The San Pedro Beach Bums

This line has been repeated by myself and my brothers (and most every guy I know) since it came out in 1977. I never thought about it too much and actually forgot where it originated from.

I said the line to my wife the other day and she had no clue as to what I was referring to.

I remembered it was from a sitcom and I do remember being in school the next day and everyone was saying it all day. I think I was in 7th grade. After Googleing it, now I know the origin. As a twelve year old, I vaguely remember liking the show, even though I'm sure it was pretty bad.

The plotline of this show was weak, but it was goofy fun for the short period it was on. It was about the adventures of five neer do wells who lived on a houseboat. They were always in trouble for one reason or another.

A memorable line from a short lived show. After viewing the episode where that line was introduced my fraternity intramural flag football team started using the line to break our huddles on offense. Instead of Ready / Break, our quarter back said FOOTBALL and the rest of the squad responded YOU BET! A fun way to break the huddle that had our opponents scratching their heads as very few of them had watched the show. Using this line added a unique element to our season that I'll never forget. We had our best season during my time in college that year and in a small way it was due to the fun that we had using this line. The show was pretty much a stinker but it lives on in the memories of the 1977 Pi Kappa Phi intramural flag football squad at West Virginia Tech.

The odd thing is, I had forgotten where that line came from until I looked up Stuart Pankin and saw this show and "The Line". I thought "OMG! THAT is where it comes from!"

1977-78 was my senior year in high school and I was so busy making sure I had my civic/scholastic ducks in a row for college resumes and a scholarship. I only watched a few of the episodes from the show, but I use the line a lot. Like every time my hubby and I get out of the car to go into Costco or Walmart, one of us says, "Football" and the other says "You Bet!"

It is always in the looking back, comparing shows of then to shows of today we think of the old ones as lame or boring or whatever the description. But truthfully, it is today's shows that are boring. All cookie cutter, all ridiculous angles and quick cuts. I stopped watching television in 2003. We have a TV to play DVD's, but television programming stinks anymore. Maybe if television programming had more "lame" programs like this I'd buy cable again...but I'm not holding my breath.

Sure, nobody watched this crapfest, but it must have been big with 12-year-olds. For some reason, my whole seventh grade class repeated the insipid line "Football, you bet" for one entire day. I later learned that it was used the night before on this miserable program. Sure, it was yanked after a very short run, but the producers can take comfort in knowing that one line had a huge impact on a bunch of pre-pubescent punks. Must have been a hell of a funny line - sorry I missed it!