When ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" debuted on Oct. 22, 2001, few people believed it would last -- including its cast and crew.
"I'm delighted that it's still on, because when we first started, Tony [Kornheiser] said, 'This is going to last a month!'" said Bonnie Berko, the show's associate director who was there for PTI's first episode.
Twenty-five years later, the show is still on, with Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon debating the biggest sports topics of the day five times per week. PTI celebrates its anniversary Thursday with a special show at 5 p.m. on ESPN -- but for the folks who make it happen every weekday, each show is special. We talked with some of the show's longtime crew leading up to the anniversary.
"PTI continues with the same level of success that it had 25 years ago," said Erik Rydholm, the longtime executive producer. "And the reason for that, for us, is Tony and Mike. Because people feel connected to them and their relationship. It feels familiar to them, with family being the essence of familiar. They feel connected to it, and that carries them through. ... They have a dynamic where one plus one equals something more than two."
The show's recipe has been largely unchanged since 2001. Put Kornheiser and Wilbon at a desk. Decorate the set with charming, often homemade, decorations (in a segment called "Time Machine," Berko made a hat for Wilbon out of a colander and some pipe cleaners). Spin up a list of topics and skits. Then let the hosts go.
Fans have tuned in to see what Kornheiser and Wilbon have had to say about everything from LeBron James' "The Decision" to the Boston Red Sox's comeback against the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series and the rivalry between WNBA stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
"Sometimes the most obscure stories, the tiniest scrap of meat, end up being just wonderful," said Matt Kelliher, the show's coordinating producer. "As Erik says, they have an opinion on everything. And more than just having an opinion, they desperately want to share that opinion with each other and see what the other has to say about it. That's why they're on the phone all weekend. Something happens -- boom, call. Like when the Commanders couldn't get that play off, their first instinct was to call each other."
Kornheiser, who had written columns for Newsday, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and Wilbon, a columnist for the Post, spent years developing their unique styles, writing reactions to the biggest sports news.
"They showed up at a game, tomorrow's column was a blank page," Kelliher said. "They had about four hours -- two to three hours of a game and an hour after -- to produce something. They came to us with that training of 20-plus years, and not everybody on TV had that kind of training. They're able to look at an event, and their instincts are, 'OK, let me find the most interesting vein of this and go.'"
Kornheiser and Wilbon appeared on ESPN's "The Sports Reporters" before being tapped for their starring roles, but in many ways, PTI laid the groundwork for the modern sports debate show.
The television landscape was much different in 2001. For a while, PTI was the first opportunity for viewers to get a fresh take on the previous night's events.
"When we launched, there was nothing new on ESPN since 2 in the morning," Rydholm said. "Everything was a repeat of the overnight programming. There was no morning 'SportsCenter,' there was no 'Get Up,' there was no 'First Take,' there was no noon 'SportsCenter,' there was nothing. The first sign of life was at 5 o'clock, which was 'Up Close,' the interview show. We were the first show of the day that could react to any news in sports. Now, by the time we get to sports, everybody has chewed it over."
So why do fans still tune in, even with all the other options at their disposal? For Berko, the answer is simple.
"They're smart," she said. "They know who's smarter than them."
Kornheiser and Wilbon are open to new ideas and maintain a curiosity about the world that has served them well. Berko said one of her favorite things to do is to try to get Kornheiser to say unfamiliar slang words from a younger generation -- although over the years, "younger generation" has gone from Gen X to Gen Z.
Though they're both "cranky old men," as Berko put it, their inherent humanity shines through. Berko recalled a trip to Walter Reed Army Medical Center years ago when Kornheiser visited soldiers who had lost limbs during their military service. Nike donated sneakers so that when the soldiers received artificial legs, they would have something to put on them.
"Tony was fantastic," Berko recalled "... I know he was uncomfortable, but when he went from room to room, those guys would light up and for a few minutes they left their misery and hung out with Tony Kornheiser and took pictures with them and got pairs of sneakers. It was tremendous. He turned into Mr. Tony, and all those guys forgot their troubles for a few minutes and it was magic."
Though their mutual irascibility is a big part of the show's appeal, their longtime crewmembers believe the show's success is due in large part to the connection the two have had since day one -- a connection built on their differences and similarities.
"They are not the same person," Rydholm said. "One of the reasons the dynamic works is that Tony is more of an instigator, an agitator, and Mike is more of a counter-puncher, and so Tony will lay down what he sees, and often what he sees is sometimes in response to what he presumes Mike is going to say, what Mike thinks. And so Mike is just then all fired up, and he'll start swinging back in boxing parlance, and everything escalates.
"And it escalates with what I think is really rare about the partnership in that you know there's a foundation of love and friendship. ... I've never met, and I've never seen in my life, a couple in a relationship who can fight like cats and dogs and neither of them takes it personally. [Kornheiser and Wilbon] actually enjoy it, and everything's OK. My impulse is to try and fix everything. They love it. They find joy in those interactions."