All these sport moments. I’ll pick seeing Joe Theisman’s leg snapping like a toothpick on MNF. There must have been a hundred replays after the live version, looked worse every time.
Channel 6 (the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia) got some flak for braodcasting the whole thing live, including a lingering shot of the blood gushing from his head. A whole lot of people in this area saw that.
That was probably the first time something like that happened on live TV but not the last. The reason why that is burned into peoples minds is that ABC played it OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I don’t remember any network replaying something that often ever again.
I remember several others that were on live TV which made me cringe. Napolean MaCallum’s knee bending back like an ostrich, Matt? Krumrie?'s leg snapping as he planted it, I think that was in a Superbowl. There was a major league pitcher whose arm snapped as he threw a fastball. It just windmilled around as he collapsed on the mound :eek: . I think he had undiagnosed bone cancer. In alpine skiing a few years ago a female skier went headfirst into the barrier at about 70mph. Her lifeless body slid down the hill like a sack of potatoes.
None of these are burned into my mind like the Theisman incident because of how often they showed it. That and the fact that the damn Redskins still won the game. Damn you Jay Schrader!
GO 'SKINS!
I always thought they won because the Giant’s defense was worried about breaking another one.
You kidding? LT was so high he would have eaten one of them if he had the chance.
Nobody’s mentioned the Katana Slip yet? Maybe it’s an urban legend, but I haven’t found anything about it one way or the other.
There was a live radio broadcast, and the landing was also being filmed.
My high school (I graduated in '88) had a magnet science program which featured an annual Shuttle simulation each Spring for a couple dozen students in the program (who were “astronauts” and “ground control”). Ironically no one was watching the launch in classes. In any event through the day as word made it through the school that “the shuttle blew up,” most of us assumed that there was a screw up in the simulation or a rumor about that, and it was hours before many of us were convinced that the actual shuttle had a disaster.
I was teaching English in the Arabian Gulf on 9/11. Heard about it in a taxi on the radio on the way to evening classes (we were 9 hrs ahead), the driver was Indian & was listening to Hindi music. An announcer broke into a song in English to announce the first plane hitting. Because I had constant discussions and arguments with students about some of the Islamic groups they sent money to I didn’t think for a second it was an accident. I had to show at the school & met with my housemates (one Canadian, one American) & the other teachers (mostly Canadian & British) & we decided to cancel classes over management’s objections (when all of the teachers leave, what choice is there?). The TV was broken in the school so we went to an internet cafe, and read news updates furiously while watching things unfold on CNN. I missed seeing a lot of live footage of the worst events & there are still things that are new to me in how things unfolded in domestc media. Eventually the internet cafe closed & we had to go home & watch al-Jazeera (no cable), then just eventually try and go to sleep since obviously the nest day would be a doozy & some choices would have to be made…
How about the ol’ Jennifer Lopez slip: “More likely to giver her a curb job than a blow jo… uh, block party…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey4RI9cVWY0&search=jlo
Good stuff.
There was Jimmy Carter at the Democratic Convention (I don’t recall if it was '76 or '80) invoking the memory of “that great Democrat, Hubert Horatio Hornblower.” He meant Hubert Humphrey, of course.
That’s it.
This page has some of the gaffes mentioned previously, and also has a collection of Casey Kasem outtakes where he curses a blue streak. They also have the infamous Linda McCartney feed on the live version of Hey Jude.
Another sports-related scene is when Woody Hayes punched an opposing player when Ohio State was losing to Clemson (see item #5 on the page). When I was watching the game, I saw the Clemson player pushed to the sidelines, then Hayes grab the guy around the neck and punch him. The sportscasters didn’t say a word about it, and I wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.
I saw this live. Rickles might not have been in on it, but I’m sure it was staged. First, they wouldn’t have cameras or mikes with enough cable to reach down the hall just hanging around the set - Carson didn’t wander around as a general practice. Second, they had to be damn sure that Rickles was on the set. The amount of time an actor is actually on the set is quite small. If they wandered in randomly, chances are he would have been in his dressing room.
But it was a funny, funny bit. There will never be anybody like Johnny - and I used to watch Steve Allen.
Negativland has mixed the second Kasem sample - actually a much better copy of it - into a hilarious song that also mocks U2. They were sued by everyone… Try searching the web for Negativland & Snuggles…
Incidentally this was for a taped show which obviously didn’t air that way.
It didn’t air live but I’ll include it nonetheless since it was recorded on tape and is just a cool thing to listen to: Orson Welles’ notorious frozen peas commercial hissyfit.
Was the Johnny Carson tomahawk episode live?
I missed that one. I did see the game where he punched the cameraman. It was Ohio State vs Michigan. Michigan was killing them. The camera showed a shot of Hayes who was upset over the game. When he realized the camera was on him, he walked over and punched the operator. The camera lurched and pointed toward the sky and the cut to a different camera.
From the “Great Cover” dept., Saturday Night Live with guest host Ron Howard. The sketch was about Opie Taylor returning to Mayberry to find that since he father died, things had gone bad. The scene took place in Floyd’s Barber Shop which was decorated by sex toys and the like.
It turns out that Floyd the barber was black (Eddie Murphy) and that Andy had made him wear a white face all those years. Joe Piscapo was Otis the drunk who basically sat in the barber chair.
Anyway at one point, Ron says to Eddie, “Otis, I want all these things out of here.” To which Eddie replies in a perfect Floyd voice, “That’s fine Opie, but I’m Floyd”
Ron, realizing his mistake says, “well I told you I couldn’t recognize you with that face.”
WAG: Dave Dravecky, #43 for the Giants in the late 1990s?
I don’t think anyone actually thought the ballpark was going to collapse. Not one single person at the game was even injured, and at first the fans thought the game would be played on schedule.
Living in the Bay Area, when the TV came back on a few minutes later, we channel surfed around the local stations and I have never, ever seen such hysteria on live television. The news people were all running around, shrieking and crying and yelling about how masonry was falling off the buildings and there were fires and OMGOMGOMG.
I watched the collapse of the WTC live on CNN, and they were totally calm and collected in comparison.