New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | March 23, 2005

Are viewers tuning in for the Sweet Sixteen old enough to watch Spring Break Shark Attack? Did anybody actually watch Spring Break Shark Attack? Was there even a show called Spring Break Shark Attack, or was it just promotional prank by the Tiffany Network? Has all of the Tiffany Network's programming talent been eaten alive in a Spring Break Shark Attack? Jeff Taylor investigates.

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|3.23.05 @ 2:57PM|#

I watched about fifteen minutes of it while I was making some sushi. It was terrible. Even the shark attack was silly from an F/X perspective.

...and via hapless announcers pressed into hyping the shows.

I always feel so bad for those guys. :)

|3.23.05 @ 3:03PM|#

The girl in the pic is hot.

|3.23.05 @ 3:11PM|#

Do we give a rat's ass if they're old enough to watch? So where are their parents, huh? Sorry, I had to send Jeff Taylor a nastygram on this. Who the f*** cares that his kid needs protection from the violent "CSI" and "Cold Case" promos? So use the OFF or MUTE buttons on the remote, Jeff. Or switch over to the Cartoon Network. It isn't CBS' fault that you now have to define "snuff film" to your seven-year-old.

|3.23.05 @ 3:13PM|#

Please, for the love of all that Congress deems Holy, its Bill Simmons. Not Bill Sammon.

I'm sure other Sports Guy fans will pound you with corrections, but I just wanted to be the first.

|3.23.05 @ 3:16PM|#

P.S.: I didn't watch, but I was rooting for the sharks during the promos. I hope they ate the Womens' Studies majors first.

|3.23.05 @ 3:19PM|#

BTW, that commecnt dealing with CSI & Tony Hawk was ESPN's Bill Simmons, not Sammon.

Bill Simmons, aka the Sports Guy, writes for espn.com on their Page 2 section.

|3.23.05 @ 3:28PM|#

It's not just the main networks. Discovery and the History Channel (and others) *routinely* start showing promos for new movies and series 3 or 4 months in advance. Who among us has not already memorized the ads for the new Kojak series on USA? Who among us has not already had their fill of the ads for the Old West series that will start in JUNE on the History channel. Who among us has not...OK, never mind, maybe I watch too much TV.

|3.23.05 @ 3:32PM|#

zero:

Your wish is only PC if the female sharks did the feeding. :)

I did not tune in SBSA, as much as I was intrigued by the idea of Ryan's girlfriend from The O.C. in a 2-piece. One must have standards, after all.

I listen to my home team play-by-play on the radio while watching the TV broadcast frequently. Unfortunately, the two are often not in sync, due to different delays. You often know whether the shot is good or not a second or two before you see it tickle the twine or rim out. This can be fun in a bar, calling "swish" or "brick" as the ball leaves the shooter's hands on screen.

The Milwaukee Brewers had a curious situation this past summer. None of their games were on local broadcast TV, except for a weekly game on our Telemundo affiliate. So it was either turn up Uecker on the radio and mute the TV sound, or get cable.

Kevin

|3.23.05 @ 3:45PM|#

"Discovery and the History Channel (and others) *routinely* start showing promos for new movies and series 3 or 4 months in advance."

I'm looking forward to finally seeing dragons eat those damn sheep on Animal Planet. (I, too, watch too much television.)

|3.23.05 @ 3:53PM|#

advertisers are starting to catch on. Their money will soon follow consumers' money to greener pastures, like the $11 billion video game market.

As somebody who thinks the cable tv and magazines I pay for should be ad-free (yeah, right...), I find the trend of ads in videogames to be repugnant but not at all surprising. There's just no escaping the pitch-man.

Greg Newburn|3.23.05 @ 3:56PM|#

I watched "SBSA," and it was awesome. My fiancee and I looked forward to it all week. As an ironic movie it was awesome; a send-up of movies that actually try to be dramatic but end up cheesy.

SBSA was good, but I'm looking forward to the movie about locust swarms coming up soon on CBS!

|3.23.05 @ 3:56PM|#

Ringtones came from nowhere to become a $3 billion business by selling choice, not by selling, well, relentless selling and no choice.

Actually I'm pretty sure ringtones came directly out of the phone sellers' diabolical plan to have the default rings be so embarrasing as to create an incentive to buy new rings. Most ringtones supplied with the phone could be changed to a loud announcement: "HI!!! I'M A BIG TASTELESS MORON! AND I'M TOO CHEAP TO BUY A REASONABLE RINGTONE!"

|3.23.05 @ 4:01PM|#

Shame on you, all of you, for watching this garbage. What about the children? And none of that homo-erotic "Sponge Bob," or Jack Hanna with his naked animals, either! You should be watching something wholesome and family-friendly, like "Touched By An Angel," or "Passion Of The Christ."

Wait...what's that? There's a woman on Channel seven with her ankle exposed! ONWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS!!!!

|3.23.05 @ 4:21PM|#

I'M TOO CHEAP TO BUY A REASONABLE RINGTONE

Some of us think paying for a ring tone is a colossal waste of money. And tasteless too, judging by the endless strains of such fare as the "Dukes of Hazzard" car horns and "Phantom of the Opera". To each his own, I guess.

James B.|3.23.05 @ 4:31PM|#

The idea of being able to listen to the local radio announcers is a good start.

I'd like to see more audio options. Imagine an NFL game with the choices of the regular announcers, or a couple of "Football Outsiders types", or no announcers at all just the audio of the game.

