The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 63

Tl IF. VANCOUVER SUN, SATURDAY, I F.HRUARY 5, 2005 D19 ARTS LIFE Expect 'kinder, gentler' Super Bowl show STANDARDS I Viewers in Canada are less likely to complain BY ALEX STRACHAN SUPER BOWL XXXIX Super price for a Super Bowl ad The average cost of a 30-second commercial slot on television's annual top-rated broadcast has increased again this year. Average price for a 30-second Number of viewers commercial 100 million 89.8 in 2004 51.2 in 80 appeared in various newspaper, consumer and business publications' news sections than in their arts, entertainment, leisure, lifestyle and sports sections combined. It was inevitable that the nipple effect would spread to live telecasts. A five-minute "decency delay" was implemented during last year's Grammys telecast, and a five-second delay was applied to the Oscars film types supposedly being less prone to spur-of-the-moment brain malfunctions than their pop-music counterparts.

NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue insisted on a 10-second delay for a season-opening concert featuring Destiny's Child and Jessica Simp 1967 fir 2.5 million $2.4 million in 2005 $42,500 in 1967 jj 60 20 a sz 70 75 '80 '85 '90 '95 '00 '05 70 75 '80 '85 '90 '95 '00'04 Super Bowl I aired on both CBS and NBC, commercial price is CBS's, viewers are combined SOURCES: Nielsen Monitor-Plus; Nielsen Media Research AP son, and ABC put a five-second delay on Monday Night Football this season for the first time. (Interestingly, the Fox network has refused to insert a live-second delay during Sunday's Super Bowl and halftime program, saying it 1 I Vancouver Chamber Choir JON WASHBURN, CONDUCTOR isn necessary. The NFL has agreed.) Seth MacFarlane, the wun- derkind creator of the new ani mated comedy American Dad which will follow a special Super Bowl-themed episode of The Simp sons, is tired ot the so-called cul ture wars. HANDS ON! THE CONDUCTOR'S ART 8PM SATURDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2005 HOLY TRINITY ANGLICAN (12th 6 Hemlock) Vancouver Chamber Choir Jon Washburn, Master Conductor And the six guest conductors from our 25th Conductors' Symposium Stephen Smith, piano An inside glimpse of the art of conducting'. AMY SANCETTAASSOCIATED PRESS Paul McCartney, considered safe and uncontroversial, will perform during Sunday's halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX.

American regulators have put the U.S. networks under "enormous pressure," MacFarlane told reporters at last month's semiannual gathering of the Television Super Bowl week lasts 168 hours, but it was one quick second of "shock and bra" during last year's Super Bowl halftime show that had eyes agog and tongues wagging for months afterward. The fallout from Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction was hardly a naked offence to most Canadians the only viewer complaint logged by Global Television's promotions department was over a Labatt's commercial that showed two women kissing. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, on the other hand, logged 540,000 complaints To many Americans, it was as though that split-second when Justin Timberlake rashly exposed Jackson's right breast during last year's halftime show became a culturally defining moment in its own right.

And not for the better. That's one reason why you'll see a kinder, gentler halftime program this Sunday when the New England Patriots square off against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX from Jacksonville, Fla. Last year's halftime bacchanal was produced by MTV, a subsidiary of Viacom which also owns CBS. The Super Bowl was broadcast in the U.S. by CBS last year.

(Global, which airs the Super Bowl in Canada, has no ownership stake in either the National Football League or the halftime show; it inherits the halftime show as is.) This year, the Super Bowl will air in the U.S. on the Fox network, and while Fox has never been known for its family-friendly fare this is the network that produced Playing It Straight, The Swan and The Littlest Groom, remember this time the National Football League is doing everything it can to ensure the halftime show is no more offensive than a Pirates of Penzance revival at Disneyland, with every song, every outfit and every dance move signed off on well in advance. The halftime entertainer will be Paul McCartney who's no threat to do anything more dangerous than possibly split his pants during an overly excitable rendition of Live and Let Die. McCartney is better known for soft-music standards like Silly Love Songs and With A Little Luck than the sex, hooks and bekts of Jackson's Funky Big Band and Go On Miss Janet. So a rerun of last year's boob-tube moment is extremely unlikely.

Even so, the NFL has reviewed every moment of McCartney's 12-minute halftime show in advance. On a more serious note, the self- Tickets from $10 -J23 604280.3311 tkketmaster.a www.vancouwrchamberchoir.com mmm 690 righteous fury unleashed in some quarters by Jackson's shock-and-bra moment had a chilling effect on other television programs in the succeeding weeks and months including seemingly unrelated comedies and dramas that regularly appear on Canadian TV screens. According to published reports at the time, ABC demanded that a sex scene be trimmed in NYPD Blue, a program which is shown on Global-owned CH in Canada. CBS required that some nudity be excised from an episode of Glob-al's Without a Trace. And NBC in a decision ridiculed by media critics at the time as being the height of absurdity ordered the producers of ER to remove a shot of an 80-year-old patient's bosom.

