Sunday Brunch....Who's On First?

I remember growing up in New York City in the 1970's. Back then we called it...well, just growing up. Today, it's recollection with melancholy of the years gone by, it's waxing nostalgia about one's childhood, it's assigning romance to what in reality was just the mundane. Or to put it simply, it's remembering with fondness the simple, less complicated pleasures of a life that was lived long ago.

I remember Saturday evenings in our household. It was so wonderfully routine and predictable. Every Saturday night my dad would head out in the early evening to pick up some bagels, a pack of smokes and the early edition of the Sunday Daily News and
New York Times. We had an understanding. Upon his return, I'd get first dibs on The Daily News, while he read The Times. The Daily News was the paper of choice in our house back then as we all agreed it had the best Sunday sports section (there was no Sunday NY Post in those days, to my recollection). And so I'd take the paper and start with the comics - Peanuts to Dick Tracy. Then I'd read the rest of the paper; back page to front and after I had my fill, my dad and I would switch. But by then, I was all caught up on the world of sports (so reading The Times was just gravy). Now to some, reading the sports section on a Saturday evening may sound so solitary, but I assure you it was not. Our house was quite festive. There was my mom and brother, too and an occasional neighborly visit from friends next door. Oh yeah, these were my childhood years (7-12), so its not like I had the keys to the car or anything like that. And of course there was TV. Reading the newspaper was usually accompanied by simultaneously watching such shows as Mannix, Mission Impossible, Cannon and This Week in Pro Football with Pat Summarall and Tom Brookshier.

TWPF was a weekly program that showed the highlights of the previous weeks football games. During football season, TWPF was mandatory watching. Win or lose, it didn't matter, as long as your favorite football team was being featured on the show, that's all that mattered. It's one thing to listen to your local radio commentators describe the action on the field during gameday. It's a whole other world when you hear it retold by the booming voice of John Facenda (and later Harry Kalis). John Facenda for those who don't know, was the voice of the NFL . His narration of NFL films were legendary. And he as much as anyone else was responsible for creating the aura of what has become the NFL. It was he who immortalized the 1967 NFC Championship game between the Packers and the Cowboys, when he famously described the playing conditions as "the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field......" The game was played in -13F weather, considered the coldest ever for a football game and was later dubbed the Ice Bowl. Here is a sample of his work:

Well, after the show was over, we would get so amped, of course, we just couldn't wait for tomorrow - Sunday.

Ah Sunday. One of life's truly great creations. Sunday mornings, a time of the week to lounge, to vegetate, to do nothing but enjoy the stillness of the morning, to cherish the thought of being free to spend the day. Sunday mornings was actually an exciting time in our house. As rabid football fans, we could not wait for the 1:00 kickoff - Giants v. Redskins, Cowboys, Eagles, whomever. In our house football was king. And so the question was how to bridge the gap between breakfast(Captain Crunch, Lucky Charms or Frosted Flakes with bagel, cream cheese and OJ - the juice not the murderer) and Kickoff. Since breakfast was usually over by 11:00am, we're talking about 2 hours to fill (technically, it was 90 minutes since the pre-game shows started at 12:30) and who better than to fill that time than Abbott and Costello, perhaps the funniest men on the planet.

Back then, every Sunday, Channel 11 would feature an A&C movie from 11:30am - 1:00pm. Many of these films were made back in the '40's and featured the two in various settings, for instance, Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein or Abbott and Costello In The Navy. These films were just two of many, many others that incorporated their hilarious vaudeville and radio routines.

It is often said that comedy is the hardest of all performance arts. These two were the very best. They were not just tops in their profession--they were comic geniuses. To wax poetically about these two would go well beyond the scope of this blog. What better way to explain it than to show it. So here is what most people consider their most famous routine. Who's on First.

Ya know what the funny thing about all this was? These two would make be laugh hysterically. Put me in the greatest mood. I couldn't wait for the football game to start. So after spending the hour and a half with my two "uncles", I'd turn on the Giants game and watch them tear my heart out. That's right. Week after week after week, year after year after year this team tortured my soul mercilessly. But I couldn't help it. Like an addiction, Giant Blue was in my blood and veins. So every Sunday, I just had to have my fix. And when I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, they gave us The Fumble. But that is a whole other story for another day. Ah....the good old days.