August 10, 2006

Goodbye Mr. Agony of defeat!

ABC's Wide World of Sports is about to be no more:

"ESPN will become the overarching brand for all sports programming carried on the ABC Television Network beginning Saturday, Sept. 2 -- the debut of ABC's college football season. "We're using the word evolutionary," said George Bodenheimer, President, ESPN, Inc. and ABC Sports and Co-Chairman, Disney Media Networks. "We're trying to move the ball forward in sports television and we think this is another step in that direction." "
They quit showing the iconic opening featuring the signature line "The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat" years ago, but it's still sad to think that we'll never see Vinko Bogataj crash again.

Posted by caltechgirl at August 10, 2006 03:24 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Yeah, "ESPN will become the overarching brand for all sports"......
Right.
Flip on ESPN right now and there's a darned good chance you'll see that exciting sport, POKER. Duh!

Posted by: Pee Wee at August 11, 2006 06:19 AM

I think we will see that clip again. It is part of the sports fabric, particularly the non-major sports fabric.

Posted by: Rob at August 11, 2006 12:45 PM

I'm actually old enough to remember that ESPN stands for "Entertainment and Sports Programming Network." Poker is at least entertaining. Then again, so is hockey, and it's an actual sport.

The thing that annoys me most about ESPN since they went cultural phenom on us is that they tend to be too full of themselves rather than of sports and entertainment.

And they can't ever take Wide World of Sports away from us. We used to pretend to BE Vinko! "Hey, Ma - look!" [dives down stairs] "The Agony of Defeat!"

Posted by: Nightfly at August 11, 2006 01:02 PM

ESPN 8: The Ocho! If it's almost a sport, we cover it! ;-)

Posted by: Dave J at August 14, 2006 07:07 PM