Fox prepared for a rout, and an actual football game broke out, a taut battle as the St. Louis Rams battled back from a stunning two-touchdown deficit to the heavy underdog New England Patriots, who managed to eke out a 20-17 win on a last-second field goal.
It was a good thing the contest was so exciting, because the extra-athletic spectacle of Sunday’s telecast didn’t measure up to the most-watched-TV-show-in-the-land moment.
The day’s ad bowl, the reason the non-football crowd pays a lick of attention, was thin on both winners and the often-more-entertaining losers, as many big advertisers saved their money for the Olympics or, more urgently, to try and keep the company from going Enron. One soda company spent way too much trying to prolong the 15 minutes of Britney Spears, and most wished they had run their spots in the fourth quarter, after all.
NBC diverted attention from Fox at halftime with a dirty programming trick guaranteed to cost the network its shot at a NOW award: cheesecake, as in ex-nude models competing in a very special episode of the reality game show, “Fear Factor.” It was at least a more original idea than one more celebratory U2 appearance, which is what the official halftime offered.
(So what does terrify a Playboy Bunny? Turned out it was high-altitude tightrope walking, instead of the anticipated turkey club, extra bacon.)
Moreover, between the attempted stirring civics lesson of a pregame show, the presidential coin toss (George Bush I) and the flag-draped halftime show, the broadcasters were trying to force the telecast into becoming, in too many places, a Sept. 11 tribute event.
Every reference to that dark day was tasteful enough, nothing egregious, including a shot of ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the stands. He had already appeared in a simple, black-and-white, Monster.com-sponsored ad, a message of thanks to America from his city that managed not to feel like the company was taking advantage of the mayor’s cachet.
But beginning with a pregame reenactment of the signing of the Declaration of Independence — because nothing whets the appetite for football like historical docudrama — it felt as though people were trying to force onto the Super Bowl an elegiac context it neither came by naturally nor needed.
“Huzzah,” shouted the framers surrounding the John Hancock figure, perhaps anticipating the verbal dexterity we would soon hear from Fox football analyst John Madden.
Favoritism?
Especially with no equal-time scenario involving male sheep, Rams’ fans could argue that the reenactment was a clear-cut case of network favoritism toward Patriots, possibly even a factor in the ultimate upset.
Yes, a dose of patriotism is fair enough at the American professional football championship. That’s what singing the National Anthem is for, an opportunity which, incidentally, the much-maligned Mariah Carey handled with aplomb. With her understated rendition, she demonstrated that at least one North American pop diva understands that singing the most notes does not equal being the best singer.
But the Declaration signing was followed by Fox’s version of the Hall of Presidents, taped homages to Abraham Lincoln from the living ex-presidents and Nancy Reagan as the Boston Pops, live, performed Aaron Copland’s symphonic tribute to 16th president. Wise and profound and an impressive feat to pull together and all that, and it did keep Howie Long from getting air time, but, with less than an hour before kickoff, it’s really OK to talk about football.
And then there were the on-field re-creations of the Iwo Jima and Ground Zero flag raisings.
U2 performance
The band U2, at halftime, performed its “Where the Streets Have No Name” in front of a scroll of Sept. 11 victims, and Bono, at performance’s end, opened his coat to reveal the U.S. flag sewn into the lining.
Instead of a bar in Boston, Fox took us to see U.S. troops watching in Kandahar, Afghanistan. “No chips, no dip, but plenty of live ammunition,” the correspondent on the scene said cryptically.
And at least three ads made direct reference to the terror attacks, as well. In addition to the Giuliani spot, the Budweiser Clydesdales trotted to within view of New York, then bowed their heads touchingly in respect.
The most effective one came too late in the game, however, to make this section’s front-page list of advertising winners and losers. The spot from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America directly addressed the contention that drug use is a victimless crime. One fresh young face after another admitted culpability in the terrorist attacks, supported financially, we now know, by drug money.
When a young woman at the end tried to say, “My life, my body,” the viewer could only scoff at the arrogance.
As for the football, Madden and longtime broadcasting partner Pat Summerall were sharp during the telecast, awake to the surprise and significance of what was going on. Moreover, they focused on doing their jobs rather than wringing hands over the game being the last of their partnership. The aging Summerall is retiring — or being pushed out — from the Fox lead broadcast team, putting an end to the two voices that, in tandem, say football.
People make the Super Bowl traditionally most-watched TV event of the year because they like football on TV, yes, and because the hype tells them to. But mostly they do it because there are few enough shared rituals these days, few water-cooler conversations that can go beyond the latest office layoffs.
Unfortunately, if you don’t love talking football, the event offered slim conversational pickings.
Missing the mark
The ads were a motley lot, short on previous years’ controversy, risk-taking or surprise and overwhelmed by way, way too many movie ads. The studios have a right to buy time, of course, but their presence made the game feel, too often, like just another NBC Thursday night, a big TV event but not the big TV event.
The best of the day’s ads fit the scaled-down price tags and diminished anticipation. These used the dominant mode, a kind of scruffy, dime-store realism. In contrast to big productions of years past, many seemed determined to put across an independent film vibe, from a winning Budweiser ad on the difference between men and women in relationships (hint: One sex spends more time selecting greeting cards) to one for Quizno’s subs that managed to make a dart gun to the neck funny (the only way a researcher could make it look like a taste-tester preferred a competitive sandwich).
When a company went for big production values, a la Pepsi and its Spears extravaganza, it fell flat as three-day-old cola. The idea of taking a singer through recent decades’ iconography was a sharp one, but Spears is too tepid to pull it off. A second Pepsi/Spears spot, involving only a straight-up lampoon of 1950s ad stylings, was more effective because the concept became the star.
Hoping sales are Brisk
The only big-concept spot that came off well was the one for Lipton Brisk. The elaborate dark comic fantasy posits a “puppet community” that becomes enraged because the drink, which is so good it “sells itself,” fires the Danny DeVito spokespuppet. But viewers will still have a hard time telling you what Lipton Brisk tastes like, beyond apparently having something to do with iced tea.
More effective in general were the simpler ideas: Beefy guys wearing black dresses to a party because, before Docker’s, there was no male equivalent to the little black dress, or the robot wars concept that had a fearsome looking machine freezing up before a mini-fridge that happened to be stocked with Bud Light.
Luckily for viewers, there was that rarity in Super Bowl history, an on-field spectacle that could steal attention from the one being manufactured off the field. Let’s hope the Olympics offers more of the same.
