PTI back. Yelling Ensues. I sigh with relief.
The summer is long. It’s hot. It’s frequently uncomfortable. It’s also lightly peppered with your favorite television personalities. The key word here is “lightly.” For me, as a huge fan of ESPN’s Pardon the Interuption, the summer is always a trying period. It’s either Wilbon with no Tony or Tony with no Wilbon (usually the former). Either way, you get a lot of Bob Ryan, you get a lot of Dan Le Batard (the best of the subs), you even get a little J. A. Adonde and Patrick McEnroe (who I didn’t even know existed until last week). More after the break…
This week the boys are back (after two months) and it makes me happy. Say what you will about the show and their perpetuating of the talking-head-centric ESPN non-news gabfest, but I’m the type of television watcher who loves personalities and these two guys are the best there is at what they do (specifically Kornheiser, whose ability to be old, cranky and incredibly knowledgeable about current popular culture — “two for Arcade Fire, two for Arcade Fire” — I find endlessly entertaining).
Of course, their return means that football season can’t be too far away. Look, I like football as much as the next guy, but there is nothing that is more over-covered than than the NFL. If Major League Baseball had as much coverage of each of its 162 games as any NFL team had for one of its 16, the lord on high would have to add an eighth and ninth day to the week just to hold all of the endless lip-flapping. I’d call those days “Funday” and “Sheaday.”
To me, television, at its purest form, isn’t about edge-cutting dramas or highly conceptual narrative comedies or any incarnation of reality or news/documentary programming, but based around distinctive personalities. It’s like the last remaining vestige of the ol’ radio days. Look, I love The Wire, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and all the rest of it, but I’d be happy getting by with Mike and Tony, David Letterman, Anthony Bourdain, Tim Russert, and a select other few. Good writing is coveted, but to me nothing is worth more than finding that one person that you could watch on television reading the phone book.
Welcome back Mike and Tony, my afternoons are just a little bit better when you’re around.
