Another Super Challenge : Entertainment: Tustin firm hopes to wow a domestic TV audience of 130 million with its Super Bowl halftime show.

A Super Bowl halftime show is an odd bird.

For starters, the audience comes for football, not for song and dance. The costly extravaganza lasts only 11 minutes, with only five minutes before and after to set up and tear down. And it must captivate the year’s biggest U.S. TV audience--an estimated 130 million viewers--not to mention the 75,000 fans in the stadium.

That, in a nutshell, is the challenge that special-events producer Dennis Despie has faced four times in the past--and will again on Jan. 30 in Atlanta. His Tustin company, Select Productions International, was picked by the National Football League to orchestrate Super Bowl XXVIII’s halftime entertainment.

Despie has had easier assignments. He didn’t get all of this year’s big-name performers lined up until three weeks ago after country music star Garth Brooks backed out.

“Yes, I’ve been panicked,” Despie admitted, pretending to bite his fingernails--which are, in fact, already suspiciously short. “But we’ll be all right. It will happen.”

His confidence is based on a history of impressive feats: He produced former President Ronald Reagan’s 1985 inaugural parade, the 1983 and 1987 inaugurations of former California Gov. George Deukmejian, and the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis.

Despie carved a niche for himself in the special-events industry while he was vice president of entertainment for Walt Disney Co. During his 15 years with the theme-park giant, Despie produced his first three Super Bowl halftime shows, as well as numerous Disney attractions, including the popular Electrical Light Parade.

He decided eight years ago to strike out on his own. “One of the reasons I left was because I couldn’t separate my personal life from my work life--Disney owned me seven days a week,” said Despie, 48, who lives with his wife and two grown children in Anaheim. “Now I still work seven days a week, which leads me to believe it wasn’t Disney at all, it was me.”

Despie’s company consists of four staff employees and, at any given time, an additional 100 or so temporary employees: costume designers, choreographers and musical directors hired to help out on a particular contract. Select Productions had revenue of about $4 million last year.

“Dennis Despie is one of the top talents in the business today,” said Steve Clark, president of Management Resources, a leisure-industry consulting firm in Tustin. “There are not many people in the entire country who can produce the caliber of shows he does.”

The special-events industry has grown dramatically in the past few years, with sports promoters, Las Vegas hotels and amusement parks all demanding increasingly sophisticated entertainment. “That’s what the consumer wants,” Clark said. “And Dennis has done a good job of expanding with the industry.”

Clearly, the NFL approves of Despie’s work, for it keeps coming back for more. “Dennis has his feet firmly planted on the ground,” said Jim Steeg, director of special events for the NFL. “Other companies come to us saying, ‘We can make 12 elephants disappear.’ Dennis says, ‘This is what we can do within your budget.’ He understands our objectives.”

Steeg wouldn’t disclose just what the halftime budget is this year, other than to describe it as “seven figures.” But the NFL’s objectives are no secret: to woo the live audience while--even more important--keeping home viewers glued to their TV sets. NBC charged Frito-Lay $3.6 million to sponsor the halftime show, and the food company wants its advertising dollars to pay off.

Last year’s show, produced by Radio City Music Hall of New York, set a precedent that will be hard to follow. Historically, Super Bowl halftimes have taken their theme from the host city. But 1993’s halftime replaced custom with a mini-rock concert: Michael Jackson, live, at the Rose Bowl. TV viewers stayed tuned, and the NFL cheered.

So now NFL officials want more of the same. The only problem is, busy superstars are tough to pin down, as Despie has discovered. For most of the year, he has been working on a country music show that was to have spotlighted Garth Brooks. But Brooks had a change of heart, leaving Despie to scramble.

Despite the near catastrophe, Despie ended up with a respectable collection of celebrities: Wynonna Judd, Travis Tritt, Tanya Tucker and Clint Black. They will perform from a 7,000-square-foot stage constructed in 22 sections. Special-effects devices--for lighting, smoke and pyrotechnics--have been built underneath the segments, each of which will be rolled onto the field by 10 volunteer workers.

So far, Despie has never experienced a humiliating flop, he said. However, at the 1990 Super Bowl in New Orleans, he came close. For the halftime show, which featured jazz musicians, his company designed an elaborate stage that unfolded into a huge riverboat. The stage was meant to fit unobtrusively along the sidelines until time for use.

But when Despie arrived at the stadium with his stage a week before the event, he realized that it would block the view of hundreds of fans during the game. “We had to cut two feet off the stage so we could store it in the main tunnel,” he said. “Then when halftime came, we ran out, unbolted the goal posts, lifted them out with a crane, and pushed the stage out on the field. Thank God the thing fit in the tunnel. I was a very nervous man.”

Soon he’ll be a nervous man again as he sits in the Atlanta stadium, waiting for another Super Bowl halftime to come to a close. Then he and the hundreds of employees and volunteers who made it happen will celebrate wildly.

“It’s the biggest high in the world,” Despie said, “when the show is over, everything went as planned, and you know you entertained millions of people.”

Select Productions International at a Glance

* Founded: 1986 by Dennis Despie, former vice president of entertainment for Walt Disney Co.

* Headquarters: Tustin

* Employees: 4

* 1993 revenue: $4 million

* Upcoming productions: Super Bowl XXVIII halftime, Jan. 30; opening of 50-acre amusement park, Parque de Espana, in Ise Shima, Japan, April 22.

* Past productions: Halftimes for Super Bowls XI, XVIII, XXI and XXIV; President Ronald Reagan’s inaugural parade, 1985; California Gov. George Deukmejian’s inaugurations, 1983 and 1987

Source: Select Productions International; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times