Football in....SPAAAAAAAAAACE!

Who comes up with these graphical motifs for television sporting events? ABC's pre-game coverage featured these carved asteroids soaring across outer space, with names racing in the opposite direction before exploding on the screen. Strangely, the tableau desperately missed Bruce Willis.

Coming Up! Tina Turner performs "Proud Mary"!

That's what the grandeur of the Super Bowl is all about! A washed-up fifty-year-old in a tiny dress performing a song she made famous before I was born!

Seriously, though, this performance really blew. It hit a new low for cheezy Super Bowl performances--and this is coming from a man who observed Kathie Lee Gifford rape our National Anthem several years ago. Tina opened with some new crap tune before shifting gears into "Proud Mary"--and gave the most tepid reading of that amazing rock tune I've ever seen. Perhaps most inexplicable of all, she sang beneath banners depicting some of the great musicians of last century, including B.B. King, Leonard Bernstein and Johnny Cash. I found myself wishing they'd fall from the ceiling of the dome and smother her.

"Who better to kick off the new millennium of Super Bowls than Tina Turner?" Chris Berman queried rhetorically after the number. Two thousand other names immediately sprung to mind.

Once again, a brilliant coin toss.

Still the most underrated moment in any Super Bowl. Drama, intrigue and strategy all packed into ten seconds of conflict. Better than the game in some respects.

Was that Susan Powter?!

Nope, it was Rams QB Kurt Warner's wife Brenda, looking like Jesse Ventura in his old-school wrestling days with that feather boa outfit. You're gonna be seen by millions upon millions of football fans, you wanna dip into Zsa Zsa Gabor's wardrobe.

Halftime?! HALFtime?! Felt more like FULL time to me.

This year's halftime spectacle was far less excruciating than in past years, if for no other reason than Christina Aguilera performed in it--and brought her adorably perky breasts along for the occasion. Walt Disney Productions designed the show as some kind of multicultural millennial celebration, and though the themes felt muddled by narrator Edward James Olmos ("Hey, we need a minority with high recognition value. Someone call Edward James Olmos!"), the creative use of lighting and puppets made for something more than the usual garish dancers and lipsynched pop dreck. You wouldn't wanna call it "art," but it wasn't crap either.

February's a big month on ABC.

Between the Beach Boys biopic and the Mary & Rhoda reunion movie, why even bother to change the channel?

The Grand High Wizard of the Obvious

Here's why I hate Boomer Esiason. Every time he opens his mouth, you immediately expect him to overstate the obvious, because ninety percent of the time, that's what he does. So you can't even really listen to what he's saying, because you're expecting him to say something worthless. When he isn't stating the obvious, he's saying something flat-out stupid, such as, "Players can do some crazy things in hot situations." Sounds more like the tagline for a football porn flick than an insightful color commentary.

An Exhilarating Anticlimax

It's interesting, because the last ten minutes of Super Bowl XXXIV was some damn exciting football, and the momentum drew the average viewer into rooting for the underdog Titans as they made a remarkable push for the win. So when they failed in the final play, it felt initially like a disappointment.

At the same time, the Rams were speeding onto the field in wild joy because they'd just won the Super Bowl. A heartbreaking loss quickly went unrecognized in the face of a tremendous victory. The greatest achievement a pro football player can attain was awarded in the shadow of a deeply bitter frustration. Which is all far more interesting than Tina Turner could ever be.