Tony Kornheiser: Tom Brady is Like Shirley Maclaine

The Chevy Silverado commercial played at every commercial break during the baseball playoffs and four times in the first quarter of Sunday Night Football. I imagine more than a few chumps out there fell for the montage of sacred historical images set to a jingoistic soundtrack and went right out to buy themselves a truck. I suppose I can’t blame GM for using flag-waving McPatriotism to force a product upon the masses because hey, it works. But that doesn’t make their ad campain any less shameful and foul.

But the worst thing about the ad is that it aired literally every 5 minutes. But even after three weeks of being beaten over the head with that crap, there’s still nothing that makes my ears bleed more Tony Kornheiser on Monday Night Football.

Though I mentioned this a week ago, it bears repeating — I would rather swallow thumbtacks than suffer Kornheiser’s voice. In print, he’s fine. But when he speaks, it’s like a shrill Larry David without the random shenanigans, sense of comedic timing, and skill for unscripted humor.

The more comfortable Kornheiser becomes in the booth, the worse he gets. Sure, he makes jokes and tosses barbs at Theismann, which, from what I understand, is the whole point of putting him in the booth. But his jokes aren’t funny and the barbs (when they aren’t going over Joe’s head) aren’t clever. To make matters worse, he has turned emphasizing the excrutiatingly obvious into an artform and may end up polishing more knob this season than I’ll manage in 10.

Tonight, TK took his fellating to the next level – a truly bizarre level that I can only think was inspired by his need to show Joe Theismann just how smart he actually is.

A couple weeks ago, viewers were treated to TK’s jabber about Matt Leinart’s similarities to Vinnie Chase of Entourage, a show he’s likely never seen. And tonight, he fell off the deep-end by comparing Tom Brady’s unlikely path to glory to that of Academy-award winning actress, Shirley Maclaine.

Brady marched New England 74 yards over 11 plays for a touchdown just before halftime. While the camera focused on him during the ensuing kickoff, Kornheiser went into fellatio overdrive, noting Brady’s role as the understudy who made the most of his opportunity.

It was like "Shirley Maclaine going in for Gwen Verdon in The Pajama Game, though I’m doing broadway musicals here… "In the first big shot he’s got, he does as a young man, he wins the super bowl… He’s a legend in his own time… He’s Paul Revere up there right now."

Forget the Paul Revere comment; it’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard but not annoying enough for me to throw down multiple paragraphs of rant. I have other concerns… well, they’re concerns if you’re a girl with way too much useless knowledge or a guy who’s really into showtunes (and you know who you are). I’m speaking to an incredibly small group right now, and I know that. Bear with me.

Kornheiser has long insisted that he knows nothing about football, so I won’t begrudge him making allusions to comparitive situations occuring in other aspects of life. But if you’re going to take that road, do us all a favor and get it right.

As sophisticated as you were trying to pretend you were, Tony, Gwen Verdon wasn’t in The Pajama Game! Shirley Maclaine was the understudy to Carol Haney in that musical and it was Haney’s broken ankle that allowed Maclaine the exposure to get her Paramount contract and become a star. The only time Gwen Verdon took time off from the stage was for the birth of a child. And when she returned, she starred as Charity in Sweet Charity and that musical was eventually made into a movie starring Shirley Maclaine.

Now, I know you don’t think anyone watching Monday Night Football actually knows anything about Broadway but there are a few of us out there. And if you’re gonna go out of your way act like a tool, get the facts straight before you run your mouth.

Perhaps Kornheiser should bring Tony Reali along for the Oakland-Seattle game. I’m sure he’d have no problem pulling a double shift as Stat Boy once a week.

"Next day on your dressing room they’ve hung a star, but there’s no business like show business." – Tony Kornheiser, screwing up Irving Berlin’s famous lyrics, after being bashed by Mike Tirico.