PROMOSEXUALS
IT HAS long seemed that the people in TV who have the most nerve also have the least amount of guts.
Last Sunday, as the nation sat ready to watch the Giants-Packers NFC Championship, TV staged another ambush. Just before kickoff, Fox seized the opportunity to vandalize our homes with a promo for a new quiz show, selecting from it an R-rated crotch question/answer that was too vulgar for transcription or further description.
Oh, how bold, how nervy, how naughty. Fox produced and presented a promo that would have been inappropriate at any time, then showed it just after 6:30 p.m. on a Sunday to a huge national audience that was in place to watch a big football game.
I know, nothing new. CBS, during a Thanksgiving Day NFL telecast, aired a promo for one of its sitcoms that included a child actor speaking a lewd expression for oral sex. Networks especially like to show sports audiences just how low they can go, how naughty they can be.
Still, this column always has been eager to give credit where credit is due. And today we offer those from Fox Entertainment who were responsible for selecting that promo for production and presentation and those who provided it final approval for airing, just before kickoff, Sunday, the opportunity to take full credit for it, to attach their names and titles to it.
Let us know who you are. Show us you’re as courageous as you are bold. We’d love to hear from you, to salute you, to give you the credit you deserve.
And, as long as you’re at it and as long as you’re so gutsy, perhaps you’ll give us a heads-up on what similarly bold ideas you have in mind, and for exactly when, during next Sunday’s Fox telecast of the Super Bowl.
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Ask Mr. Know It All: Tuesday over WFAN/YES, caller “Mike from Montclair” wondered why the Packers didn’t call a timeout before Lawrence Tynes‘ OT game-ender.
“How many timeouts do you get in overtime?” Chris Russo asked.
Mike “Professor” Francesa, in his most authoritative tone, jumped in to handle that one. “Two; you get two. Two,” he expertly stated.
Thus, he was dead wrong three times in just five words. Each team, in OT, gets three timeouts.
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Tennis, anyone? Perhaps the Golf Channel would be easier on the nerves if it weren’t an additional-pay channel and if it were named something else, something more accurate, perhaps the Miniature Golf Channel.
That GC owns the exclusive rights to live PGA tournament events, played by the world’s best golfers, yet still chooses to show so little of them – before totally abandoning live coverage for its studio show (unless Tiger Woods is still on the course) – makes for a very bad lie.
Thursday’s “coverage” of the Buick Invitational, for example, featured, in order:
1) Break for commercials. 2) Return from commercials to a post-round chat with Woods. 3) Highlights of Woods’ round. 4) Commercials. 5) Return from commercials to a scene-setter. 6) A live shot by first-round contender Brad Adamonis. 7) Commercials. 8) Return from commercials to a scene-setter.
Arghhhh!
It is “Where’s Waldo?” coverage; there’s live golf being played out there, somewhere, try to find it. Why call yourself Golf Channel, charge extra for it, buy the rights to live PGA Tour events, spend days encouraging viewers to watch those events, then, when the events begin, do everything you can to not show them?
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The “YESSS!” Network: MSG has become so reliant on programming consisting of “vintage” game footage that Marv Albert can now be heard more on MSG than before Jim Dolan gave him the boot.
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Supe to Nuts: The silliest pre-Super Bowl conversations are those that try to gauge which team will be more motivated, which one “wants it more.” Last week, FAN’s Russo, noting that the Giants gave the Pats a tough time in December, said, “It’ll be a hard game for the Giants because they’ll be playing an opponent that takes them very seriously.”
It’s the Super Bowl, for crying out loud. Not one of the previous 82 teams that have played in it was less than fully motivated to win it.
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Beer Pong GameDay: The latest X-treme incivility from an ESPN regular – that drunken, expletive-laced riff from “First Take” co-host Dana Jacobson at a “Mike & Mike Show” roast, leading to her one-week suspension – again inspires the image of ESPN-as-frat house. Or is ESPN short for Epsilon Sigma Pi Nu?
Meanwhile, despite her suspension, Jacobson’s performance has been nominated for an ESPY.
