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Super Bowl ads: hear no evil, see no evil

By CHASE SQUIRES
Published February 8, 2005

It doesn't matter which team walked away with the trophy Sunday. This year, in a G-rated orgy of ultrasensitive self-censorship, the Super Bowl was lost.

What used to be a national toga party turned into a tea party. The only thing interesting about what used to be an experience was the game.

Maybe the Super Bowl halftime extravaganza and the much-anticipated commercials got a little edgy in the past. Certainly, Janet Jackson should have kept herself covered during the 2004 half-time debacle that started us down the road to Super Bowl ZZZZ.

Sunday night was boring, darn it all to heck and pardon my language.

Sir Paul McCartney stuck to the halftime script, a 62-year-old man singing 40-year-old songs - note for note, just the way he and boys from Liverpool used to do them. Heaven forbid, he should ad-lib!

And the commercials, which for many of us are the only reason to watch the Super Bowl, were a bust: bland, forgettable and average.

Quiznos trotted out toddler pitchman Baby Bob, because after all, how offensive could the little tyke be?

Visa presented Marvel comics superheroes, because they stand for what's good and pure and safe.

Budweiser put its arm around the yellow-ribbon crowd with a toast to our beloved soldiers. Welcome home, troops. Have a brewski.

Credit Careerbuilder.com for giving it a try with lots of chimpanzees in an ad where a guy decides to look for a new job because, "I work with monkeys."

Can't go wrong with chimps. But was that a whoopee cushion one of them was holding? How crude.

Here's the worst part about Sunday's snoozefest: It's our own gosh-danged fault.

Imagine yourself inside the television, looking out. That's the way Fox and its advertisers, the ones spending $2.4-million per 30-second spot, see us.

Remember, everything we see on TV is shown for a reason. Fortunes have been made by counting us, sorting us into age groups, pandering to us, pleading with us, influencing us and figuring out what we want to see.

From that perspective, it's pretty scary where we're headed. The fun haters are winning.

We used to tune in to be entertained, to have something to talk about on Monday morning. Now, apparently, we just don't want to be offended.

And be warned, no matter how boring we made it this year, we could apparently go further.

A Monday-morning quarterback on National Public Radio, author Bernice Kanner, complained that the Lay's Potato Chips spot was "coarse" (parachute-pants-wearing ex-rapper MC Hammer gets tossed over a fence).

Kanner fretted that Internet site Godaddy.com crossed the line and won the "coarse award" for mocking the FCC crackdown against airing anything remotely upsetting on television. By the way, Kanner also said the spot may have actually worked, being among the few to grab our attention.

We could blame organizations such as the Parents Television Council (actual quote from the Web site: "We are proud of our 1-million members for the actions they've taken to force the FCC to finally protect citizens from indecent and raunchy content on broadcast television.")

Or we could look at ourselves. Because it's our actions, our viewing habits, our buying decisions that will swing the pendulum back and restore a little sense, and a sense of humor.

If we're just hoping television won't offend us, we probably shouldn't even turn the thing on.

And maybe, if that happened, the people inside the box would get it.

-- Chase Squires can be reached at 727 893-8739 or squires@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 7, 2005, 16:49:01]