The last option makes a lot of sense. With all the on screen graphics nowadays, almost everything the announcers say is redundant if not off the topic or irrelevant.

|3.23.05 @ 4:31PM|#

I like the cell phone commercial where the delightful Joan Cusack is talking to the guy whose phone "rings" like this: Don't answer that! You don't have any more minutes!

Kevin

|3.23.05 @ 4:33PM|#

Some of us think paying for a ring tone is a colossal waste of money. And tasteless too, judging by the endless strains of such fare as the "Dukes of Hazzard" car horns and "Phantom of the Opera". To each his own, I guess.

I agree entirely. What a waste of money. I don't particularly care how stupid my phone sounds, but all the other annoying ones out there just grate on me.

|3.23.05 @ 5:10PM|#

Jeff|3.23.05 @ 5:27PM|#

When I saw the promo I expected it to be a Geico ad.
Someday someone will make an applet that hacks all cellphones in a 10 foot radius of me and sets them to "vibrate."
Recent ringtones I've heard lately include a woman screaming and gunfire.

|3.23.05 @ 5:45PM|#

I'd like to see more audio options. Imagine an NFL game with the choices of the regular announcers, or a couple of "Football Outsiders types", or no announcers at all just the audio of the game.

Sky Sports in Britain carries soccer games with an optional audio broadcast of regular fans watching the game, analyzing, yelling at, and gossiping about players. It's rebroadcast as "Fan Zone" on Fox Soccer Channel if you get that.

|3.23.05 @ 5:59PM|#

Well, CNN is charging for on-line live feeds, which is just stupid, IMHO. No wonder their ship is sinking.

|3.23.05 @ 5:59PM|#

Well, CNN is charging for on-line live feeds, which is just stupid, IMHO. No wonder their ship is sinking.

Matt|3.23.05 @ 6:02PM|#

Since Taylor is invoking the wisdom of Bill Simmons on one count, it should probably be noted that Simmons watched Spring Break: Shark Attack--and gave it an A+.

Franklin Harris|3.23.05 @ 6:20PM|#

What does Jeff has against girls in bikinis, anyway?

|3.23.05 @ 6:54PM|#

We're all living in America,
America ist wunderbar.
We're all living in America,
Amerika, Amerika.
We're all living in America,
Coca-Cola, Wonderbra,
We're all living in America,
Amerika, Amerika.

|3.23.05 @ 6:59PM|#

Well, CNN is charging for on-line live feeds, which is just stupid, IMHO. No wonder their ship is sinking.

That might have something to do with the fact that CNN gets paid a ton of dough by the cable and satellite companies to carry their channel. At the same time, these companies probably wouldn't take kindly to the idea of content that they're paying for being offered for free online. I think Disney got into a spat with Charter a couple of years ago over ESPN's online content, which doesn't come close to approaching a live feed.

There's a company called Sling Media that's planning to offer a $250 device that lets you access your home TV feed while on the road, via a broadband connection. Hopefully the reactionaries in Hollywood and the cable industry don't crush it.

|3.23.05 @ 11:38PM|#

Frank, I have nothing against girls in bikinis, which is an excellent prologue to girls out of bikinis BTW, but I goddamn sure do NOT want that mixing with my basketball.

s.m. koppelman|3.23.05 @ 11:48PM|#

I loved Spring Break Shark Attack. Best made-for-TV movie I've seen since the late-'90s Nina Siemaszko vehicle Runaway Car. The one about a runaway car.

|3.24.05 @ 12:12AM|#

Wait until you have to explain commercials with me in them to your kids ...

|3.24.05 @ 1:04AM|#

Spring Break Shark Attack ended up being fairly disappointing.

First of all, there were only about 20 promos for it in the last set of NCAA games. We had the over/under at 27. It would have made it if it weren't for the promos for Osama's guns on 60 Minutes.

Second, it was bad bad, rather than ridiculous bad. I was hoping for better from a team that gave us a "Category Six" hurricane hitting Chicago, last fall.

Finally, the final score was pretty disappointing. Very few spring breakers were actually killed by the sharks. No sharks were killed by spring breakers. And worst of all, THERE WERE NO HOOKUPS!!!

jimmy|3.24.05 @ 1:20AM|#

apparently the only reason CBS showed so many promos of SBSA during the basketball tourney was so they wouldn't have to switch to another game during halftime. why was i forced to watch only st mary's vs southern illinois while both north carolina and connecticut were also playing???

|3.24.05 @ 2:48AM|#

Jeff T:

Would you have objected to the bikini-clad cheerleaders of the old ABA's Miami Floridians?

Kevin

|3.24.05 @ 9:57AM|#

Excuse me jimmy, but I attend Southern Illinois. Besides, which is the better game, a 7/10 seed game featuring two of the best mid-major schools in the country, or the 1/16 seed game featuring one of the elite schools coasting over one of the "happy to be here" set?

|3.24.05 @ 2:43PM|#

Talk about Jumping the Shark!

|3.25.05 @ 12:29AM|#

I started watching the shark movie. They identified the setting as Seagull Beach near Miami. In the background you could see the mountains. I didn't know they had hills, much less mountains in Florida. They also identified the sharks as tiger sharks, 26 feet long. Thought they were in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Didn't know they got that large. You learn something new every day.

jimmy|3.29.05 @ 12:26PM|#

sorry steven, no offense. go salukis! i just think there's a lot less jumping btwn games than there used to be on cbs, which means we miss seeing multiple games and instead get stupid promos and greg gumbel talking about nothing.