Football Follies


Football Follies are collections of American football bloopers performed by National Football League players. Produced by NFL Films, these collections also spoof parts of popular culture. Mel Blanc joined in the fun in 1976 with The Son of Football Follies, and returned in 1989 for The Super Duper Football Follies. In addition, Jonathan Winters was featured in 1987's The NFL TV Follies, intended as a parody of the relationship between football and television.
The series of films currently airs on NFL Network, usually as filler programming when a live game is airing on another network.

The First ''Football Follies''

The first film using sports bloopers to satirize PR hype nearly didn't get off the ground. The coaching staff of the Philadelphia Eagles brought the film to the Eagles training camp in 1969, but feared that the Eagle players would be angry when they saw the mistakes made by themselves and other NFL players. Instead, the film was met with roaring laughter, and was an instant hit with the players.
Simon Gribben, was a producer, director, writer and editor at NFL Films from 1967 to '70. The Johnny Carson Show contacted the league owned film company and asked if they could send them some football bloopers for Carson to show once a week. A contract was signed with the 'Tonight Show' and NFL Films management decided that Gribben was the guy for the job. He pulled blooper shots out of each weeks footage edited them together and wrote a clever script which Carson read on the air. The Carson blooper segment was very popular. As a result Ed Sabol, executive producer at NFL Films came up with an idea to do a half hour version of the bloopers as one of the episodes that they were producing for the weekly show,'NFL Action' hosted by Pat Summerall. Sabol assigned the project to Gribben. To accomplish this thousands of feet of archive film would have to be screened. He needed to find the funny shots before he could write. He asked two staffers and a freelancer with film library experience to become members of his production team. Lavon Bebler, Vicki Denenberg and David Ewing. The show had an air date, so they were on deadline. Everyone worked long hours to get the job done. Jack Newman did sound design, Phil Spieler scored it. John Hentz supervised the production. The show aired during the summer of1969. When it came to his credit Gribben was too clever. He did audio credits naming each person who worked on the show. For his credit he used a shot himself standing on the sidelines of a game. He had a beard at the time. When that shot appeared the narrator said "Produced and directed by that fellow with beard." By doing this he relinquished his claim to authorship. He quit NFL Films in 1970. From then on NFL Films did not give Simon Gribben credit for creating the film. It is a mystery. Gribben speculates that maybe they were mad at him for quitting on them. No one knows. Both Ed and Steve Sabol have passed away. Only they could answer the question of why they would not give Gribben credit where credit was due. Sequels were done almost every year from then on. When Steve Sabol had his own syndicated TV show he would occasionally show segments of the Follies Film. On one show he posed the question of who created the original Follies. He stated that it was one of the janitors who came up with the idea. The Football Follies went on to be the most successful film NFL Films ever produced. This year, 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the first Follies. Simon Gribben has yet to be given the credit he deserves for the wonderfully funny film he created for NFL Films.

''Best of the Football Follies''

In 1985, NFL Films released The Best of the Football Follies, a look back at some of the series' highlights. This special features two new segments: The story of two teams whose history was filled with follies - the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the lovable losers the New Orleans Saints, who had gone 78-203 in their history with only two seasons at.500 ; the special also included outtakes from the NFL's Best Ever Coaches, focusing on head coaches who were wired for sound.

''100 Greatest Follies''

In the 1994, as part of NFL Films' celebration of NFL's 75th anniversary, 100 Greatest Follies counted down the 100 greatest bloopers in NFL history, chosen, according to the video's promotion, a "secret ballot" in NFL Films. The 100 follies shown, with the exception of follies 1-10, were not shown in numerical order, but were categorized by how certain follies related by different topics. The list of the categories were as follows:
Several imitators have surfaced in response to the original Football Follies, even in sports other than football. Below is a list of sequels and imitators, listed by year:
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