Canadian TV viewers have thicker skins: CTV, which broadcasts ER in Canada, routinely airs uncut cable programs like FX's NipTuck and HBO's The Sopranos, with few complaints from viewers (CTV schedules its adult-oriented dramas at 10 p.m., and applies stern viewer advisories after each commercial break, in keeping with Canadian industry practice.) NYPD Blue creator Steven Bochco, producer of some of the seminal television dramas of his generation, including Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law, says fallout from Jackson's wardrobe malfunction has had a chilling effect on network TV drama. "It certainly was a tipping point for what we were doing and, really, can no longer do," Bochco said recently from the set of NYPD Blue, which is in its final month after 12 seasons on the air. "We fought with ABC's broadcast standards department during the past year over things we hadn't fought about for 10-plus years." Bochco said he was on the losing end of battles over everything from occasional nudity to coarse language. "Scenes were modified after the fact," Bochco said, "and at some point you're being told you can't do certain scenes the way you're used to doing them.

So, you stop doing them altogether. It's a long-term battle. It's my personal expe-rience that the medium has become significantly more conservative." While Jackson's nipple effect caused barely a ripple in Canada, it rocked the shock-o-meter off the scale in The U.S. A survey conducted last month for USA Today by the media tracking firm Carma International found that more than 10 times as many media stories were generated by Jackson's wardrobe malfunction as were generated by the Britney Spears-Madonna kiss at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards 5,028 to 473. Incredibly, more Jackson stories Critics Association Los Angeles.

"I mean, the phrase 'in this post-Janet Jackson world' is bandied about like they're talking about September 11th," he said. MacFarlane, for one, would be happy if he never heard the name Jackson again. "That's a name if I never hear it again it will be too soon," he said. "I mean, the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl." The stakes are high in the U.S., where a Super Bowl ad this year is going for a record $2.4 million US, according to the industry trade publication TelevisionWeek. According to Global TV vice-president of promotions David Hamilton, a Canadian ad will cost $110,000, about triple the rate ordinarily paid for a commercial spot in a primetime program.

In a bid to make sure this year's halftime program meets G-rated guidelines and scales back on the R-rated bodice-ripping stunts, the NFL has hired Don Mischer as its halftime producer. Mischer produced the opening and closing cer-emonies at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Mischer also produced the 1993 Super Bowl halftime show, which came off without a hitch. That program featured a different Jackson: Michael. Try as one might, there's no escaping that family.

CanWest News Service 5 (0 Simpsons' Super Bowl a real post-game treat PREVIEWS ON NOW UNTIL TUESDAY THE SIMPSONS Homer and Ned's Hall Mary Pass Channel: Global, Fox BY ALEX STRACHAN A victory dance by Homer Simpson is an ugly sight. Thanks to the no-detail-left-behind animation of The Simpsons, Homer's boom-chaka-chaka who's-your-daddy dance routine will be indelibly etched in the minds of anyone who hangs around after the Super Bowl for The Simpsons' foot-ball-themed episode, Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass. Hail Mary indeed. Who would have thought that an exercise in showboating and bad sportsmanship could be so much darn fun to watch? Leave it to The Simpsons to lampoon last year's Super Bowl half-time controversy and do it in a way that is both family-friendly and savagely biting. NFL athletes Tom Brady and Warren Sapp, NBA all-stars Yao Ming and LeBron James and Olympic skating medalist Michelle Kwan lend their voices to the episode, in which a number of high-profile sports figures hire Homer to choreograph their victory dances after he's caught inadvertently performing a crowd-pleasing dance at a local carnival.

3 beginning. There are laugh-out-loud lines throughout, from Mil-house's shocked: "I didn't know you could talk!" (spoken to Kwan, after the skater tells him that he reminds her of a young Dorothy Hamill) to Homer's laughing admission that, "I'm the worst thing to happen to sports since Fox!" A lot of animated comedies try to mask weak scripts with celebrity guest-voice appearances, but The Simpsons is at its best when it lets its regular characters do the talking. It's hard to suppress a smile, for example, when Homer tells Lisa, "Honey, I'll bet you're wondering why daddy's not at work again; the answer may surprise you," and she fires back, "It looks like all you're teaching is obnoxiousness and poor sportsmanship." Moaning Lisa, always the sour-puss. The Simpsons is not the show it once was it's impossible to sustain cutting-edge satire over 16 seasons but there are moments in Sunday's Super Bowl episode when it reaches for greatness. This Simpsons is a hoot.

CanWest News Service The Simpsons Super Bowl-themed episode, Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass, premieres Sunday on Global and Fox, following the game. Check local listings for time. irfriiitir.Y.irTTiTn The Simpsons put a spin on the Super Bowl with a Sunday special. Brady, Sapp and the others are weak actors even when using only their voices but that's hardly the point. The Simpsons is about taking regular characters and placing them in irregular situations.

When Homer is hired to stage the Super Bowl halftime program alongside a Mel Gibson-obsessed Ned Flanders, all hell breaks loose. Leave it to The Simpsons to rip Super Bowl halftime shows, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Sunday sermons and football vic tory dances, and do it all in one go. The script was written by Tim Long no relation to Fox NFL analyst and former Oakland Raiders defensive tackle Howie Long and the writing is razor sharp, incisive without being so "inside" that non-sports fans won't get it. Homer's deadender-in-the-end-zone dance routine is a sight to behold right down there with Elaine Benes' show-stopping office dance in Seinfeld but it's just the rilKVWIOliVI'RSlN CLASSIFIEDS on canada.com aw Look for your guide, Your Toyota BC Dealers Year of the ooster Celebration Thursday, February 10, only in The Vancouver Sun SERIOUSLY WESTC0AST FEB. 11-13, INTERNATIONAL VILLAGE, 88 W.

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