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ESPN 30 for 30: O.J. Made in America (1 Viewer)

Dan LeBatard was pimping this months ago and before the FX show aired, I had initially confused the two shows. Looking forward to this and it seems juicy. 

 
His early life is pretty interesting and how he goes from SF to USC to Buffalo is quite a story too. That 1973 season changed him, made him a star.

 
Yeah been hearing good things from people who saw it.  Someone said they watched all 8 hours in one sitting, and weren't even tempted to take a poop. 

Grab a diaper, settle in.  :popcorn:

 
I never knew this happened. I recall a little about a white Jeep on the highway but I didn't know OJ was inside. I'll watch cause its all new to me. Thanks, ESPN.

 
Reason for the slow chase

"According to Van Gundy, Riley had traveled that summer to Los Angeles and bumped into Al Cowlings, Simpson’s old friend and the owner and driver of the Bronco, at a car wash. Cowlings, a Riley acquaintance, motioned to the Knicks coach.

“He waved him over and proceeded to tell him the story of why he was driving so slow was O.J. wanted to hear the end of the game on the radio before he pulled in,’’ Van Gundy said. “When Coach Riley told us that story, I was mesmerized by what really goes on. Like I could just see him having a gun to his head and saying: ‘Turn up the radio so I can hear the last few minutes.’ ’’

 
First half hour sucked, same crap regurgitated from a thousand other documentaries. Race this race that, Jim Brown pissing & moaning blah blah blah. Not original people

 
Calm down people, just saying this was heralded as some masterpiece and this certainly at least to start is disappointing

 
I didn't expect a lot from the early episodes, I want to see from 1994 on. Every review I read said it was fantastic, so I'm anticipating some good stuff later on.

 
I thought it was interesting that Hertz designed their commercials so that O.J. was the only person of color that you ever saw. I just watched a few old Hertz commercials on YouTube, and sure enough, there isn't a single black or Asian or Latino person in any of them, except for O.J.

 
[scooter] said:
I thought it was interesting that Hertz designed their commercials so that O.J. was the only person of color that you ever saw. I just watched a few old Hertz commercials on YouTube, and sure enough, there isn't a single black or Asian or Latino person in any of them, except for O.J.
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Thankfully we've since evolved and the backdrop is never racially or otherwise manipulated to achieve political or commercial goals.

 
Nigel said:
Agreed, for the old footage alone.
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That's what got most of my attention.  I hadn't seen any of that news footage of OJ walking around USC or being interviewed at that age. I'd forgotten that he was already married when he got there.  

Now that I think about it, I don't think I'd ever seen video footage of the Watts riots before last night.  Read about and seen photos, but never seen the police videos for sure.

Whether sincere or calculated, OJ was really quick to acknowledge his teammates when receiving individual accolades.  I really liked the interview in Buffalo right after the game where he broke the 2000-yard barrier.  Again, seen game footage from that day before but not the interviews.

 
And not blaming Nicole Brown here, but according to this doc, she essentially accepted and excused OJs physical abuse from the very first night they went out together. And she was only 18 years old, right out of high school. 

 
So I took from it that his childhood friends and other black athletes were upset/jealous of him because he didn't keep it real and fight for the cause? Short of calling him an Uncle Tom, but that's what they're thinking, right? 

 
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Tom Skerritt said:
And not blaming Nicole Brown here, but according to this doc, she essentially accepted and excused OJs physical abuse from the very first night they went out together. And she was only 18 years old, right out of high school. 
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She was 18.....and she was pretty naive I am sure. She did not accept it later on in their marriage together and she paid with her life eventually.  

I thought part 1 was very good. It's only going to get better. It's crazy to watch a young 18 year kid in OJ evolve into what he is right now. I sincerely believe he at one time really had it all together. He was driven, focused, and knew exactly what he wanted. He then fell into the Hollywood black hole and apparently had some serious anger issues that Nicole Brown brought out of him. He was madly in love with her and he was enraged when he murdered her and Ronald Goldman. Crazy thing was my son walked in (he is 11) when my wife and I were watching it and he said....that's OJ the guy who killed those 2 people? And my wife and I looked at each other and said "yeah"  (under our breath we said to each other) and was found not guilty. So ####### amazing. LOL.  

Watching the old Bill's footage was nice. He showed how amazing of a RB he was. It is easy to forget with all that happened in 1994 and beyond. He was an elite HOF player with a great personality and he was so popular. I remember those Hertz commercials like yesterday growing up in the 70's. I only was able to see him at the tale end of his NFL career though (I was born in 1970). 

This is going to be a fascinating series. I can already see how much better this is going to be than the FX movie we got earlier (it was not bad either but glossed over a ton of fact's etc). 

 
You can now watch all 5 parts on the ESPN app if you don't want to wait.  Not sure why they are doing this now until after all of the shows have aired but cool if you feel like binging through it at once

Most of the people who have issues so far has been why are they spending 4 hours talking about this and they haven't even gotten to the murder.  While most of the people already know the story you can't really do a documentary like that.  You needed to explain how OJ became the person he was in the first show.  You needed the second show to really explain (rightly or wrongly) why black people in LA had such a horrible opinion of the police.  That was the part of the last night's show that really hooked me was all the things during the Gates era that you could see would trigger what ended up happening.

 
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If you download the ESPN app or similar you can watch all 5 episodes right now. 

I was excited for this to start and I am not really disappointed but there are 2 different documentaries going on. I know the director is trying to show what was happening in America because ultimately the jury didn't give 2 spits what the prosecuters presented as evidence, they were going to let OJ walk. The irony is that OJ wasn't very accepting of the black community and really turns to them when he is desperate and needs to tap into that social anger that was permeating SoCal at the time. 

The 9-1-1 calls and the repeated showing of OJ beating Nicole Brown again and again is so sad and people should know that many women in America went thru things like this and of course it still exists but women were still being abused heavily(still are). 

Any respect or admiration folks might have for OJ is squeezed out of you quickly as you see this go was a total monster to his wife. Fame and celebrity entitlement went to his head after he was treated like gold. His timing right after the Civil Rights Movement was perfect. White corporate types found a black person they could really get behind and use as the face of their products and reach both black and white consumers or so they thought. 

I will watch the rest of this but I have to say that it moves a lot slower than I thought and some of the hype was a little over the top for what I've seen so far but again there are 2 documentaries running. You get 10 minutes of Gates and the problems in the LAPD from the 70s right thru the 90s when a powder keg like atmosphere explodes when LAPD is found innocent for the beating of Rodney King. 

Feels like the trial is going to have some information that perhaps many of us forgot or never knew about. 

 
OJ was a monster. If he could not have Nicole.....no one was. As much as a travesty the Rodney King verdict was (and it was bad) and also that oriental woman getting probation for killing a black girl with her back turned in cold blood, two wrongs do not make a right.

OJ brutally murdered Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. It still disgusts me how this turned out even after all these years. You can't quantify it being right or just. Just so wrong. Regardless of the racial tensions and environment in LA, regardless of everything going on. Two people were murdered....no make that butchered in cold blood and the man clearly responsible for the crime was found not freaking guilty....to make a point? Horrifying and unimaginable. And OJ did not give a rats ### about the racial divide, or the black community. Not one rats ###.

 
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