Heidi Game

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In American football, the Heidi Game (also sometimes called the Heidi Bowl) refers to a famous 1968 American Football League (AFL) game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders, played on November 17 in Oakland, California.

With the Jets leading 32-29 with only 65 seconds left in the game, the Raiders quickly scored 14 points to win, 43-32. Meanwhile, millions of American television viewers were unable to see Oakland's comeback. The NBC television network cut off the live broadcast in favor of a pre-scheduled airing of Heidi, a new made-for-TV version of the classic children's story.

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[edit] The game

Both teams entered the game with 7-2 records, and were considered two of the best teams in the ten-team AFL. The Raiders were the defending AFL champions from 1967 and the contending Jets had superstar quarterback Joe Namath in his fourth pro season.

The game was televised by NBC Sports with announcers Curt Gowdy and Kyle Rote. It was the lead-in for the network's new TV movie of Heidi, an adaptation of the classic children's story about the Swiss girl. (The film that week replaced its normal Sunday night program at that time, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color.) Kickoff was at 4:00 pm Eastern Time (ET), allowing three hours before the scheduled 7:00 pm start time for the movie. Most games in the 1960s took less than 2 hours 45 minutes, due to a high number of running plays which kept the game clock moving.

This Jets-Raiders game was a classic shootout between the top teams in the league, punctuated by hard hits, fights, and penalties. The first half ended with Oakland leading 14-12. In the second half the teams traded scores several times and Jets safety Jim Hudson was ejected from the game in the third quarter. Late in the fourth quarter, New York broke a 29-29 tie when Jim Turner kicked a 26-yard field goal to put the Jets ahead 32-29, with just 65 seconds left in the game. Because of the fights, penalties, and high scoring, the game was running late, approaching the end of its three-hour time slot on the network. The ensuing kickoff was returned by the Raiders to their own 23-yard line, and NBC went to a commercial break just before 7:00 pm.

[edit] The incident

Because NBC was contractually obligated to the movie's sponsor, Timex, to broadcast Heidi from 7 pm to 9 pm that evening, the network had instructed Dick Cline, NBC's Broadcast Operations Supervisor, to cut to Heidi at 7:00 pm sharp, whether the football game was over or not.[1] As the game approached its exciting ending, however, NBC's executives changed their minds and decided to air the game to its conclusion and make Heidi wait. Unfortunately, so many football viewers were calling the network pleading with them to not cut from the game—or others asking if Heidi would air on-time—that the NBC executives could not get through. NBC tried to contact the mobile unit in Oakland to call Broadcasting Operations, but Broadcasting Operations countered that they needed direct orders in order to rearrange schedule programming. With the game fed on telephone lines instead of satellites, Cline could not see what happened in the final minute. In an NBC Burbank studio where the TV feed was being controlled, Cline received no late instructions otherwise, and when the network came back from commercials, Heidi started on schedule at 7:00 pm.

Cline later said that he was called directly by the president of NBC after the network ended its coverage, demanding that the game be put back on the air. However, the video link to the stadium had already been disconnected; reestablishing it would have required action by a multitude of telephone switching stations across the country. AT&T, which handled NBC's remote feeds, was unable to reach all of the necessary offices before the game ended.

While millions of stunned football fans east of Denver suddenly found themselves watching Jennifer Edwards in Heidi, the Raiders scored two touchdowns in just nine seconds and held on to win, 43-32, in what has been voted by fans as one of the 10 most memorable games in American football history. Daryle Lamonica completed a 20 yard pass to Charlie Smith. Mike D’Amato grabbed Smith's facemask on the play and the 15 yard penalty put the Raiders into Jets territory on the 43 yard line. On the next play Smith caught a pass and ran by D'Amato for a 43-yard touchdown with 42 seconds left, putting Oakland ahead 36-32. On the ensuing kickoff Earl Christy fumbled the ball at the 10 yard line, was swarmed upon, and the ball squirted backwards. The ball landed on the two yard line where Raiders special teamer Preston Ridlehuber recovered it and took it in for a touchdown with 33 seconds left in the game.

[edit] Reactions

The Jets were stunned but the fans watching NBC were furious. At 7:20 pm, a crawl across the bottom of the screen announced the ending to the game (during a dramatic point in the movie when Heidi's paralysed cousin Clara fell from her wheelchair and had to summon enough courage to try to walk). So many fans called NBC to complain about missing the fantastic ending (and to make various and sundry threats) that the switchboard ceased to function, blowing at least 25 circuits in the process. When they couldn't get through to NBC, the irate viewers started calling the police, the telephone company, and The New York Times. At 8:30 NBC made a public apology and the next morning the fiasco was recounted on the front page of The New York Times.

