Pardon the Interruption

Pardon the Interruption
File:Pardon the Interruption logo.png
Starring	Tony Kornheiser Michael Wilbon Tony Reali
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	1,351 (as of November 12, 2007)
Production
Production location	Washington, D.C.
Running time	30 minutes + ~3 minutes (SportsCenter segment)
Original release
Network	ESPN
Release	October 22, 2001
Related
The Sports Reporters Around the Horn

Pardon the Interruption (abbreviated PTI) is a sports television show that airs weekdays on various ESPN TV channels, TSN, NASN, XM, and Sirius satellite radio services, and as a downloadable podcast. It is hosted by Washington Post columnists and longtime friends Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, who discuss, and frequently argue over, the top stories of the day in "sports... and other stuff" (as Kornheiser put it in the show's original promo). Either Tony Reali (host of ESPN's Around the Horn) or the uncredited "producer over the loudspeaker" serve as moderator for parts of the show, which is filmed in Washington, D.C.

Similar in format to CNN's Crossfire, PTI is known for its humorous and often loud tone, as well as the "rundown" graphic listing the topics yet to be discussed down the right-hand side of the screen. The show's popularity has led to the creation of similar shows on ESPN, and similar segments on other series, and the rundown graphic has since been implemented on the morning editions of SportsCenter that are repeated from the previous night's last live broadcast, among many imitators.

PTI debuted on October 22, 2001. It airs daily at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN (if not pre-empted by live events such as golf), and is repeated on numerous ESPN sister outlets (see "Broadcast details" below). The show originally also aired Sunday evening, but this was short-lived.

PTI is produced by ESPN Original Entertainment. The show's launch team and daily production management was led by broadcast executive Todd Mason.

Broadcast details

Pardon the Interruption airs live at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN. The following outlets carry the show at other times:

• ESPNEWS airs the show at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time, with the TV picks, errors and "Happy happy time" removed.
• WXTR, ESPN Radio affiliate for Washington, DC (where both Kornheiser and Wilbon are based), airs the entire show at 7:05 p.m. Eastern Time and again at 5:30 a.m. the next morning.
• The rest of the ESPN Radio network airs an edited version, with only a few segments, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. An ESPN Radio SportsCenter update is inserted at 6:40.
• TSN airs the show live at 5:30 p.m. and cuts out before the SportsCenter segment. If pre-empted, the broadcast will air at a later time.
• Since April 17, 2006, ESPN has also offered a free audio podcast which cuts out commercials and includes all segments.

The set

Pardon the Interruption is unique in its studio layout, featuring a "wall" full of cut-out cardboard heads of athletes and celebrities that have previously been used in the "Role Play" segment, bobblehead dolls of the show's hosts and Reali, Etch-A-Sketch art of Kornheiser and Wilbon, and several other toys and trinkets they have received, such as Kornheiser's beloved "Leg Lamp" from A Christmas Story.

For different American holidays, the set will also be decorated with other props to match the theme of the day. For example, on Halloween, carved jack-o'-lanterns of the host's heads are also present. The color of the rundown graphic is also changed to mesh with the holiday theme (e.g. red, white, and blue to represent Independence Day, green for St. Patricks Day, red and green for Christmas).

Due to Kornheiser's announcing job on Monday Night Football, every Monday during the NFL regular season, the show is taken to the location of that week's game, with the set being a standard ESPN "on-location" set.

Segments

PTI is divided into several segments. It is not unusual for the last point or topic in each section to be about a non-sports-related pop-culture event. On rare occasions, the show will stray from its basic format, such as on August 92005, when baseball commissioner Bud Selig was the guest at the very top of the show for an extended interview.

Other than the pop-culture topics, most topics discussed involve the The Big Four of American team sports: baseball, basketball, football and hockey. Both hosts are avid fans of tennis, golf, and boxing and discuss events in those sports frequently. However, other sports such as soccer and auto racing receive much less coverage, and the hosts do little to hide their lack of interest or knowledge on those topics.

