Hey Old Guys: Did I Dream This?

The show did exist. In my advanced senility (HSer in late 50s) I can't remember any parts other than that the show did exist.

Google doesn't show much.

Ed Asner vs. Rita Moreno? And HE had to run farther? What was the Vegas line on that race? Jeez, I know she would have been in her late 40s, but she was a dancer after all, and a small one at that. Meanwhile, Asner and Refrigerator Perry were shopping at the same Big and Bigger store, the one next to the donut shop. If this happened, and tape existed, it would be an overnight Internet sensation. Alas, I'm old enough to recall that those were the pre-VCR days, back when "Pong" was state of the art video gaming.

Your memory is correct, more or less. Ed Asner ran the cross-country race for one team, and some woman (I don't remember who, but it could have been Rita Moreno, I suppose) ran for the other. She got a huge head start, and I'm pretty sure that she won.

As I recall, the highlight of the competition was a sprint between Gabe Kaplan ("Welcome Back, Kotter") and Robert Conrad ("Black Sheep Squadron," although better known as James West in "The Wild Wild West"). Mr. Kotter was victorious.

I'm sorry I missed the Asner/Moreno thing, but I remember the Gabe Kaplan/Robert Conrad sprint. Kaplan had the unathletic demeanor and intoxicated demeanor of a hippie, while Conrad was at the height of his macho extravagance with those "I dare you" battery commercials. He seemed to have a hard time separating fact from fiction and was under the impression he was some kind of superman. And Kaplan didn't just beat him in the sprint ... I mean, if it was 60 yards, Kaplan won by at least 15. My memory is that when his team (they had teams) lost the title, Conrad actually cried. It was a priceless surreal moment in trash TV.

You've described it very well.

Will this format ever return? These all-star competitions were big back then and like everything else on television they got copied and imitated and totally overdone, like every genre that spawns one singular hit.

I remember "Battle of the Network Stars" and even "Circus of the Stars". This was the "reality" tv of the '70's. Shit like Morgan Fairchild attempting to swing across the arena on a trapeze apparatus. So dramatic!

The Ed Asner/Rita Moreno cross country race totally cracked me up. That DOES sound like a dream, like the time I deamt I snuck up on Roy Orbison while he was working under neath his car and gave him his heart attack and he croaked. I even woke up feeling guilty,

Of course the one semi-legitimate trash sport competition was "The Superstars". Edwin Moses and Renaldo Nehemiah competed against other professional athletes, the highlight of course being the boot-camp like obstacle course. There was a triathalete that killed everybody in the 800 one year (even though he only ran around 2:05) I can't remember who it was though. Mark Allen maybe?

Its funny how bad 70's television was (with the exception of All in the Family and the overrated MASH. I used to think Starsky and Hutch was a great show when it was on. Now I see re-runs on cable and it was terrible-no better than CHIPs.

Mister Kotter rock.

...that the battle of the network Stars should be fought...with GUNS.

I tend to agree.

I remember watching Battle of the Network Stars a couple years after Little House on the Prairie went off the air, and Melissa Gilbert was there in the swimming competition. I think she was about 21 or so. I never really thought she was all that hot until I saw her in that swimsuit that day. Needless to say, some dreams were to follow.

It was Dave Scott who crushed the stars in the 800. Please stop this thread. It's making residual LSD release from from my old brain cells.

I remember seeing Pedro Guerrerro of the LA Dodgers run the 800 against some other athletes, probably Mark Gastineau,

Vince Coleman and others. Pedro had a 50 yard lead by 200 meters and nearly everyone had passed him by 400. He finished in last place!

Don Kardong highlights one of these types of events he participated in in his book "Hills, Hawgs, and Ho Chi Minh".

I was always partial to the "Superstars." I remember one pathetic episode where Phil Esposito, towards the end of his career, was competing against these track stars and football players. I don't think he successfully negotiated a single obstacle on the obstacle course. My favorite event, though, was the bike race on the track. I still remember those football mutants trying to negotiate those Sears Free Spirit bikes around the running track with those ridiculous helmets and those short shorts.

The most ignominious moment of "Superstars" was when Joe Frazier just about drowned in the swimming competition and had to helped out of the pool. Boxers, whose muscles never have to move more than a few inches in any direction, never fared well in this thing.

But there was good money to made in "Superstars," and in between the failure of the shortlived ITA "pro" track tour and the current "open" era of track, guys like Renaldo Nehemiah, Dwight Stones, and the pole vaulters Bob Seagren and Steve Smith got a good portion of their income from these TV shows.

I remember Evander Holyfield running a 800 meters(or 1/2 mile) under 2:10. I htought to myself "that is one bad man!"

I need some help here. About two-three years ago I saw a modern superstars. A moguls skier (Mosley?) ran what I remember as an 800 against Dan O'Brian among others. It may have been a little longer run. Regardless, this guy, with untoned body & belly/chest bouncing, simply dusted O'Brian about 1/4 out. It was pathetic. Can anyone fill in the blanks in my memory?

Ye, it was Moseley and he did win the 800! I think the race was run on a road course, not the track? Unfortunately, I can't remember if O'Brien was one of the competitors. Moseley also beat some studly football dude in the obstacle course and ended up finishing 2nd overall! The stuff we dreg up from recesses of our minds...

The "studly" foot ball dude was jason sehorn of the giants.