Battle of the Network Stars III originally aired as Battle of the Network Stars '77 on Friday, November 4th 1977.

From a more innocent tv age comes this wonderful "reality" show. The premise of the show was that the big three networks (the only three at the time) would have their television stars compete against one another in friendly sports competitions, for the most part no one took themselves too seriously and everyone had a great time. The best thing about this show was the simple fact that you could see your favorite stars outside of their normal television venue, seeing them in some of their best moments and worst. They might be laughing or crying, encouraged or discouraged, frustrated, exhausted or even embarrassed, just like real people might be in the same situation. Yes it was a strange concept to accept at the time but television stars were like the rest of us, they were people too. Of course the competitions weren't too taxing. With some normal sports events like swimming and track and some other out of the ordinary events like a more gentle form of football and the dunking booth there could be something for everyone while at the same time making sure that our stars didn't really hurt themselves competing (except maybe the occasional turned ankle). Put all of this great competitive drama together and then add Howard Cosell's deadpan commentary on top and you have one of the most brilliant television concepts ever offered to the viewing public, a show that it would be impossible to recreate in this modern tv age, nor should they even try.

This was Kristy McNichol's second of three appearances on this show competing for Team ABC. On this episode her teammates were Gabe Kaplan (Team Captain), Fred "Rerun" Berry, Billy Crystal, Christopher DeRose, Victor French, Cheryl Ladd, Penny Marshall, Suzanne Somers and Parker Stevenson. Kristy competed in the swimming relay, rowing, running relay and football, she also acted as cheerleader (along with teammates Cheryl Ladd and Penny Marshall) during the final tug o' war and even had a short feature about her. She won in every competition that she was in (except football) and even competed against her brother Jimmy (CBS team) in the swimming relay. Team ABC was the overall winner because they had won the most events but the NBC team (lead by Dan Haggerty) actually tied for points with ABC after winning the tug o' war. Once again Howard Cosell was commentating with help this time from Telly Savalas and Bruce Jenner. Now this is the real must see TV!

Buying note: This show has never been available on commercial home video. But there are other sources for this as well as other Kristy McNichol appearances that you might be looking for.

5-10-2006