Tony Kornheiser has joined the Monday Night Football team. ESPN just made the announcement and I heard this on, of course, the Tony Kornheiser show. “This is just gonna be dreadful,” Kornheiser exclaims, “but I’ve got to do it.” Kornheiser is known for his inability to make it to halftime before falling asleep while watching MNF at his home in Washington D.C. He claims to have not watched a whole MNF game in 25 years. He still jokes about bussing to the locations, but that could change after a cross country trip to San Diego.
How does this affect his radio show and his TV show Pardon the Interruption (PTI)? Mr. Tony just finished giving his thoughts on the whole MNF deal and I have taken some notes.
He still says he would do the MNF gig for “a parka that says MNF” and he would give that to his son, but if they are going to give him a lot of money he is going to take it.
He was approached two weeks ago about this job and “every fiber in my body said don’t do it, Tony.” Two reasons he shouldn’t do it are, he doesn’t fly and his life has been go to bed at 9:30 PM Eastern and wake up at 4:40 AM Eastern. His life is nice and he loves radio, he loves PTI and he always wanted to be a newspaper columnist. He got to do it all. He also is a bit obsessive compulsive. He doesn’t like to go anywhere, he likes routine. He says every talent he has has “played into his neurosis.”
He is afraid he will fail and that is another reason he shouldn’t do it. He has no idea if he can do this, but he also had that same fear when he became a newspaper columnist and a PTI host. His main fear is the chemistry between Mike Tirico and Joe Theismann and himself. He says he and Michael Wilbon had 25 years to work on their chemistry for PTI.
“I’m a critic, a sarcastic person, my stuff may not work.” He says he is not going out there to be Howard Cossell or a comedian and not going to be Dennis Miller. In his heart and soul he does not think he will be any good. Then why is he doing it? He is doing it because it’s MNF and “it is so damn cool” to be offered the gig and he couldn’t say no.
At first he did say no and then thirty minutes later he began to think he could do it. He went home and said to his wife, “I gotta do it.”
He will not be doing radio while doing MNF because he can’t take a microphone on the road. He said he might not even be able to write his column for the Washington Post. He will go back to radio after MNF because “he loves it and he is pretty much typed out.”
He will go into training and start going to bed at midnight and rising about 7 or 8 AM. He said he will be taking drugs to be able to travel on the bus for so long. He said he will have to get on a plan at some point and is afraid. He will visit a psychiatrist.
He wants to practice with the other guys in the booth for the upcoming broadcasts. Wants to get a feel for the chemistry and how things will run. And when it is over and it doesn’t work out he wants to be able to blame it on the crew and everyone else involved with MNF.
There you go, I know only one or two of you care about this, but this is something that is pretty big news to me, a huge Kornheiser fan. I am sad to see the radio show go, but he and Wilbon will still do PTI. In fact every Monday night, they will be doing the show on the road at the game’s location according to ESPN. I hope this works out for all involved and even though Mr. Tony is a fat, bald, orange dope, he is the best in the biz and deserves a chance to show a bigger audience how much he stinks. (Inside joke for those of you who do not know.)
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
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2 comments:
My prediction is that Tirico will be fine because the play-by-play guy has to be able to talk. Theismann, on the other hand, will hate Tony by the second half of the first game. Depending on how quickly Mr. Tony warms up to the mic. They'll have to make a detailed plan of attack or Kornheiser will take over. The more comfortable he gets, the tougher it will be for Theismann to get a word in.
And honestly, you don't have to have a coach or a former player up there to do color. Sure they can tell you that a lineman isn't getting low enough or something like that and the QB got sacked because of it, but this is still entertainment and TK is all about having fun. And after a while you can pick up the little things like great blocks, pass interference and other things like that.
I did when I was doing it with Sivart. When we do football games, we aren't the best team in the world but you can't say that we don't try to make it fun.
If you add myself to make a three man booth we could dominate third region football broadcasts. I would be like Fred Willard in Best in Show asking you you how much you think you could lift over your head.
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