So, it’s summer. You get to barbecue, lounge in the pool, and defrost all that pent-up, depression-like anxiety brought on by the cold season. But something always seems to be missing, right? Football. Football is missing. Yes, there’s baseball, but unless you live at the ballpark, there isn’t much luster to it. And with the college football and NFL seasons still 33 and 41 days away respectively, finding a decent sports program can sometimes impossible. Never fret, though. In this new Hidden Track weekly series, we highlight a quality show that’ll help ease your football hunger pangs. This week, it’s ESPN2’s Highly Questionable.
Highly Questionable is far from questionable when it comes to entertainment value. Dan Le Batard, Miami Herald writer and the show’s main host, is a gem on his own, but unite him with his devil-may-care father Gonzalo (referred to simply as “Papi”) and Bomani Jones, and you have a damn sports talk-show dream team.
The charm felt between Dan and his father is the undeniable highlight of the show. Papi, an American immigrant who fled his homeland of Cuba at 16, ardently champions all-things-Miami in (oftentimes broken) English, leaving Dan to fill the role of the objective analyst.
This dynamic plays well into the rhetoric of the show. The two complement each other extremely well and — until May 13th — were doing so alone. That’s when Jones was brought in as a permanent fixture on the show, following the recurring guest spot he previously held. And what a genius move by ESPN. Jones’ blend of brutal honesty and wit was the only piece that could have possibly been missing from this already extraordinary puzzle.
But wait — there’s more. Highly Questionable doesn’t just boast an incomparable cast of characters; it also has a style all its own. While the show’s flow and basic premise follows the same blueprint used by a number of other ESPN broadcasts, this one doesn’t wilt or grow stale over time. Set in a typical Hialeah-style kitchen that pokes fun at the stereotype as well as pay homage to it, the trio sits at a dining table mulling over sports topics and indulging in generally comical dialogue.
Broken into four segments, the show is leaded off by “Opening Questions,” with Dan and company being tossed the more vital sports issues of the day while giving the audience their take on the matter. The second is an interview — usually of a sports personality — followed by “Do You Question,” where the three-man panel basically repeat the show’s first segment in a less serious, more laugh-inducing manner — with the main difference being that topics may or may not be sports-related. Finally, in “Si o No,” viewers suggest television airings for the evening as Dan, Papi and Jones decide whether or not they are “intrigued.”
Highly Questionable is the perfect cocktail of entertainment, sports and humor. Make sure to catch it weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on ESPN2, or, at some random time on ESPNews. Seriously, you won’t be disappointed…unless you have bad taste.
To get you started, here’s a sample segment:
2 Responses
Si Si very intrigued
I’d like to believe this comment is actually from Papi himself. For now, I’ll just pretend that it is.