NBC also cut away from the first game of an afternoon doubleheader San Diego at Buffalo with the intent to showcase the entire Jets-Raiders game.

NBC bought advertisements in several major newspapers soon after the incident, proclaiming rave reviews for Heidi, along with a quote from Jets quarterback Joe Namath: "I didn't get a chance to see it, but I heard it was great."

The NBC announcers did not know they were off the air after 7:00 pm. After the game, they were packing up when the stage manager yelled at Curt Gowdy to "do those two touchdowns again." Gowdy reconstructed the call, which ran on NBC's news programs as well as Monday morning's Today show.

NBC President Julian Goodman issued a statement following the game, calling the incident "a forgivable error committed by humans who were concerned about children expecting to see Heidi at 7:00 pm." He added, "I missed the end of the game as much as anyone else." According to Cline in the book Going Long, Goodman used his direct line phone (as the switchboard was down) to tell Cline, "This is Julian Goodman. Put the football game back on now." Other accounts claim no such direct-line phone was installed until after the "Heidi Bowl".

The following evening, on the ABC Evening News, anchor Frank Reynolds was seen reading excerpts from Heidi (with the title of the book clearly visible), with cut-ins showing the two Raider touchdowns.

[edit] Aftermath

  • The reaction to the Heidi Game resulted in the AFL and NFL, and most other sports leagues, demanding that networks televise all games to their conclusion. NFL contracts with the networks now require games to be shown in a team's market area to the conclusion, regardless of the score.
  • Many fans who were angry with the network interruption of the game sent NBC numerous items of Heidi paraphernalia in various states of defilement. Some examples were Heidi dolls with knives in the back and Heidi pictures with images of death or other similar disturbing images. Other examples which were more tolerable were fans sending in copies of the book Heidi, or cartoons showing a little Swiss girl carrying a football.
  • A subsequent broadcast in 1975 on NBC - a network premiere broadcast of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - was preempted until the completion of a Washington Redskins-Oakland Raiders game.
  • Rule changes to keep the game clock running after out of bounds plays were instituted to speed the game. These rules do not apply in the final two minutes of either half period or in any overtime.
  • At NBC, the network installed a new phone in the control room wired to a separate exchange, becoming known as the Heidi Phone.
  • Oakland's win came on the midst of an eight-game winning streak to go 12-2.
  • Six weeks after the "Heidi Game", the Jets came from behind to defeat the Raiders in New York in the 1968 AFL Championship Game, 27-23. Two weeks later the Jets upset the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III.
  • In a 1997 poll taken in conjunction with the NFL's 10,000th regular season game, the "Heidi Game" was voted the most memorable regular season game in pro football history by a select group of media.[2]
  • Because CBS tends to broadcast doubleheaders, and has four hours of primetime programming on Sundays as opposed to Fox's three, it is not uncommon for CBS's primetime to run as late as 11:30 pm ET. With the beginning of the 2007-2008 season, the network launched a text message/email alert list called Eye-lert to notify viewers of the exact times the Sunday primetime lineup will run, and has been in contact with TiVo to better coordinate DVRs to record the delayed programming [1].
  • Fox averts most program pre-emptions during the football season by making the 7 pm-8 pm ET hour a buffer for late-running games, airing expendable repeats of their animated and comedy series. During the 2006 season, Fox began branding the entire hour before The Simpsons as a post-game show called The OT presented by Lowe's in TV listings.
  • In 2003, shortly before the 35th anniversary of the incident, Jennifer Edwards, the actress who played Heidi in the movie, met Joe Namath on an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York.

[edit] Recent references

  • NBC's 75th Anniversary Special in 2002 showed clips from the Heidi Game incident. Shown was footage of the game being cut to the Heidi Movie, followed by an apology by David Brinkley on the next night's Huntley-Brinkley Report, who then showed highlights of the touchdown that would've been seen live by football fans if NBC hadn't cut the game off to show the Heidi movie (in the east). The clips were later replayed on another NBC special, Most Outrageous Live TV Moments 2. However, in these instances, the pre-emption was depicted as an abrupt cut from the game to the opening titles of the movie; in actuality, the movie began after a commercial break and the NBC Peacock "living color" opening.
  • A late 1990s ESPN commercial promoted the cable network by depicting a disappointed Jets fan stunned at not seeing the game in its entirety.
  • ESPN parodied the Heidi Game during their presentation of "The Match-up of the Millennium" in which using old NFL Film clips to pit the greatest team of the NFL's History against each other. (such as 1960s Packers, 1970s Steelers, 1980s 49ers, 1990s Cowboys). During the end of the game between the 80's 49ers versus 60's Packers, The 80's 49ers with the score tied drove down the field for a chip-shot FG which would win them the game. Just as the ball is being kicked the "feed" is lost and a shot is shown with the title Heidi and a speaker announces it is the beginning of a TV movie. The shot is quickly taken off and shows the 80's 49ers distraught after they missed the chip-shot FG.
  • During Cartoon Network's former tradition of "The Big Game", during a "game" between Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, the "score" had gotten ridiculously one-sided (Coyote's "score" was in negative points), that Cartoon Network "cut" to the beginning of Heidi, to which commentator John Madden interrupted and they mentioned that it was a joke.
  • The game was included as part of a question in the show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and the contestant went on to answer the question incorrectly after asking the audience.