Segments included in the vast majority of shows are:

The Introduction

Kornheiser and Wilbon welcome viewers to the show with opening banter. Wilbon usually opens the show with the line, "Pardon the Interruption... but I'm Mike Wilbon." Wilbon will then put a question to Kornheiser concerning one of the day's sports or pop culture issues. Kornheiser often responds with a slightly inappropriate joke, such as one week in the spring of 2007 when he spent an entire week mocking the pronunciation of the planet Uranus. Guest hosts will use a similar script to introduce themselves. For example, Dan Le Batard will often welcome the viewers by pointing at the camera and yelling "BAM!". The two will then continue a conversation while the opening title card is shown.

As the title card is shown, the theme song (as well as the commercial outro music) thematically references the song "Cut Your Hair" by Pavement. This is probably meant as a joke, as both Kornheiser and Wilbon are bald.

Headlines

After the introduction (invariably, it's Kornheiser saying "Welcome to the 'PTI' program, boys and girls," and reciting a few one-line "teasers" of the upcoming topics), Kornheiser and Wilbon usually debate five or six topics. Each issue is listed in chronological order on the right side of the screen, and a countdown timer is shown indicating how much time is allotted to discuss a particular issue. Most topics are less than 1:30, but major news stories can run two or three minutes. If there is no guest for "Five Good Minutes," three or four additional headlines will run during the second segment.

Five Good Minutes

Kornheiser and Wilbon interview a sports figure, writer, or analyst typically for a period of time from three to five and a half minutes. The interview itself is actually recorded prior to the rest of the show and then trimmed down for broadcast. According to PTI's remote producer, with some exceptions, guests are booked the day of the show as they try to obtain the most relevant news of the day. Other times, there are two "Five Good Minutes" segments with two different guests; there are also shows where two related guests appear during one segment, such as Joe Buck and Tim McCarver of MLB on FOX broadcasts. There have also been occasions where Kornheiser or Wilbon, while on vacation or in another city to cover an event and not hosting the show, have been the subject of "Five Good Minutes" themselves.

On Mondays during the football season, ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski, a former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback (a.k.a. "Jaws" and "the Polish Rifle" - the latter usually rendered in a Howard Cosell-like voice), is usually the guest, to offer analysis of the previous day's games and a prediction for the Monday Night Football game that night.

On rare occasions, "Five Good Minutes" runs long, such as on June 8, 2005 when NFL agent Drew Rosenhaus's interview ran 11 minutes, forcing the cancellation of the following segment (Role Play), and on March 23, 2007 when USC basketball coach Tim Floyd's interview ran 9 minutes as he talked about O.J. Mayo.

Featured segments

After "Five Good Minutes", or after extended "Headlines" if there is no guest, PTI uses a variety of different segments to talk about other sports news and make predictions. These featured segments often end with a pop culture topic.

"Mail Time" and "Toss Up" are featured at least once for every full week of episodes. During Mail Time (in which Wilbon provides the voice of the mailbox) the hosts read and respond to viewer e-mail that they take out of a talking mailbox. Early in PTI's run, an intern named Josh read the mail to the hosts. When the show changed over to the talking mailbox, Wilbon would express disgust at the mail voice, demanding it be omitted, which is why the mail read on air is no longer written by viewers, but rather staff of the show itself. For Toss Up, the two hosts choose between two sides of a topic announced by the producer over the loudspeaker, and Kornheiser always claims to be the winner.

Other frequently used segments are "Odds Makers" and "Role Play". Odds Makers is featured weekly and involves the hosts giving their prediction in the form of a percentage about the likeliness of a future event occurring. Reali gives the topics and keeps track of responses on a chalkboard, to which he refers at the end of the segment in order to declare a winner. A selection at either extreme of 100% or 0% is well-respected, with the latter being coined by Reali as "squadoosh". Role Play, featured in almost every week but less so than earlier in PTI's run, is referred to as "Heads on Sticks" because the hosts alternate speaking as a sports figure with the person's picture on a stick in front of their faces. After a picture is used, it is usually stuck somewhere in the background of the set until it is replaced. Recently, the sexual nature of the title of this segment has been noticed, as a suggestive musical cue leads the segment as well as Kornheiser telling Wilbon on the first Role Play "Wilbon will give, I will receive".

