Super Bowl gets Toronto flavour and the Argo cheerleaders

The Argo cheerleaders finally get to a championship game, at least on a Super Bowl graphic.

The Toronto Argonauts cheerleaders didn't get to go the Grey Cup this year or even to the CFL playoffs, unless they bought tickets. But they're going to be part of the Super Bowl.

And while the Grey Cup didn't grace the streets of Toronto this year, the Vince Lombardi Trophy did spend a few days in Toronto.

The trophy and some of the Argo dance crew posed for the main  graphics that CBS will use during Sunday's Super Bowl, which were once again produced by Toronto's Big Studios.

The production company has been doing NFL and Super Bowl work off and on since 1998. The difference this year was that CBS didn't approach the Toronto firm until pretty late in the game.

``We usually start working in late summer, but this year things were put together late," says owner/partner Jocelyne Meinert . ``It ended up being left to the last minute. There were a lot of long hours."

A warehouse was rented and soon a 22-foot-high Super Bowl logo was being built along with a 12-foot NFL on CBS logo. The Lombardi trophy, accompanied by security guards, arrived during the two-day shoot.

The company has received several Emmy nominations for design and has won three: two for Super Bowls and one for Monday Night Football. It has also done graphics for the MLB Network, ESPN and CTV's Olympics package.

 The current graphics will be used on CBS for next season.

Meinert's team consisted of senior producer Michael Moore and designers Shannon Wong, Santosh Isaac and Jordan Greenstein.

MORE SUPER STUFF: If you don't have an aerial or an illegal satellite dish, there are two ways to watch the American Super Bowl commercials. One is to move to Quebec and subscribe to a Videotron specialty package that will show the unadulterated CBS feed. That might be a tad expensive. The other is to wait until the game is over and log on to www.cbssports.com/ads. They'll all be there in widescreen format. You could move to Buffalo, too, but that seems a tad extreme. ... The NFL Network is airing an 8 1/2-hour pre-game show Sunday while CBS keeps things relatively short with only six hours.

Comments

[Mullah_Kintyre]

You certainly do not have to leave the province of Ontario or do anything illegal to watch the Super Bowl or any other program on the American broadcast channels. I believe that once you get about 50 or 60 miles away from Toronto, and assuming you're not within range of another CTV station, cable companies and Shaw Direct satellite service (formerly StarChoice) are not required to simultaneously substitute the American stations with a Canadian one. Unfortunately Bell TV simsubs for everyone regardless of location.

A directional UHF antenna (is that what he meant by an "aerial"?) with an unblocked line of sight in the direction of Buffalo (and/or Rochester for some) should be able to receive CBS for most in the GTA. Even a relatively cheap 'silver sensor' type of indoor antenna can work if you can put it in an unblocked south-facing window. And you need a TV with an ATSC tuner, which most TVs built in the last few years have had. And although this may be a laughably obvious point to some, you don't have to cancel or disconnect cable to also use an antenna that is connected to the antenna input of your TV, with your cable or satellite receiver still connected through another of the TV's inputs, such as HDMI.