This is the complete history of Monday Night Football's 35-year run on ABC, from its inaugural 1970 season through 2005, when the network announced that its longest-running series would move to cable. Chapters cover Monday Night Football's inception, its many lineup changes in the announcers' booth, how it influenced sports coverage on other networks, and the relationship between the NFL and ABC. Appendices provide a list of Monday Night Football cast and crew and seasonal ratings.
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About the Author
Freelance writer Wesley Hyatt is also the author of Emmy Award Winning Nighttime Television Shows, 1948-2004 (2005), A Critical History of Television's The Red Skelton Show, 1951-1971 (2004) and Short-Lived Television Series, 1948-1978 (2003). He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Bill Bussey
Format:Hardcover
Kicking Off the Week by Wesley Hyatt is not only a good, concise history of the successful, long running Monday Night Football game and show, but also throws in a lot of meaty history and information of television networks, as well as the NFL and other professional football leagues in this time period as well.
Mr. Hyatt even gives a brief history of pre Monday Night Football network television in his first chapters which I found very informative. He covered in the first two chapters with the same amount of meaty information, what many other books take entire volumes to cover.
Mr. Hyatt gives insights on the varied personalities of MNF. For those of us who grew up watching Howard Cosell on Wide World of Sports and even his ill conceived variety show, it was great to learn more about the man.
If there is a weakness to the book, it would be the lack of a photographs section. Normally books of this type have a section in the center with photographs of the personalities involved. I'm not sure if this was the publisher's doing, or the author, but having a photo section would have made this book much better.
The only photos are on the front cover of this book. While images of Dandy Don Meredith, Frank Gifford and Fran Tarkenton doing the show are etched into my mind, I couldn't bring to mind some of the others announcers. It would have been great to see at least one photograph of short-time announcer Fred Williamson, as well as some of the other less well known sideline reporters.
But overall, "Kicking off the Week" is a fine history of the Monday Night Football show and is an excellent read. I recommend it highly.
Mr. Hyatt even gives a brief history of pre Monday Night Football network television in his first chapters which I found very informative. He covered in the first two chapters with the same amount of meaty information, what many other books take entire volumes to cover.
Mr. Hyatt gives insights on the varied personalities of MNF. For those of us who grew up watching Howard Cosell on Wide World of Sports and even his ill conceived variety show, it was great to learn more about the man.
If there is a weakness to the book, it would be the lack of a photographs section. Normally books of this type have a section in the center with photographs of the personalities involved. I'm not sure if this was the publisher's doing, or the author, but having a photo section would have made this book much better.
The only photos are on the front cover of this book. While images of Dandy Don Meredith, Frank Gifford and Fran Tarkenton doing the show are etched into my mind, I couldn't bring to mind some of the others announcers. It would have been great to see at least one photograph of short-time announcer Fred Williamson, as well as some of the other less well known sideline reporters.
But overall, "Kicking off the Week" is a fine history of the Monday Night Football show and is an excellent read. I recommend it highly.
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