"Psychic Hotline" and "Good Cop, Bad Cop" are segments where the hosts take on different roles to discuss the given topics. The set is decorated with candles and a plasma lamp for Psychic Hotline, the latter of which a host will touch to hear the question in the form of a pre-recorded phone call. The question asks the hosts to predict what will happen in regards to an upcoming sporting event. Kornheiser wears a turban, in the style of Carnac the Magnificent, while Wilbon does not dress up at all. In Good Cop, Bad Cop, however, both hosts dress in police hats and sometimes sunglasses. This segment is featured rarely, and unlike Toss Up, the hosts must take an opposite stand on each topic, saying it is either good or bad.

"Over/Under" is a segment that alternated weeks with Odds Makers when they were first introduced, but is now featured occasionally. The hosts argue over whether a certain sports figure or team will go over or under a certain number (e.g. 40 home runs, 60 wins). Reali also announces the topics for this segment, holding cards up with the statistic, as well. In order to help prevent a "push" (a Wilbon trademark), a decimal figure is sometimes used (e.g 2.5 touchdowns). "Food Chain", where the hosts rank a top five list of teams, has fizzled out as a segment. Kornheiser and Wilbon usually have variations in their lists, with Wilbon posting his as each team is introduced. Wilbon refers to his as "A real man's board!", but when Kornheiser switches to his, he claims, "Thats it! That's the list!" A third rare segment is "Fair or Foul". It was introduced on February 28, 2007 after the hosts began repeating the words "fair or foul" for a few episodes because a viewer email including them earlier in the week. The hosts discuss a variety of topics and decide if each is fair or foul (acceptable or not). If a host believes a topic is "foul", he could threw a yellow football penalty flag and/or blow a whistle.

Additionally, during the early run of PTI, a "Doctors" segment was featured rarely, in which the hosts had to choose which head to cut off and throw in the trash out of two that were stuck together. The hosts dressed up as doctors for this segment, using coats and assorted accessories. Finally, a "time-machine" game was played once in 2005 and never returned.

Another early segment was called "Love Em or Leave Em" where a female voice cooing "Ooo La-La!" was played before the hosts discussed an individual (whose head was on a stick) they were either "leaving" or "loving" and keeping on their side.

Happy Happy Time

This segment usually starts with Kornheiser saying, "It's time to get happy." The hosts send out a "Happy Birthday", a "Happy Anniversary" (generally something that happened on the same date in the past rather than an anniversary), and a "Happy Trails" (a departure of some sort, such as a firing, injury, retirement, or death).

Errors/Corrections

If time allows, Reali (nicknamed "Stat Boy") corrects any factual errors that Kornheiser and Wilbon may have made. When Dan Le Batard is hosting, he refers to Reali as "Stat Face", while Jay Mariotti calls Reali "Stat Man".

TV Picks

Kornheiser and Wilbon give their recommendations for television viewing for the night as the last discussion segment of the show before SportsCenter.

Wilbon usually chooses a sporting event. However, it isn't uncommon for him to give a pick of Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal, Lost, The Sopranos, Smallville or Ugly Betty, either via first-run or TiVo playback. Often, Wilbon will simply recommend leaving the house and having fun, especially on Friday nights. He often mentions taking in a local sporting event or festivities of a city, if he happens to be on location.

Kornheiser, on the other hand, will often opt for specials on the E! Network, such as an E! True Hollywood Story. He is also a huge fan of American Idol and former fan of 24, which he says jumped the shark in Season 6. He rarely states that he will watch a sporting event, saying that they are on past his bedtime. On July 18, 2006, Wilbon stated that all he watches in the summer is Will and Grace and Frasier.

Goodnight

This concludes the half-hour broadcast of the show, where Kornheiser bids farewell to foreign viewers. The segment during SportsCenter is not shown in Canada, where the program airs on TSN, so when Wilbon makes the toss to Bristol, Connecticut, where ESPN's studios are located, Kornheiser usually says "Goodnight, Canada" while waving a Canadian flag, while Wilbon mentions the upcoming SportsCenter segment.

