To get in you in the mood for the Olympics, here’s a classic from Saturday Night Live. Kerri Strug is joined on Weekend Update portrayed by her teammate, Kippy, played by Chris Kattan.
Category Archives: Sunday Funnies
Sunday Funnies: The real Steinbrenner actually appears on Seinfeld
Veteran Seinfeld watchers know that we only saw George Steinbrenner from behind and that his character was voiced by Larry David.
However, the real Steinbrenner actually appeared on the show in this episode.
Sunday Funnies: Norm Macdonald kills on the ESPYs; Watch the athletes squirm
Rob Riggle will host the ESPYs Wednesday. He will have to go a long way to top Norm Macdonald’s performance in 1998.
He had everyone squirming. A Jerry Jones joke: “He said, ‘We have to get back to what made us a championship team: Strippers and crack.'”
On Charles Woodson becoming the first defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy: “That’s something they never can take away from you…Unless you kill your wife and a waiter. In which case, all bets are off.
Enjoy.
Andy Griffith Show flashback: Aunt Bee explodes when Andy calls Opie out at the plate
More in our sports tribute to Andy Griffith.
I found an old Andy Griffith Show with a baseball theme. In a season 7 episode, Andy, playing umpire, calls Opie out at the plate. Look at the replay. He was clearly out.
Yet Aunt Bee, and everyone else, gives ‘Ol Andy a hard time about the call. Get Aunt Bee some glasses. And how about Goober getting in Andy’s face?
RIP Andy Griffith: Famous monologue about football
Kudos to Timothy Burke of Deadspin for finding this 1953 classic from Andy Griffith about football. The great one died earlier today.
Sunday Funnies: Before Sorkin’s Newsroom, there was SportsNight
Saw an interesting piece in by Ian Crouch in the New Yorker. With Aaron Sorkin’s latest show, The Newsroom, starting on HBO, Crouch reflected back on another Sorkin show, Sports Night.
Inspired by the Keith Olbermann-Dan Patrick act on SportsCenter, and using the newsroom theme, Sports Night was a terrific, but unfortunately, short-lived series on ABC. The cast was outstanding (Felicity Huffman, Josh Charles, Peter Krause, Josh Malina, and occasionally Huffman’s husband, the great William Macy). And of course, there was Sorkin’s rapid-fire dialogue.
Here’s a long Sorkin rap delivered by Macy.
Here’s Charles, through Sorkin, going off on Sorkin.
And a segment on writer’s block, with the unfortunate laugh track that ABC insisted be put into the show despite Sorkin’s objections.
Want more? Here’s the youtube link for Sports Night.
Sunday funnies: Joe Namath on the Brady Bunch
A true classic. Those conniving kids Bobby and Cindy contrive a scheme to meet Joe Namath. Is Bobby really sick?
Joe initially thinks so, but Mike and Carol eventually catch on. Oh, those wacky Brady kids.
Sunday funnies: Norton teaches Ralph how to play golf
In keeping with today’s U.S. Open theme, here is the all-time, I mean, ALL-TIME, greatest scene in golf history.
Norton teaches Ralph how to play golf in this classic Honeymooners episode. One, two, three, everybody:
HELLLLO BALLLL!
Sunday funnies: Rodney Dangerfield was a jerk, Deford writes in book
In his great new book, Over Time, Frank Deford devotes a fun chapter writing about his experiences in those classic Miller Lite commercials. The alumni gatherings for the group commercials, he writes, were terrific fun.
However, there was one guy who Deford, and everyone else, detested: Rodney Dangerfield.
Deford writes:
We were a pretty happy gang, and everyone got along. Well, except for Rodney Dangerfield. He was a total horse’s ass. His trademark line–“I don’t get no respect”–was well deserved, and he was as insecure in person as he portrayed himself in his act. Rodney was, I think, intimidated by the All-Stars and dealt with his fear by setting himself far apart from them. Plus, he was generally disagreeable.
There’s great stuff about Mickey Spillane tearing into Dangerfield, and how Big Ben Davidson once defended Deford during a Dangerfield tirade by saying, “That’s enough, Rodney.”
Writes Deford:
For the softball shoot, when the other guys had been on location for hours and Dangerfield finally only bothered to show up at the end of the day when everyone was assembled for the team picture, Billy Martin began the chant as soon as Rodney stepped out of the limo.
“Big Fucking deal!” Martin cried, and all the others picked up on it. “Big fucking deal! Big fucking deal!.”
The chorus rolled across the diamond, and Dangerfield’s face turned red as his signature tie. He just silently, sullenly took his place in the photo, though. Hecklers in a nightclub he could deal with. These burly athletes scared him into silence.
Still, the guy was funny. Here’s one of the memorable alumni commercials.
Sunday funnies: Billy Martin, Frank Deford and Marvelous Marv in Miller Lite ad
In honor of Frank Deford’s new book, Overtime, and my Q/A with him earlier in the week, it is only appropriate to select his 1981 Miller Lite ad for this week’s entry.
He teamed with Billy Martin and “Marvelous Marv” Throneberry.
Not only could he write, but Deford also could act a little too. And imagine a sportswriter in a major national ad? All hail Frank.