It's the 1988 Battle of the Network Stars!
Back in the days before Twitter and Us Weekly were invented, celebrities were much less knowable than they are now. We watched them on television and could only wonder what their off-screen and inner lives were like. So, it was a big deal when television stars would go toe-to-toe on 'Battle of the Network Stars.' We could watch them compete in various track-and-field events and learn that celebrities enjoyed playing and joking around. They're just like us!
We're on the campus of Pepperdine University. (How easy would it be to flunk out of Pepperdine? I mean, you're in freaking Malibu. How could you be expected to concentrate on school?) Opening montage of tomfoolery and occasional slow-motion shots of attractive women. Best of all, it's narrated by Howard Cosell!
Cosell gives a slightly over-the-top opening monologue, welcomes co-host Shari Belafonte-Harper, then introduces the teams.
CBS
Captain: Lorenzo Lamas, Falcon Crest
Jack Scalia, Dallas
Nicollette Sheridan, Knots Landing
William Sanderson, Newhart
Daphne Maxwell-Reid, Frank's Place
Kristian Alfonso, Falcon Crest
Steve Kanaly, Dallas
Charlene Tilton, Dallas
ABC
Captain: Pittsburgh's own John Davidson
Rob Stone, Mr. Belvedere
Olivia D'Abo, The Wonder Years
Brian Robbins, Head of the Class
Allyce Beasley!!!, Moonlighting
Rebecca Arthur, Perfect Strangers
Brian Wimmer, China Beach
Joann Willette, Just the Ten of Us
NBC
Captain: Greg Evigan, My Two Dads
Malcolm-Jamal Warner, The Cosby Show
Tina Yothers, Family Ties
Clifton Davis, Amen
Deirdre Hall, Take My Daughters, Please
Blair Underwood, LA Law
Teri Copley, In the Line of Duty: The FBI Murders
Dawnn Lewis, A Different World
Fame is fleeting, folks.
Deirdre Hall and Teri Copley appeared on NBC movies, not dramas or sit-coms. They are either ringers, or nobody else from NBC was available. Either way, this seems kind of sketchy. If I'm ABC or CBS, I'm filing an appeal.
Cosell's work here is great. He tries to say a thing or two about every competitor, but sometimes he just doesn't have much to go on. 'Rebecca Arthur is here representing Perfect Strangers. A good competitor.' And then, when he gets to Blair Underwood: 'Handsome fellow!'
Order of events:
Kayak relay
Swimming relay
Baseball dunk
Obstacle course
Running relay
Tandem bike race
Tug-of-war
The baseball dunk is a dunk tank. Pretty much an excuse to show wet, attractive women. Jan Smithers of 'WKRP' was subjected to this in 1979. It's on YouTube. It's worth looking up.
After Belafonte-Harper announces the prize money, she says, 'Come to think of it, maybe I'll compete, too.' To which Cosell replies, 'Might have done better than you're doing as my co-host.' Holy fucking shit. The tone of this whole thing is light and airy, but that just seems unnecessarily nasty.
Time for the first event, the kayak relay, but not before showing a replay of Gabe Kaplan's 'hopeless display of ineptitude' in 1981. I think they replayed this clip every year. Belafonte-Harper, who once competed in this event, talks strategy and proves her usefulness. Take that, Howard!
Commissioner John Matuszak then gives a kayaking display. So, a former Oakland Raider is the Commissioner of this thing. Also, 'BATTLE OF THE NETWORK STARS' HAS A COMMISSIONER.
Teams talk strategy. Lorenzo Lamas seems cool and level-headed. He makes a great Captain. I would run thru a wall for that man.
Okay, after 14 minutes of throat-clearing, we're finally ready to compete. Joann Willette has a ponytail and looks kind of like Bayley of NXT, so I'm a fan. Cosell takes some good-natured shots at John Davidson. Dawnn Lewis has trouble paddling, and Cosell makes a regrettable blacks-can't-swim joke. Ugh. ABC wins easily.
