Kick Out the Sports!
by Bob Cook

Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.

Three of the scariest words on TV — other than "Starring Jim Belushi" — are "ESPN Original Entertainment." In the past few years, the self-proclaimed worldwide leader in sports has tried to emphasize the E in ESPN by producing movies, TV dramas, reality series and game shows. For the most part, instead of standing for "Entertainment," the E has stood for "Excrement."

"Playmakers," "Tilt," "Hustle," "3," "Beg, Borrow and Deal," "2-Minute Drill," Season on the Brink — when it comes to non-sports-event programming, ESPN is turning out to be the Los Angeles Clippers of television. On the debase-yourself-to-get- your-sports-fantasy show "I'd Do Anything," ESPN showed one of the contestants puking; I believe it after she was required to watch an episode of "Stump the Schwab."

While it's easy to join the rest of the TV critic world in wondering why ESPN bothers, it's only fair to point out two current ESPN Original Entertainment shows that, if not wholly original, are actually entertaining.

The first, "Dream Job," has actually been on for a while now, but in its latest iteration carries a twist proving that an "American Idol"-style competition featuring has-beens is far more fascinating than one featuring never-weres.

Where "Dream Job" once had young Dan Patrick wanna-bes trying to catchphrase their way to a SportsCenter gig, the show now has ex-NBA players Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins, Dee "The Dunk Contest Winner, not the Illinois Guy" Brown, Gerald "Not the Human Highlight Film" Wilkins, Dennis "No Nickname" Scott, J.R. "Also No Nickname" Reid and Matt "The White Guy" Bullard trying to analyze their way into an announcer's chair.

The show is not fascinating because you can see great analysts on the rise. None of these guys can analyze his way out of a paper bag. All of those guys stinking up your pristine HDTV as lousy analysts? Judging by how the "Dream Job" contestants are doing, they are the geniuses of their field.

Rather, what's fascinating is to watch these very large men break out in very large beads of cold sweat when, after doing sportscaster-type things, like announcing a game and analyzing highlights, they sit before a panel of judges who dissect them like freshman biology frogs, except that it's less painful for the frogs.

Now, none of these guys were Hall of Famers as players, so it's not as if they've never heard criticism. But there's something utterly fascinating about watching a guy who once got star treatment having to stand there and take it when the likes of "Road Rules" inaugural cast member Kit Hoover demands to know how he failed to point out the Lakers had switched to a zone defense.

It's particularly watch-through-your-hands painful to watch it happen to Dawkins. This was a guy who twice — twice! — during games tore down backboards through the force of his dunks. He was a bizarre, engaging man-child as a player, an almost Shaq-sized behemoth who claimed his lineage traced to the planet Lovetron, where his girlfriend Juicy Lucy still took up residence. He gave every dunk a George Clinton-esque nickname like "Turbo Sexophonic." The Nov. 13, 1979, backboard-collapser, his first, was "If You Ain't Groovin'-Best Get Movin'-Chocolate Thunder Flyin'-Robinzine Cryin'-Teeth Shakin'-Glass Breakin'-Rump Roastin'-Bun Toastin'-Glass Still Flyin'-Wham-Bam-I Am Jam."

Dawkins could freestyle better than Rakim. And yet on "Dream Job," he's fumbling his way through highlights and stating banalities. What the hell happened to Dawkins? Well, like the man says, if you ain't groovin', best get movin' — Dawkins was sent back to Lovetron, the second one cut (after Wilkins).

On most of your job-interview reality shows, the losers get sent back to the obscurity from which they came. On "Dream Job," the losers are being sent beyond the obscurity to the abyss where forgotten ex-jocks go. It makes you think the next "American Idol" should focus on auditioning for a new judge, and inviting the likes of Corey Hart, Rick Astley and Taylor Dayne to participate.

Of course, the ex-jocks on "Dream Job" could always be remembered on another ESPN Original Entertainment show called "Cheap Seats." It airs on ESPN Classic, a network that mostly shows events televised in the days before you could put them on your TiVo.

"Cheap Seats" is a ripoff of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and "Talk Soup," combining smart-aleck commentary over and around old, bad sports footage with sketches performed by the hosts, twins Randy and Jason Sklar. But, hey, at least they're ripping off something good, right? "Cheap Seats" has a sort of oddball, ramshackle, so-dumb-you-can't- help-but-laugh charm that comes, in large part, from being on at times like Sunday night at 11, when your TV resistance is weakest.

Like its spiritual predecessors, "Cheap Seats" will find some inherently ridiculous footage, like a spelling bee or a 1972 ABC Wide World of Sports episode featuring Acapulco cliff diving and iceboat racing, and through the magic of snark make it even more ridiculous. It's not enough to make jokes about the divers and Keith Jackson's very '70s shirt. The Sklars also must do a bit called "Dueling Carsons" in which they also make jokes about the divers and Keith Jackson's '70s shirt in the character of Johnny Carson.

It's funnier than I'm making it sound. After all, I can't replicate the feeling of helplessness one has while watching TV at the time when you're most likely to watch and buy stuff from informercials. Perhaps that's what ESPN needs to bank on for the success of its other, crappier Original Entertainment shows: our hopeless and utter surrender.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.