[edit] Similar events

This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (June 2006)
  • On June 25, 1963, in the second to last over of the 2nd Test match between the England and West Indies cricket teams at Lord's, the BBC left the match for the scheduled news at 5:50pm, even though England only needed eight runs to win and the West Indies two wickets and a draw or tie was also possible. However, Kenneth Adam, Director of Television and a cricket fan was watching and managed to order the news off the air and a return to the cricket. So the first new story, which was about President Kennedy was faded out and the last over of the match was shown, which ended in a draw with England at 228-9, six runs short of winning.
  • In 1982 the team handball world championships were played in West Germany. The final stood between USSR and Yugoslavia and went into double overtime. In Denmark, the game was broadcast on Danmarks Radio (DR), then the only television station in Denmark. During overtime, the game was cut off for a scheduled newscast. The anchor promised that the final minute of the game would be shown following the newscast. A couple of minutes into the news, the phone on the newsreader's desk rang (they did not use earpieces then). He answered it: "Yes......right now?....yes", then hung up and told viewers that they would rejoin the game. As it turned out, the chief executive of DR television had been watching the game at home and was so displeased with the cutoff that he called the studio and gave a direct order to resume the broadcast of the game.
  • Up until the mid 1980s, Hockey Night in Canada also used to switch from the end of late running games to show the start of The National. Dave Hodge once threw a pencil in the air after he had to announce CBC's decision to not show the end of an overtime game, and was subsequently fired.
  • On May 16, 2001, another NHL hockey game on the CBC was abruptly cut off on CBUT Vancouver at 7:58 pm Pacific Daylight Time during the second overtime of a playoff game involving two American teams, as the provincial polls were about to close, even though the election was a predicted landslide. The CBC had the ability to warn its viewers in BC that they would switch to election coverage at around 8 pm (through text scrolls, overtime intermission news breaks), yet failed to do so and thereby surprised viewers with the sudden cutoff.
  • In 2000, the NASCAR Busch Series Albertson's 300 from Texas Motor Speedway was delayed by rain for over 4 hours. CBS switched to a Final Four pregame show at 4 pm EST, stating that the race would resume live on TNN, which was then a sister cable network, whenever it started (the race was cut to TNN at 4 pm ET the previous year because of the NCAA Final Four Pre-Game Show). However, at 6 pm ET, a crawl on the bottom of the screen on TNN said that due to continuing delays, the race would not be broadcast (even though the race actually restarted at about the time the crawl came on the screen). The program on at the time of the crawl was, ironically, a children's cartoon movie called An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Some attribute this incident to new Viacom management which had taken over CBS Cable operations in advance of Viacom's takeover of CBS (which was official a month later), and ignored the CBS motorsports operations. In 2001, MTV Networks, the division of Viacom that ran TNN, was sued by two auto racing sanctioning bodies (American Speed Association and World of Outlaws) for breach of contracts CBS had signed; CBS had owned 25% of the American Speed Association, which they purchased after losing NASCAR rights at the end of the 2000 season, and extended their World of Outlaws contract after also losing NHRA rights. Viacom still owns the re-named Spike TV, but the CBS network's parent company was spun off into CBS Corporation in 2005.
  • In 2004, ABC cut away from the final round of the Buick Open PGA Tour golf tournament at 7 pm ET to show a rerun of America's Funniest Home Videos. Three players were involved in a sudden-death shootout when ABC signed off. Again, this was only in the Eastern and Central time zones; West Coast viewers stuck with ABC until the end.
  • An April 11, 2007 NHL first round Stanley Cup playoff Game 1, which had the Dallas Stars playing in Vancouver against the Canucks, went into quadruple overtime. The game, which started at 10:00 pm ET aired in the United States on Versus, and lasted 5 1/2 hours, but was interrupted on some cable systems in the fourth overtime period by an infomercial, preventing viewers from watching Vancouver score the winning goal two minutes before the start of a fifth overtime, and win, 5-4. It is somewhat common for some cable systems to sell their own infomercial time on networks during non-programming overnight hours. After hearing complaints from viewers, Versus stated it would review its policies to prevent this from happening again, and try to figure out what triggered the infomercial to air.[3]
