ESPN’s Booger Mobile is dying a slow death
Monday Night Football’s Booger Mobile will rest in peace next to Fox’s glowing puck in the dreaded “Oops” Sports TV Hall of Fame.
ESPN will not use the Booger Mobile on the sideline for its wild-card game broadcast of Colts-Texans on Saturday. Booger McFarland will be in the booth with Joe Tessitore and Jason Witten. ESPN is saying it will re-evaluate after the season if it will bring the Booger Mobile back for next year.
After citing the poor weather in Oakland, Calif., to bench the Booger Mobile last Monday and now forsaking it for the playoffs, which combines with the previous plan to leave it parked for the Pro Bowl and ESPN’s international broadcast of the Super Bowl, it is not hard to predict how that postseason meeting will go.
Meeting leader: Should we bring back the Booger Mobile?
Everyone in meeting: No!
Next topic.
We were not a proponent of the Booger Mobile from the second it was announced. It overcomplicated the broadcast; especially since ESPN sold the new MNF team as built on fun and great chemistry.
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MNF lead producer Jay Rothman compared Tessitore to a “young Brent Musburger/Frank Sinatra combo,” while Witten was “Captain America” and McFarland “football’s Charles Barkley,” which, if true, always made the Booger Mobile feel like Rothman was attempting to be a combo of a young Martin Scorsese and John DeLorean.
While putting McFarland in a high chair on the sideline was an injustice to him, it actually made Tessitore’s and Witten’s jobs much harder. McFarland could just try to analyze the game, while Tessitore and Witten in the booth had to try to figure out how to incorporate McFarland from the sideline. It added another variable, which made it so Witten infamously had to “pull a rabbit out of his head.”
Next up for ESPN to decide, is if it wants this trio together next year. While this playoff look might stick, that question will be genuinely discussed in the postseason meeting.
