Tony's Back

Mr. Tony had been on sabbatical, you see. Seems like they decided he should co-host Monday Night Football. Now, wait, that doesn't mean as much as it used to. Monday Night Football was the brainchild of NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle who envisioned playing a game on prime time, that is, 8 PM on the East Coast.

Football fanatics who thought football was over once Sunday concluded were salivating on Monday after work to get back and watch the featured game. There was no other team competing for the attention of rabid fans everywhere.

But this past year, ABC decided to swap, taking its Monday night crew and making its Sunday night crew and letting the ESPN gang take over MNF. That's when they hired Tony Kornheiser, who had once tried out for the role that was given, rather disastrously, to Dennis Miller. Kornheiser, whose used to running a one man show, found himself sharing the booth with insufferable Joe Theismann and bland Mike Tirico. Trying not to create riffs, he didn't insult Theismann, and lost much of his bite.

Since he was travelling while doing MNF, he decided to give up his local radio talk show on SportsTalk 980. When he came back, rather than pick up the program, he decided to continue the program on Washington Post radio. After all, he started his career as a print sports journalist, and garnered most of his fame while at the Washington Post.

To be honest, the radio station is awful. You'd think they would mimic NPR. Sure NPR is a bit snooty, but I can listen to NPR and enjoy it. You can imagine the announcers leading mild Internet protests, sipping lattes, and hugging trees, but at least they don't sound like annoying people you hear on talk radio. Washington Post radio almost sounds like dropouts from DJ school, and is completely grating to listen to.

To be honest, the one thing that saves them is Tony Kornheiser. But how would Tony be with a new cast and crew. Already SportsTalk 980 had suffered some issues. ESPN decided to have its own radio station. The main casualty was Bram Weinstein, the "Mike and Mike" show, and the Dan Patrick show. SportsTalk 980 had to scramble to get other shows, moving the Sports Reporters to the morning, moving The John Thompson show earlier, adding a Brian Mitchell show (where he sounds like second fiddle to his own co-host).

Tony was able to bring Nigel over, but he was two new co-hosts. One of the guys sounds like one of the computer guys who show up on the Kojo Nnamdi show. His voice and sense of humor and sense of rapport just don't line up that well. He's no Andy Polley! There's also some woman who is there, and she sounds horribly grating. I thought this was disastrous, but the good news is that Tony talks so much, has so many other guests, that her few outbursts are tolerable.

Tony's show has always had two personalities: the sports side, and the non-sports side. What made it work was that he would spend a fair bit of time on the non-sports side, whether it be his kids, some anecdote about John Feinstein, or the latest in the Sopranos or American Idol, he would break up sports by talking about other stuff.

Since his move, he's cut down on his sports announcing, which is too bad, though certainly fans have appreciated his talks about American Idol. I liked his balance when he would do sports more. Oh well, such is the change for the new Tony. I still like to listen in the morning, but it would be better if he had better sidekicks.