ABSTRACT

WHAT IT IS … IS MULTIMEDIA! In 1953, legendary comedian Andy Griffith recorded a monologue about a country preacher’s trip to a college town during a home football game. In this fictional tale, the preacher has traveled to the “big city” to conduct a tent meeting, but his plans are interrupted when he is unexpectedly caught up by a frenzied crowd as they make their way to a football stadium on game day. What follows is a hilarious first-person account about the culture and sport of football as witnessed through the eyes of someone who has never seen or played the game. With a limited vocabulary and frame of reference, he begins to describe the events around him using the only terms he understands. He refers to referees as convicts because of their striped uniforms. The football is called a pumpkin. And the playing surface is compared to a cow pasture that players enter through a “great big outhouse” on either end of the field. The skit, titled “What it Was, Was Football,” launched Griffith’s professional career, leading to a guest appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1954. The live radio recording remains a cult classic and is one of the biggest selling comedy recordings of all time.