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If you go to the game, you'll miss the show (Dave Barry)
Miami Herald ^ | Feb. 4, 2007 | Dave Barry

Posted on 02/04/2007 8:04:31 AM PST by nuconvert

If you go to the game, you'll miss the show

By DAVE BARRY

It's Super Bowl Sunday at last. Finally -- after all the hype, all the parties, all the talk -- we will get to see what the Super Bowl is really, in the end, all about: the TV commercials.

There will be a lot of them, because the total Super Bowl broadcast package runs longer than the administration of the late Gerald Ford, having begun two weeks ago with the pre -pre -pre -pre-pre-pre-pre-pregame show (Peyton Manning: The Early Bowel Movements). You will not want to miss a single hour of this coverage.

SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR MEN: I assume you will be watching on a brand-new high-definition TV with an 11-foot-diagonal screen delivering a picture so enormously lifelike that, to comprehend what you are seeing, you have to watch from your driveway. I hope you did not allow anybody -- defined as ''your wife'' -- to convince you that you don't need a new TV, because your current TV still works fine, or you need the money for your child's insulin, or some other lame excuse. You do not want to be known in your neighborhood as ''the guy with the small diagonal.'' The Super Bowl is today; the electronics stores are open right now. You need to step up and be a MAN, by clipping out the following newspaper article and giving it to your wife:

SMALL TVS CAUSE CANCER, STUDY SHOWS

NEW YORK OR BOSTON -- (AP) -- A scientific study, done by scientists, has shown that small television screens cause cancer.

''If your TV set is not the size of, at minimum, a Toyota Camry, you are taking a serious medical risk,'' stated Dr. Harold Gropenfinger, a scientist. ``A person who would deliberately expose her family, including children, to a smaller TV is, in my scientific opinion, scum.''

Dr. Gropenfinger won the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for Science for discovering that beer prevents heart disease.

* * *

Aside from the commercials, the highlight of the Super Bowl broadcast package is expected to be the Pepsi Or Coke ''They Taste Essentially the Same'' Halftime Show, headlined by a name that has long been virtually synonymous with pro football: Prince.

Prince held a press conference Thursday at the Miami Beach Convention Center; he told the press that, while he admired the potency of the Indianapolis offense, he expected the Bears to neutralize the Colts' deep-strike air attack by dropping seven men into coverage.

Ha! I am of course joking. Prince -- who is, physically, smaller than the average NFL player's protective cup -- did not talk about football, or anything else. Instead, he brought his band and his hot women dancers, and they did some songs for the media, expressing the theme: ``I may be tiny and sexually ambiguous, but you will notice that these hot women dancers are writhing against ME, as opposed to YOU, loser media person.''

The big question on everybody's mind, of course, is: What is the danger that we, as a nation, will be exposed to Prince's nipple? I regret to report that, judging by the press conference, the danger is very real. Prince wore an unbuttoned shirt, and when he writhed around, there was definite visible nipplage. However, because he is Prince, we are talking about extremely small nipples. However, if you have purchased a doctor-recommended cancer-preventing large-diagonal TV, even Prince's nipple will appear in your family room to be the size of a dinner plate.

What I'm saying is: Be ready.

The Super Bowl pregame show will feature another name that has strong football associations: Cirque du Soleil (French for ``Strap of the Jock''). We got a small taste of the pregame show at the press conference, and all I can say is, if you like mimes, you will love this show! It includes people dressed as sexually ambiguous referees riding on giant flamingos, just as the late Vince Lombardi used to do.

Also appearing at the press conference was Billy Joel, who will sing the National Anthem with both nipples fully covered. One of the many bets you can place in Las Vegas on the Super Bowl this year -- I am not making this up -- is whether the Anthem will go over, or under, one minute and 42 seconds. Joel was asked at the press conference how long he expects to take, and he replied: ``I don't know. I'm only saying that because I might be betting myself.''


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: barry; commercials; davebarry; football; humor; superbowl; tv

1 posted on 02/04/2007 8:04:33 AM PST by nuconvert
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To: nuconvert

Halftime show = Prince? whose idea was that???

Did they accidentally get a 15 year old magazing and throw darts at it to select?


2 posted on 02/04/2007 8:10:50 AM PST by Mr. K (Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help...)
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To: nuconvert
Prince -- who is, physically, smaller than the average NFL player's protective cup --

< laughing myself into an asthma attack> Barry is wonderful (when he's not being nasty to Tom Tancredo, that is!)

3 posted on 02/04/2007 8:11:31 AM PST by Fairview
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To: nuconvert

Pretty much expressed my opinion of the day's events, only much better.


4 posted on 02/04/2007 8:12:50 AM PST by mtbopfuyn (I think the border is kind of an artificial barrier - San Antonio councilwoman Patti Radle)
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To: nuconvert
Dr. Gropenfinger won the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for Science for discovering that beer prevents heart disease.

