STOP! IN THE NAME OF SPORT

This up-to-the-minute, hot-off-the-wires post is brought to you courtesy of the following article (and the letter D) which appeared in Saturday's Herald Sun....

Caller gets in tune By Jeremy Culvert

DO not adjust your sets, it is all part of the wacky Denis Cometti show.

You may think the fast-thinking footy commentator has finally lost his marbles when he waxes lyrical about the love of a beautiful woman during Sunday's clash between West Coast and Melbourne. But he is just meeting a challenge.

And he has been doing it all year.

Thanks to the wags at Perth's 96FM breakfast show, each week Cometti is set the task of melding the lyrics of a popular song as seamlessly as possible into his game call.

The bizarre challenge started with "Busting makes me feel good" from the Ghostbusters theme song -- aptly applied by Cometti to a pack-busting tackle -- and he has not missed a trick since.

96FM listeners fall over themselves each Friday to nominate a line, then the whole of Perth stays glued to the set to see if Cometti succeeds -- all the while delighting in the ignorance of us Melburnians.

"Knowing that you guys must just be thinking the guy is unhinged makes it even funnier," 96FM breakfast host Gavin Miller said.

"We have been waiting all year for the penny to drop over there."

Cometti has demonstrated some fancy footwork to incorporate the lyrics. "Like a virgin, touched for the very first time," he rates as his toughest challenge.

But he saw his opportunity and seized it during the West Coast - St Kilda clash when the Eagles only got their first touch in their forward zone 20 minutes into the game.

"That was just dumb luck," Cometti said.

Usually it is not so spontaneous.

"It is totally premeditated -- you have to sit down before a game, and visualise where it has half a chance of fitting in."

Only now, after a season of raised eyebrows, are Melburnians getting wise to the Sandgropers' in-joke, and have now added to the challenge.

Radio 3AW's Ross Stevenson yesterday nominated his own line, "When you're in love with a beautiful woman", for Cometti's Sunday call, doubling up with 96FM's existing challenge: "Dirty deeds done dirt cheap".

Gavin Miller's a dick! There's something sad & pathetic about wankers who brag they're "IN" on a gag.

"We have been waiting all year for the penny to drop over there."

But Gav. Mate. Buddy. Pal. It has! Don't mistake our laugh-lack for ignorance. We've known about it all year. Cometti admitted the gag on MMM before Easter. During the Wizard Cup. To Sam Newman & Little Jimmy Brayshaw.

So, listen here me ole wacky, zany, crazy, prank-calling, hip-talking, morning-show funster - "Whoo Hoo! Coming up the other side of the M-Sport update, another claaaaaaaasic no-repeat-workday, Pearl Jam triple-play!" - we hear it, we get it, but guess what? We don't want it! It's not funny.

Dennis Cometti is the best caller in the land, but he's also plenty funny enough without "TRYING" to be. There's already enough cheap theatre in footy coverage without him joining in on some lame commercial FM gag. Imagine if everyone started doing it. What next? Yeah! What next? Suggestions in the comments box please.

And Gav? This one's for you dude - "He blew his brains out in a car!"

Comments

[James Russell]

pedant
He blew his mind out in a car...
/pedant

[Tony.T]

I know James, but "Brains" sounds so much more messy. And painful.

[boynton]

Is that a song from Sgt peppers, T?
It's a fine line isn't it, between signature gag and cheap theatre that demeans the great tradition.
Maybe they could borrow a few ideas from an on-line blog game I'm playing at the moment, and slip in a casual palindrome, panagram or the odd 'e' less sentence into the call - and see if anyone notices. Suspect the latter would take a fair bit of pre-meditation to make it seem spontaneous.

[Scarlet]

Let's just hope that (now they've had their fun) they have enough sense to call a halt.

[David J]

Didn't the aussie cricketers do something similar a few years back? I think they would nominate a word and the man of the match would have to use it in the post match interview or something along those lines.

