THE ANNIVERSARY OF ONE OF TELEVISION’S GREATEST BLUNDERS

On November 17, 1968, millions of American football fans were watching the New York Jets battle the Oakland Raiders in a game aired over NBC.  At 7:00 p.m., with a minute left to go in the fourth quarter and the Jets protecting a 32-29 lead, NBC programmers aborted the telecast to begin a regularly schedule showing of the Shirley Temple movie “Heidi”. Viewers must have thought they were hallucinating when their television pictures suddenly morphed from football to scenes of Alpine mountains.

When it became known that the Raiders had scored two last-minute touchdowns to pull out a 43-32 victory, a tide of enraged telephone calls swamped the NBC switchboard and the circuits went dead.  Those who could not get through to NBC called the New York Police Department.  NBC executives later claimed that as Oakland started its amazing comeback, they considered cutting back to the game.  But before they could make up their minds, the clock ran out.

This story could lead into the topic, “What Were They Thinking?  Stupid Decisions We Would Not Have Made.” For example, at its 1989 commencement ceremonies, Ohio’s Central State University awarded boxer Mike Tyson an honorary doctorate in humane letters.  How about this one? The Nevada state legislature authorized a new license plate in 2002 depicting a mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion.  The design symbolized the 928 nuclear weapons tests conducted in the Nevada desert from 1945 through 1992.  Ultimately, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles rejected the concept, noting that “any reference on a license plate to weapons of mass destruction is inappropriate and would likely offend our citizens.”

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November 17th, 2009 | Tags: Television blunders | Category: Daily Blog, Sports, Television