PTI on SportsCenter

On July 25, 2005, the format of the show was altered to merge the final part of the show with the beginning of the 6:00 PM ET SportsCenter. After the opening segment of SportsCenter (normally 10-14 minutes), they return to debate an additional sports-related topic, then end with The Big Finish. The Big Finish topics are actually listed in the run-down, which was not the case before the format change. For the re-air on ESPNEWS, the show moves straight to the post-SportsCenter topic after the third commercial break, skipping the happy time and TV picks. According to Nielsen ratings, PTI paired with Around the Horn combined to average more viewers than SportsCenter.

Additional Topic

Kornheiser and Wilbon discuss one additional topic, or augment earlier discussion on the same topic, for at least one minute. This segment may also be used to address a breaking story that ties in with SportsCenter.

The Big Finish

For the final 60 seconds of the show, the hosts alternate making comments on several other stories, usually ending with Wilbon picking a winner in a sporting event later that night. The segment (and show) ends with Kornheiser saying, "We're out of time, we'll try to do better the next time," and Wilbon saying "Same time tomorrow, knuckleheads." Kornheiser will wave the show logo (on a stick) in front of his face and whisper "PTI!" similar to the closing graphic as the show signs off. (Kornheiser started doing this during a period of time where the finish of PTI bled into the beginning of SportsCenter, where Wilbon would plug the upcoming 6 PM SportsCenter in place of the PTI closing graphic.)

Since Kornheiser has been a Monday Night Football analyst, Monday editions of PTI are taped in the host stadium and air in the former (30-minute) format, with no SportsCenter segment, therefore having "The Big Finish" airing before SportsCenter.

Nig Finish

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Nig Finish

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Nig Finish Closeup

Recently on the 05 Feb 2008 airing of PTI, the last segment showed a "Nig Finish" on the ticker on the right as opposed to "Big Finish", although as the letter N is next to B on a keyboard, it was an unedited mistake.

Running gags

Main article: Running gags on Pardon the Interruption

The longevity and popularity of the show has led to numerous running jokes between Wilbon and Kornheiser that longtime viewers will recognize. Some of these include such gags as The Bald Brotherhood, Beatdown!, Strug-a-ling, The Yanks and the Sawks!, The Penguin Dance, and The Trampoline Bear.

In addition, for the first 3½ years of the show, Kornheiser only hosted a few shows away from the studio, with Wilbon during the week of Super Bowl XXXVI. Meanwhile, Wilbon has hosted many shows at the location of a sporting event he was attending. This has resulted in much teasing of Kornheiser by Wilbon, including Kornheiser's fear of flying. Finally, on March 27, 2006, Kornheiser for the first time hosted the show away from the studio while Wilbon remained back at the set, as Kornheiser was in Orlando, Florida, covering the NFL owners meetings. For the first time in November 2006, Kornheiser and Wilbon "chatted split-screen" from two different locations away from Washington, D.C.

Kornheiser and Wilbon in other media

The short-lived CBS show Listen Up was based on the life of Tony Kornheiser. In it, the main characters Tony Kleinman (Jason Alexander) and Bernie Widmer (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) co-hosted an off-beat sports show titled "Listen Up!" On the day "Listen Up" debuted, Warner and Alexander appeared in character on PTI's intro.

Kornheiser and Wilbon appeared as themselves on PTI in the 2004 film Mr. 3000, including doing a Role Play segment with Kornheiser posing as Stan Ross (Bernie Mac) at one point.

