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NBA Inaction, On ABC Adam K. Chorney 03.04.02-Brooklyn, NY |
As submitted to Tomarken.com by Adam Chorney, this 4th day of March, in the year of our Lord 2002.
Granted, we’re not in the era of Good Times or All in the Family or The Jeffersons anymore, but Jesus, what are these people doing to the last little bits of quality television we have left? I’m watching Monica Lewinsky’s HBO confessional special right now - in all its cinema verite splendor - and I find myself longing for more real, bold, and exploratory work like this - like we used to have in TV. Has anyone seen Touched By An Angel or The King of Queens or anything NBC has tried to slot in after Friends? There are no risk takers left, and thank God for HBO’s big sack, or there’d be nothing at all for us. Unfortunately, I won’t allow myself to pay for a premium channel-I’ve only got HBO right now because I bitched to the cable company when my “E!” reception got all fuzzy.
So as I watch Monica set the record straight, with all the earnestness and truth one would expect from such an event, I can’t keep from thinking about how I read recently that one of TV’s hidden treasures may soon be destroyed forever.
Let me explain:
NBC is giving up its broadcast rights to NBA basketball after this season. Having layed out kagillions of dollars to be able to broadcast NBA games for as long as I can remember, NBC has come to realize that the post-Jordan NBA audience is not nearly as attractive to its advertisers as it used to be. You’d think that an enterprise as ubiquitous as the NBA would be a guaranteed cash cow for whatever network it was on, but it seems that things can, and certainly do, change.
So next year the NBA will be broadcast on ABC. First of all, this just makes me sad. ABC is a horrible network, worse even than CBS with its stable of old timers helming shows for old timers (Dick Van Dyke still has a show on CBS). Yes, I said it, and I think there are probably plenty of others who’d agree with me - ABC and its Disney sponsored shmaltz licks my ass even more than CBS. Jim Belushi has his own show on ABC. Regis is on ABC. John McEnroe for God’s sake! Even CBS knows to stay away from those guys!
And besides all of ABC’s inherent faults, doesn’t the NBA on NBC just have a nice ring to it? That’s the slogan they’ve been using for all these years. The two N’s are just so nicely alliterated. Not so on ABC though. The NBA on ABC - it just sounds like such a rip off. I hope they don’t use it.
Which brings us to what I’m really concerned about. While ABC had certainly better come up with a new slogan, I hope against hope that they continue to use “da da da da da da, da da da da da, da da da da da da, da da da da, da da da da da da da da da da da da da, da da da da da.” Possibly the best piece of work not included on his Live from Red Rocks album, the Da Da Song (we’ll title it for practicality’s sake) is John Tesh’s masterpiece. A tour-de-force that simply drives an undeniable identity of power, grace, and pizzazz into the NBA, it just works better than any song other song possibly could. Yanni eat your heart out. What would the NBA be without it?
I can’t imagine how ABC would be able to actually wrangle the rights to this song from the clutches of NBC, but for the sake of Tesh’s children, perhaps they could try. After all, let us not forget that this was not just a one-time gig for John Tesh. No, he didn’t just change musical history one day, send in a tape, and collect a check - this is broadcast television, there are royalties to consider here. I don’t know John Tesh personally, but I would assume that once he and Connie Seleca got married and he was finally able to smooth himself into her undoubtedly silken panties, well, I’m just about positive that he wouldn’t be able to stop from doing it as often as is possible for a guy like that, you know, CONSTANTLY. So I think that it’s fair to assume that those two have some kids, I mean, how could a guy as well-greased as John Tesh possibly deal with a chastity-belt- until-marriage-wearing, probable-Mormon like Connie Seleca unless he was getting mad slippage once he gave her the ring? So yeah, they’ve got kids - they’ve got to got kids.
So let’s all just hope against hope that someone over at ABC is feeling the same way I am about that song, and if they’re not, well, let’s hope they think about the kids!
