Tuesday, December 04, 2007

I Love ESPN

My, this channel (or family thereof) is becoming quite an annoying amalgam of useless characters and components. They've long since grown too big for their respective britches. The cast, and its assets:

Stephen A. Smith
A loud, abrasive, Malcom X type personality (to use the term loosely), that insists on yelling every opinion as a commentator. If he took the cork out of his ass, he'd possibly crack (pun intended) a smile or two and keep his commentary below the level of "fist in the air" anger. Tiresome, negative, too opinionated, and rarely adding much to sports commentary.

Skip Bayless
The white equivalent to Smith, a loud, irksome commentator that simply collects his checks from whatever show the wizards at the network decide to call it at the time. All he wants to do is to yell his sports opinions into the camera, create needless arguments, and act self-ingratiated based on what was left of his career as a thankfully quieter sports columnist. He should go back to full time journalism, rather than persistently live off of these "guest commentator" roles that have become all too tiresome.

Chris Berman
Another one to avoid if you have a headache. His overzealous reviews of the day's football games are replete with his stupid sounds, like "woop!". Or he'll scream "he...could...go...all...the...way!" during a punt return. Turn the volume down.

Kenny Mayne
At last, someone that I like. This commentator has so manys screws loose, I doubt there's a prescription out there to help his distorted mind. He's posed great quips like "On paper, the Rangers should beat the Bruins every time, but then again, ice hockey isn't played on paper...it's played inside your television set." He also routinely refers to highlights of the NFL as "tackle football". He is truly strange, and oddly refreshing.

Stuart Scott
Another one, who's so painfully black with his "street" aphorisms, it belies the underlying demographic of middle aged white males. He's obsessed with taking everything to the Apollo Theatre, with his "yo dog", "big ups" and "boo yah!" phrases. He's obsessed with taking a mainstream broadcast and turning it into an ebonics-laced disaster of oppressive slang and mysterious utterances.

ESPN Classic
An offshoot channel that used to run games from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Now they're running "classic" bowling matches from 2 years ago, or college football games from last week. Classic stuff; I remember when... And even when they run a bowling tournament from 1985, do we need to be reminded of all the bowlers named Wes, Hal, Stu, Russ, and Earl? Doubt it. I don't even want to watch *current* bowling tournaments, let alone old ones. This channel is on the brink of turning into the likes of MTV and VH1, running corny reality shows and allowing its programming content to brazenly stomp on the original intention of the channel.

ESPN2
This channel should just be renamed "The Poker Channel". Ok, they do show some college games, but I'm not too immersed in a contest between East Carolina and Central Florida. Wow, the magic! Since there's already blackjack being televised by the likes of the Game Show Network, I'm waiting for the "sport" of professional Craps, Roulette, Toss Across, and Gnip Gnop. Hell, they've already televised spelling bees, domino tournaments, and Scrabble competitions.

Already Whined About...
The same stupid back announcer is used for all of their dumb commercials, he's got an irritatingly piercing voice while spouting the phone number for ordering whatever product the commercial had been hawking. Then there's my beef about the Monday Night Football commercials - with "Is it Monday yet?" as the tag line. Oof, that is such an annoying campaign. Borders on Geico commercials.