The Fromson File

Half Hearted Apology Granted the February 1st Super Bowl was one tremendous football game, which is not the way I thought it would turn out. Down through the years, it usually has been one of the great bores in pro football history. But this time, the two quarterbacks were so closely matched that it was only fitting for the game to be decided by a final kick. Everything was fine, except for the tacky halftime show that CBS allowed on its air, drawing the attention of the nation's sport-writing fraternity and half the people watching the televised event. But what worsened the matter was the network's sorry apology for carrying the unseemly moment; a moment that by now half the world knows about and is not worth repeating. What's more interesting is the media's greater fascination with Janet Jackson's mammary glands than with the no-talent screamer earlier in the show who feigned grabbing his crotch several times during his rap number. Ah CBS, once the tiffany network of televison and now the claimant to being a programmer for families. The hell to the nation's vulnerable kids, many of whom were sitting alongside their parents watching the broadcast. Expose them to whatever garbage can fill the air and pull in gobs of dollars in advertising revenue. Do the mea culpa and the whole thing will blow over in a matter of days. Well, I'm no prude, but it is about time that the programs and practices executives of each network step up to the plate and take responsibility for allowing independent packagers like MTV or subsidiaries to allow such junk on their air. Not only was this episode downright tasteless. It was just the kind of thing that gives the nuts, the blue bloods and would-be censors an opportunity to lobby for a more controlled environment on the air. And you can bet they will.