10. Leading it off with a Peyton Manning commercial is expected, considering he’s on about 37 commercials that are currently airing. Peyton, Eli, and Archie are touring the ESPN studios and the brothers do what every pair of siblings do: they fight. The highlight of this one is Eli getting owned in the legs at the very end.
9. With ESPN morale running low, they call on a special friend: The San Diego Chicken. The Chicken comes in and plays the practical jokes that he’s so famous for. Nothing cures lunchroom sadness like the Chicken dropping eggs out of his feathered ass.
8. In one of the most recent commercials aired, David Ortiz tries on Jorge Posada’s Yankee hat. At that moment, the Red Sox mascot, Wally, walks past the room and sees the unthinkable: Big Papi in a Yankees hat. Betrayal at its finest.
7. It’s strange to see this commercial and remember that the Croc Hunter, Steve Irwin, is gone. He’s forever remembered in this ESPN commercial. Irwin is walking around the office with ESPN’s John Anderson. That’s when the Florida Gator walks out of an elevator and gets owned by the Croc Hunter.
6. A common theme in ESPN commercials is making fun of mascots. Mr. Met and the Syracuse Orange have appeared in their fair share of commercials. This time, it’s the Wake Forest Demon Deacon, who is left out of plans involving Neil Everett and the Mets’ David Wright. Poor bastard.
5. This clip features an appearance by Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, who is called on to replace a struggling Kenny Mayne, who can’t quite close out the show. An ESPN producer comes to yank him from the broadcast. Hoffy comes on to finish the show while Mayne destroys things backstage.
4. When ESPN is testing its Y2K emergency procedures, all hell breaks lose in the studio. The Rutgers’ Scarlet Knight is fighting other mascots and Mark McGwire is roid raging on a keyboard. Meanwhile, Dan Patrick is sitting comfortable with Vikings defensive lineman John Randle.
3. “Studio Rivalries” is one of the older ESPN bits and to this day, one of the best. Kenny Mayne harassing the field reporters is gold, as he tells someone to “Work on another story we’re not going to air.” The showdown between Sal Paolantonio with another employee is classic.
2. If you haven’t noticed, anything involving Kenny Mayne and Dan Patrick is guaranteed success. This is another classic clip from past days of ESPN glory. Kenny and Dan go through several airings of Sportscenter, all in different dialects. It concludes with a horrifying image of “Maynski” dancing.
1. Kenny Mayne and Stuart Scott are playing active roles in the community. In this clip, they’re involved in the “Big Buddies” program, where an ordinary game of basketball becomes absolute comedy. Both Mayne and Scott take it way too far, embarrassing and insulting the kids. Shake it off, your parents signed the permission slip.
If you liked this week’s Top Ten, be sure to come back for next week’s. Check out past Top Tens such as the Ten Worst Haircuts in Sports here.
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“Follow me! Follow me to freedom!”
ARe you kidding me??? Jimmy Key??? the Jimmy Key clip with the kid drafted to be an anchor isnt on here? thats the best by far….RECOUNT
Key? What’s he, like, 40? I could hit him.
100% agree with need for recount and the glaring absence of jimmy key. 2 other egregious mistakes – req hoops league featuring juwan howard and others (“play the game, plumber boy”) and deke mutombo and kenny mayne deciphering cloud formations (“would you like a sip of root beer?”).
The rec league one was considered and probably should have made the list. looking back we probably could have done a top 20. Another big error was forgetting Gheorge Muresan dancing. That one was epic. There are so many good ones it was hard to pick 10, and clearly we missed some.
Where’s the exchange program? Andrew Shue joins the Sportscenter team and Charlie Steiner becomes the new pool boy on “Melrose Place”!!! That’s my favorite all time.
hahahahah the ending of studio rivalries is awesome. jets and the sharks.
Not familiar with the exchange one but Juwan Howard in that pickup game is gold.
This list needs:
The Perfect Show (“That’s a double negative!”)
Shue For Steiner
How Anchors Are Paired (“I don’t even know who you are anymore.”)
Anchor Competition (“Charlie come out here and get your whoopin’”)
And some honorable mentions:
Yahtzee!
Roger Clemens loses his fastball?
Lance Armstrong powering the building
Entrance Announcement
…and The Elevator
I really wanted to throw in Lalas and foosball but it didn’t show up on YouTube. That’s a great one.
how can you not have the one with david carradine teaching the anchors self defense?!
Nice list. The Gheorge Muresan clip would have been awesome, but I bet these clips are hard enough to find already.
Definitely the one with the catch phrases:
It must be a homer, Simpson ’cause the pitcher just went “D’oh !”
Yahtzee !
Wow, can we get any worse quality video here?
This list is lacking some of the greatest commercials of all time, ie when a natural surface is installed for carpets and when Scott Van Pelt is caught with performance enhancing drugs ie the Thesaurus “Unhand Me Rapscallions”
What about the “Don’t Walk” video? Better than some of these. Believe it or not, I have it saved on my computer after all these years.
How about the one where Kenny Mayne explains to some boxer (Holyfield I believe) the difference between Pokemon and Digimon. While they make a Poptart with Pokemon sprinkles.
Something like: “Digimon is a different set, wholly separate from the Pokemons.”
