← Pablo Torre Finds Out
Loading summary
Transcript217 lines
- [00:00]
A
Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is.
- [00:06]
B
I took a can of ironically pork and beans out of a can. I had it in my pocket and as he came toward me, I threw it.
- [00:15]
A
You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network. So, Devin Gordon, I've brought you back in studio. Hello.
- [00:34]
C
Thank you. Thank you for having me back.
- [00:36]
A
I wanted to kick off super bowl week with a very specific story that only you, only you, Devin, can tell.
- [00:44]
C
Yes. That I do agree with you that for this once only me, I do really think that might be true. Yeah.
- [00:49]
A
In a nation that is obsessed with firsts. Right. The first person to do this ever. As we sit on the precipice of Super Bowl 50, it has occurred to me that I don't know jack about Super Bowl 1. And that makes me quite unlike you.
- [01:06]
C
Yeah, yeah. This is the one reason why this is. I'm the only one on the list for this story. I know way too much about Super Bowl 1 and have since I was about 8 years old.
- [01:16]
A
Why?
- [01:17]
C
There are two ways to answer that question. If you're my therapist, I would say something about being like a latchkey kid and, you know, a dearth of male role models in my life, that sort of thing. But the sports reason is cause the helmets were really cool. And I'm watching like on the weekends the NFL Films videos of their Super Bowl 30 minute Super Bowl 1 documentary which has this voice of God on all of the icy tundra of Lambeau Field.
- [01:44]
D
This premier spectacle of sport took place in the carnival atmosphere appropriate to the Hollywood setting. For the first time, the Green Bay packers, champions of the National Football League, played the Kansas City Chiefs, the best team in the American Football League.
- [02:02]
C
I'm learning about all these things as an 8 year old and getting obsessed with football. The first book I ever wrote was a crayon illustrated guide to all of the Super Bowls thus far. We were On Super Bowl 19, I think when I wrote it, just to.
- [02:16]
A
State perhaps the obvious and apologies to your therapist and we have to deal with this later. You're a pretty weird kid.
- [02:21]
C
Yes. Yes. I mean, I, you know, wrote a crayon book of the illustrated history of the Super Bowl. Most kids don't do that. No, I just got obsessed with it. So I knew a little bit about the first super bowl and it always seemed like this amazing thing because by the time I was a kid it was massive. It was the biggest thing in the world.
- [02:39]
A
But when I think about like what the super bowl is now, which is as much about pop culture in halftime and music is anything. Well, I imagine in my brain that 1967 Super Bowl I halftime was, I don't know, like old timey.
- [02:56]
C
Like, you know, there was marching bands and things like that, but there was also jet packs. So these two guys with giant tanks of hydrogen peroxide strapped to their backs at halftime zoomed up about 100ft into the air and flew around.
- [03:14]
A
Just gotta say, for people who aren't watching on YouTube of the DraftKings network, that was pretty awesome.
- [03:19]
C
I have wanted a jetpack my whole life. I still don't have one. And apparently they had them at halftime of the first Super Bowl.
- [03:26]
A
That part already mind blowing.
- [03:29]
C
That part worked, which is a study in contrast, they survived at the end of that clip, which is a study in contrast to most of the things that happened around the first Super Bowl. I mean, this thing was a show, a show, a cluster. There are so many curse words you can describe to what this game was on the ground. That is somewhat fitting. Definitely amazing that the biggest sporting event, the one national holiday we all share, began with really a disaster. I mean, this thing could have gone off the rails so many times in so many ways. Not least with a detonating jetpack above LA Coliseum and two dead spacemen. Right? Like that could have happened. And it honestly wasn't the only mass slaughter event that the super bowl one narrowly avoided. That's how crazy this was.
- [04:19]
A
How were others in danger at Super Bowl 1?
- [04:23]
C
So there was a giant wrought iron clock in the far end zone at the LA Coliseum. And during the entire week leading up to the super bowl, the plan for the network broadcast was their big innovation was going to be an on screen game clock. This did not exist when you were watching football. You had no idea how much time was left in the quarter, in the game, anything. They decided it'd be a good idea to change that. But that required attaching sort of a electronic device to the back of one of the clock's hands, which they tested all week, Got it perfect. And then for the opening kickoff, when they went to flip it on, it malfunctioned. The clock hand broke off, plummeted downward into the stands. And the only reason Super Bowl I isn't remembered for some kind of Final Destination style bloodbath is because there was no one in those seats below because the game was not even close to being sold out. It was a television innovation that they were trying to debut for the first time. Like, you know, like the first downline, when that was a thing.
- [05:22]
A
Right? So, okay, so this brings me to the way in which all of us are going to consume this thing, which is from our living rooms, Right? Like, we are not going to be at the game itself. We'll be watching what now has become the truly, like, the paragon of broadcast cultural institutions. Right. The telecast of a Super bowl, the.
- [05:45]
C
Made for television event to end. All made for Television events. Yes.
- [05:48]
A
And so in 1967, for Super Bowl I, what did this look like from America's living rooms?
