Monday Night Tony

Tony Kornheiser picked up what had to be a dream gig. Cohost of Monday Night Football. OK, so it's not the original MNF. That disappeared when ABC, which had hosted MNF since its inception, decided Sunday night was better, and swapped it with ESPN, which had been doing Sunday Night Football (To be fair, ABC owns ESPN).

Tony even survived the purge. Joe Theismann (who I can't stand as an announcer) was his co-host and had been doing football for ESPN for quite a while. But most people observed that Theismann and Kornheiser didn't get along. Tony would say, graciously, on his show that the two got along just fine. But Kornheiser felt constrained. In order to be nice to his buddy, he held back on critical words.

They eventually replaced Theismann with Ron Jaworski. Former Philadelphia Eagles QB, Jaworski (called "Jaws") is gregarious, gets along well with Tony, and studies the game fastidiously. He used to cohost a show where they went over game tape and break stuff down like coaches do. The kind of stuff that fanboys love. Jaws is not only a geek ( of a sports variety), he positively effervesces. And Tony is suitably deferential when it comes to Jaws's expertise. And Jaws is so active and non-egotistical, that Tony feels relaxed enough to be himself.

But here's the rub.

Tony's a guy made for radio. Every time Tony is on camera, he looks constipated. He's uncomfortable. OK, he's not exactly like Mary Carillo who automatically smiles when she's listening, almost cloyingly sweet (almost, but not quite).

Which is too bad because Tony can be brilliant on radio.

But anytime Tony has to sit down and wait for other people to speak, he looks like deer in headlight. Good thing this doesn't happen too much.

Get Smart

We always knew it.

Tony Kornheiser is one smart guy. The reason he runs the best sports radio on the air is that it isn't purely about sports. Mr. Tony is at least as passionate about music as he is about sports. He invites people to talk about movies, while other people just blah-blah-blah about Terrell Owens or Barry Bonds or any number of bad boys of sports. They put up rhetorical questions, invite callers to phone in questions, where they invariably beat down on them, wondering why they bother with calls.

Tony dispenses with all that. He doesn't take calls. Listeners may want to hear themselves on the air, but they aren't paid to come up with bon mots and witticisms in print. They aren't paid to have great insight. It's not that they can't, it's that so few of them really have something smart to say.

Today, Tony was talking to the sardonic Washington Post movie reviewer, Stephen Hunter, discussing the latest Kevin Costner movie (I hadn't heard of it) called Mr. Brooks where he plays an urbane serial killer (sounds familiar, Mr. Hopkins). In it (must like the film Copycat) there's a younger character that wants to imitate and learn from the master.

Hunter points out that it's about being cool and who's cool enough to do these grisly deeds, implying Costner, the upper class guy is, and Dane Cook, the wannabe somewhat-lower class guy, lacks this.

Then, Tony makes a really smart comment that shows (unlike Arsenio) that he's listening. He says "So he must kill this other guy". If the other guy is annoying, and the lead guy is a killer, it seems to follow that he should get his just desserts, no?

And even if it doesn't happen, that it makes sense for it to plausibly happen is insightful, far beyond what the average person would say, as they'd be totally uninterested in the movie.

And that's why I listen to Mr. Tony.