Last week's 'MNF' party needed more Cosell
Leave it to Disney, which owns the ABC network, to take a historic occasion and turn it into History Lite. The occasion: "Monday Night Football" (8 p.m. Mondays, Channel 9) marking its 500th telecast last week. When ABC launched "MNF" 32 years ago, it was a brazen experiment by a network even more desperate for ratings than it is now. Few thought football would work in prime time. But "MNF" defied the critics by becoming a huge hit. Along the way, football displaced baseball as America's No. 1 professional sport. Whatever baseball's other problems, it never completely adapted to the revolution that televised sports underwent in the "MNF" era. TV coverage of sports is now dominated by flashy highlights and outsized personalities. In both these areas "MNF" was not only peerless, it boldly led everyone else into the new age. But you didn't learn any of this watching last week's broadcast. After all, that would involve invoking the name of a certain outsized "MNF" personality over and over. The people tending ABC's cash cow today don't like to admit that Howard Cosell made their livelihoods possible by making "MNF" a cultural phenomenon. Last week's commemorative broadcast, then, was as anticlimatic as the blowout on the field. ABC dusted off some old openings from the pre-Hank Williams Jr. era, fitted current announcers Al Michaels and John Madden with retro-yellow blazers, hyped a meaningless online poll to decide the "greatest" Monday night game and trotted out Frank Gifford, the least valuable player of "MNF's" early years, for a pointless chat. Credit was given to Roone Arledge, the network executive who thought up "MNF." No one offered that Arledge's most important act was hiring (and later defending) Cosell. Nor was there any discussion of Cosell's "Halftime Highlights," which ushered in a whole generation of sports highlights shows. It also was one of the most amazing feats in television: Cosell did "Halftime Highlights" in a fever, in one take, with no script. Couldn't ABC have spared us just one week of Madden flogging his stupid video game and instead treated us to an ancient clip of the master in action? Cosell was to sportscasting what Edward R. Murrow was to newscasting. The difference is that Murrow made himself easy to admire, even venerate, while Humble Howard made himself a thorn in ABC's paw. Yes, he was a pain, especially in his later years. But when Cosell died in 1995, the people at "MNF" should have buried their grudges against him, too. Instead they continue to overlook his achievements, which only serves to diminish the house that Howard built. "Girlfriends," 8 p.m. Mondays, UPN (Channel 29). ABC isn't the only network sitting pretty on Monday nights. In fact, since Fox euthanized "girls club" after two weeks, no broadcast network has a Monday show considered to be in ratings trouble. That's a tribute to TV's strategy of carving the viewing audience into lucrative demographic chunks. While ABC chases after young males, CBS has older men and adult women locked in for a night of sitcoms and "CSI: Miami." NBC grabs guys with "Fear Factor" and women with "Crossing Jordan," while WB is in seventh heaven with its new hit "Everwood." UPN has the African-American audience cornered with four adult comedies. One of those, "One on One" (7:30 Mondays), is UPN's most-watched sitcom. I, however, prefer "Girlfriends," with its four women sitting around talking about the things they do with men. Sounds a lot like a certain HBO program, I know. But it's more clever by half than "Sex and the City," and in my book, clever counts for something. The women on HBO don't have to curb their tongues, though sometimes I wish they would. By contrast, it's fun to watch "Girlfriends" work with similar material while artfully dancing around what passes these days for broadcast TV standards. Monday's episode featured a story line with Toni (Jill Marie Jones) and a white doctor. The pleasant surprise was that not one joke got cracked about the man's race; the whole episode was about his height and, uh, length. If you find this kind of humor offensive, remember, that's why God made CBS. "Nova," 7 p.m. Tuesday, KCPT and Topeka's KTWU. "The city of Venice that you know today cannot be preserved," is one scientist's grim assessment about the Italian tourist spot. Built on a salt marsh in the middle of a lagoon, Venice is sinking - or the waters around it are rising, take your pick. With global warming expected to raise sea level by 18 inches in the next century, few hold out any hope that Venice will escape the fate of Atlantis. "Nova" does what a science program should do, talking to scientists and reviewing the city's controversial plan for staving off flood waters. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:The "Girlfriends" are (from left) Persia White, Golden Brooks, Tracee Ellis Ross and Jill Marie Jones. @ART CREDIT:UPN @ART CAPTION:Roone Arledge (left), the man behind 'Monday Night Football,' and Howard Cosell @ART CREDIT:ABC @ART:Photos (2, color)
