September 21, 1970 was the first episode — 39 years ago tonight. Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell, and Don Meredith were the originals, with Frank Gifford replacing Jackson in 1971.

Take a look at this classic original footage of the 1978 Monday Night Football “Pro Bowl” episode.

Or the groovy headphone check from a 1973 MNF introduction to the game. Here as the YouTube video:

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Nearing its 30th Anniversary, Carl Reiner‘s The Jerk still holds a relevant platform for discussing what it really means to be a jerk. In every sense of the word, including stupidity and ill will.

Congressman Joe “You Lie!” Wilson, Rock-n-Roller Ike Turner, Professional Footballer Terrell Owens, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are a few who come to mind as potential “jerk”-type figures worthy of some note.

But Steve Martin‘s frank and crass representation of The Jerk goes well beyond the oft-used term to a deeper understanding of what stereotypes, ignorance, bigotry, and demagoguery can produce when someone seeks to be a product of rude and mindless sociopathic behavior.

My favorite quotes from The Jerk:

Mother: Navin, it’s your birthday, and it’s time you knew. You’re not our natural-born child.
Navin R. Johnson: I’m not? You mean I’m gonna STAY this color?

Motel Guest: Don’t call that dog “lifesaver;” call him “shithead”.

Navin R. Johnson: First I get my name in the phone book and now I’m on your ass. You know, I’ll bet more people see that than the phone book.

Navin R. Johnson: Lord loves a workin’ man; don’t trust whitey; see a doctor and get rid of it.

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Billed as an “American Musical Fantasy,” The Wizard of Oz opened in theaters on August 25, 1939 — 70 years ago last week.

Based on the 1900 children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, many historians now believe Baum’s premise was slanted toward an argument for the “Gold Standard” in economics — hence the Yellow Brick Road.

Warner Brothers is releasing a 70th Anniversary Edition on September 29th.

We’re not in Kansas, anymore.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my.

Poppy Fields.

Flying Monkeys.

Auntie Em.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Heart, Courage, Brain, and a Home.

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She came in the early morning, with a wind that made grown men cry, and her fury was the end of 1,836 people.

As can be seen in Times-Picayune photographer John McCusker‘s image to the left, Katrina made a point about sticking around longer than she was welcome, leaving New Orleans a different place than it was before.

On August 28, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was in the Gulf of Mexico where it powered up to a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, with sustained winds at nearly 175 mph. Oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico recorded 100-foot waves, some causing these mammoth structures to collapse under the weight of the storm’s tremendous water load.

At 7:10 a.m. EDT on August 29, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southern Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, just south of Buras, as a Category 3 hurricane. Maximum winds at landfall were estimated near 125 mph to the east of the center — crossing just south of New Orleans, then turning north toward Bay St. Louis, Mississppi, where she made a second landfall.

View Times-Picayune coverage here.

The New York Times article on President Obama‘s promise to continue rebuilding New Orleans.

And another website dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina here.

The best book on the subject is by Tulane University professor Douglas Brinkley, titled The Great Deluge.

Four years later, and the Crescent City still stands — albeit with a population only 70% of what it was on that fateful weekend. But it will never be the same. Hopefully, it will be better.

“We’re not even dealing with dead bodies. They’re just pushing them on the side.”
— New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, regarding rescue crews trying to locate and save hundreds, if not thousands, of people who, in the days after Katrina struck, were still stranded on roofs and in attics.

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“I would come home to listen to a football game — there weren’t other sports on — and I would get a pillow and I would crawl under the radio, so that the loudspeaker and the roar of the crowd would wash all over me, and I would just get goose bumps like you can’t believe. And I knew that of all the things in this world that I wanted, I wanted to be that fella saying, whatever, home run, or touchdown. It just really got to me.“

If Vin Scully were an inanimate object, he would probably be a nighttime freight train that has run the same country tracks, at the same times, bringing the same vital cargo to small-town America for each of the last 60 years — the lone whistle comes drifting in, loud and true, a soothing presence in the midst of darkness and uncertainty, allowing the dreamer to rest and relax, as all is well in an uncertain world.