In other news, the Robbie O Davis Pretty Boys, much like a virgin touched for the very first time, broke our duck and recorded our first ever victory at the ACT RUC trivia night last night with 44/48, winning by a point, and two teams finished third on 42 (including Beige). The 50 RUC bucks will go towards lubricating our brains at next week's trivia.

The questions were fairly easy but I think every educated guess we made came up trumps too.

As per usual we got 0/3 on the bonus questions:

1. Name the two people on the $100 note
2. How many US cities have populations > 1million?
3. Which year did QEII describe as her annus horribilus (sp?)

[os]

Cometti had a better one in the St Kilda game, the ball was being rushed over the line in the SK forward line by Damian Burke and a heap of players piled on, with the ball and Burke down in there somewhere. Suddenly the ball came back out between Burke's legs, Cometti said "They all pile on, where's the ball, oh there, back 'o Burke".
Neat, quick, there and gone before you realised it.

[Rob de Santos]

Didn't Cometti write a book a few years ago? If he didn't someone should commit all his stuff to print some day. Just so we can keep make fun of it years from now...

[Tony.T]

I'm not aware of that particular recording B. But I think that now the joke's out, the jig's up. And like Scarlo alludes to, anything's better than joke-overkill. Although I would like it if they slotted in lines from spaghetti westerns. And dubbed them.

Nice work DJ. How'd Beigey go? Not so good here. Well, here as in this exact comment, but hot in the general commenting vicinity. My team came third on Monday and third again last night. I flounce as I blame Roald Dahl.

1) Helen Porter Mitchell - Local Richmond girl. Could sing a bit. And John Monash. Handy with a gun.

2) Guess - Twenty three.

3) Pretty sure that's 1992. Is that the year Di scarpered? In fact, I know it was. I was working at Ford.

And that's - "Neat, quick, there and gone before you realised it" - the key, Os.

Dunno about a book Rob, but there are plenty of lists going round on the internet, err, somewhere.

[champ]

yes it's chitty to be roald by a roald dahl dahl,
- or even trounced by a flounce ;)

[David J]

Thanks Tony

Beige was left in our wake, tied for third. He and his two passengers left shortly after the game concluded.

You go alright at this trivia game don't you, you've picked up 2/3 again and the third question, being about population, is one of those controversial ones that depends on how you define where a city ends, how up-to-date figures are etc.

The correct answer, according to the MC, was 9 cities.

[Scarlet]

I think he may have been cautioned about a couple of things (at least they have disappeared). For example he no longer refers to the part of the MCG under construction as "the Baghdad end".

And another gem:

Game at Launceston where Dermott Brereton and Dennis Cometti was calling:
Brereton "He's an accurate kick Adam Cox"
Brereton "Sorry this is Simon Cox... Adam is on the bench"
Brereton "Actually its not Adam Cox on the bench its Adrian"
Commetti "Its become a bit of a Cox up.

[Tony.T]

Bob Chitty, small c champ? He fixed up the Pinks in ole '45!

Because I'm generally in small teams DJ I come second. There's always some bullshit topic that lets me down. Usually modern "popular" music or recent TV/Film.

And get a load of these for jackpot Q's. My mate's the host....

1) What do you call someone who studies the physical makeup of the moon? Not Moon Rocker.

2) What was Ingrid Bergman's first Oscar role? Not Casablanca.

3) What's the length of a microwave? I knew that.

Scarlo, my favourite all-time is from a WAFL match in about 1984. George Micalczyk, skilled ruck-rover. Ron Boucher, big bad ruckman. A pack forms..

"In goes Micalczyk. In goes Boucher. Ooooooooooooooooh. Out goes Micalczyk."

[steven]

He blew his brains out in a car ... what a toxic little suggestion for G Miller .... god, this has got to be the bitchiest most pompous little industry in the world ... you Victorians don't seem to have a sense of humour .. just a grotesquely inflated sense of your own importance...