Monday Night Mayhem

Gifford. Cosell. Meredith. There Was More Action In The Booth Than On The Field.

The game could match up league leaders or doghouse teams. Either way, America tuned in. No one wanted to miss what Monday Night Football's broadcast trio of Frank Gifford, Don Meredith and Howard Cosell would say or do next.


Football on the field. Mayhem in the broadcast booth and the control room. Huge ratings in the morning papers. "We're bigger than the game," Cosell famously proclaimed. Yet the game itself, thanks to innovations brought by Monday Night Football, would loom larger and larger on the viewing landscape. John Turturro portrays the reviled, and revered Cosell, heading a spot-on cast in this lively account of the launch and impact of the revolutionary sportscast. The fun. The games. The controversy. It all happened on Monday Night.