- [05:54]
C
Yeah, see, that's the thing. After Super Bowl 1 ended and Super Bowl I was carried on two networks, NBC and CBS, which is one of the reasons they had 50 million people watching it. There were only three channels, so you didn't have that many choices.
- [06:08]
A
So it's simulcast.
- [06:09]
C
Simulcast on two networks. NFL.
- [06:11]
A
Also unthinkable.
- [06:12]
C
Also unthinkable. So the game ends, and almost immediately, both networks tape over the first super bowl. Because that's what you did with everything in those days. Film was expensive. No one was archiving sports, because it didn't occur to anyone that this would be something you might want to preserve. So, you know, within days of Super Bowl I ending, Super Bowl I vanished, if you can believe this. They recorded soap operas over the game tapes. And VCRs hadn't been invented yet because.
- [06:47]
A
Of the high cost of videotape. In the 1960s, it was network policy to reuse old stock. Neither CBS nor NBC owns a full Super Bowl I broadcast. Yeah, I just like how the NFL and the networks in this case just were like, that dad who accidentally tapes over his daughter's, you know, ballet recital.
- [07:09]
C
The fact that you can't watch Super Bowl 1 because the networks themselves taped up two networks. Not just one. Two. Two.
- [07:17]
A
That's like two terrible parrots.
- [07:19]
C
That's like two different people smashing one tablet of the Ten Commandments, right? Like, it's crazy that this happened. So in 2005, Sports Illustrated publishes a story called the 25 Greatest Lost Treasures of Sports. And it's things like Honus Wagner's baseball card, the chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear that Mike Tyson bit off that one time, and a broadcast copy of either NBC or CBS of Super Bowl I.
- [07:46]
A
The broadcast copy, though, explain what that means, because we just watched the jetpacks. Like, what's. What's missing here, really?
- [07:54]
C
Yeah. So there's, like, little bits online. You know, you can see bits of the halftime show. You can see bits of the game. You know, the NFL films was There they were gathering stuff for their own. It's much more primitive than what you would have seen on the broadcasts. And what you can't see is what the world saw, what 50 million people watched that day. And now there's a $1 million bounty on it. And, you know, there's tape heads and, you know. You know, the world. This is the Internet rabbit hole. Yes. People are going to go for it.
- [08:26]
A
Now we want to know what we as Americans would have seen in the way that we all gather around the super bowl in, like, again, the lone collective ritual that we engage in today. What was that like when it first was born?
- [08:40]
C
Yeah.
- [08:40]
A
And so, okay, so I'm imagining now this, like, national treasure sort of a hunt, right? There's a bounty of sorts, a million dollars. And so where is that hunt today? How is that. How is that search going 10 years later?
- [08:57]
C
By this point, we're deep into the Internet era, right? If it. If it hasn't shown up yet, either it doesn't exist, or there's a really good reason why. And I think the it doesn't exist camp is winning, Right? It's been close to half a century.
- [09:13]
A
Because people didn't have VCRs.
- [09:15]
C
No VCRs.
- [09:16]
A
Like, how do you.
- [09:17]
C
It's not like you could point a home video camera at the television and record that.
- [09:21]
A
Right.
- [09:22]
C
You know, there's only a handful of ways this could possibly exist, except that 10 years later, around 2015, out of thin air, a copy of Super Bowl I, the CBS broadcast, miraculously resurfaces.
- [09:39]
A
And your reaction, I can only imagine.
- [09:43]
C
I gotta go see this thing. I've been waiting way too long. 30ish. Let's call it years. It exists. It can be done. I can see this. Of course I can see it. Why wouldn't I be able to see it? Why can't the world see it? I couldn't see it. I spent years trying to get permission from the one person, the wizard behind the curtain, who holds the key to Super Bowl 1. And I tried and I tried, and he didn't answer. I just assumed my life would end in failure, not having seen Super Bowl I.
- [10:20]
A
But the reason, Devin Gordon, you are sitting across from me here today is because what.
- [10:26]
C
I finally got the call.
- [10:49]
A
So there's an active mystery that you can now finally solve after decades. We're gonna get to that. But the setup to the. What was this game like? Super bowl won back in 1967.
- [11:03]
C
On January 15, the day of the first super bowl, the Green Bay packers represented the Old time NFL. They were a dynasty.
- [11:10]
A
Oh, Vince Lombardi.
- [11:11]
C
Vince Lombardi was the head coach. Bart Starr was the quarterback. This was the original NFL dynasty. And then they played, representing the afl, the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs were the upstart team that no one thought even belonged on the field with the NFL champions. So that's how far we've come.
- [11:28]
A
It's a historical story that tells us a lot about, I mean, truly how insanely far this sport has come. Because beyond the jet packs and the clocks almost murdering people, take us back to 1967. What was the business of football like.
- [11:45]
C
In America when I first learned about the super bowl? I'm an 8 year old kid and I'm assuming that the AFL and the NFL merging to form the super bowl is like kind of Voltron, Right. It's this awesome thing that everybody's circumstances, you know, excited about, let's have a party and have a big game. Neither side wanted to do this. It was a last resort. They hated each other and they planned it so late in the game that they didn't have a location for Super Bowl 1 until about six weeks before kickoff, which is one of the reasons why they had 30,000 empty seats. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There were so many things that could have derailed this, almost did derail this. And yet we think of it as this transformative American success, right?
