The American Football League game played between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders on November 17, 1968 in Oakland,
California. The game owes it's fame to the fact that NBC decided to cut away from the broadcast in order to begin airing the made for tv movie "
Heidi" on
time.
The game had only 65 seconds left with the Jets leading 32-29 following a field goal. After the Raiders received the kick off, the network went to commercial only to return to the soporific misadventures of
Heidi. Outraged viewers flooded the NBC switchboards with complaints, and stunned fans scrambled to their radios to listen as the Raiders completed a wild comeback by scoring 2 times on
3 plays to win the game 43-32. Quarterback Joe Namath and the Jets got their revenge 6 weeks later by beating the Raiders in the
AFL Championship Game, and then beating the
Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Superbowl III.
The NFL and the networks would later amend their policies to allow games in progress to be seen in their entirety in their home markets.
I can't believe I missed the end of the
Heidi Game because of that stupid movie, it wasn't
even the original Shirley Temple version.