Controversy! It's time for the swimming relay, but ABC is having trouble fielding a team. The rules require that three men and two women compete, but only one of the ABC women knows how to swim. Captain Davidson asks Commissioner Tooz if they can race four men and one woman if one of the men wears a dress. Tooz appoints Ted Wells to investigate, then decides against ABC. He then suspends Davidson for four dunk-tank games.
But! The witty and charming Allyce Beasley volunteers to be in the race. Okay. You might remember her as Agnes DiPesto on 'Moonlighting.' You know, not Cybil Shepherd or Bruce Willis or the guy who played Booger from 'Revenge of the Nerds,' but the other one. I had such a crush on her when I was a kid. I've always been attracted to women with unusual voices. Carol Kane was another one. And Jennifer Tilly. Around this time, I was madly in love with a girl named Rachael, the sister of one of my best friends. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that 85% of my crush was voice-related.
I remember seeing Beasley on 'Letterman.' She said that her given name was Allyce Tannenberg, but she thought that that name was too pretty and perfect for a comedic actress, so she uglied it up. Not only that, but she named herself after Beasley Fucking Reece, the football player who would go on to become one of the greatest broadcasters of his generation.
(Yes, this entire exercise has just been an excuse to write about Allyce Beasley.)
Anyway, let's swim. CBS jumps out to a big lead, which grows even bigger when Beasley falls into the water and kind of doggy-paddles about for a couple of minutes. It's adorable. CBS breaks the all-time record, and Cosell really sells the moment. And then he narrates a long segment on Beasley. My inner 14-year-old swoons.
Dunk-tank time! Slow-motion footage of 'historical dunks' set to 'Rescue Me.' Mr. T could have drowned under all of that gold.
Some people get wet, some don't, Cosell makes leering comments at the women. Lorenzo Lamas is subjected to the tank twice, but Dawnn Lewis and Olivia D'Abo fail to dunk him. No big loss, tho, because Lamas refused to take off his sweatshirt, nullifying the point of this entire segment.
More controversy. Brian Robbins hits the target on his first throw, but the chair doesn't fall into the water. (He did dunk Teri Copley on his next throw.) Commissioner Tooz awards ABC an extra point for hitting the target. Robbins then compares himself to another Brooklynite: Sandy Koufax. Might be a bit of a stretch, but he was the only competitor who looked like he had thrown a baseball before.
Time for the obstacle course. Commissioner Tooz does a run-thru to show us how it's done: crawl under a trampoline, step thru tires, swing thru monkey bars, rope-swing over pit, climb wall, run. I've always wanted to try something like this. Looks really fun.
Cosell narrates a replay of Scott Baio's record-setting 1981 run. Baio is interviewed, talks about how much he misses competing. He then hugs an obviously bra-less Nicollette Sheridan as the camera lingers on her.
Belafonte-Harper: 'Well, this is the most nerve-wracking of all of (the events). I remember being very nervous, and I never even did it.' Cosell: 'Ha ha. Never had the guts, that's the plain truth.' What the hell, Cosell?
Some of the women mess up portions of the course and are penalized, Alfonso falls and skins her knee, Sheridan is given the soft-profile treatment, and then the recording ends. Part 2 was either deleted or had never been uploaded. So, we'll never know who won the tug-of-war and the big prize. Did Steve Kanaly take home $12,000, $10,000, or $8,000? The answer has been lost to history.
Of-its-time notes: Many, many perfume and cologne commercials. (The commercial for Hero featured the Bonnie Tyler song of the same name.) You could buy a really ugly new Hyundai for $6,000. In Dawnn Lewis' segment, she was wearing leg-warmers while rehearsing in a dance studio. A 'Monday Night Football' promo hyped Kosar vs. Marino.
According to her IMDb page, Olivia D'Abo was born on a Wednesday. Also according to IMDb, Tina Yothers' favorite rock band is Duran Duran, which leads me to believe that her bio hasn't been updated since 1988.
Lorenzo Lamas has been married five times. Wife #4 was named Shauna, and wife #5 is named Shawna.
John Matuszak died of an accidental drug overdose in 1989.