- [12:36]
A
Well, I think about it as the proof of the merger, but in reality, it turns out like the merger happens formally. AFL and NFL upstart being resorbed into the conservative incumbent in 1970. So this is a game that takes place before even that diplomacy is formally struck.
- [12:56]
C
Like so many great American shotgun marriages, this one began in the back seat of a car in a parking garage in Dallas, Texas. That's literally where the merger between the AFL and the NFL was conceived. It was between the Tex Schramm, who is the Dallas Cowboys owner in the NFL, and Lamar Hunt, whose son still owns the Kansas City Chiefs. And these two were bitter rivals who realized that as long as both teams, both leagues had television contracts, they could spend each other into oblivion. The only way to save pro football was to merge. And neither side wanted to do it. And that's why they had to do it in secret.
- [13:48]
A
Okay, so the super bowl then is almost like a. It's a foreshadowing of the union to come, which is to say that in the meantime, these people just hate each other.
- [13:58]
C
Yeah.
- [14:01]
A
And so the NFL versus the AFL remind us of what their reputations Were respectively, how they differed and why they clashed.
- [14:09]
C
Sure. So the NFL was the football establishment, Right. Militaristic, top down, lots of running, lots of gritty defense.
- [14:18]
A
Well, I think many coaches are identifying.
- [14:20]
C
Success with very strong defenses. Classic, traditional. The commissioner of the NFL was Pete Roselle, who was a Madison Avenue guy, always wearing a suit. And the AFL was the wacky upstart. But in 1960, the new American Football League began with a fast and wide open approach to the game that fans loved. The AFL quickly caught on and ignited a heated competition for players. It's all about speed and passing. They were tolerant of, if not exactly welcoming of black athletes, which was one way in which they were able to narrow the talent gap so quickly is that they would take black players to a degree that the NFL was, you know, there were several teams that just would not take black players.
- [15:03]
A
An incredible market inefficiency.
- [15:05]
C
Yes, yes. And one that the AFL for, you know, exploited and not necessarily for, you know, racially progressive reasons. So you have these two very different leagues in the afl. The commissioner of the AFL is Al Davis. So if Al Davis is, you know, a legendary figure in sports, but he's.
- [15:24]
A
Also owner of the Raiders.
- [15:25]
C
Yeah, he's a lunatic. He's a rebel. And for about five or six years leading up to the super bowl, the AFL and the NFL wanted to kill each other. They wanted to leave the other one dead. It wasn't. They didn't want this to end in merger.
- [15:39]
A
And so simultaneous to that larger context is the fact that there's. There was a season in the NFL the Green Bay packers, coached by Vince Lombardi, defeat the Dallas Cowboys.
- [15:52]
C
And typically, that's it.
- [15:54]
A
That's. That's what you celebrate.
- [15:56]
C
That's the NFL title game.
- [15:58]
A
Instead, they get dragged into this thing that they are talking about how they.
- [16:04]
C
Just won what has always been considered in the NFL the most important game. And they've been hearing all season about this thing called the super bowl that Green Bay packers can't understand why they're even playing this game. Don't want to play this game, and have no respect for the team that they're playing, which is the Kansas City Chiefs representing the afl. They've never played these teams. People are expecting the packers to win 72 to nothing. I spoke with Jerry Kramer, who is one of the great surviving packers of that era, a literary giant in sports, because he wrote Instant Replay, an amazing account of what it's like to be an NFL player, even though he wrote it 50 years ago with Dick Schapp. I was able to ask Jerry Kramer if what had been reputed about the Green Bay packers attitude going into this game, that they were sort of not taking it very seriously and kind of annoyed they had to play. I got a chance to ask him, is, is that true? Is that how you felt? And you know, Jerry Kramer, being the honest guy he is, cop to it immediately.
- [17:00]
D
Well, they had a lot of new players, you know, young players, and they made a lot of mistakes and we ridiculed them arrogantly.
- [17:10]
C
For the packers, losing this game would be unthinkable. It would unravel the value of their entire dynasty. And Vince Lombardi, the coach of the packers, would go down in history as the man who humiliated and maybe ruined the NFL.
- [17:29]
A
So if there is this fundamental condescension being expressed by the players, I am curious how Vince Lombardi, again, the. The this iconic, all time tough guy, you know, winning isn't everything. It's the only thing that guy, how does he feel as he's getting ready to play what feels like the JV to his players?
- [17:48]
C
Oh, he's terrified. He's terrified like he's never been terrified before. He doesn't think the Chiefs are awesome, but he doesn't have the luxury to take them lightly because he cannot lose this game. And even before the game, he was talking to Frank Gifford, who was one of his former players when he was a coach of the New York Giants. Jerry Kramer is standing nearby. And Jerry Kramer watched Gifford interview Lombardi and told me the story of witnessing that and just how nervous Lombardi was.
