1973 NBC Sports NFL broadcast theme
Yes, those were the days...
In those dark teen years of the early-to-mid Seventies, many years before consumer VCRs existed and became commonplace -and were soon taken for granted in no time by kids who grew-up thinking that you'd always been able to see something from television a second time, on your own schedule- I can recall that the Monday after the first NFL weekend of the year, my friends and I at J.F.K. Junior High in North Miami Beach spent time trying to properly identify the order of the identifiable NFL players during this quick-cutting video montage of NBC's.
And frankly, wonder whether or not ABC would be updating their intro -yet again- that night for Monday Night Football, which, in retrospect, they actually changed less than they did the 'third man' in the booth after popular Don Meredith left to pursue entertainment options in Hollywood.
1984 ad for Safeway's Super Store -They've got a sale on VCRs, only $369; I guess the savings gets passed on to you! -LOL!
http://youtu.be/T6mD2bZc9w8
And frankly, wonder whether or not ABC would be updating their intro -yet again- that night for Monday Night Football, which, in retrospect, they actually changed less than they did the 'third man' in the booth after popular Don Meredith left to pursue entertainment options in Hollywood.
1984 ad for Safeway's Super Store -They've got a sale on VCRs, only $369; I guess the savings gets passed on to you! -LOL!
http://youtu.be/T6mD2bZc9w8
The VCR format fight: VHS vs. Beta TV commercial for NEC, 1984
http://youtu.be/FnaL50cwh-Q
The three American TV network's football themes gripped my friends and I from the start, and quickly became embedded in our young brains, which perhaps best explains why when you see them again on YouTube, you're struck by the fact that not just for my friends and I, but for millions of other sports fans alive then who watched them, they still remain preferable to anything on the air now, esp on ESPN or Fox-TV.
And they say as much in the YouTube comments, too.
When my friends and I at JFK got together at lunch, P.E. or after school, and it turned out that someone hadn't been paying close attention to the fact that the first establishing shot of the NBC intro was one from the the defending NFL champion Dolphins locker room... well, you suddenly weren't such an NFL expert after all.
Yes, we did not grade our friends' NFL prowess on a Bell Curve.
It was always sink-or-swim.
How many players in the three videos I've posted can you name?
(And how many of what would now be considered illegal hits?)
To name but a few: Danny Abramowicz -fades from his gold-colored Saints pants to the gold of the NBC text- Larry Little, Larry Csonka, Joe Namath, Essex Johnson, Ken Stabler, Cliff Branch, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Tommy Casanova, Walter Payton, Craig Morton, Willie Brown...
And the player who is seen the longest in the NBC intro at the top is Dolphins All-Pro guard Bob Kuechenberg, who hits his own helmet at the end to show that he's strapped up and ready to play.
It was always sink-or-swim.
How many players in the three videos I've posted can you name?
(And how many of what would now be considered illegal hits?)
To name but a few: Danny Abramowicz -fades from his gold-colored Saints pants to the gold of the NBC text- Larry Little, Larry Csonka, Joe Namath, Essex Johnson, Ken Stabler, Cliff Branch, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Tommy Casanova, Walter Payton, Craig Morton, Willie Brown...
And the player who is seen the longest in the NBC intro at the top is Dolphins All-Pro guard Bob Kuechenberg, who hits his own helmet at the end to show that he's strapped up and ready to play.
1971 ABC Monday Night Football intro for Baltimore Colts at Minnesota Vikings, with a Johnny Unitas pre-game interview with Howard Cosell.
http://youtu.be/Kr_fa-hR3zY
For those of you too young to know or remember, the Baltimore Colts were the defending NFL champs in 1971, having won Super Bowl V nine months before in Miami, beating the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 on the last play of the game. The very talented Minnesota Vikings had lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the previous Super Bowl, which is why Howard Cosell is so clearly animated about the match-up in what was then the second year of ABC's Monday Night Football.
This is one of the best quality videos of 1970's NFL football that I've seen in years, and includes TV commercials.For those of you too young to know or remember, the Baltimore Colts were the defending NFL champs in 1971, having won Super Bowl V nine months before in Miami, beating the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 on the last play of the game. The very talented Minnesota Vikings had lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the previous Super Bowl, which is why Howard Cosell is so clearly animated about the match-up in what was then the second year of ABC's Monday Night Football.
