The Crowd Goes Wild

6:30pm Monday, January 24 on Prime

Sports news

Mark, Andrew, James and Hayley are thrilled to be back in the nation’s living room at 6:30pm every weeknight as a lead in to PRIME’S 7pm evening news bulletin. Mark and Andrew, who recently turned authors publishing their first book, The Crowd Goes Wild: Year In Sport are joined by roving reporters James McOnie and blonde bombshell Hayley Holt – providing you with the latest in sporting news in their own unique and unpredictable style.

6:30pm Monday, January 17 on Prime

Sports news

If you asked Santa for James McOnie to appear in your Christmas stocking this year you’re no doubt one of the many Crowd fans who also begged for them to come back to an earlier slot. So despite the fact that we’re disrupting their new late night sleep patterns, the lads (and lovely lady) are thrilled to be back in the nation’s living room at 6:30pm every weeknight as a lead in to PRIME’S 7pm evening news bulletin. Mark and Andrew, who recently turned authors publishing their first book, The Crowd Goes Wild: Year In Sport will again be joined by roving reporters James McOnie and blonde bombshell Hayley Holt. And this year keep your eyes peeled for new features such as finding the best spots to undertake your favourite sports, to complement popular slots including Smashed ‘em Bro.

Mark Richardson and Andrew Mulligan are preparing for a new year of sports news mayhem as only they know how, as The Crowd Goes Wild kicks off 2011 in a brand new early evening slot of 6.30pm on Prime from Monday January 17th.

Prime has returned the popular sports magazine show to an earlier evening slot as the lead in to its 7pm evening News bulletin, something the duo are looking forward to.

“To be fair it’s only going to disrupt my sleep pattern all over again as I’ve only just got used to the late nights,” said Mark Richardson, delightedly admitting it was a small price to pay to have the half hour sports entertainment show beaming into the nation’s living rooms at 6.30pm.

Co-host Andrew Mulligan is equally as thrilled with the new time.  “Nothing leads into Prime Evening News better than a light hearted look at the days sports highlights.  It’s a nod to the world that things are in their rightful place – after all we’re not alone in thinking sports should take priority over News all the time,” he said.
 
Mark and Andrew, who recently published their first book, The Crowd Goes Wild: Year in Sport, will again be joined by roving reporters James McOnie and Hayley Holt as they bring viewers the latest sporting news in their own special way.  And this year the show’s popular slots including Smashed ‘em Bro will be joined by some new features including handy tips for viewers on the best spots to undertake their favourite sporting past-times.
 
The Crowd Goes Wild can be found in its new 6.30pm time slot from January 17th, only on Prime.

EDIT: 6 January 2011 – The Crowd Goes Wild is moving to an earlier time of 6.30pm.
http://www.throng.co.nz/the-crowd-goes-wild/the-crowd-goes-wild-returns-new-time-630pm

Some of us like sport. A lot. Maybe too much. For those of us who fall into that category, The Crowd Goes Wild was a godsend for the following reasons.

1. It was about sport and nothing else.
2. It was on free-to-air TV.
3. It was on at 7pm.
4. It was funny.
5. When it wasn’t funny, it still gave you the sports news.
6. It didn’t mention sailing.
7. It didn’t take itself too seriously and it didn’t take sporting people too seriously either.
8. There was unscripted studio banter between people who know about sport (and Mark Richardson).
9. James McOnie at press conferences.
10. It covered a wide range of sports.
11. Smashed em bro.

All of the above was written in the past tense as surely its timeslot move to “variable after 10.30pm” is just a preface to axing the show, claiming of course that “nobody is watching it”. Why would Prime do that? Is Home Improvement really going to rate against Sainsbury, Campbell and Shorty? At the new time, TCGW is going to lose all the regular viewers that it had, including the families who watched it together.

So what can we do? Well there is now a petition at

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cgwto7pm/

Sign that if you feel strongly that The Crowd Goes Wild should be moved back to 7pm weeknights.

