All I heard last year is how horrible Dennis Miller was on MNF, how his humor was way too heady, and he didn’t “fit in” with the broadcast team. Frankly, I agreed that it was a mistake to have him on the show.
Now, with each week, I kind of feel more and more comfortable watching and listening to Dennis. Maybe he improved his act in the off season. I do notice that he adds more to the football end of the show than last year, it sounds like he prepares more for the games. He also actually seems to be coming up with more lines that everyone talks about Tuedays because they were funny, rather than annoying. Perhaps Dennis has “dumbed down” his jokes a little.
I think he also kind of won me over in pre-season thanking Jesse Ventura for making even him make good in the XFL broadcasts. Self effacing humor wins me over every time!
I’m actually a big fan of Miller and watch his HBO show every weeknight so, obviously, my vote’s a shameless yes.
His comments were a bit “set up” last season and he did seem overwhelmed at times but I like his style and he’s successfully overcome most of the rookie obstacles.
Of added benefit is that I sure listen to the commentary a lot closer than when Dierdork or Boober were on. It’s actually pretty entertaining again. High time.
I like him, but wish he would stop pretending to know a lot about football and the players. He should just approach it as a comedian who is not a football expert.
I’ve loved Dennis Miller on MNF from day ONE. In fact, I like him LESS since the big wigs told him to pull back a little.
What I like about him is that he represents the casual everyman fan. When Al Michaels goes on and on using jargon and terms that someone who just started watching football wouldn’t get, Dennis calls him on it “what IS a nickel defense?”
And making fun of things like officiating hand signals and uniforms is something I’ve always done. It’s nice to hear dennis do it, too.
I also LOVE Dan Fouts AND Al Michaels. It’s that stupid ass Melissa Stark who needs to go. And Eric Dickerson…is he trolling for ladies or reporting on football? He looks like a Hugo Boss runway down there.
Well, how am I gonna know if so-and-so is coming back from that [insert injury here] sustained in the first half? Besides, someone has to serve as eye-candy, eh?
Reminds me of the girl they have on Fox who gives the weather report in all the game-day cities. Crucial information, considering football is played in all weather conditions short of a thundersnow tornado. Yeah, she just happens to be hot too, in case there was any doubt.
Getting back on track, I find Dennis Miller entertaining. He’s found his niche as the “typical fan with smart-alec qualities”. I think I’d be able to appreciate his brand of comedic observations more if I knew what he was talking about half the time.
Miller adds a wish-fulfilment quality to the program which Monday Night Football desperately needed.
On real gamedays (Sundays for the pro fans, Saturdays for bitter, jaded Washington Redskins fans like me), there’s plenty of distractions to follow–the progress of other games, great plays, stunning upsets, etc. All that adds an immediacy to the experience which makes it more enjoyable for me.
MNF does not have that luxury. Mondays are shitty and boring in general, too, which makes the show’s task even more difficult.
Therefore, Dennis plays a critical role. He adds an element of unpredictability like Dandy Don used to do, and at the same time he puts the wise-cracking viewer there in the booth with two consummate professionals. It’s worked far, far better than I ever hoped, and I hope they keep him for a long time.
But dude, someone has to scrape up some substance to go with all of Eric Dickerson’s Italian leather. Someone must be holding him back.
I’d have to echo with a resounding YES. I have always liked Miller but I was disappointed with him last year. I liked most of his humor last year, and I especially liked a few of the more risque comments, but it was clearly a bit contrived and scripted. He’s much more laid back this season and its really making him more affable and less overpowering.
Another big help for him is how horrible the MNF schedule is this season. Last season, with its slate of incredible matchups and finishes Miller seemed out of place. He didn’t have anything of value to really add, and occasionally he’d be stepping in and distracting from a excellent game. This year however, the games have all pretty much sucked, and the self-deprecating, critial, common fan schtick really fits. His humor and one-liners along with some 3-way ribbing between the guys really help to fill the space and keep bad games entertaining. Frankly I loved watching the Dallas-Washington game, and it had very little to do with the game on the field.
I’m thinking this crew could turn out to be really solid for a while to come. Suprisingly Fouts is the weakest guy in the booth. When they fired Dildo and Boomer I was hoping for him before anyone even mentioned him, I loved his college braodcasts. Now he’s starting to get a little more worked up on occasion, half the time when its out of place. He doesn’t annoy me to Pual MaGwire or Dildorf standards, but he could stand to improve a little.
