For those of us born after November 22, 1963, it was always a mystery to us when our parents, uncles and grandmothers talked about the phenomenon that everyone alive that day understood for the rest of their lives. life: they remembered exactly where they were, exactly what they were doing when they heard the terrible news from Dallas.
For those who were not yet born or who were too young to have a memory of the night of November 17, 1968 and whose fathers, older brothers or aunts were big sports fans, NBC offered a cultural moment quite so unforgettable. With the Jets taking a 32-29 lead over the Raiders as the clock ticked toward 7, televisions everywhere in the Eastern and Central time zones suddenly and jarringly switched from one stadium football club in Oakland, California, at a meadow. in Maienfeld, Switzerland.
And while hundreds of thousands of rabid football fans threw bottles of Piels and Rheingold at their television screens, then flooded NBC headquarters in New York with 10,000 calls, crushing the switchboard, the Raiders scored two touchdowns in the last 42 seconds of the match – one on one. long bomb from Daryl Lamonica to Charlie Smith, one on a Preston Ridlehuber fumble recovered on the ensuing kickoff.
They won the game 43-32. Jets fans didn’t know it at the time, but what was born that day was a Jets-specific way of losing unlosable games that would mark their colorful history.
But no Jets fan actually saw it.
They saw actress Jennifer Edwards, 11, dressed as “Heidi,” frolicking around this Swiss estate.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. NBC swore it off immediately.
“I wanted to see the end of the game as much as anyone,” NBC President Julian Goodman told the Post about an hour after it happened. “We deeply regret this error. This will not happen again.
Fifty-six years later, it happened again.
It wasn’t football this time, nor was it NBC. This time it was CBS, and this time it was the end of a Billy Joel concert commemorating the 100th performance from his residency at Madison Square Garden. The concert itself took place on March 28. CBS had been promoting it non-stop for weeks. You saw Billy more than Danny Hurley if you watched enough of the NCAA tournament.
This was clearly a big deal.
Except that the Masters ran a little long on Sunday. And that meant “60 Minutes” started about a half-hour late. And that meant “Tracker: Camden” started half an hour late. Which meant we didn’t see Cartoon Billy board the LIRR at Cartoon Hicksville Station, bound for Cartoon Penn Station, until just after 9:30.
The spectacle was as expected. Billy Joel might not be your cup of tea. But he sells a plot Some tea. Since starting his monthly MSG residency in January 2014, every ticket has sold out. Each, for 10 years. When he takes his show on the road, he and his band fill football and baseball stadiums.
His fans are devoted. They may not quite reach – shall we say – the fervent levels of Springsteen fans…
(My friend and colleague Peter Botte described these acolytes this way: “It’s like a badge of honor to play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ or a random B-side from the imported 12-inch version of the ‘Nebraska’ album) rather than, say “Rosalita” or “Jungleland.”)
…but put it this way: Billy himself never needs to sing the lyrics to “Piano Man.” He still has 20,000 people to do it for him. It’s a song for all time. In one of the greatest meta moments of all time, Billy Joel himself was filmed singing “Piano Man” during the eighth inning of Game 3 of the 2015 World Series.
And so at about 11:27 p.m. Sunday, Billy put down his harmonica, sounded the first familiar notes from the piano, and left. Now, Billy Joel’s demographic isn’t quite the same as Taylor Swift’s. I admit my eyes were a little downcast at that point. My wife could barely keep up by the time we heard about Davy (who is still in the Navy). But the final chorus came. We were ready for this.
And while Billy hummed about his microphone smelling of beer, and the camera panned to delighted fans hollering hoarsely about sitting at the bar and putting bread in his pot …
GOOD. It stopped. Cold. And soon we were with the news. And listen, news is important. I make my living from news. But once again, 56 years after “Heidi,” some poor worker didn’t get the memo of a lawsuit at CBS to exercise an ounce of common sense and realize that if we were all still at Listening at 11:30 p.m., we were most certainly all in the mood for a tune.
Julian Goodman and his acolytes at NBC didn’t have to worry about social media. His CBS descendants weren’t so lucky. The venom started early and often. Billy himself once sang in “Angry Young Man”: “I think I’m past the age of conscience and righteous rage.”
For the past day, at least, this line has been proven wrong.
New York Post
