Unsung is a feature in which I take a look at a pop culture phenomenon (be it music, TV, literary, whatever) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. In this installment, I take a look at the TV sensation that was Battle of the Network Stars.
Growing up in the 1970s was very different than it is for kids today. We spent a LOT of time unsupervised, especially those of us who were latchkey kids; in other words, both parents worked and we were left to our own designs while they weren't home.
For me, that really came into play in 1975 when we moved from the high-rise apartment buildings of Scarborough, Ontario (at the time, a suburb of Toronto; now it's actually part of the city) to the eastern suburban town of Pickering. I was in second grade at the time and would walk home from school, let myself into the house and find ways to occupy my time until my parents got home around dinnertime. I didn't really have homework until 5th or 6th grade, so I would either play hockey in my driveway (this WAS Canada, after all) or make myself a snack and watch TV. Typically, it was syndicated reruns of Happy Days, which aired in the afternoon (called Happy Days Again to differentiate from the newer episodes), Barney Miller and M.A.S.H. or older shows like Gilligan's Island.
Like many kids of my generation, I watched a LOT of TV growing. Of course, my biggest role model, my dad, would come home from work, eat dinner and then plop himself down on the couch to watch TV until it was time to go to bed. He loved reruns of shows like Bewitched, the Bob Newhart Show and Hogan's Heroes, but would also watch newer shows like Dallas, the Love Boat or Fantasy Island. And we followed the Toronto Maple Leafs, who at that time typically played on Wednesday and Saturday nights.
These were the days of the Big 3 TV networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. There were UHF (aka cable) stations that showed old movies and reruns, but all new, non-syndicated programming was on the Big 3. Non-scripted shows back then were still all about stars; if you were an ordinary person, you could get on game shows, but the networks were big on star power. A lot more people watched network shows back then, so there was serious competition for eyeballs.
In 1973, ABC began airing the show Superstars as part of its weekend Wide World of Sports programming, with top athletes competing in different sports. One of the first winners was O.J. Simpson in 1975. After seeing its popularity, ABC got the idea to hold a similar competition featuring TV stars competing in different sporting events. Dubbed Battle of the Network Stars, the first episode aired in November 1976 with the competitors participating in swimming, kayaking, volleyball, golf, tennis, bowling, cycling, 3-on-3 football, a baseball dunk tank, running and an obstacle course, as well as game of "Simon Says." After the regular events, the team with the lowest score was eliminated and the remaining two teams determined the winner in a game of tug of war. Legendary sports announcer Howard Cosell was the host, providing overly dramatic commentary for events featuring the likes of Gabe Kaplan, Telly Savalas and Robert Conrad, the three team captains in the first two years.
The great Will Harris put together an entertaining oral history of the Battle of the Network Stars for the A.V. Club several years back, featuring interviews with many of the competitors. The games were entertaining, especially considering the fact that in the mid-1970s, there was much less of a premium on working out than in later years. A lot of the participants were terrible at sports, but that was all part of the fun. There was a combination of big names (the aforementioned captains, Hal Linden, Tom Selleck), young talent (Ron Howard, Jimmie Walker, Scott Baio, Kristy McNichol, Valerie Bertinelli, Todd Bridges), up-and-comers (Billy Crystal, David Letterman, Robin Williams, Kurt Russell) and starlets (Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Cheryl Tiegs, Lynda Carter, Erin Gray, Jaclyn Smith, Cheryl Ladd, Adrienne Barbeau). With the last group, the networks were also all about T&A, so getting your hottest stars in bathing suits was definitely good for business.
ABC ran episodes every six months until May 1985, with one final edition in 1988. It also inspired Circus of the Stars, a CBS show that featured TV and movie stars performing circus acts; the show ran from 1977-1994.
There was a lot of good-natured fun, but the actors started to take it seriously because there was money on the line. They received $10,000 each for just showing up, the second-place team won $15,000 each and the winning team got $20,000 each. Sometimes this led to heated confrontations; one year, there was a controversy over the relay race finish. Robert Conrad, the tough guy star of the NBC World War II show Baa Baa Black Sheep, was so incensed by his team getting penalized for a violation that he challenged ABC captain Gabe Kaplan, the standup comic star of Welcome Back, Kotter, to a footrace. Kaplan smoked him in the race, creating great TV in the process.
It was dumb fun and very much of its time, just like the insane network promos that would feature hundreds of stars doing song-and-dance disco numbers to hype the new season. In 2017, ABC revived Battle of the Network Stars as a weekly series, with teams featuring celebrities based on their roles: TV sitcoms, variety, White House, prime time soaps, cops, doctors, etc. It ran for nine episodes and I have zero memory of it even happening.
Of course, the concept of TV celebrity has changed since the '80s with the advent of reality TV. There are plenty of celebrity competition shows, whether it's on Jeopardy, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, MTV's endless series of Real World/Road Rules Challenges, The Surreal Life. As the definition of a celebrity has changed to include YouTube streamers and TikTokers, so has the impact of these competitions.
I don't recall paying a whole lot of attention to Battle of the Network Stars as a kid, other than to know that it was on every so often. But much like the entertainment options of today, they were created to distract us from the scarier stuff going on the world like wars, economic troubles and assassinations. It worked. Almost 50 years later, they're still a lot of fun to look back on through grainy YouTube clips.
No comments:
Post a Comment