Not A Bad Double Byline

A hilarious clip from the Akron Beacon-Journal, February 1, 1999, with two names you might recognize:

BRAINWASHED & BLURRY

FOR NEARLY 12 HOURS, IT WAS ENDLESS HYPE, EXCESSES AND, OH YEAH, THE SUPER BOWL

By Michael Weinreb and Chuck Klosterman, Beacon Journal staff writers

Call it a post-modern social experiment. Call it a celebration of all that is American and commercial. Call it the stupidest idea you've ever heard. All we can tell you is, don't try this at home (unless, of course, you already have).

For almost 12 hours now, we've sat here watching television coverage of Super Bowl Sunday. We've seen Terry Bradshaw prattle and John Madden gesticulate and James Brown chuckle and enough FOX network promos to brainwash a Mensa member.

Rappers have rapped. Drug addicts have reformed. Gray matter has poured from our ears, and a pizza has been eaten.

After all that, we have come to this singular conclusion: Family Guy is good. Everyone should watch Melrose Place. Party of Five is culturally important. You will adore FOX, and nothing but . . .

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11:03 a.m.: The first references to Atlanta safety Eugene Robinson are made by the FOX studio team. All are shocked that this consummate family man attempted to pay an undercover cop $40 for sexual favors. FOX analysts thought it would be at least $60.

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11:30 a.m.: Bill Maas, who is either a former Chiefs lineman or a pitchman for the George Foreman grill, welcomes us to Hardcore Football, an earnest half-hour X's and O's analysis show, apparently designed to numb our brains and make those of us who never ran a toss-sweep feel like pocket lint.

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11:41 a.m.: Maas is asking special guest Bart Starr about the "mental toughness" of Vince Lombardi. Perhaps the goal of Hardcore Football is to provide a psychological profile of every person who has ever been involved with a Super Bowl. We can't wait until they get to Rick Upchurch.

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11:55 a.m.: We briefly switch to ESPN. They are doing a special on Morten Andersen's Scandinavian upbringing, and we watch the Andersen clan enjoying a Danish family dinner. As dictated by their cultural customs, everyone at the table is drinking beer — lots of beer. We also learn that virtually no one in Denmark follows the NFL.

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11:56 a.m.: ESPN interviews Andersen's grade-school gym teacher. He may or may not also have been drinking. Meanwhile, someone has apparently spilled guacamole on Chris Berman's tie.

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12:20 p.m.: Back on FOX, John Madden is playing the bongos and smoking a cigar. Too early for hallucinations, isn't it?

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12:31 p.m.: Madden is introducing his much-publicized All-Millennium team, sponsored by Outback Steakhouse. We're very curious to see which players from the 18th century will be included. Potential candidates include the Flutie-esque field general Napoleon Bonaparte and a trash-talking secondary comprised of interrogators from the Spanish Inquisition. Team members receive a 16-ounce porterhouse and a copy of the Gutenberg Bible.

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12:40 p.m.: Elderly people are telling lies about Jim Thorpe.

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1:10 p.m.: Making the Madden All-Millennium team is not easy. It appears that you need to accomplish at least one of the following: (a.) Revolutionize the head-slap, the clothesline, the "neck-tie tackle," or any other move that has since been outlawed, (b.) Eat raw meat, (c.) Lift a plow with your bare hands, (d.) Be described as "the toughest man who ever lived" by at least two former opponents and/or play with two broken hands, or (e.) Paralyze a member of the New England Patriots.

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1:49 p.m.: Madden is interviewing Lombardi, a man typically characterized by football historians as "dead."

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1:55 p.m.: FOX stages a simulated game between the All-Millennium squad and the superstars of today. The simulation is remarkably idiotic — the footage looks akin to the movie Varsity Blues, except there are fewer strippers and no cast members from Dawson's Creek. The old-timers "win" 34-31. Night Train Lane does not attempt to buy sexual favors from anyone.

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2 p.m.: The pregame show begins. Which makes us wonder what we've been sitting through for the past three hours.

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2:31 p.m.: A look back at Joe Namath's "guaranteed" win in Super Bowl III, led by FOX's James Brown. Afterward, an inspired Brown guarantees that FOX will indeed broadcast a football game sometime today.