- [18:23]
D
They finished the interview and Frank kind of wipes his head and he goes, wow. He said, I don't think I've ever been that nervous in my whole life. He said, I put my hand on Coach Lombardi's shoulder and Coach Lombardi was shaking like a leaf. I have never known that guy to be nervous, nervous about anything.
- [18:44]
A
So that's Green Bay. Yeah, that's the incumbent. What's the other side of the field looking like?
- [18:51]
C
The afl. And Kansas City is much more freewheeling and their players are, you know, much more swaggering. And they have one guy on their team who is sort of the modern apotheosis of everything that a lot of NFL players have become on and off the field, and especially at his position, like the modern NFL cornerback. All begins with this guy in Super Bowl 1. Fred the Hammer Williamson, defensive back for the Chiefs super bowl team in 1967. This is what you hear if you call his cell phone and he is indisposed yo, this is the Hammer. This call may be interfering with my slumber, so quickly leave a message before I can declare this introduction a bummer.
- [19:50]
A
So we. You need to explain for America. Devin, who is the Hammer?
- [19:56]
C
He got his nickname the Hammer, because what he would do is he'd use his forearm and smash you in the head with him.
- [20:03]
B
Well, actually, I got it from decapitating people of different color jerseys.
- [20:10]
A
It's a reasonable nickname then.
- [20:11]
C
Yeah, his nickname is a personal foul, basically, in modern football. And he is referred to sometimes as the original trash talker. Certainly the first in pro football of any import. He's 85 now.
- [20:25]
A
Yeah, that was his voicemail.
- [20:26]
C
Yes, we had connected and we were all set to do an interview. And it turned out that he was late and he needed to postpone because he got into an altercation at a convenience store. His wife had called him cause she thought there were some hooligans there. And he came over and he intervened.
- [20:43]
B
And on my way to the checkout counter where they were, I took a can of, ironically, pork and beans on a can. I had it in my pocket, and as he came toward me, I threw it. He went down. I saw some teeth fall down on the floor. Other two guys start backing up.
- [21:03]
C
I just wanted to clarify that we. We are rescheduling our interview from yesterday because you hit a man in the face with a can of pork and beans.
- [21:12]
B
Pork and beans, yeah. Was open and I saw, wow, pork and beans. You know, so that's my life, man. I mean, I live that kind of life. So.
- [21:27]
A
So I just want to point out that the Hammer hasn't even begun the interview with you yet.
- [21:34]
C
Yeah, he's already the most interesting man I've ever interviewed. We haven't interviewed him yet. This guy had an interesting pro football career and then his life got even more interesting. He leaves football and becomes a blaxploitation movie star.
- [21:45]
A
Of course he does.
- [21:46]
C
Posed for Playgirl in 1973.
- [21:49]
A
Okay, so just stop there. We're gonna. I wanna circle this.
- [21:52]
C
Yes, we'll come back to Playgirl.
- [21:54]
A
We'll come back to it. But right now, the Hammer is back in 1967 on the sideline, getting ready to play the Green Bay Packers.
- [22:03]
C
Yeah, like all week. He's talking trash. He's telling reporters that he's going to knock out packers wide receivers. He's going to hit him once with a hammer, and that's going to be it. They're going to be out. And he was both inflaming the packers and unnerving his teammates because they felt like he was rousing Goliath.
- [22:27]
B
My teammates went against me. They disliked. They said I was firing up the Green Bay Packers. I was really giving them an initiative. I said, look, guys, they know we're here. They know we're here. We can't hide from them. They can't hide from us. They know we're here. So let's go out and take some. Take some heads off, knock some teeth out. Whatever it takes to win the goddamn game. Let's go do it.
- [22:53]
C
Lombardi had described the AFL in the days and weeks leading up to the game as a Mickey Mouse league. And Fred did not appreciate that. He didn't see the humor in that. You know, he felt like he was the Hammer was going to go knock some people's heads off. And he wanted his teammates to feel the same way.
- [23:09]
B
It was very disturbing to me when I saw the guys in the locker room putting on Mickey Mouse caps because the National Football League had called the American Football League a Mickey Mouse team. So I didn't really get into that humor. Listen, I was covering guys in the American Football League, like jackrabbits, didn't have any jackrabbits over there. Had big limbering, long legged guys that were made great targets for me to drop the hammer on.
- [23:37]
A
Okay? So I want to say that the Hammer has done it for me. I want to watch this game. I am in. The buildup that I can imagine happening at the time is all climaxing in 50 million Americans gathering around watching the first of its kind, this NFL AFL television show called the Super Bowl. And that brings us back to your quest, Devin Gordon, because where are you in your quest to see what America saw all those many years ago?
- [24:10]
C
So I've found out that the footage resides in a fortress like place right here in New York City. And there is a lawyer representing the wizard behind the curtain who has this footage, who it belongs to. And what you need to do is call this man, this lawyer named Steve Harwood, and get him to ask the owner of the tape for permission. I've been trying for years. I couldn't get it.
- [24:36]
A
I can only imagine how annoying you were.
