Saturday, November 27, 2004

TOWELING OFF

[THE CROSSOVER OF THE WEEK]

For the second week in a row, that steamy intro for 'Monday Night Football' which featured Terrell Owens, Nicollette Sheridan, and a quickly discarded towel, has provided the Crossover of the Week.

Perhaps I should spell that "Crossover of the Weak".

On the Monday night following the headline-making 'MNF'/'Desperate Housewives' promo, African-American wrestler Shelton Benjamin was in a locker room at the beginning of 'Raw', the WWE program on Spike TV. Suddenly busty female wrestler Trish Stratus walked in wearing a towel. For some reason, she was also wearing a face mask.

"What about my needs?," she said, mimicking Nicollette Sheridan's line in the ABC spot. "What about Trish?"

Just as Stratus was to drop her towel, a la Sheridan, McMahon burst into the locker room shouting.

"This is unconscionable," McMahon said. "This is scandalous. I can see the moral fabric of America disintegrating right before my very eyes. The sexual overtones, the racial overtones..."

Besides joking about the end of the moral fabric, McMahon also took direct shots at the NFL and the NBA, which is dealing with the fallout from last week's Pistons-Pacers' fan rumble.

"I'm sorry, the FCC is not going to tolerate this, and neither will I," McMahon said. "I'm not going to have a locker room of deviants. This is the WWE, this is not the NFL and it damn sure is not the NBA. This is the kind of sexual titillation that would send you up into the stands and attack the audience."

With that line, I guess the intro can also link to the live TV presentation of the riot at the Pistons-Pacers game at Auburn Hills.

Since the 'MNF' intro was presented as a TV show within a TV show, this means that McMahon was referring to what he must have seen on TV as well. And since Susan Mayer and Lynette Scavo of 'Desperate Housewives' were also watching that same TV within TV intro, then technically one could link 'Raw' to the new ABC hit series.

Like I said, it's weak, but it may be the best that can be summoned up in a week where everybody's attention was instead drawn to the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Ah, for the good old days when sitcoms like 'Seinfeld' and 'Friends' and 'Who's The Boss' could all be linked together by the parade!

('Raw' & 'Monday Night Football' & 'Desperate Housewives')


BCnU!
Tele-Toby

"There's a frood who really knows where his towel is!"
The Book
'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy'

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