Joe Piscopo, Sportscasting Pioneer
Here's a sign to show how serious I am about this "SNL Sportsplex" project -- I'm checking out "SNL" books from the public library for research. Case in point: "Saturday Night Live: The First Twenty Years" by Michael Cader. (Act now on Amazon: "86 used & new copies from 26 cents!)
So I'm flipping through the book, which is done scrapbook-style. Lots of pictures, lots of notes and asides, acres of sketch transcripts. Well, on Page 193, I saw a picture from yesteryear that I instantly knew deserved mucho attention in this project:
It's Joe Piscopo as the "Weekend Update" sports anchorperson.
The amazing things about that character's heydey in the early '80s are:
1. It was very funny and had great energy. He's an over-enthusiastic guy who blurted out sentences that were rarely. More. Than. One. Word. Long!
2. He was instantly recognizable back in the day as, Boy, yeah, there sure are a bunch of sports announcers out there who act exactly like this, eh? But ...
3. The character was ahead of its time in that today 99.9 percent of sportscasters act as though they're constantly auditioning to be the next big thing on SportsCenter. That Piscopo's character hasn't dated one iota -- and is arguably more relevant now than 25 years ago -- is probably downright creepy.
And it appears that Piscopo still performs the character to this day. Go to the audio-visual page on JoePiscopo.com, and look for the Quicktime thumbnail of him in a New Jersey Devils jersey. It's from a night when he was on "The Best Damn Sports Show Period," and he brags about how he does the character at Continental Arena as a way to warm up the crowd before New Jersey Nets playoff games. (Clever how he works in "Live! From New Jersey!" as part of the act.)
There's also a Quicktime thumbnail link to where Piscopo genuinely reports on a modern-day surfing festival in California. Is this "infotainment-imitating art-imitating life"?
Hulu hasn't posted any Piscopo Sports Guy clips as yet. I hope the first one will be this time-capsule report that starts with 20-year-old footage of Sports Guy interviewing Cassuis Clay, giving way to '80s Sports Guy interviewing '80s-era Ali. The sobering fact is that they nailed Ali's mental state years before his Parkinson's fate became known.
On YouTube I found this bit from a 1984 HBO special, featuring Eddie Murphy as Carl Lewis. Faster than airplanes and old guys in wheelchairs. If he's not careful, his feet will burst into flames. Hilarious.
And lastly, to further cement Piscopo's reputation as one of the all-time great "SNL" jocks, here are two clips from him in Miller Light commercials from the '80s.
SNL Sportsplex entry No. 22
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