- [24:39]
C
Yeah, I mean, I would call periodically, like every year or two and just leave these plaintive messages. And I also couldn't understand why they weren't calling me back. Like, what's the big deal here? I just want to see Super Bowl. I help my lifelong dream come true. And I heard nothing. And then finally I get, you know, the voicemail message that I've been waiting years for. Steve Harwood, the lawyer, finally gets back in touch with me. Kevin, this is Steve Harwood. I know you've been trying to reach me about getting access to the Super Bowl 1 tape. I'll see what I can do to get you access.
- [25:33]
A
So, Devin, the day has arrived. You get to finally see the broadcast tape of Super Bowl 1 and paint the picture for me like you show up.
- [25:46]
C
So it's this place called the Paley center for Media in midtown Manhattan. It's basically a Library of Congress for film and television.
- [25:54]
A
And who's there to greet you?
- [25:56]
C
The archivist? The point person, if you are trying to see Super Bowl I is a man named Ron Simon. And it just turns out that, like me, you know, Ron's biggest grail of television is Super Bowl I. This is the thing that he's been most excited to find as well to find.
- [26:16]
E
That game was always a holy grail for us because it sort of spoke to an American tradition. And you always want to go back to where it began. And we've been looking for that game for a long time. Here at the Paley center for Media, we had a most wanted list of shows that we were searching for. And certainly the first super bowl was always at the top of the list. So everyone knew we wanted it, but no one could find it. It's interesting that, you know, I deal in media, but there's still fakes out there. So I saw a lot of fakes before I got to see the real thing.
- [26:53]
A
I can only imagine the scammers who came to Ron being like, I have your million dollar tape. And so how does Ron know when he has the real thing?
- [27:04]
C
The first hint that this thing was real was the story that came along with it. And the story was told by a guy named Troy Haupt, who lives in the Outer Banks. And he's in the late 50s. And when he showed up with two canisters of film, he didn't entirely know what was on them, and he wasn't necessarily claiming that he definitely had a copy, which is sort of what made Ron's ears go up.
- [27:28]
E
We knew from the very opening images that this was indeed a telecast. This was broadcast material, was not something was made up, it was not film, but it was actually a recording of the television broadcast of Super Bowl 1.
- [27:43]
C
Troy told this just remarkable story of how it came into his possession. A friend of his saw the SI article, calls him and says, hey, you know, remember when we were kids in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, and there were These two film reels in your attic that were labeled Super Bowl 1.
- [28:01]
A
Of course, it's Shamokin.
- [28:03]
C
Shamokin, Pennsylvania. It's the perfect all American title.
- [28:06]
A
Yeah. A certain West Bumble.
- [28:09]
C
Yeah. And his mother, of course, still lives there. The canisters are still in the attic where they were left decades ago.
- [28:17]
A
Who has the ability to record something like this at that point in time?
- [28:23]
C
It was a guy who worked at a tape repair. Witness, tape recording, compare. It's like primitive VCRs. So he is at work and in order to do his job, he's taping stuff off of television. He taped Soupy sales tape, Ed Sullivan Show, Super Bowl Sunday. He taped Super Bowl 1. Instead of doing what NBC did and what CBS did, he saved it, he brought it home. And the next thing that happens is he's diagnosed with terminal cancer. And his dying wish is to give these tapes to his ex wife, just in case they're valuable and might be able to pay for college for his son, Troy, who he does not know and has baby basically only met a couple times. So that's how Troy winds up in midtown Manhattan.
- [29:05]
A
Just the butterfly effect of a guy randomly choosing on a seemingly haphazard day. Like, I should. I should tape this thing.
- [29:15]
C
Yeah. It's so haphazard that you also realize this is the only one. This didn't happen again. Like, the fact that this exists is remarkable, but it also, in a weird way, proves that there's not gonna be another.
- [29:30]
A
So Troy has gotten this, verified that the Holy Grail is in fact authentic. And so I assume step two is give me my money.
- [29:40]
C
I mean, he thinks he's got the lottery ticket of a lifetime. Right? So once he knows he's got the real thing, once it's. He goes to the NFL and says, I understand that this is worth a lot of money. I understand that people have been looking for this for a very long time. I have it, you want it. And what ends up happening is they make him an offer that's considerably less than a million dollars. They offer him 30,000. You know, we can speculate all the reasons why maybe they don't want to be shaken down or something. They feel like they're being shaken down for something that's technically theirs. Right. The NBC and CBS own the broadcast, but the NFL owns what's on the camera. Right. They own the thing that we're showing. Right. So they basically say to Troy, we're going to pay you $30,000, take it or leave it. And you cannot show this to Anyone? No one. So no one can profit on this.
- [30:35]
A
The only.
- [30:35]
C
You know, so. And then the only way that he's allowed to show it is in within the context of this museum, with permission, because there's no profit, there's no money, there's no advertising, there's no marketing. It's like a vault. You're watching it in a vault.
- [30:48]
A
Well, now what I'm imagining has changed. Before it was like, you know, Lord of the Rings, you on this fantastic quest, and now it feels like a prison visit.
- [31:00]
C
Yeah, I mean, effectively, the super bowl vanished for half a century. It resurfaced for a brief moment, and now it's back under Locke and Key again. It's essentially vanished again.
- [31:14]
A
So how many people have actually seen the broadcast copy?