“Hi everybody, and a very pleasant evening to you, wherever you may be. It’s time for Dodgers baseball!” The words spoken from a wise sage of baseball, indeed, of life, who has seized upon the hearts and minds of baseball fans for 60 years. Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Steve Garvey, Maury Wills, Ron Cey, Kirk Gibson, Darryl Strawberry, Orel Hershiser, Manny Ramirez, and the rest of Dodgers immortality.

Born in the Bronx on November 29, 1927, Vin Scully turns 82 years-young this year. For 60 years, he’s showed up to work EVERY DAY, having missed only five scheduled broadcasts in that time. Repeat, in over 60 years of broadcasting Vin Scully has missed only five scheduled broadcasts in that time frame. This includes the untimely, heartbreaking death of his first wife, Joan Crawford, in 1972.

He’s an emblem of all things right about man, and of the nature of kindness, simplicity, and blessed character. He has spoken to race riots, war, famine, presidential assassinations, catastrophes, and everything in between. Somehow, Vin Scully always has something good and proper to say. Somehow, Vin knows just what the listener needs to hear.

Case and point:

In 1974, Hank Aaron was facing death threats as he approached the all-time home-run record. Vin Scully’s words on that fateful evening: What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly Hank Aaron.

On June 29, 1990, one of Vin’s favorite Dodgers, Mexican-born Fernando Valenzuela, hurled a no-hitter near the end of his career with the team. Vin’s call of the final out: If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky!

Vin Scully recently announced he would be retiring after his next season with the Dodgers — in his characteristically self-deprecating manner, he stated, “If they’ll have me back again.”

For his service to the Dodgers, Major League Baseball, and the entire world of sportsmanship and athletic competition, Vin Scully is a hero to me.

“As long as you live keep smiling because it brightens everybody’s day.” O.K., Vin, we’ll try, but it seems so easy for you.

                          

The abysmal Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball are at it again. With a record of 46-66, they are 20 games below .500.

That’s just 2009, so far. The Pirates are the worst franchise in all of professional sports, with even a close-second Los Angeles Clippers having had winning seasons in 2005-2006.

After the 1992 season, manager Jim Leyland was hoping to rebuild the team with younger, more hungry players. In a flummox to Pirates fans, their team has been unable to come up with a winning season since, accumulating a 16-year losing streak.

This current losing season streak has tied the Philadelphia Phillies, who had losing seasons from 1933–48, the longest in any of the country’s four major professional sports leagues.

Bring back Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Kent Tekulve, Phil Garner, Bill Madlock, and Omar Moreno. And Three Rivers Stadium.

Thirty Years since the “We Are Fam-i-ly” cheers, and the funny box hats.

Miss some Big Willie. And Three Rivers, of course.

                          

Games of the XXIII Olympiad
July 28 — August 12, 1984

The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Ca., included rowing at Lake Casitas, archery at UCLA, and volleyball at Long Beach State.

According to the official site, www.olympic.org:

“With the Olympics being held in the United States only four years after the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games, it was not surprising that the Soviet Union organised a revenge boycott in 1984. This time only 14 nations stayed away – but those nations accounted for 58% of the gold medals at the 1976 Olympics.”

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is now known as the home of the USC Trojans football team. In 1984, it was the stage for grand achievements in Track & Field by Britain’s Davey Thompson in the decathlon and USA’s Joan Benoit in the women’s marathon.

Maybe it was the flash of Hollywood lights that inspired “King” Carl Lewis of Houston, Tex., USA, to cast his bronze and stamp his name in the Olympic history books.

As a member of the local Santa Monica Track Club, he matched the achievement of fellow countryman Jesse Owens, by winning four gold medals in the same events as Owens (Berlin 1936): 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay, and the long jump. Carl Lewis dominated the sport as much as Michael Phelps dominates most swimming events.

This photo shows Carl Lewis running the approach track at the Memorial Coliseum on his way to a then world-record, 30-foot long-jump attempt. Twelve years later, Carl Lewis would return to the gold-medal stand as a long shot Gold-Medal winner at the Atlanta 1996 – Games of the XXVI Olympiad.