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This Week in USC History ‘ Jan. 29, 1982 - The Lamecock, a parody of The Gamecock, was published by Lit’ Bird, a bi-weekly entertainment newspaper. The Lamecock parodied the headlines and editorial staff of the publication. Monday, January 29, 2001 H . • $2.3 million for your thoughts by Frazier Moore Associated Press NEW YORK-What comes over us? Any other time, our official position on TV advertising is scorn. With every break for commercials, we can’t wait to hit the clicker or the john. But then Super Bowl Sunday arrives and, for a few spellbinding hours, it’s as if we stumbled into Bizarro Wrrld: “Me LOVE commercials! Me must watch!” And we do. Like the game that went before, the telecast of Super Bowl XXXV means more than football and pageantry. In a consumer culture where we are what we eat (and drink, drive and wear), here we can expect to see ourselves—TV’s group portrait of America. After all, the Super Bowl attracts the year’s biggest TV audience. More than 120 million people watch at least part of the game. To reach them this Sunday with a 30-second spot, each advertiser will shell out $2.3 million. A preview: ■ A spot for MasterCard is set in a hoity-toity auction house. Up for bids: The letter B. The color red. Gravity. “There are some things that money can’t buy,” concedes the voiceover. “For everything else, there’s” — well, if you don’t know by now, then getting the word out on MasterCard could be yet another thing that money can’t buy. ■ It wouldn’t be a Super Bowl without a few brewskis, or without this year’s biggest advertiser, Anheuser-Busch. In one of its ads for Bud Light, a foxy girl and her everyman beau, Cedric, are settling in on the couch. Sultry music plays. “Why don’t you get us something to cool this fire down?” she coos. Cedric grins. “I got just the thing.” Once he steps into the kitchen, the music and the mood switch to gleeful hip-hop as our hero indulges in an anticipatory victory dance, a bottle of Bud Light in each hand. ■ In its Super Bowl debut, Levi Strauss gets dramatically zany on behalf of its “Reissued” 569 jeans. A would-be cowboy has a riding accident. (Actually, he falls off a child’s coin-operated mechanical pony.) Medics find him unconscious. Then they find his jeans Donor Card. In a race against time, they strip him of his Levis, which they rush to a recipient, forlornly balled up in bed. As the medics look on, the grateful lad dons the jeans. Emotion overcomes him. Yes, they fit! Back at the horsie ride, the victim comes to, bewildered to find he’s in his skivvies. Those are a few of the 60 commercials to be shown while the New York Giants and the Baltimore Ravens play for the National Football League championship. For producer Robert Dalrymple, who gathered some 50 spots for a retrospective on Super Bowl commercials, there’s no mystery why the ads take on a fife and allure apart from the game. “There are so many people tuned in who really don’t care about football,” he says, “while there’s something in the humanity and humor of the commercials that draws everybody in.” That might not be enough, though, to spell s uccess for advertisers. Memphis-based adman Bob O’Connor has a theory about what makes a commercial great. “The truth will set you free,” he says. “But it will really make you uncomfortable first.” By that, O’Connor means the great commer cials take a risk. Example: Subway restaurants. Its “Jared Inspired Me” Super Bowl ad embraces a risky issue for a fast-food chain — obesity — by arguing that its sandwiches can promote sensible weight loss. In short, a Super Bowl commercial that enter tains or dazzles may seem initially to be a great play. But if that’s all there is, the advertiser probably fumbled. The spotlight desk can be reached at gamecockspotlight® hotmail.com What’s Happening Monday, Jan. 29 PERFORMING ARTS WORKSHOP THEATRE Steel Magnolias HIDEAWAY’S Karaoke LEGENDS Karaoke w/Bobby Houston dance, DJs and miscellaneous LEGENDS Ladies Night 1 Tuesday, Jan. 30 BLUE MARTINI Jeff Liberty DELANEY’S Tadhg O'Cathan Celtic Ses sion ELBOW ROOM Bare Jr. NEW BROOKLAND Acoustic Competi tion 1 VILLAGE IDIOT Acoustic Challenge Wednesday, Jan. 31 BLUE MARTINI Skipp Pearson and Jazzology DELANEY’S Joal Rush MAC’S ON MAIN Blues & Jazz Show case w/ The 4th Element GROUP THERAPY Wild Wild Wednes days THE KNOCK KNOCK CLUB College Night TAVERN ON GREENE Listening Party TOP TEN Week of Jan. 26 Michigan Palace Iggy and the Stooges Things We Lost in the Fire CLOW Massacre Brian Jonestown Aaltopiiri Pan Sonic Why I Write Such Good Songs Kleenex Girl S/T Death by Chocolate VS. Everything The Causey Way Maxi On Takako Minekawa Woe is Me EP Jurassic Five Tete-A-Tete ABBC In The News Popular Hollywood restaurant to close LOS ANGELES (AP)— Spago Hollywood, the restaurant that quickly became the watering hole of choice to Hollywood’s brightest stars and biggest dealmakers when it opened 19 years ago, is closing at the end of March. The restaurant, which also made a star of its chef and owner, Wolfgang Puck, was an immediate hit with the film industry. Actors and dealmakers arrived in droves to be seen dining on the edge of the Sunset Strip. Each year, agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar made it the site of his legendary post-Academy Awards parties. But the restaurant has seen its reputation eclipsed in recent years by Puck’s newer and trendier Spago Beverly Hills, and tourists in casual Hrpcc ran nnw hp cppn at tahlpc that were once reserved strictly for Hollywood’s elite. With the change in clientele and the need for costly renovations, Puck decided it was best to simply close it, said his publicist, Jannis Swerman. Spago will go out in style, with the chef and his friends and colleagues preparing food for a series of farewell parties that will culminate with closing galas on March 28 and 29. South Park producers told they can’t parody Bush kids by David Bauder Associated Press NEW YORK —Comedy Central has ordered producers of an upcoming comedy series about the first family to remove all references to President Bush’s twin daughters. The series, by South Park producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone, had attracted notoriety when a proposed script leaked out with the 19-year-old girls, Jenna and