- [31:21]
C
Less than 5. Yeah. If we're excluding people from the Paley center, less than 5.
- [31:25]
A
And so when you look into this Ark of the Covenant, your face is unmelted, but what did you see?
- [31:35]
C
They take you into kind of a reading room at a giant library where there's television set up. They queued up the game at a terminal. They made us turn off cameras. They took away my cell phone.
- [31:52]
A
I wanted you to wear a wire. And you refused. Unethical principles.
- [31:56]
C
Just narrate the game very subtly under my breath.
- [31:58]
B
That's right.
- [31:59]
C
All I could do was take notes. So finally, I'm going to see this thing. The experience is immediately like a time machine. You're transported into 1967, consuming television, consuming culture the way that people did then. And one of the things you're struck by is why having historical artifacts like this matters. Not only are the broadcasters educating you about how to watch football, in some ways they're educating you about how to watch television. Like when they do a slow motion replay, it actually says slow motion on the television because they were worried that 1967 viewers wouldn't understand what was happening.
- [32:44]
A
What is this witchcraft?
- [32:45]
C
Why is it moving so slow? There's no game clock, as we mentioned, because that didn't work almost catastrophically. So it's a really weird experience to watch a football game, having no idea how much time is on the clock, how much time is left. I remember they got to the end of the first quarter and the announcers, you know, go, that's the end of the first quarter. And I'm like, oh, it is. I had no idea.
- [33:08]
A
The other thing about the super bowl, though, is commercials.
- [33:11]
C
Yeah.
- [33:12]
A
What is the commercial game like at this point?
- [33:15]
C
Well, you do understand why millions and millions of Americans have lung cancer 50% cigarette ads and the rest of it is alcohol that tracks what was really cool on a personal level is my father's big smoker back in those days and his cigarette brand had an advertisement during the first. What was his true true brand cigarettes which I don't even think exists anymore. Apparently they just came out with a menthol variety when Super Bowl I was happening.
- [33:55]
A
But as for the flow of the game itself, what actually happens on the fields In Super Bowl 1, how do you tell that story now? How has that story changed for you? Having actually watched what America saw at.
- [34:06]
C
The time, you realize what a competitive, legitimate game it was from the outset. The Chiefs were good, particularly their, their defense and their especially their defensive line was really good. In fact it was probably the highest performing unit on either side. And very early on they sacked Bart Start on two consecutive plays. And that's one of the things you get right away. They're real, they're legit. In fact, they're so tough that our friend the Hammer does exactly what he had been promising to do before the game, which is that he did indeed on the first series knock out Boyd dollar.
- [34:40]
B
Boyd dollar, he rides, he runs a slant in on me. I gave him a shot. He goes up with an injured shoulder. We didn't see him anymore. He didn't come back into the game at all.
- [34:52]
C
The problem is Daller coming out means that this guy, Max McGee, an old timer who is not expected to play.
- [34:59]
A
A real old timey name, the Hammer.
- [35:01]
C
Knocking out the starter means Max McGee.
- [35:04]
A
Comes in and I can only imagine the Hammer salivating at now trying to take out this dude.
- [35:11]
C
Oh yeah. I mean he looks at Max McGee and he's like, this guy's a thousand years old. Let me at him. But Max McGee is always on the other side.
- [35:18]
A
We throw these points forking beans at him.
- [35:20]
C
He'll go down with one shot. He's always on the other side of.
- [35:23]
B
The field and I'm dying to get over there, get a piece of Max McGee, but they never put him on my side. I was waiting for them to throw passes at me because I was going to end somebody's career if they kept picking on me. But he did one doggone pass at me.
- [35:38]
C
And very quickly Max McGee opens the scoring. He makes a great one handed catch on a lousy pass from Bart Star. He scores the first touchdown ever in super bowl history. Which is remarkable because Max McGee was very hungover from his partying the night before to the point where when he was startled by Vince Lombardi being Called into the game, he couldn't find his helmet. He had to borrow another player's helmet to go into the game.
- [36:07]
A
So there's a little bit of like Dion waiters to Max McGee, right? Like off the field, can't totally trust him. All which is to say that when the Green Bay packers, heavily favored, go into halftime, I imagine Vince Lombardi is feeling a bit tense about the score, which is what, at this point?
- [36:23]
C
14 to 10? Not bad. This is. We've got a game on our hands. The AFL's legit, the Chiefs are legit. Let's go.
- [36:28]
A
Right. And meanwhile, in America's living rooms, it's halftime. And this is. I mean, look, man, when you think of the super bowl, like Usher's performing this year in Vegas, so what do you see when it comes to. Yeah, the pop culture aspect of this thing?
- [36:47]
C
We already know there were jet packs, right? We've seen the jet packs. Amazing. Unfortunately, on Troy Haupt's tape at the Paley center, his father didn't record halftime and he actually missed the first seven minutes of the third quarter. We'll never know why. He was eating lunch.
- [37:02]
A
So no more jet packs.
- [37:04]
C
No jet packs on this copy.
- [37:06]
A
Yep.
