While the Chicago Bears were making the cringe worthy Super Bowl Shuffle, the Cleveland Browns were doing something just as amazingly painful. Here I live blog the “Masters of the Gridiron” the 1986 Browns straight to VHS film featuring Mike “The Baabarian” Bab.
0:15 – It’s as high tech a production as paint on black cardboard can be. The title cards remind me of Bob and Doug Mackezie’s: Mutants of 2051 AD – which quite frankly isn’t that far away now.
0:41 – Glad to see they swiped the font from every Death Metal band ever for the title.
0:53 – Oh nothing, just some smoke to cover up their Star Wars licensing violation. Note: This is the smoke monster’s first appearance on film.
0:59 – I’m so old I remember when eye black didn’t have to make a statement that enhanced your off field personal brand.
1:01 – Clay Matthews, Jr. would really like his dad to put on a shirt right now. At least I think that was Clay Matthews, Sr. I was only 12 at the time and wasn’t really into memorizing abs and mullet combos.
1:13 – I too lose more buttons on my business casual dress shirts while combing my lustrous chest hair than I’d like to admit.
1:23 – Man Bob Golic and Ozzie Newsome have the type of relationship that Batman only wishes he had with Alfred.
1:29 – First mullet close-up.
1:34 – You can’t tweet from the locker room on game day, but a telegram is cool? Well, I guess if it’s from George Voinovich then everyone better listen.
1:35 – Do you remember Pony being viable a sports company because one guy on camera with two thumbs does.
1:56 – Oh those shoulder pads of the 80’s, on football players and women’s suit jackets. The really were slimming, we’re they. “Lydia, call the dry cleaners and have them put should pads in all of my technology company branded polo shirts!”
2:11 – You can’t smoke cigars in the stadium anymore mother bleeper, so get ready for the future!”
2:15 – If you hear the music during the Lions’ game and don’t think, “All your Browns, your Browns. All your Browns are belong to Cleveland,” well then we can’t be friends anymore.
2:25 – I miss multipurpose stadiums. Quite honestly, I think every football stadium should have a dirt infield just to make things fun.
2:30 – The Lions. LOL!
2:50 – Glad to see the cameo from like 18 Freddie Mercury impersonators.
3:00 – Glad to see “Wake up!” hasn’t changed as the NFL’s first test for concussions.
3:24 – If you are ever wondering what decision to make in life, do the opposite of what Opus Dei asks you to do.
3:40 – MOUTH CLOSEUP. My god, this is worse than an Arby’s commercial.
3:42 – My precious! Looks solemnly at beer and considers throwing Lord Stanley’s Cup into Orodruin.
3:53 – The mysterious Lord of the Ring is mysterious because he suspended Ray Rice two games for beating the shit out of his future wife while simultaneously suspending Josh Gordon for testing positive for a drug that isn’t connected to violence.
4:01 – Many dangers include, but are not limited to, the following final bosses of Madden: Detmer, Couch, Pederson, Wynn, Holcomb, Garcia, McCown, Dilfer, Frye, Anderson, Quinn, Dorsey, Gradkowski, McCoy, Delhomme, Wallace, Weeden and Campbell.
4:06 – Bears, Rams and Falcons are not nearly as scary as that lot because they haven’t been our quarterbacks.
4:12 – The people from Erie, PA are probably confused right now.
4:21 – I guess swords would make the NFL even more interesting.
4:36 – Is that horn made from Eric Dickerson’s ear?
4:49 – Not sure if that is a unicorn or an extra from a college performance of Lysistrata.
4:55 – The map looks a lot like Game of Thrones but is missing all the naked boobs.
5:06 – Are the “Hills of Linebacka” in Boston because they’re missing the “r.”
5:21 – Looks like Ozzie Newsome is modeling an Uggs prototype.
5:33 – Mike Pagel foreshadows the typical fan reaction to every Cleveland quarterback reactions from 1999 on.
5:45 – A shotgun??? What are we, the Bengals?
