Unsung Hollywood - 1x08 - The Harlem Globetrotters- Followmy.tv

Five decades before Magic Johnson’s “Showtime” Lakers, Michael Jordan’s “highlight” moves, and the gravity-defying dunks of Dr. J, there were the Harlem Globetrotters. Born in 1927, the team took a stodgy game of controlled, plodding low-scoring basketball and turned it into a highlight reel of fast-paced, free-flowing, improvised action that set the template for today’s NBA. But the Harlem Globetrotters, and their irrepressible, controversial owner Abe Saperstein, didn’t just invent a new way of playing the game. They were pioneers, blurring the lines between sports and entertainment, breaking entrenched racial barriers, and, by dribbling their multi-colored ball all over the globe, introducing basketball to the world. The Globetrotters’ early black players were prophets without honor in their own land, worshipped by adoring white audiences in large arenas but denied access to hotels and restaurants after their games. In later years, the iconic squad was the target of criticism from black audiences put off by the organization’s growing clowning and minstrel act. Amazingly, they are still a phenomenon, touring non-stop with a sleek act targeting young audiences. Their story is a mesmerizing mix of racial progress and setbacks, soaring wins and crushing defeats, all within the microcosm of a vaudevillian basketball squad that changed sports, society and entertainment forever – unbeatable, unstoppable, unsung!