Film Room: Not for the Faint of Heart
Showtunes, Steve Allen, chorus girls, rhinestones and pink dinner jackets? What do they have in common with Joe Namath? The Texaco Star Theater Special from September 11th 1982, naturally!!
Oh … my …. sweet … Jebus.
The Suzy Kolber incident might not have done it, but it’s offical, my image of our team’s father figure has been officially tainted. Sadly, Namath in 1982 was still more mobile than Ken O’Brien.
I know times have changed, and it’s a big deal that Peyton Manning is hosting SNL and all, but could you imagine a (former) player doing something like this today? He would be ripped to shreds on talk radio, SportsCenter and blogs for weeks.
Somehow the infamous pantyhose commercial showed that our boy Joe Namath had balls, but after finding this video on YouTube, I am just straight up suicidal. Props to JoeWillie for trying … but jeez, that was ROUGH.
I can’t decide whether my favorite moment is when Namath gets the applause for linking arms with the dancers and shuffling forward on those bad knees to the front of the stage for “The Big Finish” or when Steve Allen tells that terrible joke and then does his little piano flourish for punctuative effect.
I am speechless after watching that video. All I can say is what was Joe thinking? My hero running around in a pink suit? I just hope that he was compensated extremely well for that one.