Stuart Scott Raises the Bar

Stuart Scott counting his fans out loud.

There were few things on television that I liked less than Stuart Scott. Often inserting the dumbest parts of popular culture into sports highlights, running 20-year old slang into the ground, and trying way too hard to be funny, SportsCenter's version of Jar Jar Binks has almost single-handedly killed my love of sports.

For several years now, I have managed to avoid Scott almost completely. Rarely watching SportsCenter or ESPN in my own home at all, Scott's fingernails have only managed to find my chalkboard when I've been too polite to wrestle the remote out of my host's hand, forge it into a shiv, and stab his HDTV to death with it.

George Lucas' version of Stuart Scott almost single-handedly killed the Star Wars franchise.

Enter Old Spice Odor Blocker commercials. Thankfully, the miracle that is DVR spares me almost all commercial interruptions. For some reason, I have become careless with my own remote control management lately and exposed myself to the one thing more annoying than Stuart Scott: "Block, block! Block, block! Buh buh buh buh buh buh POW-er!"

As if the commercials themselves weren't dumb enough (blocking odor and destroying buildings with martial arts), this freak of a human specimen has to shout and sing the most mindless jingle in the history of advertising...all in nothing but his underpants. More importantly, if his (or anybody else's) body odor is bad enough to require a product that strong, medical attention is long overdue.

Old Spice guy appears to be watching Stuart Scott narrate sports highlights.

Anyway, from the moment I saw this commercial, it annoyed me. It was probably playing in the background as I skimmed War and Peace and I probably made a face and reached for the remote. Then, somehow, it crept into every commercial break I stumbled across for an entire evening. By the time I actually paid attention to it, I wanted to collect specimens of body odor, cultivate them in a top-secret lab, and create the ultimate weapon to secure that vile creature's demise.

Fast forward another hour or three. By some cruel cosmic coincidence, I found myself unable to turn away from SportsCenter after an enjoyable game of baseball. Glutton for punishment that I am, I even subjected myself to highlights of Game 2 of the NBA Finals, complete with (of course) Stuart Scott. I could have fast-forwarded, but my curiosity was twofold:

1. Watching Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals at the beach as a kid is a relatively fond childhood memory.

2. Stubbornly holding to my position that the NBA is the tanning salon reality show of professional sports, I asked myself if I'm missing something about the NBA.

I vow to you, loyal reader, I will not make this mistake again. In less than three minutes of highlights, Scott uttered the following:

"Kobe Bryant was strug-gl-ing." Not creative, but not too obnoxious. I can deal with this.

"Missed two shots, called for travelling, Kobe's like 'WHAT?!?' (high-pitched voice)" Kind of dumb, but still no silly catch phrase. Blood pressure still relatively normal.

"Holl-ah!" Uh oh. Here come the catch phrases. Kind of 1995, but at least I've heard this one.

"Boo-yow!" See above. Only rolling my eyes at this point.

"Rondo, get at me son!" What?

"This is what you call freakin' 'em with the okey-doh!" I kid you not. He said this. I really thought his next gem would be "Now that's what I call a double dose of rippity rappity slip-slap on a triple scoop of shlibbity shloppity shlooptee-doop!"

And, last but not least (in fact, this was one of the first ones, but it was by far the most infuriating)...In describing a successful three-point shot (and therefore NOT blocked), Scott chooses to shout and sing the following:

"Block, block, block! Buh buh buh buh buh buh POW-er!" Baffled that two paragons of irritation could be married so perfectly to form such an unholy union of nausea, I found myself paralyzed with fear and unable to speak for hours.

When I awoke from my coma just a few minutes ago, the doctors assured me that my CT scan was normal, but that I should probably lay off television (ESPN specifically) for a few days. I'll get you, Stuart Scott (and Old Spice commercial guy), if it's the last thing I do.