Snafus: Pregame Show With No Game, Heidi Revisited for KMPC

NBC-TV offered Los Angeles viewers a nice pregame show Sunday. All that was missing was the game.

It really didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, but NBC decided Los Angeles deserved a pregame show even though the Raiders’ playoff game against New England was blacked out.

John Rohrbeck, Channel 4’s vice president and general manager, said Sunday that the network asked his station on Friday to run the pregame show and he agreed to do it.

So with appetites whet for football, viewers got an Elvis movie. At least Bob Costas provided periodic updates on the game. Those plus the always entertaining Bill King on radio helped ease the pain.

King, in his 14th season as the radio voice of the Raiders, was at his best when Raider quarterback Marc Wilson was at his worst, wasting two timeouts early in the second half. King, his voice level rising sharply, said he’d never seen anything like it.

Listening to King was one way to keep abreast of the game. Another was to find a sports bar with a satellite dish. Calls to several indicated packed houses were the norm.

Imagine the audience King and sidekick Rich Marotta had. It may have set some kind of record.

Speaking of radio, what NBC-TV did Sunday, giving viewers a pregame show without a game, is nothing compared to what radio station KMPC did on Saturday.

Remember the Heidi game between the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders in 1968? With 50 seconds left and the Jets leading, 32-29, NBC cut away to the movie “Heidi.” The Raiders scored two quick touchdowns and won, 43-29.

KMPC, taking a page from that script, cut away from Saturday’s Miami-Cleveland game with about one minute left. Miami had just scored to take a 24-21 lead and Cleveland was in its hurry-up offense.

The Browns didn’t score, but if they had, KMPC listeners wouldn’t have known about it.

The worst part was KMPC cut away at 12:20, about 40 minutes prior to the Ram-Dallas kickoff, for the Ram pregame show. But even before the pregame show came two auto commercials. Later came an interview with the Anaheim Stadium groundskeeper. Heavy stuff.