It was as grand an experiment as there has ever been in sports television. In 2000, ABC Sports took an iconic television staple and turned it on its ear. The current HBO and HBO Max film Miller Night Football chronicles the tumultuous move that put comedian Dennis Miller in the Monday Night Football (MNF) booth alongside Al Michaels and Dan Fouts.
To understand the gravitas of this decision, one must put the times in perspective. In 2000, there was no Thursday Night Football or Sunday Night Football. MNF was the lone prime-time source for the NFL. Adding Miller to the booth was nothing short of shocking.
Miller’s football experience consisted of being a longtime Steelers fan and a former ESPY Awards host. That was the resume. At the time, Monday Night Football was in a ratings nosedive. ABC Sports chief Howard Katz and newly hired MNF producer Don Ohlmeyer were looking to recapture the glory days when Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford and Don Meredith manned the MNF booth.
After considering the likes of Tony Kornheiser, Billy Crystal and Rush Limbaugh, Miller was deemed the ideal remedy for the ailing telecast. Before a game had even been played, Katz and Ohlmeyer had already succeeded in restoring interest in MNF. Media critics and commentators were all over the story.
Changing The Game
Miller Night Football, directed by Jeff Cameron and produced in partnership with NFL Films, brilliantly offers a vivid and candid look at the Miller phenomenon. The production features interviews with Michaels, Fouts, Katz and Miller himself. It also includes discussions with Miller’s SNL castmate Dana Carvey and MNF sideline reporter at the time Melissa Stark.
The former Saturday Night Live Weekend Update anchor made his debut on July 31, 2000. It was the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which pitted the 49ers against the Patriots. Miller was admittedly nervous but wasted no time putting his mark on the show. When discussion turned to Patriots running back J.R. Redmond’s minor groin surgery, Miller quipped, “I’m not sure there is such a thing as minor groin surgery. Anybody has a sharp instrument around my genitalia, I’m thinking it’s major.”
Miller said the joke was his way of feeling out the audience and seeing how far he could take his brand of humor.
Ohlmeyer, who passed away in 2017, convinced Katz to go with Miller because, as Michaels said in the film, “When you have an element of danger, it’s exciting.” Indeed, Miller took television danger to a whole new level. Instead of singing Willie Nelson’s “The Party’s Over,” à la Meredith, Miller ended a one-sided game by saying it was time to “blow dry Ted Koppel’s hair,” referring to the then-host of Nightline, which aired after MNF.
He said Colts head coach Jim Mora “stole Burt Bacharach’s hair.” Also, Dolphins linebacker Zach Thomas “throws his body around like a Chinese acrobat with an inner ear problem.” Let’s also not forget Raiders head coach Jon Gruden “looks like Sting with a toothache.” In a funny moment in the film, Miller revealed that after one of his trademark arcane references, Michaels hit his mute button and asked, “What the f**k are you talking about?”
Short Lived Entertainment
Much of this fun ended after the 2000 season, and it was largely Miller’s own fault. Instead of focusing on how to best bring his humor to the game, he tried to become more football literate. He even spent time at Chargers training camp with then-head coach Norv Turner. In addition, Ohlmeyer left MNF, and Fred Gaudelli was hired to replace him.
Gaudelli wanted to move Miller to a halftime role, essentially doing a football version of Weekend Update that looked back on Sunday’s games. Miller ended up staying in the booth, but his attempts to talk X’s and O’s did not fly. I interviewed Gaudelli a few years later, and he told me:
“The great thing about Howard Cosell is that he never had the need to be in the inner circle of sports. The way a Dennis Miller works is to stay out of the circle and take jabs at the game,” said Gaudelli. “The problem is that if you are making a joke about an area where your two booth partners have insight, you can’t get away with the jokes, so you have to come into the inner circle. Once you are in the inner circle, you lose that unique perspective that got you hired in the first place.”
Miller Night Football details MNF’s continued ratings decline in 2001. That season would end up being Miller’s last. When John Madden expressed an interest in leaving NFL on FOX and joining MNF, the die was cast. Both Miller and Fouts were, as Miller put it, “whacked.”
For the 2002 season, Madden would join Michaels in a two-man booth, while Gaudelli remained as MNF producer.
In the end, Dennis Miller did not become a great football broadcaster. What he did do was briefly bring back the luster of Monday Night Football in all its brilliant glory. MNF has never been just about football. At its best, it has always been just as much about entertainment or, as a philosophical Miller said at the end of the film, “It’s showbiz, folks.”
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