On ultimate TV sports day, you don’t want a wardrobe malfunction. So forget the belt and wear loose-fitting clothes as you eat, drink and watch the big game – and 14 hours of related programming.
Here is the best way to soak it all in:
9:00 a.m. Start your day by playing “Where’s Waldo?” – looking for then-Giants defensive coordinator Bill Belichick on the sideline as you relive Big Blue’s Super Bowl XXI beat-down of the Broncos on ESPN2.
9:30 a.m. In “Outside the Lines,” ESPN will spend part of the show following “veteran Super Bowl partyers.” How do we become one of those?
10:00 a.m. The game is just 8 ½ hours from starting. When it does, Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth will be your guides. On Fox, NFL Films takes you behind the scenes with the Super Bowl broadcast trio.
11:00 a.m. While Fox will be telling “Untold Stories of the Super Bowl,” which we have been told many times before, ESPN trots out its super-sized, three-hour “NFL Countdown.”
12:00 p.m. It may be the Eagles’ day, but there is room for a Hawk. On Fox, to promote its cable channel FUEL, Tony Hawk has a special.
1:00 A Giant has made this year’s Super Bowl – well, sort of. Michael Strahan co-hosts “The Best Darn Super Bowl Road Show Period” on Fox.
2:00 Just 4 ½ hours until kickoff and Fox begins its Super Bowl Sunday Pregame show.
2:30 John Fogarty and Kelly Clarkson perform on the Fox pre-game show. When Yogi Berra is done suing Sex and the City, he might want to sic his lawyers on Fogarty, whose new album is called, “Déjà vu, All over Again.”
3:00 On Fox’s pre-game, it is “The Best of 10 Yards with T.B.” The term “Best” is not really needed here as interviewer Terry Bradshaw asks players questions like “Boxers or Briefs?”
3:30 p.m. Just three hours until kickoff, but tipoff is right here. The vegan Lakers – no Kobe – go to Houston to face Tracy McGrady and the Rockets on ABC.
3:35 p.m. Beginning in the first hour of the pre-game, Fox starts a hole-in-one competition for charity. Ex-Met Al Leiter is one participant. If his golf game is anything like his pitching, Leiter won’t be around at the end.
5:15 The elder President Bush and President Clinton stop by the Fox set to raise money for the tsunami Relief. They will also talk some football, but not political football.
6:00 p.m. Alicia Keyes sings America the Beautiful, while – and this has awkward written all over it – Philly native Will Smith introduces the Eagles, and Michael Chikliss, a native of FX’s “The Shield,” does the Patriot roll call.
6:20 The kickoff is right around the corner. Enough said.
7:15 By this time, Turf Cam has probably been unveiled. Fox has placed tiny cameras – the size of an eraser on a No. 2 pencil – all over the field, which could allow you to see inside a center’s nostrils. This could unnerve the sensitive FCC.
8:00 p.m. After last year’s Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake fiasco, the NFL wants Paul McCartney to sing “Hey, Prude” on the halftime show.
10:00 p.m. The champion is crowned. Now it is time for the “Simpsons.”
10:30 p.m. Still jonesing for some football? Skip out of the Simpsons and watch NFL PrimeTime on ESPN.
11:00 p.m. Lapse into a food coma and hibernate until 2006 in Motown. (p. 3 Metro)
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Here’s a menu of options you can set your TiVo to while you’re watching the big game:
TV Shows
SI Swimsuit Model Search, 1-6 p.m.
King of the Hill, 3-5 p.m., FX
Monk, 6-11 p.m., USA
Charmed 2-11 p.m., TNT
101 Most Sensational Crimes of Fashion, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., E!
Movies
Intolerable Cruelty, 10 a.m., HBO
As Good As It Gets, 12:30 p.m., TBS
Animal House, 3 p.m., Ch. 11
The Pianist, 3:40 p.m., Starz
40 Days and 40 Nights, 4 p.m., Comedy Central
13 Going on 30, 5:30 p.m., Starz
The Sweetest Thing, 8 p.m., Comedy Central
Chocolat, 8:30 p.m., A&E