What’s On My Mind
Believe The Hype
Monday night’s regional final game matching up Iowa & LSU completely lived up to the hype and then some. And once the rating numbers came out they measured higher than even the most optimistic ESPN executives could have hoped for. It was the most watched college basketball game in ESPN history. Note that I did not say it was the highest rated women’s game; it was the highest rated college basketball game, period. Iowa next meets UConn, a major ratings magnet themselves, in the Final Four on Friday. Then comes the championship game on Sunday, which will air on ABC, in which the winner of that game will face either heavily favored South Carolina or North Carolina State for the title. Ratings figure to be even more astronomical.
It makes me so happy to see the game finally reach the audience it deserves. Just think of the great players and teams from the game’s past who built this foundation, playing in front of sparse audiences while having to suffer through cheap shots on The Internets. I can’t repeat this often enough; imagine how much more quickly the game’s popularity would have grown had Bill Simmons not expended so much of his time mocking the sport.
The journey to this point was slow and steady. I don’t recall seeing any women’s basketball on TV in the 1970’s, so the star players from that era such as Nancy Lieberman, Ann Meyers, and Carol Blazejowski were names that I was aware of - Lieberman & Blaze had competed in the Superstars and Meyers had a publicity stunt tryout with the Indiana Pacers - but I never saw any of them actually play. The first women’s basketball that I watched was in the 1984 Olympics, which made Cheryl Miller the first female player whose game I admired. But since there was no domestic league yet, there was no way to see these women play in between Olympic cycles.
There were 3 big events in quick succession that brought the sport’s visibility to a new level - Sheryl Swoopes’s historic performance in the 1993 championship game, the first UConn championship in 1995, and the Olympic gold medal winning team in 1996, all of which solidified David Stern’s belief that there was an audience for a U.S.-based professional league. The WNBA has had its ups & downs - which is to be expected with a new league - but interest is clearly on the upswing. There is a deep enough talent pool that expansion is long overdue, and there will be a new franchise in the Bay Area beginning with the 2025 season with another potential addition (Toronto?) in 2026.
The growth in the professional game is predicated by the exploding interest in the college game. It indisputably answers what had been a tedious recurring question - was UConn’s dominance bad for the game? I’ll play devil’s advocate and say there was one drawback to their long run. In the days before ESPN aired the entire tournament - the first 2 rounds were regionalized - generally the one nationally aired game was UConn’s first round match against an overmatched 16 seed. In those games the Huskies would often have a double digit lead before the first TV timeout. I imagine a lot of people tuned in, saw it was a blowout, and quickly changed the channel.
As a whole, however, the dominance of both UConn & Tennessee was beneficial to the game. One trait both Pat Summitt & Geno Auriemma shared was that they held their teams to high standards. They always demanded as much from their players as any coach leading a men’s team would. As a result, not only did they produce scores of well-rounded players, but it forced coaches of opposing schools to work just as hard to keep up. The level of skill in the sport is so strong and that is entirely due to the fact that Summitt & Auriemma raised the bar to such a high level.
50 Years Ago - Murder On the Orient Express
When I discussed Earthquake a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that it had an all-star cast, but it had nothing on Murder On the Orient Express. So many acting giants appeared in this movie. If you want to use Oscars as a metric, here’s one. There were 14 actors in the principal cast; 6 of them were past or future winners. That total doesn’t even include lead Albert Finney, who was nominated 5 times without a victory, along with 4 other performers who had earned nominations at some point in their careers.
Finney starred as Agatha Christie’s famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot traveling on the titular train. The train was temporarily stopped by a snowdrift, and while awaiting a crew to dig them out, one of the passengers was found murdered. (Need I flag spoiler alerts for a 50 year old movie, even though it’s one of those movies for which a lot of people who haven’t seen it probably already know the ending? Don’t worry, I’ll keep my mouth shut.) Poirot was reluctantly roped in to solve the murder (it’s his vacation, dammit!) and in the course of his investigation he finds that practically all of his suspects have both motivation and alibi.
With so much star power, it stands to reason that this was a heavily actorly movie. An interrogation scene with each suspect gave the performers ideal opportunity to stretch their acting muscles. Ingrid Bergman won the Best Supporting Actress trophy. The most memorable performance, however, came from Finney. Ironically enough, Christie herself did not much care for Finney’s interpretation of Poirot; something about the mustache not being correct. I recognize that David Suchet was the most iconic actor to portray the character, but in my mind when I hear the name Poirot the first image that pops into my head is Albert Finney ordering everyone to “touch nothing!”
In recent years Kenneth Branagh has revived the character on screen, starting with his own remake of Murder On the Orient Express. I’m not sure if the story still holds the same shock value that it did - when I first saw the original, I knew the conclusion, but I could watch it with the fascination to see how it would lead to that ending (I may have already revealed too much, I’ll stop there.) Regardless of whether or not it still holds the same impact, it was a high class production and one of the better acting showcases you will ever see.
The Loss Of 2 Greats
Louis Gossett Jr. passed away late last week at the age of 87. He had made history by becoming the first African-American to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. As is the case with most show business “firsts,” it’s a bit pathetic that it took so long. In another sad reflection of the culture, even though he had a prolific career, that award didn’t ignite the level of stardom that he deserved.
Gossett exemplifies a talking point that I had recently brought up - the slight difference between being a character actor and a That Guy. He was much too well known to be a That Guy, but he was exactly the type for whom you knew when you saw him that his character would be in good hands. Whenever he appeared on screen - whether for an above-the-title role or for someone with only a handful of scenes, whether in a prestige piece or in a popcorn flick - he was consistently one of the best elements in any project that he appeared in.
