ABC Network - NFL Monday Night Football - Dallas Cowboys vs. Detroit Lions (Excerpt, 10/6/1975) 🏈
Here's a nearly hour-long excerpt of NFL Monday Night Football from within its heyday on the ABC Network, here aired over WXYZ Channel 7 in Detroit, MI. While Don Meredith was not part of the announcing team at this juncture (he was pursuing an acting career at the time), Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford were joined here by Alex Karras in the booth (in-between the end of his playing career and the start-up of the sitcom Webster).
The game highlighted this evening is the matchup between the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys at the Pontiac Silverdome.
(NOTE: The scoreboard at the Silverdome was powered by American Sign & Indicator Corp.)
We start this clip with 7:43 left in the 2nd quarter; station ID voiceover at 2:06, score at that point shown at 2:08, and a few seconds of the announcing trio in the booth starting at 3:31; this segment ends after a 2-minute warning develops
Commercials for:
FSLIC - Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corp. - "IRSA" (had to be edited - full version posted separately here: • FSLIC - Federal Saving... )
Zenith Chromacolor II color TV
Play continues in 2nd quarter, but not for long
Commercials for:
JCPenney Battery (posted separately here: • JC Penney - "The JCPen... )
Sheraton Hotels & Motor Inns
Brief shot of Cowboys cheerleaders assembling as 1:56 is left in 2nd quarter; a plug for Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell is snuck in (3-1/2 hours before another "Saturday Night" show would debut on NBC); segment ends with 1:01 left
Commercials for:
Norelco Coffee Maker (with Danny Thomas)
1976 Capri II
Play resumes with mention made and shots of Tom Landry in his iconic hat on the sidelines (and plug for NCAA Football game of Michigan vs. Michigan State), first half finally ends and we get to see the groovy Dolphin Productions-made video bumper that was produced with Scanimate
Commercials for:
Skoal smokeless tobacco
AMF Voit rubber football
ABC promos for Baretta and Starsky & Hutch
Promo for Action News at 11pm with John Kelly - "Alex Karras gives us a candid look at sex in sports"
Commercial: Manufacturers Bank - "I'm glad That's my bank"
"7 in sections" station ID / promo for "Revenge" on tomorrow's 4:30 Movie
Halftime show with Apache Belles from Tyler, TX, followed by prior day's football highlights from Howard
Commercials for:
Owens-Corning Fiberglas
Life Savers candy
Polaroid SX-70 cameras (voiceover by Cliff Robertson?)
Promo for 1976 Olympic Winter Games and special emblem (voiceover by Jim McKay)
More of prior day's highlights, followed by sponsor billboard (voiceover by Frank Gifford) for Gillette Trac II and Goodyear Tires
Another MNF animated bumper
ABC promo for Happy Days
Commercials for:
Bank of the Commonwealth - "BC...ing you under the Big Umbrella"
Timken Tapered Roller Bearings - "Wherever Wheels and Shafts Turn" (showing various old-time banks) (this is a thing? And there's a commercial for it?) (voiceover by Doug Jeffers)
"Zooming 7" station ID / promo for AM Detroit with Dennis Wholey (and aerial photo of Tiger Stadium in background)
3rd quarter starts, and segment ends with a player injury
Commercials for:
Gillette Trac II shaving cream
Right Guard double protection anti-perspirant - "Protects You. Protects your clothes" (featuring Arte Johnson as his Tyrone character from "Laugh-In")
Continuation of 3rd quarter play; segment ends with touchdowns and a man in a lion suit doing physical acrobatics
Commercial: Mercury Bobcat (sung to tune of "Tiger Rag") (voiceover by Michael Bell) (recording ends just as ad is about to)
This aired on local Detroit TV on Monday, October 6th 1975 within the 9:00pm to 12 Midnight (Eastern) timeframe.
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!
I watched this game when I was 11 years old in the 6th grade, I didn't have to go to school the next day, Big win for Dallas 36-10.
Dandy Don had left to do broadcasts for NBC. He was on their #1 announcing team with Curt Gowdy from 1974-1976. He returned to MNF in 1977 and remained through the 1984 season.
Around that time, Dandy Don Meredith not only was trying to be an actor, but he was with Curt Gowdy on NBC doing NFL games.
Meredith did star in a 1979 Made-for-TV movie, and he was also a guest on Pyramid. Gifford was a Pyramid guest, too. True story.
@@ken_danerdiest1 wondered which one was better Pyramid player. Frank or Dandy Don? Lol
He got his big acting break on Police Story. He appeared in absentia in North Dallas Forty by way of Mac Davis.
Bless you for showing us this! Hopefully, one day it will be available in its complete form...Any game with the Cowboys "Dirtry Dozen" rookies in that Super Bowl year is special.....1970's MNF games are historic treasures!
Really a beautiful tape. Amazing how good a tape this looks compared to anything 20+ years later.
That’s Umatic for you. Way better picture than EP VHS on cheap late-80s tape stock.
@@FuzzyMemoriesTV - And even than Betamax?
Not to mention how much better the actual game on the field and the uniforms were back then. Thank you for this!
Notice how short the commercials were back then.
Brand new Pontiac Silverdome
Pontiac Metropolitan Stadium as described by Cosell. It was also called that also.
Webster’s dad could have made a career in the broadcast booth.
