A boring Sunday in America

Press, 31 January 1986, Page 19

A boring Sunday in America

For at least one viewer, “Super Bore” Sunday was a six-and-a-half-hour squirm. The pre-game show was lethargic and light on meaningful analysis. The game was a longwinded runaway. Even Herb, Burger King’s lost-and-found national nerd, was a let-down.

The best metaphor for NBC’s orgy of football and pseudo-football was the blank screen, which came midway through the twohour pre-game show. The intentional one-minute break was not enough time to take care of business in the kitchen or anywhere else and, unfortunately, the commercials, incessant promotions for upcoming NBC shows, and the pre-game silliness returned much too quickly.

There were at least eight light-hearted promotions for NBC’s “The Last Precinct,” the series that was introduced after the post-game show. It seemed as if viewers had

already seen the eighthour mini-series, “Peter The Great,” one week before it was scheduled to start.

The Chicago Bears 4610 pounding of the New England Patriots, the most one-sided Super Bowl ever, was hard enough to watch. But there was little in the way of colourful or clever commercials to take our minds away from the football rout.

Timex spent $1.6 million to build a 25metre replica of its Atlantis 100 watch and sank it in the Red Sea but the big model was hard to detect after 30 seconds of scuba diving.

At least Timex and Burger King got their commercials in before half-time. This was not a game that kept viewers’ attention during the second half. All 30-second commercials during the game cost $1.04 million.

McDonalds had its messages sprinkled throughout the game, including one when it was over congratulating the Bears on its victory.

Sunday’s extravagant excess on NBC started on the wrong foot with a pretentious film from Bob Giraldi, whose success has been in making commercials, including the popular Miller Lite advertisements with former football heroes. Giraldi’s idea was to show what Super Sunday means through several slices of Americana, including a family whose daughter was getting married on game day and a traveller who could not get to his plane on time. The traveller ended up watching the game in Brooklyn with his cab driver while the groom put a television antenna in his mouth to improve the game reception andjiwin over his snitty new father-

in-law. Some viewers might have thought they had stumbled on to Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Bad Stories.” There was nothing genuine or special about Giraldi’s vignette and his humour and attempted poignancy came off as inane. The next television star to stoop on Super Bowl Sunday was Bill Cosby, a hero in prime time but an also-ran in the pre-game show. He did a useless, laughless segment on how to tackle “The Refrigerator,” also known as the Bears’ 138 kg folk hero, William Perry. Later, another comedian, Rodney Dangerfield, offered viewers more bad jokes with another one of his no-respect routines, supposedly from a two-bit hotel room in New Orleans.

Evidently, NBC was trying to do a variety show during the pre-game countdown but it did not

come off. What was even more disappointing was that the football features, with the exception of a strong tribute to the late coach, Vince Lombardi, were of little interest or value. Insights into the game, its match-ups, strategy and personalities were also lightweight.

The blank screen actually was a respite from the boredom. It was a good idea to pause here for a breather, said the host, Bob Costas, who later would distinguish himself by asking intelligent questions in the Bears’ victorious locker room. A familiar drive-in movie animation alerted us to intermission time and then the screen went dark, except for a 60second countdown clock. In a cute touch, the last 20 seconds ticked off in Roman numerals, as in Super Bowl XX. ! .

At ’the end of the pregame fl; show, the United

States president, Ronald Reagan, dressed casually in a red v-neck sweater, was interviewed by the NBC nightly news anchor man, Tom Brokaw. Pressed for a prediction, the president, ever the politician, said they were both great teams, adding may the best team win. He went on to say that the Super Bowl was part of the American personality, then frowned on the national day of betting that the Super Bowl had spawned. There was too much temptation to try and fix things, he said.

Brokaw tried to throw in a news question, asking if 1986 would be a taxing year, and Reagan replied that he was not going to raise taxes.

It was, however, a taxing day. From pre-game through post-game, Super Sunday was an exercise in excess, a long six-and-a-half hours. 1 NZPA-AP