THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701240096
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: 97 lines
WAY DOWN YONDER in New Orleans, where state prison inmates cleaned the streets for Super Bowl XXXI, Fox and Oscar Mayer will spend big bucks to keep you from channel-surfing over to Butt Bowl IV on MTV at halftime.
Or over to the Andy Griffth marathon on TBS.
The Blues Brothers, James Brown and ZZ Top, plus a cast of hundreds, are scheduled to perform while the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots retreat to their locker rooms to ponder what went right (or wrong) during the first half.
MTV will tempt you to flip from all that music and creole-cajun stuff on Fox at halftime to a new episode of ``Beavis and Butt-head'' - and a countdown to the third-quarter kickoff.
In the tradition of recent halftime shows, when mega-stars Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Clint Black, Tony Bennett and Gloria Estefan performed, the National Football League today brings on Brown, the Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd, James Belushi and John Goodman) and ZZ Top, beards and all.
Oscar Mayer hopes you'll stay put long enough to see the company's new commercial featuring 3-year-old Andrew Thompson of Nashville, winner of a national talent search that included Norfolk. Advertisers are paying $71 million to appear on the Super Bowl telecast.
Brace yourself for 58 commercials during the game, more in the pre-game and post-game shows. Plus Fox's relentless plugging of a new animated sitcom, ``King of the Hill.''
``Fox Super Sunday'' concludes around 10 with ``The X-Files,'' as Scully and Mulder try to determine how a decapitated body wandered off.
Thirty-one years ago, the NFL's idea of a big halftime show was a Sousa medley by the marching bands from the University of Michigan and University of Arizona. The bands also played the national anthem before the kickoff.
This year, Luther Vandross will sing the national anthem, following in recent years Vanessa Williams, Kathie Lee Gifford, Natalie Cole, Harry Connick Jr. and Whitney Houston. Remember how well she sang the anthem six years ago?
Now comes Vandross' turn to wrestle with the difficult upper registers of John Stafford Smith's British drinking song (lyrics by Francis Scott Key), which we adopted as the national anthem in 1931.
``I can't wait,'' said Vandross.
The man is fearless. He brushes aside the memories of Robert Goulet forgetting the words before the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston fight in Lewiston, Maine. And the fuss created by Jose Feliciano when he gave the lyrics a touch of soul before a World Series game in 1968.
Vandross steps up to the microphone shortly before the game starts at 6:18 p.m.
Up until 12 years ago, the NFL regarded halftime programming as nothing but background music to millions of toilets flushing all over America. Then came the first super Super Bowl halftime show - Chubby Checker, the ol' Twister, and the Rockettes.
Halftime would no longer be marching bands or 10 minutes of ``Up With People.'' Michael Jackson's spectacular ``Heal the World'' presentation during Super Bowl XXVII set the standard for halftime presentations of the future.
``Viewers now want and expect an electrifying halftime show,'' said a spokesman for Radio City Productions, which is co-producing today's bluesy halftime. Even the pre-game show on Fox will be a sight to behold.
Before game time on ``Fox Super Sunday,'' you'll see 850 dancers doing the Macarena. Mary Chapin Carpenter will sing, and the Louisiana Philharmonic will introduce the Super Bowl theme song. Fox is expecting a worldwide audience of 800 million viewers in 160 countries for its first Super Bowl.
With no Dallas or Denver or San Francisco in the game, it's unlikely Fox will match last year's 46.1 Super Bowl rating, which means more than 46 million households tuned in. (The 1982 San Francisco-Cincinnati game drew the highest rating, a 49.1).
Local interest in the game is high, even without Dallas, reports Fox affiliate WTVZ. The 14 local spots to be inserted into the telecast sold out fast at four times the rate of regular-season NFL games.
WGH (1310) will have the Super Bowl on radio at 5:45 p.m. Tony Mercurio signs on at 4 with a pre-game show from Rooney's, a Hampton sports pub with eight TV screens.
Here are some other things to look for as TV gets deeply involved in the sixth Super Bowl played in the Louisiana Superdome:
Bob Dole, who needs work now that he's a former senator and failed candidate for the White House, pops up in a Visa commercial set in Dole's hometown of Russell, Kan. ``It was a lot of fun to showcase my hometown, but I'd rather be working on my inaugural address,'' said Dole.
While Fox waits until 1 p.m. to sign on with is pre-game ``Super Sunday on Fox,'' starting with the announcement of the All-Time All-John Madden Super Bowl Team, ESPN's ``NFL Countdown'' will get going at 11:30 a.m. At 1, ESPN looks back on the career of former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. Then at 10:15, ESPN will come along with a post-game telecast.
It's common now for cable channels led by MTV to program against Super Bowl coverage. The Family Channel today from 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. puts on ``Super Star Comedy Bowl'' featuring Carol Burnett, Johnny Carson and the Three Stooges. At 9, FAM runs ``The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 20th Anniversary.''
For the eighth straight year, TBS puts Sheriff Andy Taylor and the gang in Mayberry up against the Super Bowl telecast. The Griffith marathon starts at 10:05 a.m. Thirty-two episodes. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Oscar Mayer