TV viewers are outraged when a tense football game is cut off to air Heidi - November 17th, 1968

On this day in 1968, football fans got an unwelcome surprise when a televised game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders was interrupted in its final minutes by a made-for-TV movie adaptation of Heidi.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that gives a quick look it's something that
happened a long time ago. Today I'm Gabe Bluesier, and

(00:22):
today we're talking about the time when NBC pulled the
rug out from under sports fans during the infamous Heidi game.
The day was November. Football fans got an unwelcome surprise

(00:45):
when a televised game between the New York Jets and
the Oakland Raiders was interrupted in its final minutes by
a made for TV movie adaptation of Heidi. The film
was based on the classic children's novel of the same
name by Swiss author Johanna Spiery. It told the story

(01:07):
of a young orphan girl who goes to live with
her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. It's very different from football.
In nine televised sports weren't yet a sacred institution in
the United States at the time. Live football games usually
got three hour time slots when aired on television, and

(01:29):
that was more than enough. If a game did run long,
then oh well, the network just moved on to whatever
program was next on the schedule. That was standard procedure
in most cases, though networks did occasionally stick with a
long game if it was an especially close one. But
on November the timex Watch Company didn't want to take

(01:54):
that chance. They had paid NBC seven hundred thousand dollars
to be the primary sponsor of Heidi, and they insisted
in no uncertain terms that in order to keep that money,
the network had to start the movie on time at
seven pm Eastern Standard Time. NBC executives agreed that even

(02:18):
if the game went long, they would cut away to
Heidi no matter what. The network was gambling that the
game would wrap up well within its three hour time slot,
as most games did, but this time would be different.
The game in question pitted the New York Jets against
the Oakland Raiders. At the time, they were two of

(02:40):
the best teams in the American Football League. This was
just prior to the a f l's merger with the
National Football League during the nineteen seventies season. That evening,
there were ten future Hall of Fame players spread between
the two teams, including quarterback Broadway Joe Namath for the

(03:01):
Jets and wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff for the Raiders. Having
that much talent on the field made for a heated game.
By the last two minutes, the teams had traded the
lead eight times, pushing the match to the very edge
of its time slot. Then, with just one minute and

(03:21):
five seconds left on the clock, Jim Turner kicked a
twenty six yard field goal, giving the Jets a slim
lead of thirty two to twenty nine. Meanwhile, in the
NBC control room, producer Dick Klein was nervously watching the clock.
He saw Turner's last minute field goal, and then as

(03:45):
the two teams set up for the final plays of
the game, he switched the feed over to Heidi. Klein
would later discuss this pivotal moment, saying, quote, I waited
and waited, and I heard nothing. We came up to
that magic hour and I thought, well, I haven't been
given any counter order, so I've got to do what

(04:07):
we agreed to do. But unbeknownst to the producer, the
executives at NBC did change their minds. They had been
desperately trying to call Klein to tell him to stick
with the game until it ended, but they couldn't get
through on the phone. All the lines were busy. In fact,
the phones at NBC were so flooded with calls from

(04:30):
confused viewers that the switchboard shorted out, And funny enough,
it wasn't just angry football fans calling in. Klein later
told Newsweek, quote, there were equal numbers of people calling
in to find out if Heidi was going to be
on time as there were football fans who wanted to
know if we were going to see the end of

(04:52):
the game. They collided on a switchboard that blew up.
Most of the country was caught up in the drama,
but viewers on the West Coast actually got to see
how the game ended and what it ending it was.
In the final fifty seconds of the game, the Raiders
made a comeback, scoring two touchdowns and ultimately beating the

(05:14):
Jets forty three to thirty two. Adding insult to injury,
NBC put that final score at the bottom of the
screen about twenty minutes into Heidi. This sparked a new
wave of angry phone calls, not just for NBC, but
for the telephone company, The New York Times and the NYPD,

(05:37):
as well as humor columnists Art buck Wald put it, quote,
men who would not get out of their armchairs for
earthquakes made their way to the phone to call into NBC.
The uproar even crossed the Atlantic to London, where the
ten year old actress who played Heidi was informed that

(05:57):
she was now the most unpopular girl in the United States.
That actress, Jennifer Edwards, reflected on the day many years later.
She said, quote, I remember one caption in some newspaper
that said something about the little brat in white stockings
that ruined the football game. I remember feeling that, well,

(06:20):
it wasn't my fault. The actress went on to say
that she did eventually meet Joe Namath on a plane
and that when she brought up the Heidi game there
appeared to be no hard feelings. It was certainly a
memorable event for the players, the viewers, and the employees
of NBC, but it also had a lasting impact on

(06:41):
televised sports. Shortly after the Heidi affair, the NFL added
a clause to its TV contracts guaranteeing that all games
would be broadcast in their entirety in their home markets.
As for NBC, the network changed its policy see on
ending coverage of football games and installed a new phone

(07:04):
in the control room to make sure this kind of
upset could never happen again. The phone had its own
exchange and a private switchboard. It was lovingly dubbed the
Heidi Phone. I'm Gay, Bluesier and hopefully you now know
a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

(07:25):
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Day at i heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler
Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening.

(07:45):
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