- [37:07]
C
And he is missing a pretty significant, not just lengthwise, but in terms of what happened in the game. He's missing an important chunk of the game. So if you're starting to wonder maybe why the NFL didn't write a million dollar check, this was not a perfect document. It's an amazing thing to exist, but it's missing the halftime show, and it's missing the first seven minutes of the third quarter.
- [37:27]
A
And in that third quarter, when it kicks off, what. What happens in reality?
- [37:32]
C
I mean, this brings us back to the cluster of the first super bowl, which is there are two networks covering the game. NBC has an interview with Bob Hope at halftime that runs way over, so far over that coming back from commercial break, they miss the opening second half kickoff. NBC's producers threw a fit and the officials made them re kick the second half opening kickoff at the Super Bowl. And what I kept thinking when I first heard about this is who is the person who had to go up and tell Vince Lombardi that we have to redo the kickoff because NBC missed it.
- [38:09]
A
Right. And in fact, this, I don't know of that. This is not a thing that happened.
- [38:15]
C
Could never, ever happen. Vince Lombardi actually put the game under protest because he was so pissed off about them wreaking. He didn't need to because the game turned very quickly in the third Quarter. Not on Troy's tape, unfortunately, but you can find bad footage of this particular play online. It's an important play. Packers are up 14 to 10. Kansas City has the ball to open the third quarter. Len Dawson throws an interception to Willie Wood of the Green Bay packers, who returns at 50 yards. The next play, the packers score a touchdown. Now it's 21 to 10 and it's the air just kind of went out of the Chiefs.
- [38:58]
A
So I want to give a little grace to Troy's dad, who again, like a prophet in so many senses, missed some key stuff. And so when he hits record again, what do you, Devin Gordon, see on the tape?
- [39:13]
C
You know what I was so curious to see? Having fallen in love with Fred the Hammer Williamson was. How did his game go? Yes, right. There's really only three moments where Fred Williamson figures into the Super Bowl. The first is when he knocks out Boyd Dowler and puts Max McGee on the field. But that's off camera. You don't even see Fred Williamson do that. The second time is when he knocks out another packers receiver, just like he said he would. Carol Dale and the announcers even mention what a rough hit it was. But they call him Fred Robinson twice. So even in his finest hour in the super bowl, he's getting disrespected. The only time you really see him involved in the action is with three minutes left. The packers are now up 35 to 10. This game is over. The packers put in their backup running back named Donnie Anderson, and Fred Williamson goes up to tackle him, goes in low and gets kneed in the head and knocked unconscious. And then while he's on the ground, one of his teammates steps on him and breaks his arm. And the packers on the sideline, who have been listening to the Hammer talk all this smack all week about what he was going to do and actually did do to their wide receivers, see that he's been knocked out and they start cheering, they start screaming. They're singing, if I had a Hammer. If I had a hammer.
- [40:38]
A
The Hammer gets put out. The Hammer gets on his ass.
- [40:41]
C
Yeah, this was one of the key moments of the game that they actually have the Hammer.
- [40:47]
B
You know who got hurt?
- [40:48]
C
The Hammer. The Hammer.
- [40:49]
D
That's the Hammer.
- [40:51]
C
Hey, slap the Hammer. Got it. They really laid him out. I mean, he's on the ground for five minutes. Like they cut to commercial break, he's on the ground. They come back from commercial break, he's still on the ground.
- [41:01]
A
This 220 pound cornerback is just, just laid out cold.
- [41:06]
C
Afterwards, you Know, when Fred is describing this play, you know what he's describing is not wanting to be carried off the field. That's why he's staying down on the ground. He doesn't want to be carried off. He wants to walk off under his own power.
- [41:15]
B
So I go down, and I'm stunned a little bit. And over on the sideline, I can hear him. We got the hammer. We got the hammer.
- [41:24]
C
We got the.
- [41:25]
B
Yeah, right. I'm not getting up and walking off the damn field. Okay? I'm embarrassed. First of all, it's gonna look obvious that they got me and they didn't because Donny Anderson knee hit me on the head.
- [41:36]
C
So while the Hammer is hammered flat out on the ground, the packers from the far side line are screaming at him. They're loving this. They're having a great time. In fact, I asked Jerry Kramer about it, and he. He never sounded more delighted in our. In our phone conversation than when he got to recall this moment.
- [41:53]
D
The hammer. The hammer got it. That Freddie Williamson, I guess with the hammer, he said that he delivered a blow horizontal to the earth's surface with such great velocity and power that he has personally been responsible for cracking five helmets in the NFL. And so the hammer went down. He was knocked out. So he's laying there on the field, and all of our guys are going, the hammer. The hammer got it.
- [42:23]
C
This was sort of the last moment of the game. This was the final, meaningful, consequential play. It came with three minutes left. The packers were already up 35 to 10. They had the game in hand, and that's how it ended. Packers win the first Super Bowl, 35, 10, with a score that sounds way more lopsided than what this game really was. I mean, this was a 3510 game that established the validity of the Kansas City Chiefs and the AFL.