Barbara, portrayed as incestuous lesbian lovers. Parker and Stone had already distanced themselves from that idea, but Comedy Central executives — who had received many complaints—told them this week the girls could not be included in their series at all. “We aren’t comfortable with them being in the show,” said Comedy Central spokesman Tony Fox on Friday. “There’s some question about their status as public figures.” raxer said ne oeuevea tne twins were fair game for parody, but that the way the series had evolved, the creators didn’t need the daughters to be involved. “If we felt creatively that we needed them in, we would fight it,” Parker said. “It’s just not something worth fighting.” Comedy Central agreed shortly before Election Day to air the live-action comedy, which will use the first family to satirize TV sitcoms. It was originally supposed to start next month, but the protracted election battle has pushed the premiere to April or later. The series was titled Family First, but after Comedy Central learned the Mormon Church had rights to the name, the title was changed to That’s My Bush. The idea of portraying the Bush twins as lesbian lovers was in a prospective sketch by one of Parker and Stone’s writers. After it was publicized, the conservative Wfeb site LoudCitizen asked IS V special to me uamecocK Comedy Central has ordered South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to remove all references to George W. Bush’s daughters, Barbara (left middle) and Jenna, from their newest series, That’s My Bush, a parody of the president and sitcoms. its followers to sign a petition uiging Comedy Central not to air That’s My Bush. The American Family Association on Friday called on Comedy Central to pull the plug. “That’s My Bush will serve no purpose other than generating disrespect, with President Bush’s daughters in the cross hairs,” said Don Wildmon, president of the American Family Association. The Bush family has sought to shield the girls from public scrutiny, much like former President Clinton did with his daughter, Chelsea. Executives at Comedy Central, part-owned by Viacom and AOL Time Wamer, got calls of concern from their corporate overseers, Viacom’s Washington lobbyist and viewers, Fox said. No one from the Bush administration contacted the network, he said. “No one has told us you can’t do this,” Fox said. “The network weighed all of its options and decided that we weren’t going to have the twins in the show.” * Parker said he understands the decision even if he disagrees with it. “They’re a corporation, and as much as we like everyone over there and think it’s the best place we can possibly be, they’re still a corporation,” he said. “The bottom line is it’s not about freedom for them, it’s about making money.” The creators are using The Dick Van Dyke Show as a model. One script they are working on has the president trying to attend two dinners at the same time: one with leaders of the anti-abortion movement, and the other a romantic one with his wife. Parker said it’s ironic that he and Stone are getting heat, both because they personally lean Republican and because their series intends to lionize Bush, not ridicule him. “What we’re trying to do is way more subversive,” he said. “We’re going to make you love this guy.” The spotlight desk can be reached at gamecockspotlight@hotmail.com HP USC renovating A.C. Moore garden UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA afCCWTKNWIAf. ■ Beautification project should end by November by Amanda Silva The Gamecock The USC Bicentennial Committee is working to renovate and beautify the historic A.C. Moore Garden on the comer of Blossom and Pickens streets. “It’s very easy to take environmental processes for granted in an urban setting,” geology professor Dr. Kristin Dow said. USC purchased the property in 1937 for use as an arboretum, a place where many kinds of trees and plants are grown for exhibition or study. “We’re working on taking the garden back to its roots, so to speak,” said Sally McKay, executive director of the Bicentennial Committee. a_i!_ * . w.rr_ *.1_ nwvuiuuig iu iuvivaj, iuc committee has replaced the damaged wrought-iron fence and is focusing on dredging the pond McKay said classes use the garden as a teaching resource, and teachers like Dow, who uses the garden for her Introduction to Geology classes, hope to restore the garden so that it may be increasingly used for teaching classes. “What we’re trying to do is make it more useful as a teaching resource,” Dow said According to Dow, students from all fields have made use of the garden. “It’s an interdisciplinary thing, not just about biologists. We’re trying to encourage people to do research on the garden, to highlight the way we work together and the different ways to make a contribution to the environment” Dow said benches will be added to the garden, as well as paths to make it handicapped-accessible. Dow said more lighting will be installed to ensure security for visitors. While working to beautify the area, Dow said there is an educational component to the renovation plans. “We’re trying to increase the landscape designs to emphasize plants native to South Carolina, like the South Carolina azalea. Most people don’t realize that the species of azaleas commonly seen in the area are not from South Carolina,” she said “The garden has been certified as a backyard habitat by the National Wildlife Federation, which means that the basics of wildlife are provided on a year-round basis, like food shelter, etc.” Dow said While the plans are underway, Dow said the project has slowed because of work on the pond. She said the pond has been filled with sediment and tree leaves for some time, limiting the oxygen supply, which lowered me variety oi wiidiue me pond could support. “First we rescued all the fish and lowered the water level so that a dredging company can come in and rebuild the pond,” she said. The garden was dedicated to Dr. Charles Moore in 1941. Moore was the first honor graduate of South Carolina College and the first chair of USC’s Department of Biology. According to McKay, the Bicentennial Committee has worked on the plans for the garden for more than a year and hopes to rededicate the garden in November 2001. The spotlight desk can be reached at gamecockspotllght@hotmall.com