Harlem Globetrotters
The Harlem Globetrotters is a basketball team that combines athleticism and comedy to create one of the best-known sports franchises in the world. Created by Abe Saperstein in 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, the team adopted the name Harlem because of its connotations as a leading African-American community. Over the years it has toured more than 100 countries putting on more than 20,000 exhibition games, mostly against helpless opposition like the Washington Generals (1927-1995) and the New York Nationals, (1995-present).
History
Early years
The globetrotters are well known through out the basketball world. The Globetrotters started in the Negro American Legion League as the "Giles Post", and in 1927 turned professional as the "Savoy Big Five". That year, promoter Saperstein bought the team and re-named it the Harlem Globetrotters, after the most famous of all African American neighborhoods. The Globetrotters were initially a serious competitive team, and they beat the premier professional team, the Minneapolis Lakers, two games in a row in 1948 and 1949. However, in 1950, Chuck Cooper became the first black player drafted by an NBA team, and from that time on the Globetrotters had increasing difficulty attracting and retaining top talent.
Finding success
The Globetrotters gradually worked comic routines into their act until they became known more for entertainment than sports. The Globetrotters' acts often feature incredible coordination and skillful handling of one or more basketballs, such as passing or juggling balls between players, balancing or spinning balls on the fingertips, and unusual or difficult shots.
Among the players who have been Globetrotters are NBA (National Basketball Association) greats Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain and Reece "Goose" Tatum, as well as Marques Haynes, George "Meadowlark" Lemon, Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, former Temple coach John Chaney, and Connie "The Hawk" Hawkins. Another popular team member in the 1970s and 1980s was Fred "Curly" Neal who was the best dribbler of that era of the team's history and was immediately recognizable due to his shaven head. Baseball Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins and Lou Brock also played for the team at one time or another.
Because virtually all of its players have been African American and because of the buffoonery involved in many of the Globetrotters' skits, they drew some criticism in the Civil Rights era. The players were derisively accused of "Tomming for Abe", a reference to Uncle Tom and white (Jewish) owner Abe Saperstein. However Jesse Jackson has stated: "I think they've been a positive influence. . . . They did not show blacks as stupid. On the contrary, they were shown as superior".
Modern era
During the 1970s and 1980s, the team was controlled by Metromedia and was featured in numerous television series and specials, including appearances in live-action variety shows and several Hanna-Barbera cartoons (see "Media" section below). After a period of decline the Globetrotters franchise was purchased by former team member Mannie Jackson in 1993, and its fortunes revived again. In 2002 the team was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
To try to offset the criticism that they do not play "real basketball", in recent years the Trotters have scheduled games against college teams and pick up teams like Magic Johnson's All Stars with varying results. This renews a tradition of playing NBA teams, which the Globetrotters did during the 1950s.
The Harlem Globetrotters visited Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in November of 2000 and named the Pontiff an Honorary Harlem Globetrotter.
A whistled version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" is the team's signature song.
Winning streaks
On January 5, 1971 the Harlem Globetrotters lost a game in Martin, Tennessee in overtime to the New Jersey Reds as team owner Red Klotz sank the winning basket for a 100-99 score that ended a 2,495-game winning streak.
On September 12, 1995, the Harlem Globetrotters lost an exhibition game 91-85 to Kareem Abdul Jabbar's All Star Team in Vienna, Austria ending a run of 8,829 straight victories in exhibition games going back to 1971. The Globetrotters won the other 10 games during that European tour.
They also immediately went on another winning streak of 1,270 before losing 72-68 to the Michigan State University Spartans on November 13, 2000 (the eventual national champions). This was only the 333rd defeat in the organization's history. In addition to their exhibition games, the Globetrotters have faced some competitive action since 1997. On February 27th 2006, the Globetrotters extended their overall record to 22,000 wins
Media
Marcus Haynes and other Globetrotters starred in full-length feature film The Harlem Globetrotters (1951), also featuring Thomas Gomez, Dorothy Dandridge, Bill Walker, Angela Clarke. Young Bill Townsend drops out of college to join the famous independent Trotter team. He also finds romance along the way. "Goose" Tatum and fancy dribbler Haynes were the star players of the Globetrotters at the time and Saperstein was the owner. Tatum, Haynes, Babe Presley, Ermer Robinson, Duke Cumberland, Clarence Wilson, Pop Gates, Frank Washington, Ted Strong and other current team members appear in the film as themselves. Also featured is a lot of actual game footage (three times against the Celtics with Tony Lavelli and Big Bob Hahn), including their famous "Sweet Georgia Brown" warm-up routine. (Along with making the film, the team toured Major League Baseball stadiums that year and went on their first tour of South America.)
