Columnist Susan Snyder: Adding a point to Super snub

Friday, Jan. 17, 2003 | 5:12 a.m.

Forget about this year's advertising snub.

Super Bowl officials still owe us for last year's overrated commercials featuring Britney Spears, who has made a career out of being the junior class tease.

For those of us who suffer through the annual Stuper Bowl because our attendance is expected at a party, the commercials are the only reason to wander away from the salsa table and into the room where the television set sits.

Not last year. Last year we got to see Bimbo Girl doing the same dance in half a dozen outfits -- skimpy outfits, designed to make grown men ogle a gal who at the time was barely out of her teens.

Ick. Pass the guacamole.

National Football League officials evidently think offending our intellect and exploiting young women is way better than offending lawyers who may see ads for Las Vegas tourism as ads promoting gambling. Gambling-related advertisements are a contractual no-no for the NFL.

This, despite the fact that the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority's proposed Super Bowl advertisements, titled "Vegas Stories," didn't show any actual gambling.

And why would they? Everyone knows we don't have "gambling" here. It's "gaming."

Sheesh.

A story published in Tuesday's Las Vegas Sun described a memo from a high-ranking NFL official to a high-ranking ESPN official. The memo said the reason for such contractual restrictions on gambling-related advertising is that such ads "could have a uniquely negative effect on the public's perception of our sport, its integrity and our athletes."

Yeah. Right. A couple of years ago, our Super Bowl party discussion revolved around tallying up the number of sexual assault, domestic abuse and drug charges that had been logged among members of the two teams playing the game. There were something like five suspected felons on the field at any one time.

Still, maybe we should try to come up with some ideas to help Las Vegas make the grade next year -- some advertisements that wouldn't offend the tender sensibilities of the average Super Bowl fan or NFL contract lawyer.

We need the right talent.

We need John Barr and Butterbean.

Let's take John Barr and his '80s hair down to Neonopolis and have him duke it out with a Jackie Chan wannabe. We wouldn't even have to clear out a crowd.

Let's put the Bean on a public bus to Las Vegas Art Museum, then show him being written a ticket for jaywalking because the bus stops midblock, and the nearest intersection is half a mile away.

The next segment could show a woman driving her SUV through Summerlin at 50 mph while yapping on a cell phone and unwrapping a Happy Meal for her overweight kid. We'd have her collide with the Bean as he gets halfway across the street, then cut to a police officer explaining that the driver did nothing wrong because Bean was "outside a marked crosswalk."

The joy of Las Vegas.

You got the right one, baby.