Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for October 26, 2024

Ah, the infamous ‘68 Heidi Game.

No more Heidi Heidi

Woke Janis up!

Well, that’s a deep cut. Cutting off the end of a game to show a scheduled movie would NEVER happen these days. They’ll even schedule stuff (like local news) that they know will have to be pushed back or cancelled when a game runs long, as they always seem to do.

As usual I had to come to the comments to find out what this joke meant

Heidi and the Embraceable Ewes.

He remembers the Heidi game?

How come Janis keeps gradually aging, but Arlo looks about the same as he did 30 years ago??

(Maybe he’s put on 10 or 20 pounds?)

I watched Heidi when it came on. I was glad when they cut away from the silly game.

The NFL added a clause in TV contracts that guaranteed all games would be broadcast in their entirety in home markets as a result of the Jets-Raiders game. That is the “Heidi Rule” that stands today

I asked ChatGPT to read the strip and explain: The punchline comes when the character in the teal sweater sarcastically asks, “Where is Heidi when you need her?” This is a humorous reference to the infamous 1968 “Heidi Game” incident. During this event, NBC cut away from the final minutes of a dramatic football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets to air the children’s movie Heidi. Football fans missed a thrilling ending where the Raiders scored two touchdowns in the final minute to win. The incident became legendary, symbolizing bad programming decisions.

In that context, the joke is actually funny!

Thank you, AI.

I understood the reference, but still don’t get what Arlo means.

I don’t get sports or follow it but I know what this meant. That is how famous it was. The edict came down that no game would be cut short in broadcasting ever again.

It’s just about proving how old the readers now?

And NBC installed special Heidi lines that could ALWAYS get through when needed.

“Hello, Network? Jesus just came back but the game is still going! What do we do?”

“Keep showing the game until it ends!”

I thought Arlo was a bit younger than that

No need for Heidi. You have a remote…

Heidi Ho.

I do love a good cultural reference.

My dad was a HUGE Jets fan, so I remember this! We used to go to the Yale Bowl to watch Jets/Giants preseason games. My dad knew the groundskeeper at Yale Bowl, so we always sat on the field. One year, I even got to shake Joe Namath’s hand as he came out of the tunnel!

Ah, Janis, your ignorance of pop culture is mind-blowing. Skip the “Jeopardy” try-outs.

I remember the Heidi game. Thank you MR Johnson, made me laugh. Thankfully I was not drinking coffee when I read it or I would likely have to buy another laptop

I nominate this strip for recognition as provoking the most redundant and predictable comments ever made on a comic.

Remember it well. I was a Jets fan With Joe Namath quarterbacking So I didn’t mind missing it as much.

Help for the entirely lacking in sports dna folks please :)

Since Janis went grey, JJ draws her frumpier and frumpier. I don’t like. Change it back.

Heidi-Heidi-Heidi- ho (hidey-hidey-hidey ho)

I was a kid and a raiders fan watching the game when they cut to the movie. I have hated the movie ever since and have never watched it. My understanding is the way the contracts were written at the time the airing of football games had to end at a specified time and the other program came on. As a result of the fallout football games are now aired in their entirety regardless of how long it lasts.

J.E.T.S. Just End The Season

Jimmy – You are really dating yourself with that joke. (And that’s illegal in seven states!)

Yes, I watched (most of it) that game live. Could not believe they cut away.

No American man will ever let this go.

Do you realize there are two, maybe three generations that don’t get this?

Yes, but why Janis’s reaction?

I was like 17 back then and I remember my dad, who is a Dallas fan, blow his lid when the game was shut off. I never new he watched anything but Dallas.

Aw geez thanks for the reminder of a movie I was supposed to like but secretly hated. “Heidi! Heidi!” stuck in my head for years.

If ya know, ya know. I’m feeling old(er)

ROFLOL!

there are some people that are still mad about that one, 50+ years later

As a kid I had no interest in either that game nor in Heidi (the most reviled of all “beloved” children’s stories in my opinion, strictly on its own merits), but in later years there were many, many occasions on which I had been waiting all weekend to watch a scheduled broadcast that turned out not to be broadcast as scheduled because some infernal sporting match went on too long. The solution would have been not to cut off the end of the game, but to be realistic in scheduling the programs that were supposed to come after it.

This was actually an AFL game before the merger of the two leagues and way before Pro Football wielded the power it has nowadays.

obviously a Jets fan

The little girl of the Alps?

“He has a man wide open”? Way TMI, dude.

Coulda used Heidi last night… it would have been a better ending.

Unless he’s her son, he too should have gray hair .

Heidi didn’t reside on the Plains

Old School!!

There was something like two minutes left in the game. Shortly after the Heidi movie was broadcast and the football broadcast was cut off (Eastern and Central zones only, of course), the Raiders scored. No big deal, since the Jets still led by a few points. With less than a minute left to play, the Raiders kicked off with a darting squib kick. One of the Jets tried to pick it up and dropped it, only to have Preston Ridlehuber of the Raiders’ kickoff team pick it up and run it in all the way, putting Oakland in the lead. Then the clock ran out!(I don’t remember Ridlehuber ever doing anything remarkable again as a pro football player.)

Yes, I am old enough to have been around at the time this happened and get the joke.

We were watching the game since my husband was a total sports fan. He was furious the next day when he heard what he had missed. He was rooting for Oakland, and had given up on them when the game was cut off. Thanks for the memory, JJ!

Most excellent JJ!