Hanna-Barbera produced a Saturday morning cartoon, The Harlem Globetrotters, from September 12, 1970 to May 1973. Originally broadcast on CBS, and later re-run on NBC as The Go-Go Globetrotters, The Harlem Globetrotters cartoon featured animated versions of Lemon, Neal, Hubert "Geese" Ausbie, J.C. "Gip" Gipson, Chris "gimpy" Faill, Bobby Joe Mason, and Pablo Robertson, alongside their (fictional) bus driver and manager Granny, and Dribbles, their dog mascot. The Harlem Globetrotters and Josie and the Pussycats, another Hanna-Barbera offering, were the first Saturday morning cartoons to feature Black characters. After the show was cancelled, the animated Globetrotters made three appearances on Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies in 1972 and 1973.
In 1974, the Globetrotters appeared in the live-action Saturday morning variety show The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine, which featured comedy skits, blackout gags, and educational segments. The show was produced by Funhouse Productions and Yongestreet Productions for CBS.
A second animated series, The Super Globetrotters, was created by Hanna-Barbera for NBC in 1979. It featured The Globetrotters (now including new squad members Twiggy Sanders, Nate Branch and "Sweet" Lou Dunbar) as undercover superheroes, who would transform from their regular forms by entering magic portable lockers carried in Globetrotter "Sweet" Lou Dunbar's Afro, or in a basketball-shaped medallion. Their foes included the likes of Museum Man, a disgruntled history museum janitor who can bring fossils and statues to life, and Tattoo Man, an alien who can animate the tattoos on his body (similar to an enemy of Green Lantern, somewhat ironic in that Michael Rye, who played Green Lantern on several animated series, was the show's narrator), and the extremely bizarre Bullmoose, who wore a hat that had fake antlers on it and was served by a gang of livestock-themed henchmen (Ham, Wool Woman, Ponytail, etc.). Three of the team's super-heroic identities were completely lifted from the titular characters of the late-60's Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Impossibles. As Liquidman, Nate Branch (the late Scatman Crothers) has the same water-based powers as Fluidman. As Sphereman, Curly (Stu Gilliam) would retract his limbs into his head to bounce, smash, even grow. As Spaghetti-man, Twiggy's (Buster Jones) powers are a bit different from Coilman, but can use his body like a ladder or a rope. As Gizmoman, Lou's (Adam Wade) giant afro holds an unlimited supply of gadgets. And finally, as Multiman, Geese's (Johnny Williams) cloning powers are similar to the Impossibles' own Multiman, even down to carrying a shield. Overall, the group can fly. The Globetrotters receive their missions from a basketball-styled talking satellite called the Crimeglobe (voice by Frank Welker). Most episodes culminate in the Globetrotters challenging the villain and his henchmen to a basketball game for whatever treasure or device they sought, the civilian Globetrotters being trounced by the villains' super-powers in the first half, and then using their own super-powers (often at the admonition of the Crimeglobe) to save the game in the second half. Meadowlark Lemon is, for some reason, removed from the group.
A 1981 made-for-TV movie, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island, featured the Globetrotters alongside Bob Denver and the rest of the cast of Gilligan's Island.
In more recent years, the Harlem Globetrotters have made multiple appearances on the animated show Futurama. These episodes feature fictional Globetrotters like "Bubblegum" Tate (played by Phil LaMarr). In the 31st century, it seems that the Globetrotters have a planet all their own, creating the need for a planet/planet showdown on the basketball court between the Globetrotter Homeworld and Earth (for absolutely no stakes).
In 2005, a documentary about the Globetrotters was released, entitled Harlem Globetrotters: The Team that Changed the World. It features interviews with Globetrotters and NBA coaches to Henry Kissinger - an honorary Globetrotter himself - and the late Pope John Paul II.
References
- Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters, by Ben Green (2005). Amistad/ HarperCollins Publishers