The local news lineup was always the same: two anchors, a meteorologist, a sportscaster. As Hansen likes to joke, “I’m so arrogant and egotistical that I don’t think I am.”
Long before Twitter, local newscasters were out there, having public, largely one-way conversations about their hair, their weight, their contracts, their egos. Steve Wynn’s Mirage Transformed Las Vegas and the Very Idea of Luxury The Day the Good Internet Died The Death of the All-Powerful Director Always the way-too-important theme music.” A local newscaster sounded like Walter Cronkite announcing JFK’s assassination … if the newscaster were at that same moment trying to sell you a used car. “They had the wide ties,” said Adam McKay, who directed Anchorman and helped create the vainglorious Burgundy. If you didn’t watch local news in the ’80s, it’s worth sharing a few particulars about its stars. The part of local sports that could be ball-busting and quasi-noble-that dies, too. “On September 2, a part of me dies,” said Hansen, returning to the thought. Hansen became America’s local sportscaster. When the commentaries took off, it was like the analog world of the ’80s had conquered Twitter, and Ron Burgundy had subscribed to Ramparts. He delivered unabashedly liberal commentaries about everything from the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol to Michael Sam. Over the past few years, Hansen has gone further. Two years later, Jerry Jones fired Hansen from his job as the Cowboys radio color analyst. In 1994, Cowboys coach Barry Switzer punched Hansen’s arm while accusing him of delivering fake news.
#Dale hansen unplugged tv#
In 1986, Hansen produced an incriminating envelope during the SMU recruiting scandals and created a great piece of TV theater. San Diego’s Ted Leitner and Detroit’s “Acid Al” Ackerman turned the screws on coaches and owners. (Hansen calls basic sportscasters “mechanics.”) A small number were rebels. In the Anchorman Era, a lot of sportscasters were stiffs. I can’t be that guy that goes, ‘Hey, I hope I’ve got something here for you …’ No! I’ve got to get that thing running. “I can’t go up there and apologize for taking their time. “People invest their time in staring at a box,” said Hansen. Hansen’s unrivaled skill is figuring out that something has gone wrong (with the Cowboys or, perhaps, humanity in general) and concluding that he, Hansen, is the only person who can make it right. Nobody watches Hansen’s two sportscasts a night to hear him analyze what happened on a particular play. Hansen ends some of his more pointed commentaries by saying, “Enjoy your day.” Hansen’s localness allows him to look into a Channel 8 camera and seem like he’s talking directly to you. (Asked why he never left Dallas, Hansen told me, “I’m a big believer in the Peter principle.”) He cares deeply about tweaking the Cowboys, Rangers, and Mavericks. “Because I’m going to die in Dallas.” Hansen doesn’t care much about tweaking LeBron James. “Do you want to die in Dallas?” Hansen asked his future wife, Chris, upon arriving in town in 1980. Hansen is one of the last active specimens of a type of sportscaster that emerged in the ’80s. Hansen’s retirement is the end of the Anchorman Era of local sports. “There’s a part of me that’s going to die,” he said.
On September 2, Hansen will retire after 41 years on Dallas television. Of course, I get a standing ovation.” That was local sportscasting in the ’80s. I go back to Louie’s, like the idiot that I was. “I nail it,” Hansen told me last week, with evident satisfaction. At that moment, Hansen had no idea who’d won the night’s games. He walked in during the commercials right before the sportscast.
“Whoever’s driving the burgundy Jaguar has like five seconds to move it or I drive right through it!” he shouted. He had no idea how long it’d been on the air. A few minutes later, Hansen looked up and saw Channel 8’s anchors. Hansen figured he could relax.Īt one point, Hansen looked up at the bar’s TV. That night, WFAA Channel 8, Dallas’s ABC affiliate, was carrying the roll-call vote from the Republican National Convention for the party’s presidential nomination. In the ’80s, few people raised an eyebrow when a sportscaster repaired to a bar between newscasts. news, his second assignment of the evening. Then he went to Louie’s bar to await the 10 p.m. Hansen, Dallas’s top local sportscaster, did the 6 p.m.
The best thing about Dale Hansen stories is that they’re usually true. But all will entertain an immovable idea that when things die, there is someone or something that pulled the trigger. Others will be less trodden and perhaps more speculative. This week at The Ringer, in honor of the release of Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage, we will explore events that changed the world as we knew it-specifically ones that marked the ends of established eras and triggered the beginnings of then-unknown futures.
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