  • On May 19, 2007 NHL Eastern Conference Finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs Game 5, which had the Ottawa Senators playing in Buffalo against the Buffalo Sabres, went into overtime. The game, which started at 2:00 pm ET aired in the United States on NBC. NBC pre-empted overtime coverage outside of the Buffalo and Rochester areas though in order to show pre-race coverage of the 2007 Preakness Stakes. The remainder of the game was televised on Versus. However, some cable providers do not carry Versus; thus, some viewers were unable to see the game's end which resulted in an Ottawa victory and their first ever trip to the Stanley Cup finals. The deciding goal of the hockey playoff game ended up being scored an hour before the actual Preakness race was run. However, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the first half-hour of horse racing preshow coverage earned a 3.8 rating, whereas the last half-hour of hockey, which immediately preceded it, had just a 1.5.
  • On May 26, 2007, only the first 19 laps of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Ohio 250 race were shown on Fox, due to a long rain delay that followed. When it ended nearly three hours later, the broadcast window had ended and regional telecasts of Major League Baseball replaced it. SPEED showed the entire race, with Fox graphics and other production elements, on tape delay at 11 pm ET that night. [4] The oddity of this situation was that SPEED Channel showed live continuing coverage of the race from when it resumed on lap 20 at about 5:30 pm ET. However, when it started raining again on lap 107 at about 6:45 pm ET, SPEED Channel left the race and said that the conclusion would be seen on tape-delay at 11 pm ET. This was because of a questionable NASCAR contractural ruling imposed in 2001 which states that two live NASCAR broadcasts of national series can not air at the same time. (ESPN2 was scheduled to begin live coverage of the Busch Series Carquest Auto Parts 300 from Lowe's Motor Speedway at 7:30 pm ET with NASCAR Countdown.)
  • In probably the most similar incident to the actual Heidi Bowl, an August 18, 2007 Canadian Football League game between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Edmonton Eskimos was delayed for 55 minutes with Edmonton leading 32-27 due to thunderstorms at Mosaic Stadium in Regina. The CBC subsequently switched to a film, The Good Thief, starring Nick Nolte. By the time the game resumed, senior managers had turned off their cell phones for the evening and were unreachable, and an employee in the CBC programming department subsequently took control of the situation and refused to switch the network back to the game, except in Saskatchewan. The Roughriders subsequently scored 12 points and won the game 39-32. A senior manager of CBC Sports later criticized their network's failure to show the entire game live from coast to coast, and the network eventually broadcast the game on tape delay the following evening. However, the CBC has refused to discipline (or even name) the employee responsible. [2] [3].
  • On September 30, 2007, ESPN coverage of the LifeLock 400 from Kansas Speedway was switched from ABC to ESPN2 between the second rain delay at 6 PM in order for local ABC affiliates in the Eastern and Central time zones to air local news, ABC World News Tonight, and then to show ABC's primetime schedule. This was contrary to a recent NASCAR practice which is for a race that runs long because of rain delay to finish on the broadcast network. The practice began in 2002 when the UAW-GM Quality 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway on NBC was delayed by rain; NBC stayed with the broadcast, instead of moving it to TNT, allowing Jamie McMurray's upset win to be broadcast on network television in primetime. The practice continued was kept by both Fox and NBC afterwards, and pushed other races (notably the Daytona 500) into primetime intentionally. In April 2005, the Aaron's 312 Busch Series race at Talladega Superspeedway had a three hour rain delay, starting shortly after 4:35 PM CT. The 500-kilometer, 117-lap race ran into prime-time, nearing the end of available light, and into green-white-checker finish, where the race ended after 120 laps. Fox continued with the broadcast, marking the first time NASCAR's #2 series had a network prime-time broadcast. Two months later, NBC had a 2 1/2-hour rain delay during the Pepsi 400 at Daytona, airing the start as the race started at 11 PM, even though it ended after 2 AM ET the morning.
  • Just 13 days after the LifeLock 400 (October 13), KTKA in Topeka, Kansas left ESPN on ABC's coverage of the NASCAR Bank of America 500 at 10 p.m. Central time (11 p.m. ET) to carry the local newscast and did not return for the final six laps once the race resumed after a red-flag delay that had started at the time of the newscast.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ http://www.nfl.com/news/mostmemorable10.html
  2. ^ http://www.raiders.com/history/gm2.jsp
  3. ^ http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/hockey/nhl/specials/playoffs/2007/04/12/bc.hkn.overtimeoutage.ap/
  4. ^ http://www.speedcouch.com/smf/index.php?topic=3012.msg16753#msg16753

[edit] References

  • Gruver, Ed. "The American Football League A Year-by-Year History 1960-1969. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0399-3. P.123, 203-205

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://india.smashits.com/wikipedia/Heidi_Game"
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