On February 8, 2006, it was announced that Tony Kornheiser would join Mike Tirico and Joe Theismann in the broadcast booth during Monday Night Football beginning in the 2006 NFL season. Kornheiser has continued to host PTI, and Wilbon joins him on the road as they broadcast PTI each Monday from the site of the MNF game, and there has also been an extra PTI segment inserted during halftime of ESPN's Monday Night games. In the months leading up to the 2006 NFL season, Kornheiser would often offer self-deprecating comments on the PTI show, saying that he'd be horrible for the MNF job or that he wished that certain people that are topics on the show would ride the bus with him to the game, as he has an admitted fear of flying. On the April 6, 2006, edition of PTI, the same day that the upcoming NFL season's schedule was released, Kornheiser gave a humorous insight into how he felt about his upcoming travel schedule, sarcastically commenting about how there weren't any East Coast games on the schedule. He also took the time to apologize to fans in Jacksonville, Florida, whose city Kornheiser described in his Washington Post column as having only Waffle Houses, since there was a Monday Night game in Jacksonville on September 18, the second week of the NFL season. Kornheiser recently said on the show that if at all possible, he would like to avoid traveling to the city of Seattle again since each time he has gone there, the weather has been atrocious (such as the downpour and wind that was constant in week 9 against Oakland and the snowstorm in week 12 against Green Bay).

PTI will be featured on future EA Sports video games due to the contract between ESPN and EA. The first game to have the feature is NBA Live 07 for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3.

Beginning in 2007, Wilbon appears weekly as an analyst for GMC NBA Countdown show Sundays on ABC.

Wilbon is a frequent guest on Washington, D.C. radio station WWWT's The Tony Kornheiser Show.

Guest hosts

When one of the normal hosts is sick or on vacation, they have a guest host, usually another prominent sportswriter. Typically, Kornheiser and Wilbon almost never appear together during the summer months of July and August, as Major League Baseball is the only major sport in season. There are only five guest hosts that are currently regularly used; the most frequently seen are sportswriters Dan Le Batard of The Miami Herald and Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe. They are the only guest hosts to date to have performed those duties on location via split-screen.

Other recent guest hosts include sportswriters Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times and J.A. Adande, formerly of the Los Angeles Times (both Around the Horn regulars), as well as former tennis player turned ESPN First Take reporter Patrick McEnroe.

Many other guest hosts were used in the past, including David Aldridge, Skip Bayless, Norman Chad, Josh Elliott, Max Kellerman, Michael Smith, Stephen A. Smith, Michele Tafoya and Mike Tirico of ESPN and sportswriters Jason Whitlock of The Kansas City Star, Jackie MacMullan of The Boston Globe, as well as David Dupree and Jon Saraceno of USA Today. Kellerman stopped appearing on PTI when he started hosting Around the Horn. Whitlock was fired from ESPN.com and banned from appearing on ESPN after controversial remarks about some fellow ESPN employees.

Kornheiser was absent more than usual during Summer 2006 for medical reasons. During a phone interview on the August 15, 2006 edition of The Dan Patrick Show, Kornheiser explained this absence in most of July by revealing that he was recovering from skin cancer surgery.

Other versions

In 2004, Crackerjack Television started producing an Australian version of the show, which airs weekly on the Australian ESPN channel and features former Australian Rules footballer Sam Kekovich. ESPN Australia also broadcasts the American version of PTI editions before SportsCenter

The ESPN Deportes show Cronómetro (Spanish for "stopwatch") is modeled after PTI and Sports Reporters, in that it features personalities talking about sports subjects for a set amount of time. Unlike PTI, there are four panelists instead of two, and segments such as Role Play are not used. Five Good Minutes is used as a discussion of one subject between the four analysts. ESPN Brasil also has a version of Cronómetro called É Rapidinho (rough translation from portuguese: "It's Fast").

NESN, in partnership with The Boston Globe, premiered Globe 10.0 in 2007, which airs at 5:30 p.m. every Tuesday. Hosted by Globe columnist Bob Ryan and a rotating cast of other sports writers, the show has ten topics that the two writers debate for one and a half minutes, in the same format as PTI.

Starting in the 2006 NFL Monday Night Football season, Kornheiser and Wilbon began hosting PTI from the stadium that was hosting the game. The following season, they began staging a live 3-topic, 3-minute version of the show during halftime of the game.

External links

• Official Site
• Podcasts from ESPN.com
• Internet group for PTI, featuring daily write-ups of every show of 2006
• Australian Pardon the Interruption