I will not. She knows jack shit about football, and I see her reading off of a notepad ON THE AIR. Not to mention stutter stepping her reports every time they go to her.
Sad state of affairs. There are plenty of women in the world who know a lot about football. But if we don’t look like Jillian Barbarie we’re left out in the cold.
So, let’s see. 40something Leslie Visser was canned and 20something Melissa Stark was brought in. I predict next year, 20something Melissa Stark will be canned and a nubile 18-year-old will do sideline reporting.
If the trend continues, I will start to feel oogy sometime in 2003.
I’d bet my boomerang collection that for every guy who turns off MNF because of Miller, that there’s a woman like myself (or gay guy, what the hey) who tunes in for a double-shot of sympathetic observations & queries, polished off with an offbeat reference, neat. I think he’s funnier now than he ever was at SNL. Now, if only he would lose those ten pounds so he could quit with those Yassir Arafat bristles, I’d be chuffed. As opposed to chafed (I wish). Yessir.
brief [hijack]
Anybody else see the verbose progenitor of stool on Miller’s show last night, the guy that wrote Angela’s Ashes? What a shameless display of clue envy. He had NOTHING to say and did so for the entire show. :rolleyes:
I liked Dennis Miller from the start. But then, just about anyone would have been an improvement over that idiot Boomer Esiason! (He would always defend any mistake by a quarterback, and whenever a receiver missed a pass, he’d say, “You’ve got to make that catch!”. Duh.)
Yeah, he’s growing on me just like a wart. Unfunny, unfunny, unfunny–and crude, to boot.
And I agree about the girl. I am a woman, so don’t get the idea that I am a male chauvinist, but I don’t like female sportscasters much at all. They just get on my nerves. But this one has GOT to be one of the worst I’ve ever seen.
I have listened to several MNF broadcasts since Miller joined the team, and I honestly think that he just doesn’t fit. Humor is good up to a point, but he should know how to pace himself to avoid looking silly. Also, would it kill him to, you know, learn more about football? In the half hour or so of the Dallas-Washington game, I don’t remember him so much as bringing up a football term, let alone analyzing a play.
Understand, he does work hard at what he does, and he’s honestly trying to make the games more entertaining. I don’t find him irritating or superfluous. I just don’t think he’s very good.
Hey, I actually started watching football just to see Dennis Miller. Wish they’d stop cutting to those guys in tights running around in a field, though.
Two words: Britney Spears! They can get her to do all the half-time shows too! faux-
As for the OP, I like Miller more now than in the first season. It seemed to me that he’s more comfortable with the job and that his partners are more comfortable with him, and there seems to be more joking all around these days. 'Course, that might just be me. Personally, I barely paid attention to the first few weeks of MNF this season - especially that damn Cowboys vs. Redskins game. Feh.
Comedians (I guess that’s what Miller is considered, though I don’t find him the least bit funny myself) belong on a stage, or perhaps in a TV studio. Football analysts belong in a booth. A comedian has no more business being in a football booth than a football analyst has being on stage trying to make people laugh. I still think the whole Miller experiment was a stupid idea, but I guess it does help the ratings of the show because apparently many people do turn to the football game for witty insights and political humor. Those who tune in for football generally (in my experiences, anyway) can’t stand the fact that he’s in the booth.
Quite honestly, I have no problem with Miller’s pretending to be a football analyst.
It’s when Michaels and Fouts try to be comedians that I really cringe.
Nothing really new about that. Coselle redefined the relationship between the game itself and the role of the broadcasters. I didn’t like him, but he definitely pushed MNF into a mold where the discussion about the game was (almost?) as important as the game itself. Since his departure, one MNF broadcasting team after another has tried to maintain that level of interest in their own talk, and has failed miserably. The moment they departed from the play-by-play and technical analysis, they descended into sophomoric humor (nah, even a softmore would have shown more class) and wound up validating every “dumb jock” and “dumb sportsfan” stereotype we’ve ever seen.
Miller is no Coselle (thank God!), but he can at least depart from the literal description of the events on the field without sounding like an utter moron. Now if the other two would just stop trying to match him, and stay with what they do best, I might actually be able to watch a whole game.
