'Desperate' controversy blown out of proportion

As we bid a fond farewell to the latest NFL season, let's think back for a moment on the biggest non-story of the season.

Can you believe that the Nicollette Sheridan-Terrell Owens "Monday Night Football" opening got as much attention as it did? That it engendered as much hypocrisy as it did — from the protests to the apologies — is less surprising, unfortunately.

And would anyone have cared had it been Sheridan and John Madden, as originally planned?

"Desperate Housewives" creator/executive producer Marc Cherry was asked to do the bit as a favor to ABC Sports. A number of ideas were batted around, and Cherry came up with a parody of his own soap-opera parody, with Sheridan faux seducing Madden. Then fellow "Housewives" Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman "would go, 'I'm so sick of these soap operas. Are you ready for some football?' "

As originally written, there was no Owens, no dropping of the towel and no leaping into his arms — bits that were added at the shoot, apparently by ABC Sports staffers.

Cherry strongly denied that the whole thing was designed to cause a media sensation. "Some people in the media ascribed motives, like, 'Oh, we knew what we were doing. We knew we were going to create controversy.' No, we were just that stupid," he said.

And he seemed not only taken aback by the whole thing but genuinely apologetic.

"I didn't want to upset people. I didn't really realize 'Monday Night Football' was such a family viewing experience," Cherry said. "I wouldn't let my 5-year-old watch beer commercials and big-breasted cheerleaders every Monday, but that's me."

Well, he's got a point.

"I thought it was a whole lot of nothing, and I was surprised by the amount of play that it got," ABC Entertainment president Steve McPherson said. Sheridan herself said that the incident "taking precedence over the major, underlying problems of the world was completely absurd."

They both had points.

Cherry made another one when he pointed out that "every punditry show on cable would talk about how scandalous this thing was and then they would play it again."

Sort of like the endless replaying of the video of the Pacers fighting with the Piston fans. Or any one of dozens of bench-clearing baseball brawls. Or hockey fights.

If it's bad behavior, it's on the TV highlights.

Which is what made the post-Super Bowl episode of "The Simpsons" so on-the-mark (despite not being one of the funnier installments of the show.) If you missed that one, Homer opens his own Showboating Academy, where he taught various sports figures (including Tom Brady, Michelle Kwan, Yao Ming and LeBron James) how to act in an obnoxious, unsportsmanlike manner so that their antics would be highlighted on cable sports shows.

And the appropriately named "Jock Center" (a k a ESPN's "SportsCenter," of course) decried Homer and his students' antics . . . and then proceeded to highlight them.

"I'm the worst thing to happen to sports since Fox!" Homer proclaimed.

Now that's funny.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com