What do you do when one of ESPN’s top NFL analysts joins your show ahead of a highly anticipated playoff game?
For ESPN 850 Cleveland’s The Really Big Show, the answer was to bombard Mina Kimes with a series of parody songs about Browns quarterback Joe Flacco.
“I want you to understand what’s going on here,” host Tony Rizzo told Kimes. “There is a phenomenon going on in the city right now with Joe Flacco and Flacco Fever and Flacco songs. Are you aware of this?”
“Not aware of the songs,” Kimes admitted.
Boy, was she in luck.
Rizzo proceeded to play a series of fan-created — and frankly, poorly sung — songs for Kimes, including parodies set to the Bee Gees’ Night Fever and You Should Be Dancing, Blackbear’s hot girl bummer, as well as a series of original songs created by fans.
“We’ve gotten two [since] the show started,” Rizzo proudly told Kimes of the songs before asking her the first question of the interview nearly four minutes into it.
Rizzo and co-hosts Aaron Goldhammer and Emmett Golden proceeded to ask the NFL Live co-host about the national perception of Flacco, how Cleveland’s defense stacks up to the Baltimore Ravens’ and Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud. Kimes, per usual, was insightful in her answers, before Rizzo played another parody song — this one set to AC/DC’s Back in Black.
“Is this another Flacco song?” Kimes asked.
“I’m sorry, I know I keep doing this to you. We didn’t have anything to do with this — we’re not running a contest,” Rizzo insisted. “These people are producing songs. Five a day.”
Kimes played along, noting that the Cleveland fanbase is “hungry” for success.
The interview continued from there, with the hosts asking about the Browns’ Super Bowl chances, the potential winners of the league’s postseason awards and the keys to beating Cleveland. Pretty standard stuff.
But just when it finally began to feel like an actual sports talk radio interview, Rizzo struck again, playing perhaps the most cringeworthy Flacco-inspired song he had access to.
“Mina has a young child and we definitely don’t want that child being scarred by the Flacco songs,” Goldhammer said.
“I like them,” Kimes replied, not very convincingly.
Kimes then initiated a plug for her podcast and there was a brief awkward exchange regarding who her favorite English Premier League team is. You can listen to the full interview here.
“Aaron, thanks for nothing,” Rizzo told Goldhammer following the interview, acknowledging how awkward it was.
While The Really Big Show is a program that certainly revels in hijinks, the chemistry in this particular interview just didn’t click. As perhaps best evidenced by her weekly appearances on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, Kimes is more than willing to play along with bits. Yet despite her best efforts to pretend otherwise, she clearly didn’t find the Flacco songs as funny as the show’s hosts did.
That’s OK. Humor is subjective and tastes aren’t always going to match. But following Kimes’ less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the first five Flacco songs, the interview likely would have been better served had Rizzo not continued to play the songs after the bit had already died on the vine.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.