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2:55 p.m.: Brown implies that former Beverly Hills: 90210 star Jason Priestly is a booze-addled skirt chaser, after video crews follow the Canadian TV legend through Miami's South Beach. Priestly is seen chewing on aphrodisiac flowers at 4 in the morning. We are unsure how this is preparing us to watch football. However, it does prepare us for a stellar performance from gangsta rapper Ice Cube.

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3:18 p.m.: Three hours until kickoff. Terry Bradshaw's head begins to look like one of those bobble-headed dolls.

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3:32 p.m.: FOX's Cris Collinsworth berates former teammate Stanley Wilson for using cocaine the night before Super Bowl XXIII, essentially blaming him for the loss of the game, the destruction of the Bengals' chemistry, the erosion of the sport, and the Y2K problem. Wilson apologizes, comparing his sacrifice to that of Jesus Christ. "I went into this (interview) thinking it was about me," said Collinsworth, who adds he is always thinking about either himself or his hair.

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4:35 p.m.: Madden interviews the Falcons' Dan Reeves and the Broncos' Mike Shanahan. The two men swear there is no bitterness between them whatsoever, and that all their personal problems are buried in the past. Immediately after the conversations are aired, Madden and Collinsworth insist the two coaches despise each other.

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4:40 p.m.: FOX goes live to London, where Super Bowl fever apparently has everyone drinking and screaming at the top of their lungs, similar to Andersen's house; and then to Sydney, where it's Monday, which means the game has already ended there, although FOX's correspondents refuse to disclose who won.

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5:05 p.m.: Bradshaw ends a 20-year feud with Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, in part by finally spelling the word Henderson once insisted Bradshaw couldn't: Fahrvergnugen. When you consider the amount of coverage given to Henderson and Wilson — plus Saturday's induction of Lawrence Taylor to the Pro Football Hall of Fame — it's been a wonderful weekend for coke-abusing legends of the gridiron.

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5:53 p.m.: The rock band Kiss attempts to blow up Pro Player Stadium.

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6:17 p.m.: Cher, wearing the only outfit she owns without a hole in the rear end and sporting a fox pelt on her head, sings the national anthem while accompanied by interpretive sign-language dancers who appear to be in the midst of a seizure. Moments later, fans across America are shocked when the field is cleared and a football game breaks out.

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6:35 p.m.: We are mildly disturbed by the Macintosh "2001: A Space Odyssey" commercial . . . and not just because it cost $3 million. However, we are thoroughly disturbed when the Budweiser frogs speak . . . and demand more money.

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7:26 p.m.: Rod Smith scores a critical 80-yard touchdown on a deep post pattern, prompting thousands of viewers to switch to the Gloria Estefan profile on VH-1.

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8:07 p.m.: A typically decadent halftime show includes Stevie Wonder, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, several thousand dancers dressed in fluorescent costumes waving multi-colored flags, pyrotechnics, pea-soup fog, pumped-in crowd noise, mediocre lip-synching, the loudest tap dancer on the planet, and the ubiquitous uber-diva Estefan. It remains the most boring spectacle in American entertainment, except for possibly the Pro Bowl.

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8:40 p.m. (approximate): E.T. sells auto insurance. Ozzy Osbourne sells Japanese pick-up trucks. Summerall asks Madden how many bologna sandwiches he's eaten in his career. Madden tells Summerall to stop talking "like death warmed over." We think somebody misses a field goal. We have blurred vision. We have lost the will to live.

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9:19 p.m.: We shall stay tuned for Family Guy. We shall stay tuned for The Simpsons. We shall shatter our remote control, toss the fragments of plastic into a dumpster, and stay tuned to FOX for all eternity . . .

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9:42 p.m.: Someone wins. Someone loses. Parties break up. Advertisers recoup their losses. Gambling addicts contemplate suicide. The TBS Andy Griffith marathon rolls into the night. Two weeks from now, Robinson will be doing community service and nobody will care that this game ever happened.

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February 16, 4:27 a.m.: Well, almost nobody. Madden remains in the broadcast booth, drawing crossing routes on an imaginary chalkboard and interviewing dead football coaches.

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