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John Facenda
John Facenda (August 8, 1913 - September 26,
1984) was a broadcaster and sports announcer. He was a fixture
on Philadelphia radio and television for decades, and achieved
national fame as a narrator for NFL Films.
John Facenda attended the Villanova University but dropped out.
It has been speculated that this was for economic reasons,
particularly because of the Great Depression. After leaving
school, he found employment with the Philadelphia Public Ledger,
a now-defunct newspaper. The Public Ledger also owned a radio
station, WHAT. Facenda's radio career began when the announcer
for WHAT's "Scholastic Sports Review" program got sick one day,
and Facenda was asked to substitute. Soon after, WHAT hired
Facenda as an announcer.
Facenda left WHAT after the station's manager refused to
reimburse Facenda $5 for a pair of pigskin gloves he wore while
knocking ice off the station's antenna (one of his duties). He
moved to New York City and worked for a few years as the program
director for the Ticker News Service, another radio-based
business.
He returned to Philadelphia in 1935 and started working for WIP
Radio, where he would remain until 1952. He began his work in
television at WCAU-TV, then the Philadelphia CBS television
affiliate, in 1948. His anchored his first newscast on the
station on September 13, 1948. He started working full-time at
the station after leaving WIP in 1952. Facenda ended his
newscasts with the familiar refrain, "Have a nice night tonight
and a good day tomorrow. Goodnight, all." The phrase even found
its way into 1956's The Burglar, starring Jayne Mansfield and
Dan Duryea.
During the 1950s and 1960s Facenda's newscast was the dominant
news broadcast in the Philadelphia area (beating the combined
ratings of the two other network affiliates) and Facenda
achieved iconic status in Philadelphia as both a face and voice
before his rise to national prominence. His newscasts,
originally just five minutes long, were eventually expanded to
30 minutes.
One night in 1965 Facenda went to a local tavern, the RDA Club,
which happened to be showing footage produced by NFL Films. He
enjoyed the slow-motion game sequences that were already an NFL
Films trademark and would later recall:
"I started to rhapsodize about how beautiful it was. Ed Sabol,
the man who founded NFL Films, happened to be at the bar. He
came up to me and asked, 'If I give you a script, could you
repeat what you just did?' I said I would try."
Thus began Facenda's association with NFL Films, one that would
continue until his death. Facenda narrated countless highlight
films during his career with the company. His stentorian
baritone was the perfect match for the highly dramatic nature of
the footage he narrated, and earned him the nickname "The Voice
of God." Probably one of the best-remembered (and most
frequently-quoted) examples of Facenda's NFL Films narration is
something he never actually said: "the frozen tundra of Lambeau
Field" was a quote the sportscaster Chris Berman made up,
mimicking Facenda's voice when he said it.
Facenda was undoubtedly at the pinnacle of his deliveries in
1974's "The Championship Chase" with his recitation of “The
Autumn Wind,” a football poem (written by Steve Sabol, son of
Ed) personifying fall weather:
“The Autumn wind is a pirate
Straggling in from sea
With a rollicking song he sweeps along
Swaggering boisterously.
His face is weatherbeaten
He wears a hooded sash With a silver hat about his head And a
bristling black mustach
And the trees all shake and quiver and quake
As he robs them of their gold.
The Autumn wind is a raider
Pillaging just for fun
He'll knock you 'round and upside down
And laugh 'till he's conquered and won.”
The poem and its accompanying theme music have become an anthem
of the Oakland Raiders.
Facenda's speaking style is frequently emulated, often in a
parodic manner, in contemporary sports news and advertising, and
to this day remains the sound most closely linked with NFL
Films.
In the early 1970s, rival WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV) adopted an
"action news" format based on the news broadcasts heard on Top
40 radio stations and heavily influenced by tabloid newspapers.
WCAU-TV's news broadcast fell to last place in the ratings and
management considered Facenda too old to appeal to youthful
viewers. In 1972 a co-anchor was brought in for Facenda's
newscast. Facenda, aware of the growing youth movement in
Philadelphia, decided to step down as anchorman at the age of
60. His last newscast as anchor for WCAU was on March 23, 1973.
Many viewers were upset over the loss of Facenda, and the
newscast's ratings did not improve.
Facenda continued his association with WCAU, serving as host and
narrator of various WCAU public affairs series. He was co-anchor
for the station's coverage of Pope John Paul II's visit to
Philadelphia in 1979. Twelve days before Facenda died, he was
presented with the Governors Award for Lifetime Achievement by
the Philadelphia chapter of the National Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences.
John Facenda died of cancer on September 26, 1984.
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