A little viewer mail...

We readily admit that clowning on Chris Berman's tired-ass shtick at this point is just piling on. But we at KSK treat the questions of our readers with the utmost of concern. With that in mind...

Commenter run up the score writes: "I'm a lifelong music fan, raised on the music of the 60's my parents, took the History Of Rock And Roll as a three-credit course at Penn State, and I still don't know the ancient pop music blurted by Ol' Leather on a weekly basis. And what the fuck is that stupid melody he spits out for Marc Bulger?"

Homer posits rhetorically: "Nobody knows the band Grand Funk? The wild, shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner? The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher? The competent drum work of Don Brewer?"

99% of Berman's musical references can be heard on any crappy Clear Channel oldies station that might happen to be polluting your local airwaves, but this isn't one of them. As if Grand Funk Railroad and Vanilla Fudge references weren't dated enough, Boomer feels the need to make a ham-fisted hosanna to a man who was born over a century ago. Apparently, the cheesesteak based cholesterol that clogs Berman's artery have moved north to his ears. To him "Marc Bulger" sounds like "Ray Bolger." Ah, homophone humor.

Ray Bolger, born in 1904, was a vaudeville song and dance man cum actor in the first half of the twentieth century. Bolger's most memorable role was that of the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz." The melody that a sweaty Berman is brutally having his way with during Ram's highlights is "If I Only Had a Brain," which is sung by the Scarecrow.

Get it? Isn't that an f'n laff riot? The only thing more depressing is when Lito Sheppard makes an interception and I realize that I will have to withstand yet another off-key rendition of that goddam Boz Scaggs song.

In our humble, yet correct, comedic opinion, Berman should have mined the uptapped goldmine that lies in "Bulgaria" jokes. What could be funnier than Balkan humor? Note to Browns fans: the Ottoman Empire is not a scratch and dent furniture store in Parma.

So there you have it, the reference is to a song in a movie that was released in 1939. My grandparents would SO get a kick out of that joke-- if they hadn't of died years and years ago.

Note: In the interests of reader edification we have subjected you to Berman, the Wizard of Oz, and the Balkan States, all in one post. To cleanse the mental palate, and to get you through to Friday's regular cheerleader feature, we gratuitously present this young woman, whose pulchritude is off the charts.