In Popular Culture
Apart from his normal sportscasting duties, Costas has also presented periodic sports blooper reels, and announced dogsled and elevator races, on Late Night with David Letterman.
In 1985, Costas appeared on the The War to Settle the Score, a pre-WrestleMania program that the World Wrestling Federation aired on MTV.
In 1993, Costas hosted the "pregame" show for the final episode of Cheers. Costas once appeared on the television program, NewsRadio, as himself. He hosted an award show and later had some humorous encounters with the crew of WNYX. Costas also once appeared as a guest on the faux talk show cartoon Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
Bob Costas has been impersonated several times by Darrell Hammond on Saturday Night Live. Costas was "supposed" to appear in the fourth season premiere of Celebrity Deathmatch (ironically titled "Where is Bob Costas?") as a guest-commentator, but about halfway through the episode it was revealed that John Tesh had killed him before the show to take his place. Tesh had been widely criticized for his gymnastics coverage during the 1996 Olympics, but by no one more than Costas.
In 1994, Costas appeared as the play-by-play announcer for the World Series (working alongside Tim McCarver) in the movie The Scout. In 1998, Costas appeared as himself along with his rival/counterpart Al Michaels (who now works for NBC) from ABC in the movie BASEketball. In 2006, Costas voiced the animated character Bob Cutlass, a race announcer, in the movie Cars. Costas also appeared as himself in the 2001 movie Pootie Tang, where he remarks that he saw "the longest damn clip ever".
In 2002, Bob was the play-by-play announcer, alongside Harold Reynolds, for Triple Play 2002 during the ballgame for PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
Costas has been alluded to in popular music. The songs "Mafioso" by Mac Dre, "We Major" by Domo Genesis, "The Last Huzzah" by Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire all refer to Costas. He was also mentioned in a Ludacris song after Costas mentioned the rapper on the late night talk show Last Call with Carson Daly.
On June 13, 2008, Costas appeared on MSNBC's commercial-free special coverage of Remembering Tim Russert (1950~2008).
On February 11, 2010, Stephen Colbert jokingly expressed his desire to stab Costas at the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Costas later made a cameo appearance on the February 25, 2010 edition of Stephen's show.
On January 30, 2009, Costas guest starred as himself on the television series Monk in an episode titled "Mr. Monk Makes the Playoffs"'. He mentions to Captain Stottlemeyer about how Adrian Monk once helped him out of a problem several years ago with regards to a demented cat salesman. He apparently sold Costas a cat that allegedly tried to kill him with a squeeze toy (in fact, when he signs off, he says "The cat was definitely trying to kill me").
He guest-voiced as himself in 2010 Simpsons episode, "Boy Meets Curl", when Homer and Marge make the U.S. Olympic curling team. Costas also guest-voiced as himself on the Family Guy episode "Patriot Games".
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