Thanks for posting this original MNF broadcast, with all the commercials included. Brings back a lot of memories. In case anyone is curious, after Greg Landry's TD pass giving the Lions a 10-9 lead early in the 3rd-quarter. The Cowboys would go on to score 28-unanswered points for a 36-10 victory. Making a lot of Cowboy and Chicago fans very happy that Monday night.
Hope the no fun league doesn’t block this
Wonderful. Hopefully, the rest of it is out there somewhere, waiting to be seen.
This is Howard Cosell....
I like how the one guy mentions “Mongo” when referring to Alex Karras, who played that character on Blazing Saddles.
"Mongo only pawn in game of life."
@@richardgadberry8398 "Mongo likes candy." BOOM! 💣😄
🐂🤛🤠
I hope more Detroit stuff from the 70's & 80's pops up. It's good to have a centralized archival source to some extent.
Especially old TIGER STADIUM ( Detroit ) games, win or lose. But mostly the winning games.... 😊
@@DavidSanchez-bq9jvthe corner of trumbul
As you can tell, since this clip is from Channel 7 WXYZ, the then ABC owned station in Detroit, that Lions sold out their game in the Pontiac Silverdome that night. Had this game not been a sell-out, under the old NFL blackout rules, per the Detroit Free Press, WXYZ in Detroit would have aired the 1969 film "The Undefeated", starring Rock Hudson and John Wayne in the game's place. As for the game, as the clip ended with Detroit leading 10-9, this would be the last happy moment for Lions fans as the Cowboys score 27 unanswered points, as the Dallas would beat Detroit 36-10.
Under other circumstances, I would've said 'spoiler,' but . . . ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Saturday night live with Howard Cosell promo would actually air about 3 1/2 hours before NBC premiered their version of Saturday Night Live which was just NBC Saturday night with George Carlin, Billy Preston, Janis Ian and the Not ready for prime time players.
It said the Cosell show in question aired 3-1/2 hours before the premiere of NBC's show, in the description . . .
October 6...my birthday! Thank you for sharing this!
Mine too!
excellent scanimate graphics by the NFL in this
Dolphin did the Scanimate graphics for the NFL, but other than that . . .
the very first time i caught a glimpse of the dallas cowboys. 9 years old at the time. i only saw a couple of plays because i had to quickly get back to my six-million dollar man show. it wasn't until two years later that i evolved into a full-blown cowboys superfan.
This turned out to be not a good night for the Lions, but man these were their best uniforms. They should have brought these back.
The Lions lost 36-10.
More football and less commercials.....didn't think I would be watching this in 2024 lol......can't believe I'm still alive in 2024!
There was just a commercial break . They played 2 commercials . Fabulous ! These days they play 2 commercials in between each play !
Awesome share! Any more games like this? I love these old games. I remember watching this is a kid, my team was the Cowboys, still is!
This video really puts you in the year 1975. I am excited for the Michigan/Michigan State college football game on Saturday! It is really too bad it is May!
42:02 - Doug Jeffers voices the Timken commercial 56:24 - Michael Bell voices the Mercury commercial I’m not certain, but I think that may be Cliff Robertson voicing the Polaroid commercial.
It was certainly before James Garner became their spokesperson, for sure.
The modern day Lions would have driven Howard and Gif nuts, going for it on fourth down and such 😂
I think it's a League , trend !!
This was during the time when the Silverdome roof was not fully inflated.
I Sent in my donation I hope others will contribute.
The commercials are hilarious!
Most of the adults in this crowd saw JAWS that summer.
I'd forgotten how obnoxious Howard Cosell could be.
Fuzzy, any chance you could post more of your flight 191 videos to KZhead?
Do you have the complete game?
Maybe the rest is on other Umatic tapes from the same batch that we haven't transferred yet. I'll have to look.
@@FuzzyMemoriesTV That would be great!
@@FuzzyMemoriesTV Fantastic news IF you do indeed have some more broadcast footage ! I will donate again should you restore and upload. Same for any more 70's-83 Sox games
@@FuzzyMemoriesTV Looking at what happened in the rest of this game, it might be really interesting to see. XD
12:02 the reason NBC first called their show NBC's Saturday Night
Precisement. Ironically, years later Cosell would host an edition of the NBC SNL.
48:05 would NEVER get by with saying that these days
No doubt.
That Mercury Bobcat looks like a neutered Dodge Aspen 🙀
Thanks to the energy crisis of the '70's, a lot of things looked, if not outright were, neutered in that decade . . .
Back when they played real football.
Wow JCPenney had a auto center?
No 4th Quarter .... you killing me smalls
If you were a Detroit fan, this was a good place to stop watching. You don’t wanna know how it ended. 😄
@@FuzzyMemoriesTV 🤣
@@FuzzyMemoriesTV - My sentiments, exactly.
Better than not having the other three quarters either. 🙂
Everything has pretty much been the same since the 70s.
It's a completely different world compared to 50 years ago.
What are you talking about?
8:38. Is that James Karen?
Hardly. I, for one, couldn't tell whether or not it was Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (whose "The FBI" ended the year before).
The Lions offense was completely garbage and you wonder why this franchise was terrible all those years Rick Forzano was a terrible coach. The team stunk how the fans went to that game. I don’t know the offense was run run pass run run pass. It was terrible they were worse then a college team