BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
And this just in from the party circuit . . .
It had to be the strangest of last week's parties, what with all those people running around waving ballots and watching TVs. Oh yeah, and doing the hors d'oeuvres and cocktail thing.
Referring here to a party thrown by Media That Works, a local ad outfit that buys airtime for hundreds of clients. They held a do Thursday in the Aronoff's lobbies to which they invited about 100 clients (mostly execs with control over advertising budgets) to get together for food, drink and 5-minute snippets of the new prime time TV shows.
Being ad types (the very types who pay TV's bills) they should know good TV from bad, says Cindy Bidinger, who arranged the party. Why not, she asks, have them vote on hits and misses, and see how much they really know? Guests listened to TV Guide editor Steve Reddicliffe discuss his picks, then watched screens all over the lobbies. Then voted.
Results in a sec. First this: At a similar party last year, many of the same folk picked Ally McBeal as the season's best. Pretty good, 'eh?
This year: No. 1 was Maggie Winters, (8:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Channels 12, 7). The new Faith Ford (Corky on Murphy Brown) comedy also stars 1982 Oak Hills grad Jenny Robertson.
No. 2 was Fantasy Island (9 p.m. Saturdays, Channels 9, 2), a dark remake of the dreadful Ricardo Montalban show. How dark? The word heard most often was twisted.
No. 3 was That '70s Show (8:30 p.m. Sundays, Channels 19, 45), a comedy set in 1976.
IT'S IN THE NECK: And if that's not odd enough, how about a bunch of people Friday running around Main Street with tape measures screaming Size Matters?
Oh my word.
Turns out they were measuring necks for Anheuser-Busch.
Occasion, says A-B's Jim Schwartz, was the Bud Light Longneck Finals, wherein A-B went looking for the longest neck in Cincinnati. The search was a five-week affair in bars around town. About 60 showed up at Neon's for final measurements.
And just who did measure up? These three: Jim Gladstone, a 22-year-old Spanish major at XU, won with 6 3/4 inches; Shannon O'Callaghan, a 21-year-old UC student, and 28-year-old Sonny Edrich tied at 6 1/4. So what do they get for sticking their necks out? A big picture, that's what. All three go up on a 14-by-48-foot billboard at Reading Road and Liberty Street the week of Aug. 24. Gladstone also gets a trip to Cancun.
Proving that, yeah, size really does matter.
TAKE A GUESS: As long as we're on weekend oddities, try this: dinner at Quality Inn Riverfront Saturday.
Turns out the Tokens ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight") were in to play a 9 p.m. date at the Great Inland Seafood Fest.
Afterward, the group wanted dinner. They also wanted to go gambling. Especially lead singer Jay Siegel, But after an hour-plus show, they were too tired and the casinos were too far. So ad exec Rob Riggsbee took them to dinner and invented a game.
Quality's restaurant, recall, is on the top floor of the hotel and revolves, giving diners a 360-degree view. So Riggsbee, who got his hands on two Super Bowl tickets, made an offer: best guess at how long it takes to make a revolution (48 minutes) gets the tickets. Siegel came closest with 50 minutes.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
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