Some strange things happen on the ESPN airwaves sometimes, and that was certainly the case for Monday’s edition of Thinking Out Loud on SEC Network. The weekly show, which has analysts Greg McElroy and Marcus Spears talking the weekend’s football happenings in the SEC, got extremely creative with their opening Monday. It started with them discussing with their writers and producers that there wasn’t a ton of important football to talk about (thanks to many of the SEC’s teams playing out-of-conference games against weaker teams), trying to come up with “something ridiculous for the open,” McElroy suggesting a musical and Spears responding “G, that is the dumbest idea you’ve ever had.”
One of their producers notes “That is a dumb idea. I can’t even imagine a world where the two of you doing a musical would be a good idea.” Spears and McElroy both smile and say “We can,” and then there’s a dream sequence dissolve into the start of the “musical,” featuring the two analysts as Muppets:
Here’s that full segment, which doesn’t actually have a whole lot of “musical” (it does have both Spears and McElroy rapping at one point, and some attempted singing), but does have Nick Saban criticizing the idea and the two combining to troll Paul Finebaum with an “updog” call:
Introducing #TOL The Musical
@GregMcElroy and @mspears96 have officially lost their mind.Even Nick Saban thinks so. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/d9OpJtHDCq
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) November 19, 2018
This then wrapped up with them coming out of the dream sequence and the others pretending that it didn’t happen:
Spears says “That was awesome,” and the producer says “No, it wasn’t. You guys just literally stared at the ceiling for two minutes. Now we’re out of time, and all we can do is run the animation for the open.” Oh, and while the show went back to normal after that for most of it, there was later an on-air discussion about which puppet was better, with both Spears and McElroy agreeing McElroy’s stood out thanks to his outfit:
That’s a pretty unusual stunt, and it was certainly an enjoyable change from your standard sports talk opening. And who doesn’t want to see Muppet versions of Spears and McElroy placing prank calls to Finebaum?
[SEC Network on Twitter]
