Aw, Grandpa! Am I making you miss your football game?
One of the most famous professional (American) football games was not played in the National Football League, but in the rival American Football League on November 17, 1968. While the game was certainly a thriller between bitter AFL rivals the Oakland Raiders and New York Jets, it only attained its infamy because of a perfect storm of events that led to the game’s stunning conclusion being suddenly yanked from the living room of TV viewers in the eastern half of the US by its broadcaster, NBC. This is the legendary Heidi Bowl, a game even casual sports fans born after the fact have no doubt heard the legend about… where NBC cut the live feed of the game just before 7:00 Eastern Time to broadcast a special presentation of the movie Heidi, as planned in advance. Nobody in the Eastern or Central time zones saw the Raiders come back from certain defeat by scoring two touchdowns in the final minute to beat the Jets 43-32.
Dafuq is this shi…… oh wait! Swiss jailbait!
The bizarre story of how this all transpired is way too long to properly detail in this post, but can be summed up by a football game that wound up running way longer than expected, a commitment from the movie’s sponsor Timex to ensure that Heidi ran at its scheduled time, and the “prehistoric” state of communications technology that existed 55 years ago that caused frantic NBC execs to be unable to get ahold of their control room in Burbank to override the original order to cut off the feed from Oakland at 6:58 once they realized the game was a classic in the making.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
And now before this post gets preempted by the next exciting episode of Cop Rock, let’s answer this week’s Share Your World questions from Di!
Some viewers may have preferred to watch Heidi…
Does the weather affect your mood?
I spend most of my time indoors, so there’s plenty of times I’m blissfully unaware of the weather outside…
Rainy, on the other hand…..
If a stranger smiles at you or says ‘good morning’ when they pass you in the street, do you return it?
I’ll usually nod and mumble something that resembles “good morning” or just “hey.” A “pleasantry” I generally have to endure a couple times whenever I go out for a walk.
And if I may, I’ll use this opportunity to gripe about a practice that irks me….. people who feel like they have to greet you EVERY SINGLE TIME you cross paths, even just a few minutes apart! There’s a few people I work with who are notorious st this, including the resident Type-A who’s literally a Pollyanna from a pill bottle. You get ONE greeting per person per day, and that’s ALL!
Above: The Nest’s Pollyanna from a pill bottle.
If you had a choice of just one of these things to eat, what would it be and why? Chocolate, a sweet pastry, a plate of chips/fries (this is not a forever choice, just one instance).
Just give me the fries. It’s really, really hard to ruin fries, unless they’re already slathered with some insidious, syrupy goop like ketchup. Chocolate and pastries can be anything from delightful to downright disgusting…
Mmmmmm!!! Devil’s Poo cake! My favorite!
If you could go back to when you were a specific age, what would that be? Why?
How about 27 years, 207 days, 16 hours, 22 minutes and 53.86 seconds old? No real reason, mind you. I just picked it because it’s a VERY SPECIFIC age….
This is what we do to smartasses around here…
Gratitude Section Retro Comic:
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I’m for fries/chips too…and mayo … that’s a must…
I prefer my fries with salt and maybe some other seasoning…. but plain other than that! Same as a squirrel likes its nuts…
Oooooh……….. chips and mayonnaise in Amsterdam! Nothing like it. Yummy!
I am a certified chocoholic BUT only certain chocolate so I guess I’m also a certified chocolate “snob”. However, nice crunchy fries – oh yes. Love the ‘toon…..the pigladillo made the right choice for sure. By the way, I noticed I misspelled pigladillo and had to go back and change if from “pigladildo” – which actually would be a whole OTHER kind of ‘toon!
Pam
Well, they say the nose is the biggest difference between a Pigladillo and a Pigladildo…..
Yeah sure…..that’s what they ALL say…….. 🙂
Smartypants on the last one ES! Thanks for joining in.
Thanks, as always, for the questions! I always have a lot of fun with my answers!
They are such fun!
My peeps were at Candlestick Park in SF on October 17, 1989 when the earth shook before a World Series game. Nobody could leave because you would have to drive underneath a bridge that hadn’t been checked out as being structurally sound. Talk about inflation today, the price for a bottle or can of beer went up dramatically while everyone was trapped in the parking lot.
Well, at least it wasn’t canceled by a stupid movie…
I wish I was blissfully unaware of the weather outside at the moment.
Sadly, I am also unblissfully aware of how freaking cold it is outside since that air doesn’t like to STAY outside…
I remember the Heidi Bowl. My father was steaming about it for WEEKS!
In those days there was no TV of the games for the fans in the home city.
I actually remember the Heidi Bowl. I was rooting for Heidi.
With the rules these days, a little girl could probably play in the NFL…