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Boring ads only add to jingoism

© St. Petersburg Times
published February 4, 2002

As Playboy playmate Julie Cialini teetered on a tight rope, several stories above a busy city street, Fear Factor host Joe Rogan looked on and loosed one of his trademark, incisive observations.

"Man, this is more exciting than the Super Bowl!" he croaked, a lecherous smile creasing his face.

The scariest thing about this display -- a 20-minute, Playmate-themed Fear Factor scheduled as NBC's competitive answer to Sunday night's Super Bowl halftime show -- is Rogan might have been right.

That's because NBC's highly hyped use of ex-Playboy models -- complete with lots of footage of each woman in suggestive poses with skimpy outfits -- couldn't have been any more bloated or exploitive than U2's oddly out-of-place halftime performance.

It wasn't U2's fault. For once, the excitement of Sunday's down-to-the-wire Super Bowl outshone the flat, contrived TV extravaganza that surrounded it -- even among the programming that usually draws the most attention, the commercials.

Some of it was timing. Coming in the throes of America's recession, this year's commercial lineup was assembled without the dotcom money that fueled its biggest heights -- vanished like an Enron executive headed to Switzerland.

Spots this year seemed less inventive and less ambitious -- no walking Christopher Reeve or Fed Ex truck plopped into the Land of Oz (Fed Ex didn't even shoot a new commercial for this year's game) -- developed by businesses facing the most sobering economic times in a long while.

Instead, we got Britney Spears sashaying through five decades of Pepsi advertising (one second, she's a '50s era, Marilyn Monroe-style "sweater girl," the next, she's copping Robert Palmer's '80s shtick!) and an E*trade commercial in which they shoot their monkey mascot into outer space. Yawn.

Among the night's better efforts: a Lipton iced tea commercial featuring celebrity look-alike puppets rioting when the company fires them (seeing Al Roker pelted by eggs was worth the time alone) and an anti-smoking ad featuring a guy convulsing in a rat suit with a sign noting cigarettes and rat poison contain cyanide.

(Okay, the Visa ad in which Kevin Bacon corralled six people to prove he was a few degrees' separation from a clerk who demanded his ID was cool, too.)

Fox's relentless references to post Sept.11 patriotism didn't help, wrapping events such as Mariah Carey's rendition of the national anthem in enough jingoistic superlatives to choke the life out of any real emotion they might bring.

At least NBC' was upfront about its exploitation, interrupting a best-of episode to show 20 minutes of its Playmates opposite Fox's halftime show, returning for another hour of "torture TV" at 10.

(Fox offered a star-studded, hourlong post-Super Bowl Malcolm in the Middle episode featuring -- among others -- Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Heidi Klum, Magic Johnson and Susan Sarandon, who mud wrestled with star Jane Kaczmarek).

During halftime, Fear Factor viewers only saw three Playmates tackle the show's first stunt, walking a tightrope above a busy city street. A timer in the TV screen's lower-right corner ticked off the minutes until the game would resume; an unusual admission that the audience likely wouldn't stick around once the game returned.

A channel flick away, U2 offered a typically earnest performance, cranking out the hits Beautiful Day and Where the Streets Have No Name before a huge backdrop containing the names of those killed in Sept.11's attacks.

Full of pop star grandeur and stage moves (lead singer Bono opened his jacket to reveal a lining emblazoned with Old Glory), it nevertheless seemed odd: An Irish band singing about transcending society's oppressive values before a list of people killed in America's most devastating attack.

Another curiosity: the two biggest musical stars appearing in the patriotism-drenched telecast -- U2 and ex-Beatle Paul McCartney (who played during a sprawling pregame show and earned my respect by making fun of both Bradshaw and Long's haircuts during an uncomfortable halftime interview) -- were not Americans.

In a touching note, commentator John Madden led a brief tribute to Pat Summerall (showing an old Fox promo featuring Summerall in full cowboy gear), who stepped down after the broadcast, capping 21 seasons with Madden.

Hopefully, Sunday's uninspired TV extravaganza taught programmers an important lesson: When the game is a nail-biter, who needs anything else?

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