Boys to Fame and The Philly Special are two new must-watch documentaries for Eagles fans

The two films, Boys to Fame and The Philly Special, contain plenty of overlap, both in terms of subject matter, talking heads, and even some of the same footage. But they’re both outstanding and take away some of the sting from the Birds’ early playoff exit this year.

The boy with the helmet at Hershey

Ray Didinger, a longtime and now-retired sportswriter, radio and TV host, book author, and NFL Films employee, is probably more of an authority on the Philadelphia Eagles than any sportswriter in the country is about any other team.

And on top of his top-tier knowledge of the team and its history, gleaned from a 50-year career, Didinger has always been associated with a more cerebral, less toxic version of Eagles analysis than what has often been part of the local Eagles commentariat. Didinger and Glen Macnow’s weekend WIP show, featuring a couple of ex-sportswriters, a ton of institutional memory, and lots of movie talk, was the smartest sports radio show in Philadelphia history.

Indeed, a big part of Didinger’s story is his having met Tommy McDonald when he was a kid in the late 1950s, visiting Eagles training camp, and watching him win that championship game at Franklin Field in 1960.

As an adult, working as a sportswriter, Didinger was able to advocate for McDonald to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame, something he finally achieved in 1998, many years after he retired, with a speech that included both dancing to the Bee Gees and throwing his Hall of Fame bust in the air. And backstage that day in Canton, Didinger finally told McDonald that he was that kid, all those years earlier, who had carried his helmet at training camp in Hershey.

From field to stage to screen

Didinger has told this story in his memoirs, on the radio, and in his popular play Tommy and Me (with productions including a 2016 run at Theatre Exile and a 2021 run at Delaware Theatre Company). And now it’s a documentary called Boys to Fame. Directed by former Philadelphia mayoral candidate Sam Katz, the film is available for online rental via Katz’s History Making Productions.

“It all started with Tommy McDonald,” Didinger says. And most people watching this film are probably going to be familiar with the story. But it’s still presented wonderfully, largely because Didinger remains such a fantastic storyteller. And while the story has a lot to juggle, Katz, as the director, capably puts it all together.

The film makes use of plentiful archival footage, much of it from Didinger’s old employers, NFL Films, as well as some reenactments of Didinger and McDonald’s 1950s interactions. There’s also some footage of the Tommy and Me play, also acting out important moments.

Tommy McDonald died in September 2018 at age 84. Seven months before that, the Eagles won their first-ever Super Bowl, and the team’s first championship since McDonald’s 1960 team.

The film ends with a fantastic visual juxtaposition of McDonald’s touchdown in the 1960 game, Nick Foles’s 58 years later, and Didinger telling the story on stage.

Focus on Foles

Now that Foles moment is the focus of another documentary, The Philly Special, which debuted on the Friday before the Super Bowl, as part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series.

Directed by the duo of Angela Zender and Shannon Furman, The Philly Special is about the famous trick play that the Eagles ran on fourth down near the end of the first half of Super Bowl LII. You may have seen the X-and-O diagram of the play on bumper stickers, on one local mural, and even tattooed on many people’s bodies.

The documentary includes a lot of the very cliched things that are in every documentary about Philly sports: WIP audio. Talk of Philly as a “tough, blue-collar town.” The snowballs/Santa thing. Somebody cooking a cheesesteak. But this one finds ways to switch it up, including the cheesesteak chef using meat on the griddle to map out the X-and-O of the Philly Special play.

A hugely enjoyable film

The bulk of the documentary features the five major figures in the play: Foles, former coach Doug Pederson, center Jason Kelce, tight end Trey Burton, and running back Corey Clement. All were at one point considered backups or underdogs; none are still actively employed in the NFL, but all have attained immortality.

We see them taking a trolley tour around Philly, making visits to the statue of Foles and Pederson outside Lincoln Financial Field and to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (aka the Rocky steps), plus stopping to enjoy the most mouth-watering-looking lunch of all time at Zahav. (If you guessed that Michael Solomonov would emerge from the kitchen to proclaim “Go Birds”, you guessed right.)

In between, there’s some super-granular analysis of the play, how it got called, what it meant, and how it became legendary.

Ray Didinger, of course, is a talking head in The Philly Special, and the famous moment of him hugging his son after the Super Bowl win is in both documentaries.

Once again, there won’t be many surprises for Eagles fans watching The Philly Special. But it’s still hugely enjoyable, and an outstanding entry for 30 for 30, a series that ESPN hasn’t been giving all that much care to in recent years.