Remember Albertville?

Paula Zahn and Tim McCarver...what mixed-up TV laboratory ever dreamed up that co-hosting combo?





Last thought Winter Olympics...

Whenever Winter Olympics oddities are mentioned, the rather curious co-hosting combo when CBS broadcast the 1992 Albertville games must be recalled.

Paula Zahn & Tim McCarver?

I never knew what mucky-mucks actually made that decision. CBS could have used Jim Nantz, who had already elevated to the number one play-by-play for its college hoops and seemed a natural for such an assignment, and had a very capable Greg Gumbel on the rolls at that time, too (though I suppose brother Bryant would have made a scene if Greg accepted that assignmnent). Instead, we were served with Zahn & McCarver, the most uncomfortable pair of Olympic TV hosts of our generation. Good for us that CBS has telecast only that one Olympics since 1960.

(By the way, in the "where did the time go?" department, Paula just celebrated her 50th birthday a few days ago...and my turn comes soon enough. Maybe it's because I'm becoming an old guy, but I don't remember 50-year-old women looking like that when I was growing up...).

From what I hear and read from elsewhere around the globe, the Winter Olympic TV coverage isn't so bad. In some locales, supposedly it is even pretty good. But I agree with Paul, the Olympics have become rather contrived, and I have much disdain for the IOC, which is a corrupt organization whose hubris even exceeds FIFA's. Watching NBC play along with this pretension and self-righteousness really grates.

As a general comment, I believe much of American sports TV coverage has become unmistakably pretentious, even clownish. I can relate to some of the soccer coverage, especially during World Cups and the like, where the British versions are clearly superior. Sure, they have their goofy bits (Sky Sports has a particularly irreverant Saturday morning soccer show), but when it comes down to the games themselves it is all business. Comparing BBC and ITV coverage of big soccer events with the buffoonery we often get from Terry Bradshaw and the Fox gang, and Chris Berman's evolution into a caricature of himself at ESPN, is a mismatch.



Alan Hansen, the best-ever pundit...


The best sports pundit of them all is BBC's Alan Hansen, a former Liverpool and Scottish defender whose biting and incisive soccer commentary has evolved into must-see and hear stuff in England. The BCC "Match of the Day" is the real standard of all sports highlight shows, and I wish some of our networks would borrow just a little bit of that from the Brits...