aka: "Football's Commentary Shall Forever be Changed - And More Intelligent"
The man who brought us the eight-legged turkey and perhaps the greatest game of all time, has decided to call it quits. John Madden retired this week, and I know I'm not the only fan that will miss him. How can any announcer witty enough to come up with phrases such as, "he's got moves on top of moves," and "the team that scores the most points usually wins the game," not be honored. If you haven't seen Frank Caliendo's (a comic with no humor, just dead-on voices) impression of John Madden, it's pretty close to perfect. Check it out here.
His ability to analyze and commentate a game is like watching a sex-ed teacher explain the birds and the bees to a room full of prostitutes; it lacked insight beyond the obvious. And though Caliendo wrongly pointed out that Madden fixated on a single player, like Bret Favre, he wasn't far off. I'm pretty sure I recall a game in which he described a team's punter as, "the greatest athlete in the world, both living and dead."
But what is to be of John Madden's football game? Will it change names? Will he suddenly cease doing the enlightening commentary for the game? Will the makers actually dare to hire an announcer that refuses to speak the obvious? I love the game, the world loves the game. It's one of the few games out there that has the gaul to release the same exact game every single year, only with a new number at the end of the title, and still sells out in a day. It's like creating Pacman, a year later releasing Ms. Pacman, followed by Son of Pacman, Wrath of Pacman, Ghost Pacman, Blue Pacman and Oval Pacman every year afterwards.
Who can honestly say they don't love the movie "Little Giants?" Can you? If you can you're either lying to yourself or don't have a soul. The movie is great. And John Madden's cameo towards the end in which he blatantly informs the children that if they try hard enough, they can win the game. Thanks Madden, as if they hadn't understood the plot of every single sports movie in history. Real insightful. And yet, it was great.
His legacy will outlive him. Like George Foreman and his sizzling grills (buy one here, they come in blue!!) John Madden's money came from something besides his playing/coaching of the game that made him famous. He's sure to have billions off the game franchise, which brings up the point: what the heck took him so long to retire. His abilities faded long ago and I'm pretty sure if he could literally phone-in the announcing from his summer home in Maui, he would. And he wouldn't even need to watch the game. His phrases are so general and unhelpful, they will be able to sample his voice, enter his quotes into a robot, and have that robot randomly blurt out his sayings throughout a game.
Here are some of his gems:
"If you see a defense team with dirt and mud on their backs they've
had a bad day." (That's a bad day for anyone, except a professional mud wrestler of course)
"The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for
players to break." (Thanks, didn't realize one plus one equals two)
"When your arm gets hit, the ball is not going to go where you
want it to. " (Brilliant, but you missed your calling as a physics teacher)
“Whenever you talk about a Mike Shananhan offense, you always
talk about his offense." (Come on, he's just saying the same thing twice, minus an adjective)
“Here’s a guy who when he runs, he moves faster.” (OK, actually, I can't find anything wrong with this one. Good job)
The list literally goes on and on. Now you don't have to even know the difference between a touchdown and a hat trick to know he couldn't have made more obvious statements. But he's an icon, bigger than the game itself. And he will certainly be missed. Rest in Reese's Pieces Madden!
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