ESPN.com - A royal rumble of bit players

ESPN.com: Page 2

Wednesday, March 6, 2002
Updated: March 11, 12:16 PM ET
A royal rumble of bit players

By Jim Caple
Page 2 columnist

If you were eagerly looking forward to the Tonya Harding-Amy Fisher bout, there is some bad news. Fisher has bowed out of the fight. The Long Island Lolita may have shot her lover's wife in the head but she does have some standards ... or, to be more precise, her parole officer does. Fortunately, Paula Jones does not.


	Danny Bonaduce, left, and Barry Williams spark a national tournament of notorious characters.

Thus, Jones is replacing Fisher on the card, which is probably for the best. This means the fight will reunify all the different councils and give us one clear, undefeated and undisputed scandal skank champion.

Besides, it's the undercard that is the real attraction here -- Danny Bonaduce versus Barry Williams, Danny Partridge versus Greg Brady in the Bomb of Sitcom.

And if you think that's over the top, consider the latest bout added to the card, Vanilla Ice vs. Willis from "Diff'rent Strokes."

Some see this as a desperate network sinking to new lows. And perhaps it is. But who are we to say? After all, our partner network, ABC, gave us "The Battle of the Network Stars" a couple of decades ago. And that classic piece of trash was brilliantly parodied by SCTV with "Battle of the PBS Stars," featuring an unforgettable bout between Mr. Rogers and Julia Child.

So, this Greg vs. Danny fight isn't that strange at all. In fact, there is an entire tournament of bouts we would like to see among TV has-beens and scandal-ridden wretches.

Here's how the first round matchups look. Fill out your own tournament bracket, then click here to see how it compares to the first-round results and the second-round matchups.

East region

ROUND 1	ROUND 2	ROUND 3	ROUND 4
Play-in game: H.R. Puff n Stuff vs. H.R. Haldeman *(Puff n Stuff wins)*
Puff Daddy vs. H.R. Puff n Stuff
Arnold Horshack vs. Ralph Malph
Mr. Roper vs. Mr. Furley
Monica Lewinsky vs. Divine Brown
Sgt. Schultz vs. Frank Burns
Gary Condit vs. Gary Hart
Lenny and Squiggy vs. Wally and the Beaver
Tootie Ramsey vs. Denise Huxtable

Midwest region

ROUND 1	ROUND 2	ROUND 3	ROUND 4
Mr. Belvedere vs. Mr. French
Marcia Brady vs. Jan Brady
Mork vs. Alf
Jessica Hawn vs. Donna Rice
Dr. Bellows vs. Dr. Bombay
Ruben Kinkaid vs. Sam the Butcher
Gary Coleman vs. Steve Urkel
John-Boy vs. Boy George

Southeast region

ROUND 1	ROUND 2	ROUND 3	ROUND 4
Malcolm in the Middle vs. Eddie Corbett
Dick York vs. Dick Sargent
Rob, Chip and Ernie vs. The Olsen twins
Laura Ingalls vs. Punky Brewster
Gennifer Flowers vs. Lucy Mercer
Maude vs. Granny
Morticia vs. Lilith
Lumpy Rutherford vs. Rerun

West region

ROUND 1	ROUND 2	ROUND 3	ROUND 4
The Skipper and Gilligan vs. Capt. Stubing and Gopher
Jethro vs. The Fonz
Barney Fife vs. Fish
Goober Pyle vs. Gomer Pyle
Kato Kaelin vs. Lorena Bobbitt
Fred Sanford vs. George Jefferson
Mimi vs. Aunt Bea
Eddie Haskell vs. Jack Tripper

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.