• by John Gaffney , January 7, 2003

Seducing The Sleeping Giant: Last fall, I was watching my requisite amount of football on a Sunday, when I saw the new Coors commercials. Real lite on football, real heavy on boobs and cheerleaders. “Hmmm,” said my friends and I. Then, said friends and I tuned to see some playoff football this weekend. Great games. Great new Miller Beer ads that have bikini-clad, supersized supermodels in various stages of cat fighting, including a mud bath. I’m sure the reaction, all over America was: “Dude, did you see that?” Saw that. So did a lot of people who might not have been too impressed. Don’t wake a sleeping giant, says the old proverb. The ad industry, and several TV shows, have moved way past that. We’re trying to seduce the sleeping giant with scantily clad women, and it’s going to wake with a vengeance. The sleeping giants, to me, are the plethora of right wing groups that would love to pounce on what it sees as evil intent within the media community. Remember “family values?” Now we have a new Republican controlled congress. The new head Republican Bill Frist, seems to be a good enough guy who says he has health care at the top of his agenda. He has also expressed interest in regulating beer and alcohol ads. I’m not saying the beer companies need to make a quick right turn with their creative. But it’s not the time to push the bikini envelope either. Let Frist stay on health care. And let’s not forget Miller Lite is less filling and looks great. I mean, tastes great.

Nothing Like The Present: It’s a lot easier to make predictions about how a year will shape up in terms of issues when you get into it. So I’m not being too brash in saying that the viability of reality-based programming will be a major issue for the first half of this year. But you have to start thinking that agencies will be disappointed if networks show up at the upfront sessions with nothing but reality shows. Anybody working on a script?

Parting Shot: The funniest hour of TV I spent all year was during the new year’s The Honeymooners marathon on WB 11.