Though Raiders and Rams Didn’t Reach Super Bowl, L.A. Fans Still Celebrate

Beaches emptied and barrooms filled with beer-swigging football fans who sat glued to television sets during their $1-million blank minute Sunday as the Super Bowl beamed into the former Super Bowl champions’ hometown.

Although the Raiders and Rams were eliminated in the playoffs, the biggest day in football was celebrated in restaurants, bars and living rooms en masse.

Super Bowl brunches from Malibu to Montclair and Pasadena to Palos Verdes were plentiful. Surfers paddled for shore and sun worshipers headed for parking lots before noon to catch the Super Bowl telecast from New Orleans.

The Malibu Surfing Assn. held a Super Bowl brunch at Point Dume, Raiders joined fans at a Pasadena restaurant and lifeguards feasted on an impromptu taco brunch at Zuma Beach.

“Hundreds up and left early to see the game, I guess,” said lifeguard Spike Beck, who was fixing a taco at lifeguard headquarters during the pregame show. “There are less people on the beach than there were this morning.”

Before game time, the California Highway Patrol said local freeways became traffic-free.

“The freeway incidences and amount of traffic are both substantially reduced,” CHP Officer Dan Loughrey said. “We believe this is directly attributable to the Super Bowl.”

The six hours of Super Bowl coverage was predicted to lure about half the nation, 120 million, to TV sets, and millions more watched the game worldwide in what the NFL called “the world’s most watched television event.”

So viewers wouldn’t miss a single $1.1-million-a-minute Super Bowl commercial, NBC placed its corporate tongue in cheek and offered them a one-minute blank-screen intermission.

The word “intermission” flashed on screen with a countdown clock across TV screens at 1:01 p.m. as elevator music played during the so-called “Silent Minute.”

But little imagination was exhibited during the intermission. Most apparently watched the TV screen to see what it was all about.

The Department of Water and Power and the Metropolitan Water District said water flows fluctuated little during the silent minute.

“During the blackout, water consumption dropped, actually dropped,” said Jay Malinowsky of the Metropolitan Water District, which serves half of Southern California’s water customers.

Bill Payne of the Department of Water and Power’s Van Norman dam in the San Fernando Valley said there was a very slight increase in water usage during the blank minute.

“There was a difference during that minute (about 450 gallons, or 150 flushes), but it may not be related to the television viewing in any way whatsoever,” Payne said.

Raiders Dokie Williams and Lester Hayes joined 700 Raiders fans at a restaurant for a hamburger and beer buffet. Disc jockey Buck Buchanan, said he was alone in the men’s room during the silent minute.

“Everybody just sat there like bumps on a log,” Buchanan said. “I couldn’t believe it. I was all alone.”

Sand-coated beachgoers flooded into an inn, which featured four TV sets and offered 99-cent hot dogs and 59-cent beers after each touchdown, inn manager Della Equipilag said.

“We’re pretty full right now,” she said a half-hour before the game. “There are more than a hundred people here now and they’re still coming in.”

She said there was no sudden rush for the bathrooms during the minute break.

Talk show host Johnny Carson, promoting NBC’s blackout minute all week on his “Tonight Show,” gave television viewers a one-minute blackout preview Thursday night.

“This is a quiet minute and do what you have to do,” Carson said. “There will be 150 million people watching the Super Bowl, and if they all go to the bathroom at the same time it will be the super flush.”

Comedian Bob Hope watched the Super Bowl at his Palm Springs home, a mushroom-shaped dome on the rocky slopes of the San Jacinto Mountain range 110 miles east of Los Angeles.

“I’m doing the same thing all Super Bowl viewers do: Rest after the big flush,” Hope said.

The gimmick minute prompted a variety of celebrity reaction.

Kenneth Blanchard, author of the “One Minute Manager,” said: “I think what I’ll do during those 60 seconds is just start thinking about what I hope to have accomplished personally and business-wise by the time I’m watching the Super Bowl next year.”

Mike Weisman, executive producer of NBC Sports who originated the idea of the Silent Minute, said: “I’m going to sit back, take a deep breath and get ready for the next 299 minutes of our telecast.”