Available Now:
From Saturday Night to Sunday Night: My Forty Years of Laughter, Tears, and Touchdowns in TV
Hardcover
Think of an important moment in live TV over the last half-century. Dick Ebersol was likely involved.
Dropping out of college to join the crew of ABC’s Wide World of Sports,
Ebersol worked the Mexico City Olympics during the famous protest by
John Carlos and Tommie Smith as well as the Munich Olympics during the
tragic hostage standoff. He went on to cocreate Saturday Night Live with Lorne Michaels and later produced the show for four seasons, helping launch Eddie Murphy to stardom. After creating Friday Night Videos and
partnering with Vince McMahon to bring professional wrestling to
network TV, he next took over NBC Sports, which helped turn basketball
into a global phenomenon and made history as the first broadcaster to
host the World Series, the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, and the Summer
Olympics in the same year; it was Ebersol who was responsible for
Muhammad Ali lighting the Olympic flame in Atlanta. Then, following a
plane crash that took the life of his fourteen-year-old son Teddy and
nearly killed him, he determinedly undertook perhaps his greatest career
achievement: creating NBC’s Sunday Night Football, still the #1 primetime show in America. The Today Show’s
headline-making hosting changes, the so-called “Late-Night Wars,” O.J.
Simpson’s Bronco chase—Ebersol had a front-row seat to it all.
From Saturday Night to Sunday Night
is filled with entertaining and illuminating stories featuring such
boldface names as Billy Crystal, Michael Jordan, Bill Clinton, Jay Leno,
Peyton Manning, Michael Phelps and Larry David. (Ebersol even inspired
the famous Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza pretends he
didn’t quit his job.) More than that, the book offers an insightful
history and analysis of TV’s evolution from broadcast to cable and
beyond—a must read for casual binge-watchers and small-screen
aficionados alike.
Simon & Schuster
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