#1
Posted: 1/7/05 at 4:07pm
I know that got a LOT of people's attention, but it's the original Andy Hardy's butt...
===
Butt out: Fox nixes Super Bowl backside ad
By Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY
A year after Janet Jackson's breast brought a crackdown on indecency, Fox
has rejected an ad for the Super Bowl offering a rare view of another celeb:
Mickey Rooney's backside.
In the spot for Airborne, a natural cold remedy, the 84-year-old star of
such 1940s staples as National Velvet and the Andy Hardy films is in a sauna
when someone behind him coughs. He overreacts, jumps up, screams and heads
for the door. In his rush, his towel drops, baring his buns for about two
seconds.
"Our standards department reviewed the ad and it was deemed inappropriate
for broadcast," says Lou d'Ermilio, spokesman for Fox Sports.
It is, after all, nudity.
But Rider McDowell, co-owner of Airborne, says it's not exactly titillating
stuff. "There's nothing sexual about the ad," McDowell says. "It's
tantamount to showing a baby's bottom."
Rooney, who was planning a Super Bowl party, says in a statement he's angry.
He wanted to be the butt of this joke: "What we're selling here is something
I really believe in, which is an awareness of the germs we're all exposed
to. There's nothing sensual about the brief exposure of my backside, and
it's not gratuitous. ... It's a fun spot, and the public deserves to see
it."
McDowell says he has been in talks with Fox since August about the 15-second
spot, for which he planned to pay $1.2 million, 10% of the Carmel,
Calif.-based company's annual ad budget. "We're disappointed and angry,"
says McDowell, 42. And while he admits that he hoped to create "buzz,"
McDowell thinks Fox is being "overzealous in their policing of the
airwaves."
David Rice, McDowell's lawyer, sent a letter Monday to the Federal
Communications Commission, arguing the ad is "amusing and entirely
appropriate for broadcast" and urging the commission to issue an order
directing Fox to broadcast it.
An FCC spokeswoman said Thursday that the commission would never make such
an order. The agency responds to complaints after material airs.
===
Butt out: Fox nixes Super Bowl backside ad
By Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY
A year after Janet Jackson's breast brought a crackdown on indecency, Fox
has rejected an ad for the Super Bowl offering a rare view of another celeb:
Mickey Rooney's backside.
In the spot for Airborne, a natural cold remedy, the 84-year-old star of
such 1940s staples as National Velvet and the Andy Hardy films is in a sauna
when someone behind him coughs. He overreacts, jumps up, screams and heads
for the door. In his rush, his towel drops, baring his buns for about two
seconds.
"Our standards department reviewed the ad and it was deemed inappropriate
for broadcast," says Lou d'Ermilio, spokesman for Fox Sports.
It is, after all, nudity.
But Rider McDowell, co-owner of Airborne, says it's not exactly titillating
stuff. "There's nothing sexual about the ad," McDowell says. "It's
tantamount to showing a baby's bottom."
Rooney, who was planning a Super Bowl party, says in a statement he's angry.
He wanted to be the butt of this joke: "What we're selling here is something
I really believe in, which is an awareness of the germs we're all exposed
to. There's nothing sensual about the brief exposure of my backside, and
it's not gratuitous. ... It's a fun spot, and the public deserves to see
it."
McDowell says he has been in talks with Fox since August about the 15-second
spot, for which he planned to pay $1.2 million, 10% of the Carmel,
Calif.-based company's annual ad budget. "We're disappointed and angry,"
says McDowell, 42. And while he admits that he hoped to create "buzz,"
McDowell thinks Fox is being "overzealous in their policing of the
airwaves."
David Rice, McDowell's lawyer, sent a letter Monday to the Federal
Communications Commission, arguing the ad is "amusing and entirely
appropriate for broadcast" and urging the commission to issue an order
directing Fox to broadcast it.
An FCC spokeswoman said Thursday that the commission would never make such
an order. The agency responds to complaints after material airs.