Proof at last. (Click, pop, gulp.)

5 posted on 02/04/2007 8:20:53 AM PST by CPOSharky (Year = 365 days. muzzy 'most holy' days = 450. Go figure.)
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To: nuconvert

Is Dave Barry writing columns again? That would be fantastic.


6 posted on 02/04/2007 8:27:00 AM PST by Turbopilot (iumop ap!sdn w,I 'aw dlaH)
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To: CPOSharky

Note the name. ;)


7 posted on 02/04/2007 8:27:56 AM PST by patton (Sanctimony frequently reaps its own reward.)
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To: nuconvert

Nipplage!! How I miss his weekly columns and his ability to make me laugh out loud.


8 posted on 02/04/2007 8:27:58 AM PST by 3AngelaD (ic.)
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To: Turbopilot

He has continued to write special columns like this one for the Superbowl and Christmas and Thanksgiving, etc.
But he hasn't gone back to writing a regular column.


9 posted on 02/04/2007 8:29:56 AM PST by nuconvert ([there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business] (...but his head is so tiny...))
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To: Boxsford; Irish Rose; kitkat; Ditter; Pan_Yans Wife

pong


10 posted on 02/04/2007 8:33:11 AM PST by nuconvert ([there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business] (...but his head is so tiny...))
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To: nuconvert
One of the many bets you can place in Las Vegas on the Super Bowl this year -- I am not making this up -- is whether the Anthem will go over, or under, one minute and 42 seconds.

He 'ain't' kidding. Yesterday for the 1st time in my life I went to one of those 'Vegas Line Odds' websites. The stuff you can bet on is - to me - absurd.

It reminded me of something a friend once said one Friday when we were all at Arlington Park Race Track (thoroughbreds) and one race had 5 horses and they were all Maidens. He said:

"Anyone who places a bet on this race has a serious gambling problem."
Anyway these places are like that. I think one 'Line Bet' was on when Manning would pick his nose. IIRC the over-under was 10 minutes.
11 posted on 02/04/2007 8:38:20 AM PST by Condor51 (Where's Attila The Hun when you need him? [sit down Rudy. You &%$% undecided 'republican'])
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To: nuconvert

I once saw a Christmas column of his about a family who have a pet goat - have you ever seen it? - I can't find it online or in any of his books.


12 posted on 02/04/2007 8:38:33 AM PST by Montaignes Cat
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To: Turbopilot
His blog is quite entertaining.

"February 04, 2007

PRINCE UPDATE

I just had breakfast with a media source who told me that another media source friend of his was at a big VIP party the other night, and he (the second media source) went into the men's room, and a gigantic man blocked his path and said, quote, "Bathroom is closed." It turned out that Prince was in there. So apparently Prince does not pee without a security perimeter.

This has been your Prince Update.


13 posted on 02/04/2007 8:39:16 AM PST by JustaDumbBlonde
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To: Mr. K
As I posted on another thread, I don't care about the celebrities, commercials, pre game, or the half time entertainment.

Prince? He is nothing but a con artist who got a lot of people to believe that he can sing and made millions doing so..... His "music" literally makes my ears hurt and gives me a headache. I've heard better music coming from geese!
14 posted on 02/04/2007 8:45:06 AM PST by proudofthesouth (Mao said that power comes at the point of a rifle; I say FREEDOM does.)
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To: Montaignes Cat

It doesn't ring a bell, but it may with another Barry fan here.


15 posted on 02/04/2007 8:46:24 AM PST by nuconvert ([there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business] (...but his head is so tiny...))
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To: nuconvert

The short version is, on a frigid Christmas eve before dinner Dad tells young Dave Barry to go out back and feed the goat; he comes back inside to whisper to Dad that the goat has frozen to death; Dad suddenly remembers something he needs at the store and he and young Dave put the frozen goat in the back of the pick-up and drive off into the blizzard to look for a place to dump it; they stop in front of a church and add it to the Nativity scene on the church's lawn; the freezing weather persists, and a week or two later they go to retrieve the goat, only to find the creche is gone; they ask the church handyman where it is, and he says we store in the church basement in the furnace room until next year.


16 posted on 02/04/2007 8:58:57 AM PST by Montaignes Cat
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To: nuconvert
The NFL actually has a regulation on how big your "tv screen" can be. If you are watching it from a video projector at home with your friends, you'll have to send your friends home.

Better send that widescreen hi-def tv back to Best Buy too.

17 posted on 02/04/2007 9:21:25 AM PST by weegee (No third term. Hillary Clinton's 2008 election run presents a Constitutional Crisis.)
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To: nuconvert

John Kerry probably read the line about Vince Lombardi and the giant flamingoes and said, "I was there at Lambert Field when he did it!"


18 posted on 02/04/2007 1:25:42 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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