By Zack Baker
210 west Writer [send email]

Every time I think that I have seen the worst that television has tooffer, television surprises me.

"My Big Fat Greek Life" might be the worst television show ever spawnedoff a movie, and that's saying a lot.

"Inside Schwartz" was so bad I had to consult a psychologist just tomake sure these awful scenes were actually seen by people other than me.And MTV's decline from a music network to a network that centers morearound sex than music brought me reason to always stay off the channel.

Knowing how bad television could be, I should have just avoided theSuper Bowl halftime show. My friends recommended that we order the Lingerie Bowl, but the cost,and my general objection to the whole concept, kept me from ordering.Little did I know what occurred on the Super Bowl would be more exposing than anything the model-halfbacks could have come up with.Now, let me say that I am rarely offended by anything on grounds oftaste.

Maybe it's the culture I have grown up in, maybe it's my overallboundaries, but I am not usually offended.And be sure that I wasn't offended by the halftime show itself. Ithought it was stupid, pointless and self-congratulatory, but it didn't reallyoffend me, even after Janet showed a little too much at the end.

In fact, I was more offended by the pre-game show, which featured astupid vignette with Aerosmith in a space shuttle a year to the day of the Columbia disaster. The NFL pre-game show was even filled with touching stories about the accident.

It seemed a bad time to be making an Armageddon farce.

What was strange about the halftime show was the fact that I waswondering what parents around the country were thinking. While halftime showsusually contain more waste than a supermarket hot dog, they are rarelyoffensive.

If I were a parent (which, thankfully, I am not) I'd have switched the channel as soon as I saw the dominatrix outfits come out during Janet Jackson's set. Yet I doubt that many parents had any idea that the worstwas yet to come.

Justin Timberlake showed up.

OK, that wasn't it.

But it was for me.

Anyone with half a brain knows that everything that occurred at the endof the show was not only planned, but known. There is blame to be assessedhere, but I'm not sure it lies entirely with the performers and thechoreographers.

If the organizations involved didn't know what was coming, than theydeserve to be punished for being too naive, if nothing else. Anyone who has seenMTV over the last 10 years had to know that the envelope was going to be not only pushed but seemingly torn open and then burned for good measure.

The NFL, CBS, and MTV all knew that the show was going to be raunchy. Ifthe NFL cared, they would have objected to CBS as soon as they saw the name"Kid Rock" on the performing list.(I like Kid Rock, I'm just saying he won't be mistaken for one of the Osmonds.)

Oh, and just for the record, I could do without the circus at halftime.It's stupid even when it doesn't offend. If I wanted to watch music videos,I'd watch MT....

Wait, do they even do that anymore?

Originally posted at 210West.com.