Nick

Dear Haley Holt,

Hi, young lady.  You don’t know me, we’ve never met so let me introduce myself.  My name is John Dybvig.  I’m an American.  I’ve lived in New Zealand for twenty five plus years and I’m a sports nut with a reputation for being honest.  I don’t pull punches and sometimes that means the picture ain’t pretty so I’m gonna have to get all naked on you sister and call it as I see it:  You simply don’t have it…whatever ‘it’ is in the sports commenting business you don’t possess it!  In fact you’re awful.  Please let me explain…here’s my beef:

Once upon a time I thought Prime’s marque sports show “The Crowd Goes Wild’ was the absolute best sporting entertainment on television.  The small kid on the block who kicked the bejesus out of anything the Death Star (TVNZ) or the Orphan child (TV3) put out.  The show was slick and fastpaced shooting sporting clips at you ratta-tat-tat like machine gun fire backed up with intelligence, insight and humour.  If you were a sports nut then this show was a must for you!

The two main hosts Andrew Mulligan and Mark Richardson do what no one else does in New Zealand sports television – namely they freely voice their opinions on everything and everybody in every segment of their show.  Nothing is too minute for their rapier wit – it’s like watching two guys in a pub talking sport.  Beautiful.  But, you certainly wouldn’t agree with everything they say… sometimes they just spout crap, but that’s half the fun because it turns into interactive television with you shouting at them from your couch…bullshit!

And for me I just love it when they talk smack about American sports.  Richardson knows zero about Uncle Sam on the sports field and Mulligan is barely a notch higher even though he thinks he’s the Alex Trebek (brilliant long time host of Jeopardy) of American sports.  Check this out for a Mulligan Homer Simpson moment:  One night after he did a piece on the Pittsburgh Steelers who had just won the Super Bowl – Mulligan smugly and knowingly informed us plebs watching at home that they were a struggling franchise and really hadn’t had that much success in the history of their club.  I nearly choked on my cucumber sandwhich!

It’s just the opposite…the Steelers are in fact one of the most storied clubs in American professional football having won more Super Bowls (6) than any other club.  Ahhhh Mugs you can’t win’em all big guy…d’oh! But I still love the fact that these guys are willing to let it all hang out – to argue their differences of opinion on television in front of the nation…it’s entertaining and adds another important element to a sports broadcast…the human element…their banter gives it a personal feel that leaves the boring PC cliched talking heads of the other stations in the dust.

Their field reporter James McOnie is pure gold.  He’s a combination of ‘That Guy’ from Sports Cafe and Gary McCormick from Heartland.  McOnie’s kiwi dead pan humour actually gets the athletes to reveal small truthful moments of their character talking honestly instead of running off the standard learned cliches.  One of my favorite McOnie moments was when he asked Michael Phelps a question at the Bejing Olympics.

McOnie was there with a squillion other journalists and literally stole the show – James is the type of guy to stand out in a crowd seeing as his body actually represents a moving version of the ‘Great Wall of China’ so when he stood up to identify himself blacking out the entire room like a giant eclipse some foreign sloth in the back immediately yelled out for him to sit down and without missing a beat as he lowered his massive bulk back into his chair he informed Phelps that he was the same guy sitting which brought the house down including Phelps who was now actively engaged with McOnie. And James didn’t kowtow to the ‘great one’ he immediately went on the attack taking the mickey out of Phelps: “Michael, you’ve personally won more medals than New Zealand isn’t that kind of greedy?”  Can you possibly imagine Peter Montgomery from TVNZ doing that….of course not and that witty irreverence is what made ‘The Crowd Ges Wild’ so compelling.

The ‘Crowd Goes Wild’ was an absolute cracker of a show – a little ray of sunshine in a dreary world…that is until you arrived Haley.  Your voice has less life in it than the Dead Sea.  There’s no energy, passion or committment…it’s just a monotone.  Why the powers that be think that any old Tom, Dick or Harry or a leggy blonde who at one time dated All Black captain Richie MCaw can voiceover a sports highlight reel is beyond me.  I just don’t get it.

