Super Bowl XXXIX scores with restrained game plan

I don't know but I've been told / Soldiers on the screen are gold.

I'm not sure but it's been said / Sex and MTV are dead.

Super Bowl XXXIX proved that the best way to defend your program against criticism is with the real thing. Fox and the National Football League called in the troops.

From the opening honors for veterans past and present to halftime's red-white-and-blue special effects to the military drumbeat used to underscore game footage, America's fighting forces constituted a major element of yesterday's entertainment.

Find fault with that — if you dare. Support for enlisted men and women is one of the areas where red and blue viewers meet, and it was one of several ways in which determined Super Bowl organizers restored the game to a show for the general public.

The other cures included Sir Paul McCartney as the centerpiece of a classy half-time act, and a new crop of commercials that displayed a gentler kind of male-skewing humor and acknowledged that millions of females were watching, too.

It was not the death of creativity, as some pundits had predicted. Yesterday's spots demonstrated that restraint can have as much virtue as edginess.

All of which makes perfect sense. Last year's crude ads and wardrobe malfunction weren't because of corroding social values, but because of a marketing miscalculation that tried to lure football-averse young males with farting horses and raunchy dancing.

In actuality, the Super Bowl provides a vanishing opportunity to reach the kind of big water-cooler audience that network TV had all to itself before cable and the Internet. Last year's telecast drew nearly 90 million viewers in the United States alone.

CareerBuilder.com provides a sneak peak at its Super Bowl ads, in which monkeys run the office via an online campaign at www.careerbuilder.com/TV.

To be sure, some adjustments were an overreaction. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fines and reverberating fuss caused by Janet Jackson's brief exposure undoubtedly cut back on shots of the Philadelphia Eagles' attractive, skimpily dressed dance squad.

Advertisers also treaded lightly around sex, cloaking it for the most part in a veneer of romance, as Cialis did, or presenting it in lightly mocking terms, as when Godaddy.com spoofed Nipplegate via a coy clothing mishap in front of a Congressional committee.

The rare spot that did emphasize va-va-voom had a demure, retro appeal. Tabasco scored with a beautiful young woman in a Tabasco-print bikini that resulted in a modestly revealed burn under — instead of outside — her clothing.

It's hard to imagine the Parents Television Council hitting the FCC complaint button in response to that, though if offensiveness can be found in a naked Greek statue or a children's cartoon character, anything is possible.

But conservatives who favor old-fashioned gender roles will have to beware the creeping forces of metrosexuality. The man symbolized in yesterday's spots — be he celebrity, sports figure or average Joe — was radically different from 2004's booty-hunting oaf.

This time, many ads portrayed a husband or lover well-versed in domestic life, often with domestic life getting the upper hand. Such spots appeal to both men and women.

Bud Light showed a daydreaming Cedric the Entertainer hastily changing two imaginary buxom beauties into a barbecue grill and dog after the women argue. Cadillac profiled a young couple running away to get married and a stern dad stopping them — to make them use their mother's car instead.

And a truly memorable Ameriquest Mortgage ad — part of a campaign called "Don't judge too quickly" — culminated in a wife coming home just as her husband appears to have murdered the family cat with a butcher knife.

The harassed existence of the adult male also was profiled at work. Careerbuilder.com featured a lonely man surrounded, literally, by monkeys for co-workers in a three-spot series that grew endearing by game's end.

When commercials did evoke the rugged appeal of an earlier era, it was to poke fun at it.

An ad for the anti-perspirant Degree began with an off-the-wall pitch for toy dolls called "Mama's Boy," "The Wuss" and "Suck-up," nicely tying in the product with the tagline, "There are men who never take chances, and those who do use Degree."

A similar send-up by Cosentino USA featured former Chicago Bears such as Mike Ditka and William "Refrigerator" Perry displaying a fussy preference for a particular shade of countertop by murmuring to the camera "I am Diana Pearl."

Funny, but I had to look up Cosentino USA, which may demonstrate the difficulties for a first-time advertiser trying to break through the Super Bowl clutter. Here's hoping that $2.4 million for 30 seconds was worth it, folks.

Along with this Super Bowl's return to an emphasis on male consumers age 25 to 54, two other familiar trends cropped up in abundance: celebrities and animals.

As in regular TV series, a star is a mixed blessing. Too often, the producers seem to think they've done their job just by signing the star and leaving it at that.

Such was the case with a weak Diet Pepsi spot focusing on P. Diddy and a Volvo lift-off ad starring Sir Richard Branson, still an unfamiliar face to millions.

Among the strangest and worst ads of the night was a computer-generated image of Gladys Knight playing rugby, which somehow was supposed to make us think of MBNA credit cards. Yep, I had to look this sponsor up, too.

Here's a tip: If you're going to use a faded celeb, try Frito-Lay's approach, which grouped the amiable M.C. Hammer with other lost and junked items in a funny send-up of his erratic fame.

Here's a second tip: Animals are cheaper. The Noah's Ark lineup of critters waiting to audition for a spot with the Budweiser Clydesdales was catchy. So were the monkeys mentioned earlier.

It's a fitting tribute to the lovable phoniness of television advertising that the best animal of the night was a fake bear, who appeared with the best celebrity has-been of the night, Burt Reynolds.

FedEx Kinko's sponsored the ad, a satirical summary of how to make a Super Bowl Commercial: celebrity spokesman, animal, dancing animal, cute kid, groin kick, talking animal, attractive females, product message (optional), pop tune, etc.

Come to think of it, that's pretty much the list of ingredients for a good TV show.

Among all the spots that aired yesterday, a number were ineffective or unmemorable. But let us bear no grudge against Verizon (sorry, smaller isn't better), McDonald's Lincolnesque French fry or that creepy talking Quiznos baby and his mom/date. Eek.

As NFL players would sing — and did in one of the most charming spots — the sun'll come up tomorrow. Meanwhile, I just wish someone would teach the actor fending off an atomic meltdown on that "24" promo how to pronounce "nuclear."

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com