ABC's Wide World of Sports is a long-running sports anthology show on American television. As the title suggests, it aired on the ABC television network. An anthology is a collection of literary works, originally of poems, but in recent years its usage has broadened to be applied to collections of short stories and comic strips. ... 2002 identity of the ABC Circle logo, designed by Paul Rand in 1962. ... A television network is a distribution network for television content whereby a central operation provides programming for many television stations. ...

The show debuted April 29, 1961, and was the creation of Roone Arledge, the executive producer of ABC Sports. It was intended to be a "fill-in" show for a single summer season, until the start of fall sports seasons, but became unexpectedly popular. The goal of the show, which ran weekend afternoons, was to showcase sports from around the globe, of the type not normally seen on American television, such as hurling, rodeo, and badminton. The broadcast was hosted for most of its history by Jim McKay. April 29 is the 119th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (120th in leap years). ... 1961 (As MAD Magazine pointed out on its first cover for the year) was the first upside-down year—i. ... Roone Arledge (July 8, 1931 — December 5, 2002) was a sports broadcasting pioneer and chairman of ABC News from 1977 until his death. ... For the Cornish sport of Hurling, please see Hurling the Silver Ball Hurling is a team sport of Celtic origin, played with sticks and a ball. ... This article contains nonstandard pronunciation information which should be rewritten using the International Phonetic Alphabet (see IPA in Unicode and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) for help). ... This article is about the racquet sport badminton. ... James Kenneth McManus, better known by his professional name of Jim McKay (born September 24, 1921 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), is an American television sports journalist. ...

The show was introduced by a stirring, brassy fanfare over a montage of sports clips and dramatic accompanying narration by McKay:

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport! The thrill of victory...and the agony of defeat! The human drama of athletic competition! This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!

The melodramatic introduction became a national catch phrase that is still often heard today, and ski jumper Vinko Bogataj, whose dreadful misjump and crash was always featured under the words "...and the agony of defeat", became a hard-luck hero of sorts, and an affectionate icon for stunning failure. A catch phrase is a phrase or expression that is popularized, usually through repeated use, by a real person or fictional character. ... Vinko Bogataj was a Slovenian ski jumper, who became noted on television in the United States for a moment of spectacular failure. ...

During the 1970s and 1980s, a Canadian version was aired by the CTV Television Network. Licensed by ABC, the CTV broadcast included a mix of content from the American show, and segments produced by CTV and its affiliates. For the television outlet in the Channel Islands, see Channel Television. ...

Most recently, the "Wide World of Sports" name has been used as an umbrella title for ABC's weekend sports programming.

External link

• Official page (http://espn.go.com/abcsports/wwos/)