In the end, all we want from any medium of entertainment is to be moved
emotionally in one direction or another. Whether that emotion is joy,
anger, or sadness, as long as it’s removing us from the boredom of our
everyday lives in some way, then it is serving a purpose.
The late Jim Valvano put it quite well in his now legendary speech at the
first ESPY Awards, where he said (paraphrasing) that every day we should be
moved to laugh, think, and to cry. Valvano contended that if you laugh, you
think, and you cry, then “that’s a full day…that’s a pretty good day.”
The same concept is put differently but no less poignantly by Stringer Bell
from The Wire when he gives his “Forty Degree Day” speech to the street
dealers that work for him in the bad lands of Baltimores drug districts….
In short, just get our internal “entertain me”-o-meter rolling in some
direction. Those who know me know that I’m just as happy watching something
that is delightfully terrible, as I am watching a masterpiece like The
Wire, The Sopranos, or any of the 30 for 30 documentaries thus far. But
it needs to be “DELIGHTFULLY terrible” — key word “DELIGHTFULLY.” (Note to
the producers and writers of 24 — your show so far this season is merely
“terrible” and not delightfully so.)
This means that I am going in expecting terribleness, and I plan to spend
the entire amount of time basking in the horrific anti-glory wrought by
whatever show it may be. Hell, the entire industry of “reality television”
was built on this unique flavor of schadenfreude. The recipe is simple:
take people who think they are legitimately funny or insightful, make sure
their egos are cranked up to about thirteen on a scale of one to ten, enable
them, and watch them go.
It is with this preface in mind that I am openly begging the honchos at ESPN
to do whatever it takes to keep Chris Berman, and I mean WHATEVER it takes.
The rumor mill went into overdrive yesterday with whispers that the NFL
Network may be courting Berman to become the face of their (depending on
whom you talk to, struggling) network.
It wouldn’t be entirely unprecedented for someone who is viewed as one of
the “faces” of ESPN to up and leave at the peak of their exposure (see
Patrick, Dan as one pretty recent example), and Berman has ties to
executives with the NFL Network, specifically longtime ESPN executive Steve
Bornstein.
My friends and colleagues who love the NFL Network are screaming the same
tune as I am, but for different reasons. They don’t want Berman’s tired
shtick poisoning that they feel is the best X’s and O’s programming out
there. Me? I don’t want ESPN to break up the best weekend morning cartoon
in the history of television, the NFL Sunday Countdown.
To me, the comedy team of Ditka, Keyshawn, Carter, and TJ is held together
by the big Boomer. The outdated rantings of Ditka, followed by Keyshawn
essentially mirroring all of Ditka’s predictions and picking former Trojans
as “X factors” every week, followed by Cris Carter screaming a lot and
saying nothing, and TJ…well, TJ being TJ — these things are held together
by the obsolete rock song references, tired one-liners, and gravely voice
mumblings of one Chris Berman. Losing Berman, and moving in some innocuous
ESPN suit like Steve Levy takes an unintentionally hilarious (read:
DELIGHTFULLY TERRIBLE) show and makes it your typical pregame show with too
many guys on the set talking over each other. In other words, it makes it
CBS’ pregame show. A veritable “40 degree day” of television.
To be fair, CrisShawn DitkaJackson (my collective name for the four
sidekicks) are crucial to the show’s DT (delightfully terrible) rating, but
Boomer Berman is the straw that stirs the drink. His overexagerrated hand
gestures and inane questions are like Peyton Manning’s downfield bombs; you
need someone to catch them and CrisShawn DitkaJackson are Reggie Wayne and
Pierre Garcon, a couple sweet targets who are nothing without their
quarterback. In simple SAT form, Berman is to Manning what Levy is to
Curtis Painter. (Not trying to pick on Levy, he just seems like the
blandest of the ESPN guys that would be considered as Berman Backfill.)
These guys consume my Sunday morning. Don’t take this from me, ESPN. I beg
of you. And if my pleas are not enough, I give you these Berman video clips
as my tribute. Please watch these, ESPN suits, and ask yourself…can we
live without this? I say no.
Berman on smuggling drugs in from Canada…
.
Berman handling people walking around on set with a unique brand of
“composure”….
Chris Berman, Smooooth Operator….
And if you do opt not to retain Berman, for the love of all that is sacred,
NO STUART SCOTT. He is not delightful in any way, shape, or form…terrible
or otherwise.
Listen to Sean Pendergast on 1560 The Game from 3-7 p.m. weekdays on the Sean & John Show, and follow him on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/SeanCablinasian.
This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2010.
