I can't believe what a great career they ended up having ...

I didn't think so, but he had fallen a long way from what he was earlier in his broadcasting career. When he started he was very insightful and willing to call out a missed play. As the years went on, like many top announcers, he got away from that and didn't offer much of anything. He was a low-rent Madden impression.
I think Colinsworth has fallen into the same trap, though not quite as bad yet.
Simms still isn't as bad as Aikman, who is a walking poster child for CTE, but I could take him or leave him.

 

Guess I don't pay attention too much or watch many games that Simms calls. Don't really like Aikman and Buck, but think they always do a solid job. Don't pay real close attention because most Sundays I'm watching games at a bar or at a buddy's house who has Sunday Ticket and we're switching from game to game. Would be interested to know how many sit and watch one game from beginning to end. Since I started playing fantasy football, probably even before that when I was just betting games, don't think I've watched too many games all the way through.

 

Much the same scenario with Seinfeld.

Wouldn't happen on network tv today. Plug is pulled much more quickly. Closest show I can think of in recent memory is 30 Rock. Never a ratings hit but lasted seven seasons.

Thankfully there are so many more venues that let good shows grow and thrive even if they aren't smash hits from day one.

 

I mentioned Seth MacFarlane a few pages ago, but his Fox series have been similar.
Family Guy got canceled for a couple of years, was resurrected from the dead, has had OK but not stellar ratings, yet is heading into Season 16.
American Dad did so-so on Fox, but lasted about 10 seasons there and is heading into Season 15 on TBS.

 

Yeah, ever since Comcast got its own version of the Redzone Channel I've been glued to that on Sundays. Rarely if ever flip over to the "regular" game any more.

And Joe Buck went through a phase, right around the time he got the HBO show, where he was insufferable to listen to. If the game he was calling wasn't the Packers, Cowboys, Giants or Patriots he sounded like he'd rather be getting a proctology exam. If you go back and listen to the 2009 NFC championship game between the Vikings and Saints it's enough to piss you off. Great game, insane crowd to feed off of, and he sounds like he's reading a Chinese takeout menu. Gus Johnson's head would have exploded calling that game.
Thankfully he's gotten a lot better since then. I don't know if someone sat him down and told him to knock off the too cool for school act, he got humbled by the failure of the HBO show, or just found a reason to enjoy his job again, but he's not too bad now. Aikman sucks, but Buck is OK.

 

Here's a story I was told when I was first getting into TV.

There was a Seinfeld before Seinfeld. It was called The Seinfeld Chronicles. It was first written with Seinfeld playing a traveling salesman. Each episode, he would knock on the door of a new house and hilarity would ensue. Seinfeld didn't like it. He asked whether he could write a different show with Larry David. They wrote a pilot that was largely hated. NBC ordered the shortest season order ever: four episodes. It was still called The Seinfeld Chronicles, I believe.

Now, going back to the original iteration of the show. People who are involved early in a show are given points. ("Created by" is a huge credit, financially speaking.) You own a piece of the show, and your share of the profits are divided accordingly. And the guy who originally pitched the traveling salesman idea owned 7.5 percent of the show. He owned it even after it became a totally different show.

Anyway, he wanted to make a new show. NBC said, well, if you give us back that piece of Seinfeld you own, we can justify the cost of a new show. Seinfeld had received its four-episode order. No big deal giving that up. Guy gives it up, makes his new show, which doesn't get past the pilot, I don't think. Seinfeld goes on to become Seinfeld.

That guy has lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Never give up your points," was basically the lesson.

 

Simms is an apostle of the obvious. And when he's not wearing that cloak, he's simply humorless and dull. You're covering an entertainment event, so leave the damn solemnity and stodginess at home. I don't need Dennis Miller making arcane references ad nauseum, but JFC, lighten up. Him and Jim Nantz are just boring as hell. I learn absolutely nothing from them. Simms doesn't even have good stories from when he was a player. So much so that I even forget he was a player. He played on a Super Bowl winning team with two of the most colorful figures in NFL history in Lawrence Taylor and Bill Parcells, and not a shred of their charisma rubbed off on him. How he ended up as a long-term fixture in the booth baffles me.

 

Also, M@A@S@H. Got poor ratings in its first year in the early '70s, but CBS stuck with it because it did well among young, highly educated viewers. Wasn't long before it cracked the top 10.

 

oh, you mean white people

 

I had not heard that story before. Maybe there's a great story to be done on the points of Seinfeld and who owns what and how they got their shares... Um, never mind. Be right back.

 

Actually NBC didn't want to make Seinfeld, the guy in charge of TV specials had gave up two hours of his budget to get the initial run made. Then scrapped a Bob Hope special to help pay for the first season. He later backed Conan O'Brien in the Jay Leno coup and was eased out of the network.