Performing….yes that’s right Haley…a voiceover is a performance an art form and the very best elevate that hightlight reel into something extraordinary.  You just leave it laying there on the floor of the studio withering…dying a slow cruel death.  It’s criminal.  A good voiceover artist adds to what we’re already seeing complimenting the pictures with their wit, knowledge and passion for their subject.  Your uninspiring delivery sucks out any sign of life as you merely tell us what we’re already watching.  Graeme Hill did a great highlight reel on Sports Cafe, but if you want to listen to the masters you can’t go past Chris Berman on ESPN or the late great George Michaels Sports Machine these guys were poetry in motion…you counted yourself lucky to catch their shows.

Haley you’re not even dumb funny in the sense that April Iremia used to be…one time talking about the FA Cup, April actually prounounced the word calling it the Fa Cup…that is fabulously hilarious…I was clutching my stomach cramping up I was laughing so hard.

Haley you seem to always be in nutural neither here nor there…just annoyingly there.  In the end I have to face the fact that you’ve killed the pleasure of watching ‘The Crowd Goes Wild’ for me. I’ve tried…honestly I’ve hung in there but now I’m like the Jack Rabbit on the side of the road only I’m hunched on my couch pumped full of adrenalin holding the remote – like a drug addict I crave ‘action’ it’s the creative rush I’m after from the days ‘sports results’ like we like to say in America – ‘score me’ fill me in on what’s going down baby in the sports world…like a Black Hole it’s sucking me in I’ve got a big decision to make do I push the on button now..no wait..now…no…yes…no…yes now…thump!

I get flattened not by an eighteen wheeler but by your flat lifeless drone, it just kills me.  I don’t have any idea why I’m so emotionally distraught but I am every time I hear you slowly butcher another potentially exciting highlight reel I just feel so discouraged.  So I’ve gotta man up here Haley and face the cold harsh reality that as long as the powers that be see fit to employ someone who is clearly out of her depth I’m gonna have to go cold turkey and yank the remote right out of my hand. Pity.

World Flight are offering the chance to spend an hour with a New Zealand celebrity at the controls of a Boeing 737 flight simulator as part of a fundraising exercise for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter.

The stars:
Beth Allen, Ido Drent, Dai Henwood, Renee Wright, Toni Street, Pippa Wetzell, Mike Puru, Andrew Mulligan, Jeremy Corbett, Paul Ego, Rodney Hide, Jono Pryor, Miriama Kamo, Neil Waka and Clinton Randall.

The auctions are live on Sella.  Check out World Flight NZ for more info.

7:00pm Thursday, February 4 on Prime

Sports

Join Mark and Andrew from the hub of the Westpac Halberg Awards as they bring tonight’s show live from the Sky City Convention Centre. Who will be their picks for the awards this evening – undoubtedly there will be some heated debate. Andrew is coincidentally the co-host for tonight’s award ceremony – we’re sure Mark will have something to say about that!

7:00pm Friday, December 18 on Prime

Sport

It’s the final episode for 2009 before the boys swan off on their Christmas break. Make sure you tune in to Andrew, Mark and the two James for the latest sports news, both local and international, and general tomfoolery. Fear not though, the show will be returning mid-January 2010.

Weeknights at 7.00pm

Get all the latest sporting news (and a healthy dose of sarcasm) from Andrew Mulligan and Mark Richardson.

MEETING MULLIGAN

• Andrew played in the Second Division Wellington Secondary Schools All Star team when another player couldn’t make it. He scored 8 points and still has the t-shirt. Ah, bless.

• Has a scar on his top lip from walking through a window when he was 17 (which you can now see it in HD).

• Andrew’s great, great, great, great, great grandfather was John Logie Baird – inventor of the television!

Weeknights at 7.00pm

Get comfy on the sofa, kick off your work shoes, crack open a beer and join your favourite (and terribly serious) sports reporters, Andrew Mulligan and Mark Richardson, for a look at the day’s sporting headlines.