Terry Bradshaw was backstage, less than an hour before his first-ever live performance of “The Terry Bradshaw Show” in Atlantic City, when he thought he heard a familiar voice.
It was Franco Harris, a New Jersey native and Hall of Fame running back that starred alongside Bradshaw for the Pittsburgh Steelers for 12 years.
“I’m glad Franco is coming,” Bradshaw said, excited. “You know, his son’s name is Dok?”
Bradshaw took his song, dance and comedy act to the Borgata on Friday night, an act he’s been fine-tuning for years in his pursuit of a becoming a showman capable of selling out venues from Las Vegas to Atlantic City, with stops in between. The sellouts might not happen for a little while, but not for a lack of trying.
His energy was frantic on Friday night before the show, but that’s just Bradshaw on any night.
Bradshaw sat in a couch chair, donning blue sneakers and a loose-fitting, gray t-shirt advertising his brand of (yes) insect repellant, called “Bradshaw’s 4-ring protection.”
As various fans, friends and associates shuffled in to meet the Hall of Fame quarterback backstage, Bradshaw was already thinking ahead to his trip home, about how his tiny private plane was going to have to make a pit stop in Little Rock, Arkansas for more fuel.
“We just bought this plane in April and we’ve flown 280 hours on the plane,” Bradshaw said. “A little bitty thing. I couldn’t do what I do without it.”
Across the room, a pair of navy blue cowboy boots thrown on the floor, a black pair leaning against the mirror in the back of the room.
“I was going to wear black,” he said, “but figured blue would be better tonight.”
In a nearby closet there was a hula hoop leaning against the wall, and Bradshaw’s cowboy hat leaning on the dresser and a purple jacket hanging off a nearby chair.
Another Steelers fan came backstage with a No. 12 Steelers jersey — that was Bradshaw’s number — and Bradshaw delightfully wore the jersey and posed for photos.
Bradshaw was, simply, emanating enthusiasm, and he turned that full throttle by the time his show began at 8 p.m. This was just the beginning.
Loud drums started booming, purple curtains drew open and out came Bradshaw, fully clad in that cowboy hat, purple jacket, colorful pants and those blue boots.
Supporting Bradshaw were two talented backup singers wearing sparkly Steelers jerseys with his number, and a full band with a bass player, keyboard, piano, saxophone, fiddle, drums and electric guitar.
The opening song was “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”, a clever country tune from Brooks & Dunn that was released in the early 1990s.
Bradshaw’s vocal range is more impressive than you’d expect, but he has his limitations, and he tried to stretch those a few too many times. Bradshaw probably won’t be winning a Grammy for his singing anytime soon.
What followed for the next 75-or-so minutes was about what you’d expect from a show that involves singing, dancing, comedy and Q&A from someone like Terry Bradshaw. Bradshaw interspersed stories frorm throughout his life as lead-ins to a host of songs. Some were fun, some were funny, others were neither.
The show was hokey, it was corny, it was dumb but it was also ... genuine, and positive. Bradshaw clearly embraces being showman, and was at his best when he was telling stories about his life and his career, and making jokes about some of the ridiculousness of his personality. The songs were better when he was singing somebody else’s words instead of his own lyrics.
Some of Bradshaw’s best moments involved Harris, his old teammate and close friend, with whom he shared anecdotes of their time together for the crowd in between throwing a football to each other on stage.
It was a sparse crowd of, mostly, 40, 50, 60-and-older adults, and they ate it all up. The crowd, which mostly just took up the lower level of Borgata’s Music Box, laughed at all of jokes, bobbed their heads and tapped their feet to his songs, and loudly cheered at the end of the show when he strolled through the crowd, shaking hands and taking selfies with anyone in his line of vision.
I wrote the words “hokey” and “corny” more than a handful of times throughout the 80-minute show. The get-off-my-lawn nature of some of Bradshaw’s humor would fit well in a half-hour Tim Allen sitcom.
This will be Bradshaw’s modus operandi for however long he keeps performing this act, and it’s perfect for his target demographic.
One joke early in the show took a jab at the way modern NFL quarterbacks play the game, in Bradshaw’s eyes.
“One of the things I hated doing when I played football was throwing short passes,” Bradshaw said, the pianist playing for atmosphere as he spoke. "You see that so much now. dink. dink. dink ... ’15 for 16 for 47 yards, that boy is acc-u-rate.' That drives me nuts. 2 for 9 and 100 yards, now you’re talking.
“I like taking a gamble.”
For a 71-year-old already on the road for his job as an NFL analyst, starting his own stage act certainly was a game. Maybe it was worth it.
The “Terry Bradshaw Show” isn’t groundbreaking. It might never reel in sellout crowds.
“America, let me let you in on something,” Bradshaw said early in the show. “Dumb is what I do best!”
Well, the show is dumb.
And that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Zack Rosenblatt may be reached at zrosenblatt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ZackBlatt. Find NJ.com on Facebook.