Super Bowl Musical Mania: Madonna at Halftime, 'The Voice' Afterward, 'Smash' The Next Day

Each network has a different approach to programming the post-Super Bowl slot, with varying results.

Two years ago, CBS used its post-Super Bowl slot to launch a new reality series, Undercover Boss. It was renewed, and still continues, so that game plan worked.

Last year, Fox used its ultra-valuable time slot after Super Bowl XLV to expose new viewers to an existing hit: its high-school comedy-drama-musical mashup, Glee, complete with a football-team zombie dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

That was at the midpoint of what turned out to be a dismally unfocused sophomore season for Glee. And earlier this week, Glee presented a special episode with a Michael Jackson theme -- so, no lessons learned there.

For 2012, NBC has the Super Bowl, and is playing it safe -- and musically -- both at halftime and afterward.

At halftime, it's giving the musical spotlight to Madonna, who's far from the first AARP member to take center stage at the 50-year-line on TV's biggest annual event. But the others have been male -- and for Madonna, it's the biggest move in a calculated career revival, which also included the unveiling of a music video on Thursday's American Idol.

(Remember music videos, kids? They were what MTV used to play, from time to time, before settling on pregnant teens and Snooki.)

After Super Bowl XLVI, though, is where the real action is. That's when NBC presents the second-season premiere of The Voice, its reality-show competition featuring Christina Aguilera and three other popular singers.

As I noted a year ago, any program that follows a Super Bowl inherits one of television's very biggest audiences -- but one which is, by that time, mostly inebriated or stoned, either partying or sulking (depending upon team loyalty), and not exactly paying attention.

Like commercials during the game itself, a post-Super Bowl offering must grab the eye first, because you can't assume the ears are listening. Humor sells well. Action sells better. Usually, sex sells best.

The Voice is just the reverse. Its opening round depends on listening, not watching -- and, in fact, not watching is its central gimmick. The judges listen in tall swivel chairs, their backs to the contestants, and turn to face them only if sold by the power of their vocals.

But The Voice is a smart gambit in the post-Super Bowl slot, for two reasons.

One, it was NBC's only hit -- a surprise one, arriving in late summer -- of an otherwise dismal year. The Playboy Club was closer to the network's norm. Compared to that, The Voice shines like a supernova.

It's the sort of TV show a Super Bowl party can stay tuned to watch, and give partygoers the chance to talk about and enjoy in a communal setting. And NBC needs to remind people that The Voice is back, and nothing does that like airing its season premiere after the Super Bowl.

Two, the season premiere actually is a two-parter -- one that continues Monday, providing a high-profile lead-in to NBC's newest series, Smash. That show, like The Voice, is filled with music. But Smash is scripted, and is about a season-long effort to create and mount a Broadway musical on the life of Marilyn Monroe.

NBC needs a hit like Ron Paul needs delegates -- and Smash, following The Voice, just could be the one-two punch NBC needs. If so, this Super Bowl showcase will be one of the smartest uses of that highly visible platform in years.

(The rest of this column ran previously in this space, but still applies. Besides, it gives me another opportunity to run the Jennifer Garner picture.)

The ultimate post-Super Bowl offering may have been in 2003, when ABC presented a special episode of its series Alias, starring Jennifer Garner as a beautiful spy. For the Super Bowl crowd, this particular episode opened aboard a private jet, with Garner's Sydney going undercover as an escort, entertaining a rich client by sporting a whip and wearing nothing but panties, a bra and a stern expression.

Over the years, there have been more misses than hits in programming after the Super Bowl. The first game in 1967, before it was even called a Super Bowl, was followed on CBS by an episode of Lassie. The first truly successful use of the post-Bowl slot was in 1983, when NBC launched The A-Team.

Since then, the Super Bowl has provided a launching pad to a few great TV series (ABC's The Wonder Years in 1988, NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street in 1993), but has spawned just as many instant flops (NBC's Brothers and Sisters sitcom in 1979, CBS's Grand Slam sitcom in 1990).

Mostly, what the time slot has done right is draw bigger audiences to already successful shows, as with the 1996 NBC "Super-Sized" episode of Friends and Fox's 2008 episode of House.

It worked for House four years ago -- and ought to work just as well for The Voice this weekend.