What It Was, Was Football

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"What It Was, Was Football"
Single by Andy Griffith
A-side What It Was, Was Football
B-side Romeo and Juliet
Released November 14, 1953 (1953-11-14)[1]
Recorded Raleigh, North Carolina
Genre Comedy

"What it Was, Was Football" is a monologue by comedian Andy Griffith. At the request of Andy Griffith, a 19-year-old, Milton Alderfer, recorded and produced the original master tape in Greensboro, North Carolina.[2] From that tape, Andy then had the master tape mass-produced in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by Colonial Records label in 1953. Soon, Colonial had sold nearly 50,000 copies of the record and then sold the masters to Capitol Records. Capitol released the record in the same year, which soon had sold nearly 800,000 copies, and was instrumental in launching Griffith's career in television, stage, and film. The record is still one of the biggest-selling comedy records of all time.[3] On the original single, the monologue is credited to "Deacon Andy Griffith."[4]

The monologue is a description of a college football game, as seen by a naive country preacher who attends the game by accident and is entirely puzzled by it.

Griffith made an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1954, in large part due to the popularity of the record.[5]

"What it Was, Was Football" was printed in Mad magazine in 1958, with illustrations by artist George Woodbridge. Most of the text of the recording is printed verbatim with faithful renderings of Griffith's accent as heard on the recording; however, Griffith's original climactic description of "the awfullest fight that I have ever seen...in my life!" is moved to an earlier position in the printed version. Also, while the original recording makes no direct reference to a specific university as a setting for the game witnessed, the illustrations in the Mad version refer to both the Ivy League and University of Notre Dame. Due to licensing issues, this adaptation had to be omitted from the Totally MAD CD-ROM collection of the magazine's run.[6]

In 1987, Andy Griffith made an appearance on The Tonight Show promoting his series, Matlock. During the interview, guest host Bill Cosby told Griffith that he had purchased Griffith's recording of "What it Was, Was Football". Cosby then told Griffith that he had performed it at school and received an A for his grade much to Griffith's surprise and delight.

In 1997, the monologue was made into a short film.[7]


  1. ^ . UNC Libraries http://www2.lib.unc.edu/ncc/ref/unc/ncday/browse_results.html?year=1953&month=November.  Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ "Winning Game" The Greensboro Record 16 Dec. 1953 C6
  3. ^ UNC University Library: Article by Patrick Winn
  4. ^ details for What It Was, Was Football - Deacon Andy Griffith
  5. ^ MBC Bio: Andy Griffith
  6. ^ the original article from madcoversite.com
  7. ^ What It Was, Was Football (1997)

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