- [42:50]
A
So typically, when you win a Super Bowl 35 to 10, you. You hoist a Lombardi trophy. Um, it occurs to me that Lombardi is hoisting a trophy that has not yet been named after him. And so the post game, you know, that ceremony, that ritual looks like what?
- [43:04]
C
Yeah, everybody just runs off the field, you know, like. Which they don't do now. Right. Like, if you win, you stay there.
- [43:10]
A
Yeah. Awkward interactions. Yeah, Awkward interactions giving way to the ceremony of the stage being erected.
- [43:16]
C
You bring out the stage. There's the owner, acceptance. There's a whole thing, and we know it beat by beat. And none of that had really been figured out yet.
- [43:24]
A
Right.
- [43:24]
C
The media is just all you see on the Broadcast is just in the tunnel underneath the seats. Just like pack of media just crammed in waiting to get led into the packers locker room for the super bowl trophy presentation there. And it is really bad television because the poor super bowl reporter, the sideline reporter, is just like, oh, what an amazing day. And we're still just waiting here for the presentation. And he's just repeating himself because people don't know how to ad lib on live television in 1967.
- [43:57]
A
The choreography, the dance steps, they're attempting all of this for literally the first time.
- [44:03]
C
Yeah. And I like to imagine people at home just being like, sure, I'll watch five minutes of people standing around and here we are waiting and waiting and waiting and watching them sort of fumble through the post game celebration and trophy presentation. You get that time machine feeling again. You're like, oh, my God, I'm really at the beginning of this thing. I really do see the Vegas DNA of what?
- [44:27]
A
The primordial ooze.
- [44:28]
C
Yes. Out of which my obsession as an 8 year old was born. Yeah.
- [44:47]
A
So, Devin, on Sunday, as we all gather around for Super Bowl 58 and people are going to be talking about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce and Brock Purdy and Kyle Shanahan and everybody, who are you going to be thinking about?
- [45:03]
C
I'm gonna be thinking about the Hammer. I mean, he lost Super Bowl 1, but he was probably the trailblazer. The thing in super bowl one that most resembles who we are as a culture, as a sports culture and what the super bowl is today. The rest of that stuff all faded. But, but, but Fred.
- [45:23]
A
Well, yeah. What happens to Fred after the tape ends and history marches on?
- [45:28]
C
Well, Freddie very quickly leaves pro football because what he told me was it was too boring. He got bored. He only played another year or two. And if it were anyone else, I would call bull. But for the Hammer, his life was just getting started. Like, it got way more interesting, you know. By 1972, he signed a three picture, $1 million deal with Universal to create a sort of black James Bond character named Jefferson Bolt. Bolt.
- [46:02]
D
That man Bolt. The highest flying, slickest, meanest dude you'll ever face is Jefferson Bolt on the case.
- [46:10]
A
I love this.
- [46:11]
C
Fred is the smartest person here. Fred is the progenitor of Travis Kelsey. Yes.
- [46:15]
A
No. All of the stuff that we know the super bowl as, now, this, this unholy mix of entertainment and sports in some sense is embodied by the guy who was lying prostrate on the field.
- [46:30]
C
The guy who had the worst super bowl out of anyone. Never on the screen. And when he's on the screen, he's basically getting humiliated. But he goes on to be one of the biggest blaxploitation and box office successes among African American actors in the 1970s. He's still making movies to this day. His production company is called Po Boy Productions. He's still going. He's still Fred the Hammer Williamson to this day.
- [46:52]
A
And so the thing I need to return to is the thing that I circled and pinned. You may remember, dear listeners, that Fred the Hammer Williamson apparently was in Playgirl.
- [47:07]
C
Yeah. Yeah.
- [47:08]
A
So how does that fit into this story?
- [47:13]
C
I mean, I think it's a sense of what a big star he was. That was the heyday of Playgirl. He told me a story about how he wanted to do it before Jim Brown got a chance to, because he was very competitive with Jim Brown, the other former NFL blaxploitation star. But they asked. He did it, but he had some conditions.
- [47:32]
B
A lot of guys were doing Playgirl, but I thought it was very stupid that they showed their stuff. I said, I'll do Playgirl, but I'm not showing my stuff. My body is reviewed, but my stuff ain't reviewed. One shot, I was sitting on the floor, my legs wide open, with a little pussycat between my legs, holding a little pussycat. That was.
- [47:49]
C
What was the response to that? How did that come off? What do you think?
- [47:51]
B
Yeah, big time. Big time.
- [47:53]
C
Yeah.
- [47:53]
B
I made the other. I made all the guys who were naked showing their stuff look like idiots.
- [47:58]
C
Oh, he did play girl, but he did not show his pork and beans.
- [48:01]
A
That's right. And if you're not watching on YouTube or the draft News Network, I pity you, because that is exactly what the Hammer describes. There he is with a white cat, delicately and very deliberately blocking his stuff. I just like that your childhood quest.
- [48:24]
C
Culminates in this Playgirl centerfold, just like I predicted when I was 8 years old.
- [48:33]
A
Devin Gordon, thank you for. Thank you for establishing that there are at least some things that should never truly be seen.
- [48:44]
C
Pablo, thank you for making a childhood dream come true.
- [48:55]
A
This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.