WE HAD ONCE seen Steve Allen talking about his days as the original host of THE TONITE SHOW on NBC. Rather than relating anecdotes about the telecasts, his story concerned the fate of his stockpile of shows on kine-scope and video tape.
SO IT WAS that the library of Mr. Allen's shows, which ran from 1954-57, seemed to occupy more space than some NBC "suit" thought to be appropriate. So, without consulting Steve Allen, this Executive had the whole inventory of them burned; rather than offer them to a college or to Steve, himself.
WELL, IT WOULD that this same rampant idiocy had been firmly established in the Sports Departments of CBS as well as NBC. Both networks carried the big game. Being that they had separate contracts with the two leagues (CBS had NFL and NBC had AFL), they carried the game on both networks, sharing the same visual feed, adding their own commentators.
BUT NO ONE today gets to view & hear Ray Scott, Jack Whittaker and Frank Gifford (CBS team) or Curt Gowdy, Paul Christman and Charley Jones (NBC crew) And what is the cause for this? Well it seems that this same case of failure to appreciate preservation of televised events afflicted both CBS & NBC Sports; where the videotapes were erased, wiped clean and reused.
WE CAN ONLY rely on the great film libraries of NFL Films and our memories to resurrect and reconstruct the contest. In this case, t' only memory; which is pretty damn good, but hardly infallible.
WE RECALL WAITING for this game with great anticipation; as it was an historical first. After roughly 6 1/2 years of competition, rivalry and verbal feuding. They also went head to head, not on the gridiron; but rather in holding their in the market place. Running their own separate drafts of the upcoming College players, put a premium on talent and put the players in the drivers' seat. (This was a major source of the peace deal & subsequent merger.
THE GAME WAS a natural, no matter what. Here we had the Packers with names like: Hornung, Taylor, Starr, Nitschke, Davis, Adderley, Gregg, Kramer and Chandler on Vince Lombardi's Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs with: Dawson, Garrett, Arbannas, Buchanan, McClinton, Williamson, Burford and Bell; all under Head Coach Hank Stram.
NOT REALLY HAVING a team in the game, we enjoyed whatever happened on either side of the game. Both teams were very familiar to all, due to network TV exposure. Even a kid (me) in Chicago (anon AFL town) knew the Chiefs and were all too familiar with the Packers-being Arch rivals with our Chicago Bears.
THE NAME OF "Super Bowl" would not become the official name of the game for several years and it remained "the AFL-NFL World's Championship of Football." Its morphing came about in a strange, indirect manner.
IT WAS THE child (son or daughter, we're not sure) of Kansas City owner, Lamar Hunt, who indirectly is responsible for the "Super Bowl" tag. Mr. Hunt's kid had just gotten a toy "Super Ball" and Lamar Quipped, "We're having a Super Bowl".
ANYWAY, UNTIL SOMEBODY unearths a copy of this multi network, one of a kind happening from the, check out whatever they have available at NFL Films. THey didn't erase anything, Schultz.
****ADDENDUM****
Dateline: Chicago, January 15, 2016, Well lo and behold, we just reviewed the big game just about 3 1/2 weeks ago and now the NFL Network has presented a reconstruction of the contest; using their considerable amount of films in their library. The special film is titled SUPER BOWL I: The Lost Game.
Interestingly enough, there is a story about a Wisconsin man's owning a videotape of the game; which did record in an era long before the coming of Beta, VHS or the VCR to the public. As of now, the only thing that holds it back from going to NFL Films to be propagated into a marketable product is a difference of opinion about $$$$. Perhaps the videotape's owner should get himself an Agent!