The first time he caught my eye was not in Roots - it was a little too heavy for young me, so I didn’t watch it on its initial airing - but in the movie The Deep. That was clearly meant to capitalize on the success of Jaws (it was also based on a Peter Benchley novel, it also featured Robert Shaw, and instead of a shark, the fearsome sea creature here was a moray eel.) Gossett was the chief villain in the movie, and he completely owned the screen. 1977 was years before men generally embraced their baldness, so if you saw a man with a shaved head back then it meant that he was an intimidating badass. That was certainly Gossett.
His work has been just as strong as ever well into his senior years; just recently appearing in the musical version of The Color Purple. His strong performance in the Watchmen miniseries served as a nice coda for his career.
We also lost the great Joe Flaherty this week. He was not only a member of the brilliant cast of SCTV, but he was also an instrumental behind the scenes player who helped assemble that cast in the first place. It was initially a syndicated show before NBC eventually picked it up. I’m not sure what time it aired in different markets, but the local station in New York that held the rights ran the show Saturday nights at 11PM. It was an ideal lead in to SNL.
Oh, what an exceptional cast that was. It’s amazing that more than 45 years later you can make the reasonable argument that Eugene Levy & Catherine O’Hara are even bigger stars than they were then. SCTV was a sketch comedy show, but what made it unique was that it was one with a running plot. The premise was that SCTV was a smaller TV network, so not only was much of the material made up of the programming on the fictional network, but there were also a lot of sketches based on the backstage and corporate shenanigans.
Flaherty specialized in gruff, angry characters such as news anchor Floyd Robertson, but he also provided great laughs from talk show host Sammy Maudlin and horror movie host Count Floyd. (Speaking of gruff, he had a wonderful Jack Klugman impression in his bag of tricks.) But his most memorable character was station manager Guy Caballero, a man of questionable ethics. He used a wheelchair, even though he had full use of his legs, because he believed that was how he earned respect.
SCTV ranks right up there with SNL & Monty Python’s Flying Circus as the greatest sketch shows ever made. I don’t believe anyone is currently streaming complete episodes, but there are numerous clips available on YouTube. It’s definitely worth spending time in that rabbit hole. Flaherty worked steadily for many years after the show ended. My personal highlight was his run as Harold Weir on Freaks & Geeks. He was the quintessential perpetually grouchy television dad. I can’t picture anyone else being able to play that role so well.
Joe Flaherty was 81; he leaves as one of the comedy greats of any era. It was too tough of a choice to narrow it down to one clip that I can share, so please enjoy both of these.
More Rock Hall Thoughts
I had recently completed my run through of this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballot, but as we know the honorees from the list of nominated artists only makes up roughly half of the induction class. When the results are announced at the end of this month the winners in the side categories will be revealed as well. As a reminder, those are the Ahmet Ertegun Award, given to non-performers such as songwriters, producers, etc., Musical Influence, which is no longer limited to the likes of old blues musicians and now can include anyone who has inspired later generations of music, and Musical Excellence, which is used as a sort of catch-all category.
Because the Hall never reveals vote totals, the lack of transparency creates all sort of conspiracy theories; most notably the belief that results are “fixed” in order to create a narrative. I don’t believe that for a minute; there are well more than a thousand voters. I can’t imagine the institution risking its legitimacy and risking pissing off so many powerful people by making the voting process a sham. The side categories are another issue. It’s certainly plausible that those choices can be made with the wish of putting together an induction ceremony that should draw a larger audience. As an example, one year Beatles manager Brian Epstein and Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham were both inducted. Each of them were worthy, but the probability of big names inducting them was clearly a factor in their selections.
Last year I offered a couple of dozen suggestions of potential candidates for side category induction, and I was happy to see that several of my choices were in fact honored. (Don’t worry, I’m not acting delusional here. I had zero to do with any of that. At least I think so. If in fact any committee members were reading, you’re welcome.) I’m not doing that again this year, other than offering a few hopes of mine.
Making the right choices in these categories could help bring better gender & racial balance, so it continues to surprise me that Big Mama Thornton and Carol Kaye are still left out. Part of me almost thinks that someone in the decision making process is acting stubborn and is reacting to the clamor by refusing to be bullied into inducting those two. But come on, Kaye is 89 years old; do it before it’s too late. And I mentioned a few weeks ago that Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris have been so important in the development of Americana music that they need to go in. Perhaps Harris this year & Parsons next? I’ll once again hold out hope that The Revolution should be honored as perhaps the premiere backup band that any major artist has ever had.
IMHO the most deserving name for the Ertegun award is Rick Rubin. He has produced significant work for a dizzyingly wide range of artists; more significantly for a large number of artists already in the Hall. He’s a bit of a QAnon weirdo, so this would entail a certain amount of separating the artist from the art, but his is a most impressive body of work.
Based on when ballots are due, the results will be known either the last week of this month or in the first week of May. It’s futile to make predictions - did I mention that more than 1,000 people cast ballots? Good luck trying to get into that many heads. I’ll be bold and try to make my best guesses as we get closer to the announcement date.
Closing Laughs
The umm, big-boned lady is getting ready to sing, which means that today’s opera is just about over. Thanks for reading, and be sure to recommend Tending The Herd to all of your favorite people. They’ll like it just as much as you do. See you all again on Friday.