5:59 – Hanford was so nice to my father last year I can’t bring myself to be snarky.
6:08 – Winter is coming for the Clan of Modella.
6:22 – A USFL joke. Donald Trump was part of the USFL and he’s a joke. LOL, still good comedy nearly 30 years later.
6:47 – A montage! Sometimes we need these while watching games live.
7:24 – Is it stranger that Weird Al is in charge of negotiations with the NFLPA or is that Meatloaf?
7:33 – Welcome to my nightmare? I thought we were over seven minutes in???
8:20 – Listening to these rhymes makes me thing John Facenda is making others roll in their graves.
8:39 – I’m pretty sure there isn’t an NFL team called the ninjas, but we probably wouldn’t hear about it if there was.
8:55 – Okay, we’ve got Michael Stanley – he’s like a beloved Stan Bush of Cleveland. High Five!
9:10 – I don’t know if Alex Bevin is in this video or not, because there’s a whole lot of Andrew McCarthy looking people.
9:23 – These are some of the worst fight scenes since we watched the Falcons and Buccaneers on Monday Night Football just two weeks ago.
9:28 – There’s a bear fighting a man in a furry diaper. What the hell?
10:00 – I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on my dad all day.
10:10 – I’m running out of words to express what I’m seeing.
10:34 – I *think* that flip was a personal foul and should be a fifteen yard penalty, but NFL refs are only part time employees, so who knows??
10:42 – Why is that bear just watching? Also, I’m pretty sure bears don’t just hang out in Cleveland. Unless they are from Chicago, in which case they are eating wings at the Lizard – which makes NO sense at all in the animal kingdom.
10:44 – More inexplicable diapers.
11:02 – Metaphor alert. We’re comparing diaper wearing, sword wielding men to other men who don’t carry swords and make five times your annual salary.
11:24 – Bernie alert.
11:28 – Those two weird guys from gym class who love dodgeball are shirtless boxing again.
11:40 – I really appreciate the black on red on moustache contrasted with the pink on black on mullet combo.
11:48 – Most of the people being carried off by trainers will be listed as “Probable: Decapitation” on next week’s injury report.
11:49 – I still don’t get the deal with the girl. She should just jab him with a facemask.
11:52 – Tan on red to confuse the back on red and pink on black band mix. Daring!
12:19 – I don’t get it, but the sword swinging is FANCY.
12:48 – That’s some Bro quality fish pumping right there.
13:46 – My blood is delicious. Tastes just like ketchup.
13:21 – Dude, Baab just stabbed the crap out of that shadow.
13:36 – Not looking forward to the cameo from Jose Mesa where he loses the ring.
13:49 – Welp, there it is. The metaphor for all Cleveland sports.
14:10 – Shout out to me for remembering Fike’s first name was Dan prior to Googling it.
14:18 – Whoa very Gone in Sixty Seconds to show the credits in the Baabarian’s ring.
14:58: Shout out to Dave Puzzuoli for being the Puzzmong, which is pretty much the dirtiest sounding name in quite a while.
15:22 – I thought this was supposed to be artistic, but the credits aren’t in Helvetica.
15:27 – We’ve got behind the scenes footage without some director waxing rhapsodic about the postmodern existential crisis of some minor character. Score!
15:33 – Sleeveless shirt, mullet combo alert.
15:46 – Based on the credits, at least 750,459 people got their SAG card with this production.
16:05 – I want to know if the person who did the credits also voiced the computer in War Games.
16:20 – Where the heck is Felix Wright???????
16:25 – “Tony Roma’s: A Place for Ribs” provided food for the production which is good because Tony Romo’s would have had their meals intercepted.
16:34 – Kind of bullshit that ring considerations for the film weren’t provided by Gollum.
16:41 – This film needed two limousine companies. TWO! All I need is a taxi to make a film.
17:00 – Anyway, two thumbs up, would watch again. 3 thumbs up if there are officially licensed Baabarian Underoos I could buy.