Holyfield: “Thanks for clarifying.”
And then he takes it out with his boxing gloves on.
Classic. Classy.
What about the one where Holyfield comes after Steiner (who is underneath his desk)…”Charley, come on out and get your whuppin”.
jayson williams absolutely killed in that first one.
#1 is brilliant, but Big Papi should be higher on the list.
I agree with Dave, the Holyfield installment takes the cake. He’s not even the best boxer in Georgia.
I’m glad some of the more recent ones made the list already, but there’s some absolutely brilliant ones from the past year or so that nobody seemed to remember:
Chris Paul does Stu Scott’s dry cleaning
The Running of the Sausages
Ozzie Guillen calls the control room
Lance Armstrong runs ESPN’s power supply
Dwayne Wade helps edit his own highlight reel
“Hip hip, JORGE!”
Anything with Charlie Steiner is CLASSIC!!
“Follow me….follow me to freedom!” That still makes me laugh out loud. That should be #1.
How about Sportscenter – the Nighttime Soap Opera with a jealous Billy Marlin, or the We are the World parody about calling travelling?
missing the best one!
when Dan Patrick is being interviewed by reporters after another sportcenter. he tells them ‘you guys think my life is great, but at night, i go home and go into my basement and sit down and think to myself, “what am i doing with my life”‘
hysterical!
Where is the commercial with the sportscaster drafted right out of highschool??
I think the top ten is missing the best one.
My favorite has always been the one where Rich Eisen gets sent down to the minors and has to do a high school news broadcast.
http://www.sportscenteraltar.com/multimedia/video.asp
Many favorites
TWO ARE MISSING!
RICH EISEN when he is being interviewed after the show as if he was an athlete. He has his shirt off with a towel over his back and he is just talking about his performance out there.
Rich Eisen: boxing skit, when they go to commercials and the “corner men” com and he’s like “i got nothing left” and there like “stop the BEEP BEEP” cause boxing people are always cussing.
I swear i had this conversation with my friends and nobody seems to remember these two commercials. It’s unbelievable.
Where’s the one when they put grass in the office? they had the Super Bowl groundskeeper in there
“it’s a nice bermuda”
what about the one where brett favre plays the senile ups guy who keeps delivering the espn mail to fox sports?
or the one wher t.o. is found o.d. in the espn bathroom
Yeah, the new one with Jorge and Big Papi goes side by side with all of the classics from the glory days. But I don’t see why some of the ‘Top 10′ made it. The Mannings, The San Deigo Chicken, and Steve Irwin(RIP) don’t belong. As others have said there are many other clips that are much more deserving.
SPORTSCENTER SUCKS..THEY TRY TO BE COMEDIANS TO A BUNCH OF GROWN MEN WHO ONLY WANT TO KNOW THE SCORES OF THE GAMES NOT LISTEN TO THEM GIGGLE AN MAKE 3RD GRADE JOKES ABOUT SOMEONES NAME OR SOUND EFFECTS..GROW UP !!!!
The Y2K one is the best one in my book. Big Mac and Charlie Steiner are frickin’ hilarious!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlpsuq6iABg
I think this one was mentioned before, but this is by far the best ESPN commercial ever.
What about the one where the mascot stole the NASCAR. That took balls my friends
Your missing the best spot ever. With Evander Holyfield looking to beat down charlie steiner.
wow ….. how did you leave off the one where they were “handing out” promo baseball bats from above
How about the one where they reenact lines from sports movies? Steiner saying “You had me at hello” is hilarious (hell, any of Steiner’s stuff is gold)
no really what is your name? Trey Wingo -stackhouse can not control his laughter
I can’t believe no one has even mentioned these two:
-Old Timers day.
-Tim Hudson and Paul Konerko talking about what’s weird.
I’d say they belong in my top three along with the Big Buddy one, which is deservedly the top sportscenter commercial of all time.
“Two words for you, Pizza Delivery.” -Craig Kilborn bullying an intern, classic.
Lance Armstrong powering the building is classic. The way Patrick walks through many areas of the building makes for a great, yet subtle build-up. Numbers 4, 3, and 2 definitely belong.
These posts are hard to do, because it’s inevitable that classics will be missed.
My all time favorite ESPN commercial was back from the mid 90’s.
Mike Richter is in net and making all these amazing saves, and finally he turns around and starts to polish the piece of plexiglass he installed in the net.
Roger Clemens and Cam Neely getting lost on the way to Sports Center Studios for Chris Berman’s birthday. Best commercial ESPN ever did.
The best commercial is the Evander Holyfield-Charlie Steiner commercial when Charlie was rumored to be messing around with Mrs. Met and he said that Holyfield was the 11th best boxer in Georgia. It ended with Holyfield looking for Steiner and Charlie hiding under his desk.
FOLLOW ME TO FREEDOM!!! Is still easily the greatest ESPN commercial ever. Every time I watch it I notice something else. It has everything! PAtrick and John Randle hangin’ out…mascot fights…McSteroids wrecking the computers…and of course Charlie Steiner with face paint and a tie around his forehead.
The mascot playing paddle ball and other mascot knocks it out of his hand.
Was this an ESPN commercial?
Either way, I loved this one.