I recall hearing the following – could have been from a baseball announcer. Who is it that constantly uses the term “Suummmmkinda . . . etc.”? Well, WTF would you expect him to be, if the guy’s making upwards of several million a year?
And your whiny, crybaby, half-assed opinion would be . . . ?
The announcerless game was pre-Fox… I loved it, most announcers who were asked hated it (“There’s just not as much atmosphere”). Surprise that they hate something that threatens their jobs!
Mute buttons leave you watching a silent game (which is weird), and you sometimes have to unmute/demute to find out penalties and such.
Keith Jackson in cement: Ohhh, Nelly! Bucky is hitting me with some kinda two-by-four! He’s a big hoss, down here, whacking away at my leg. And now my capella has come off–FUMMMBBBBLLLEEEE!
Madden and Summerall were doing a Dallas game a couple of years ago when Emmitt Smith, rather than take on a safety, ran out of bounds. Madden called this a “business decision”.
In spite of the utter staleness of the All-Madden team, I really do like the guy.
The famous “announcer-less” game was done by NBC in a New York Jets game in the late '80s/very early '90s.
Public response wasn’t that great. And, as I recall, the stadium announcer kind of undermined the concept by talking incessantly, basically doing play-by-play.
“In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” - Ecclesiastes 1:18
you have to give Madden some credit for the Rams/Bucs game. 2 seconds before teh game winning play, Madden said “sometime between now and the end of the game, someone is going to make a big play and put their team in the Superbowl.”
Then the Rams threw a touchdown pass that one the game. Pretty prescient.
All typos are typos, all misspellings are typos and all grammatical errors be also typos.
Madden may have said that… but he always says that. It’s like saying “In order to win, a team is going to have to score more points than their opponent.”
and Disreputable… you say “In spite of the utter staleness of the All-Madden team, I really do like the guy.” This just can’t be… how can you like the guy? <sigh> I guess that means he’ll be on for another 10 years now. Thanks alot.
Just read Pat Summerall’s book, Sports in America. John Madden has the biggest chapter (mainly because he rambles and can’t shut up.) I thought you’d all appreciate a small, edited snippet.
Talking about a trip to the Super Bowl…
"I said: “Look, we haven’t done anything yet. This doesn’t mean anything. All we do now is get to go play in it, but if we don’t win it, then we haven’t done anything. … So before we got there, we knew that getting there is nothing. I mean, this doesn’t mean anything. Don’t get excited that you’re in the Super Bowl, because if you don’t win it, then it doesn’t mean anything.”
Jezus… He’s like that in real life too. How in the hell has he been able to get through life without someone shipping him off somewhere. His wife must be deaf… or dead.
Sorry Chief, I just can’t help it. I do find him likable and his enthusiasm genuine.
I think we need to keep things in perspective. A typical NFL game these days runs about three-and-a-half hours. Within the game, there are probably 120-130 plays run. If we assume each play consumes 10 seconds (very generous), actual play consumes a full 20 minutes or so per game.
This leaves about 3 hours of air time to fill with beer ads, replays, the halftime report and analysis. Keeping in mind that no network wants dead air, Madden and his fellow color commentators might have the toughest jobs in sports.
They must fill this air time with observations, anecdotes and analysis - all for an audience of pot-bellied know-it-alls.
With this in mind, what commentator doesn’t talk too much?
I had been hoping that this thread was about John Madden of the New Jersey Devils, a rookie left wing who is currently leading the NHL in short-handed goals with four. Let no one speak ill of the Devils.
“The world is everything that is the case.” --Ludwig Wittgenstein
Sorry to disappoint… but no… this is a thread started by someone’s(ok…mine)hatred for John Madden, Fox football color analyst and all-around pimple on my ass.
The Devils? I can’t think of anything GOOD to say… ok wait… They are the best regular season hockey team in the NHL to always lose in the first round of the playoffs. How’s that? (GUFFAW!)
You hate maddenisms? Then Don’t buy John Madden Football Game. I swear, it seems like they only put nine or ten phrases in there for him. “I don’t understand why you’d throw a pass behind the first down marker on third down…”
…and Pat Summerall? The guy’s not senile…HE’S A LUSH! Look at that face!
Pat Summerall is a recovering alcoholic. (How well he’s recovering, I couldn’t tell you.) He’s also nearly seventy years old. How well will YOU look at seventy? Maybe spending so much time with Madden has aged him more quickly than he would if he’d never met the blimp.