What are your favorite and least favorite TV guest shots by pro athletes?

First of all, have there been any really good TV appearances by big-time sports stars other than a handful of them on SNL? (Michael Jordan comes to mind.)

As far as really, really terrible ones, the all time worst IMO (and the one that inspired this thread) was an appearance by the New York Mets on Ed Sullivan just after they'd won the 1969 World Series. They did much more than just come up on stage and take a bow, unfortunately. They sang. And not very well, either. They did "You Gotta Have Heart" from "Damn Yankees", and as the camera panned across the group, every guy on the team, from Tom Seaver to Cleon Jones to Jerry Grote had this awful "kill me now" look on his face. Michael Phelps could do 100 SNL's and it wouldn't be that bad.

Michael Strahan had a pretty good turn on Chuck as a bullying athletic store employee.

I can't stand the Indianapolis Colts and if Peyton Manning weren't so damn likable, I'd really hate him. But his SNL was pretty fabulous, and I like most of his commercials -- my favorite is the commercial (Mastercard, maybe?) where he is a huge fan of ordinary people, like the grocer. He's got a lot of charm and natural enthusiasm. I also like the Mannings vs. Williams Oreo competition.

Nancy Kerrigan holds my personal title for worst SNL athl-host.

Oh my God. A new thread that is both in the correct subforum, and funny. Luther Hegges, I love you.

Charles Barkley was pretty funny when he hosted SNL. He and Mugsey Bogues on the Stuart Smalley show was hilarious.

SNL has had a lot of great athlete hosts. Like Michael Jordan, f'r instance, or Peyton Manning. (His "United Way" spoof ad is defintely a future classic.) But I've found that even the worst athlete hosts can pull off at least one good sketch. Like Wayne Gretzy's "Waikiki Hockey", or Chris Evert competing with Martina Navritalova.

Of course, there are exceptions. For the life of me, I can't think of a single good sketch that Michael Phelps was in.

The Michael Phelps diet sketch was funny, if only because it became a callback in Weekend Update after the picture of Phelps taking a hit came out.

I seem to remember Jonny Moseley's monologue after the 2002 Winter Olympics being pretty good. He commented on a clip of himself competing - "They have a name for that kind of performance - 4th place!" Then he compared the medal ceremony that he wasn't in to the party he was attending instead where everyone was having a VERY good time. All things considered he was a pretty good sport about the whole thing.

Michael Phelps on SNL was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. He was horrid.

Yes, she was terrible. It didn't help matters much that SNL was in the midst of one of it's unfunniest periods ever.

With the exception of The Rock, athletes hosting SNL have almost always done a lousy job, but I've never held it against them. It's just not their medium.

God, yes. "It's on like Donkey Kong!" Heeheehee.

The Rock on SNL was pretty damn decent. I had low expectations and would have been happy if he just stood there and looked pretty, but he was actually funny and charming.

Charles Barkley is always great whenever he's on the Daily Show. He and Jon Stewart have good chemistry.

I want so very much to hate the Manning brothers, but they're both so adorkable. Their Sportcenter commercial with they poking and shoving each other like little eight year olds always cracks me up.

Ooh, I hadn't seen that one, Francie Nolan! Thanks for the heads up, because it was great.

I think The Rock should be in a special category. Professional wrestling is incredibly difficult and requires a lot of athleticism, but it's not a sport cuz, well, it's scripted. It wasn't a huge step out of his territory for The Rock to go on SNL.

On the fail side: Brian Bosworth. But I guess he just did movies, not TV.

I remember that sketch with great fondness. "Chris! Chris! Chris!"

Kerri Strug on Orignial Recipe 90210 is what leapt to my mind. Good lord, that was horrible.

I suppose it would have been a little more bearable if Ms. Strug - a courageous and talented athlete, mind you - had not had a voice that sounded as if she'd just taken a deep breath of helium.

Anyone old enough to remember Mark Spitz's attempt to earn money for dental school by appearing on some variety shows right after his Olympic wins? He was roundly thrashed by the critics - and probably deserved it to some extent, because he was bad - but did exactly what he said he would and went to dental school, pretty much disappearing from the media's radar. Many years later, when Michael Phelps was circling around Spitz's longtime record, news shows hunted down Mark Spitz, DDS, who turned out to be a warm, gracious, sensible man who felt mainly pride and pleasure in watching Phelps' achievements, and had also aged very well.

I didn't realize Mark Spitz was a dentist. Smart guy.

Bruce Jenner is a bizarre inbetween. He was a great athlete, but somehow, Hollywood consumed him, he destroyed his nose, and now he's a fixture on a reality show about a woman famous for her big ass and her sex tape.

He was on a Bob Hope special after the '72 Olympics, and yes, it was pretty bad. He was smart to go out and get a real job. As far as aging well, he looks like he could still smoke 99.9 percent of us in the pool.

Don't know if this was ever on TV, but I remember hearing that Greg Louganis actually tried stand-up comedy and basically learned it ain't that easy.

This also made me think of 4 words that will live in TV infamy..."The Super Comedy Bowl". There were a couple attempts at this in the early 70's, and to put it mildly, if you think the words "Johnny Unitas" and "Sketch Comedy" should never go together, you're probably right. One good thing did come from this, though...Mike Reid, the former Bengals linebacker who went on to become a very successful songwriter, was on one of these specials. He was presented in kind of a "Look At The Big Dumb Football Player, He Can Play The Piano!" fashion, but it was impressive.

I remember reading that after his diving career was over, Greg Louganis was auditionong to be on soaps.

Grant Hill did a pretty good job playing himself on an episode of Living Single.

Here's where I confess that back about 15 years ago I saw Louganis on some godawful late-night cable channel sofcore porn anthology. Thankfully the details are lost to me, but I do remember thinking that this wasn't the career for him.

How did Married... with Children become the spot for retired NFL players? They were worse actors than the Playmates!

Do you remember, was he acting, or just like introducing?

I hesitate to describe it as "acting," but he was a character rather than an announcer. I think he was running around in a dream sequence wearing a thong with his hair unnaturally dyed and moussed to look like a fish fin.

Heh. I should have used the word "performing." It sounds funny though.