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Reviews
Battle of the Network Stars XII (1982)
great job by CBS team
All right, BOTNS was kind of cheesy and Cosell's commentary, as if each segment were the Olympics, can give you a chuckle. Plus, we can all point and laugh at the hairstyles and such, at least before we remember (some of us anyway) that we used to wear such styles ourselves. But still, it's great fun to watch these old shows. The stars tended to acquit themselves better as amateur athletes than as intellectuals at Celebrity Jeopardy. :)
That tug of war is something else, a triumph of the underdog. Remember, one of the three women on the CBS team was only a 13- year-old slip of a girl, Danielle Brisebois. And Pernell Roberts was not, as one reviewer said, 52; he was 54 (born in 1928) and had anywhere from 12 years to 23 years on any of the other men. He was amazing as the anchor, the "rock of Gibraltar," as Cosell put it.
Harmon and Wopat were the same age (almost to the day) and fairly evenly matched; Harmon as a trained athlete might even have had an edge. But Pernell is who made the difference. He just dug in there and wouldn't let go. And the women gave it their all, too. And with Catherine Bach suffering from an earlier injury. Go, CBS women! :)