Sunday's Super Lineup of Stones, Stevie--and Liza

There'll be cheerleaders, fans and a postgame concert by Bow Wow.

But enough about Snooper Bowl II.

Snoop Dogg's youth football extravaganza is but one of the entrees to this weekend's main dish.

But enough about the Super Bowl commercials.

Super Bowl XL is scheduled to kickoff at 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday in a nearly live ABC telecast from Ford Field in Detroit. Barring unforeseen American Idol ratings, the event will be TV's biggest night of the year: More viewers, more splashy ads, more players trying to get in on the action. All this, and Liza, too.

Here are the highlights from the entertainment crazy weekend to come:

WATER-COOLER TOPICS

The time delay: ABC will air the game, including the halftime show, on a five-second delay. This is said to be the first time a network has proceeded with such caution, even though Sunday's event will be the second Super Bowl since Janet Jackson exposed her nipple shield.

The Motown mess: Having had good luck with Sir Paul McCartney remaining clothed during Super Bowl XXXIX's halftime, the NFL looked to his contemporaries in the Rolling Stones to keep the streak going. But soon there was carping that the NFL overlooked an important detail--Mick Jagger and crew hail from Britain; the Motown sound hails from host city Detroit.

In the name of entertainment, and, oh, yes, damage control, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder were added to the bill. The Queen of Soul, a Detroit area resident, will perform the National Anthem along with Aaron Neville, a nod to New Orleans, and Dr. John, another nod to New Orleans.

Wonder, a Michigan native, has been assigned pregame show duty, performing along with India.Arie, John Legend and Joss Stone, a collective nod to non-old people.

Controversy or no, the Stones remain the halftime act. And Motown legends the Four Tops remain consigned to singing during a portion of the pregame show not televised by ABC.

The Jimmy Kimmel thing: In 2004, the ABC late-night host incurred the wrath of Detroit when he joked that Motown was set to burn if the Detroit Pistons won the NBA title. (Detroiters did riot in 1967, but the riot had nothing to do with basketball.)

On Sunday night, Kimmel will be in Detroit for a live, postgame edition of his show. The comic appears to have three things going for him as he ventures into what could have been unfriendly territory: (1) He apologized for the joke a long time ago; (2) one of his scheduled guests is Sean "Diddy" Combs; (3) another of his scheduled guests is Eminem.

The angry truckers: The American Trucking Association has blasted proposed Super Bowl spots for the energy drink Full Throttle in which a big rig drives in a manner that the American Trucking Association says "inaccurately reflects the trucking industry's safety record."

The mega-coverage: ABC begins its broadcast day from Detroit at 2:30 p.m. ET. Sportscasters Al Michaels and John Madden, working what could be their last game together (or maybe not depending on whether Michaels reverses course and joins Madden at NBC next season), go on the clock at 6 p.m. By the time the postgame show concludes at approximately 10:15 p.m., ABC will have been in football mode for nearly eight hours. Fans who started their days at ESPN, which signs on from the Super Bowl site at 11 a.m., will have been in football mode for nearly 12 hours.

Grey's Anatomy: The good doctors at Seattle Grace, joined by special guest star Christina Ricci, get the coveted post-Super Bowl time slot. Look for it at about 10:15 p.m. ET.

The game: Oh, apparently the Seattle Seahawks will play the Pittsburgh Steelers.

COMMERCIALS

Each 30-second ad will fetch ABC more than $2.5 million, a new record, and up 5 percent from last year's game on Fox, according to Advertisting Age.

Gaming site PinnacleSports.com is offering odds, sight unseen, that Anheuser-Busch's sudsy sales pitches will emerge as the favorite in USA Today's annual Ad Meter poll, rating the Super Bowl spots from best to worst.

A safe bet is that viewers won't have erectile dysfunction ads to kick around anymore. With the NFL planning to let its sponsorship deal with Levitra lapse, there should be nary a mention of a "four-hour erection" during the game.

Big names to appear in big game ads include: Jessica Simpson, pitching Cheesy Bites Pizza for Pizza Hut; Diddy and Jackie Chan, pitching Diet Pepsi (separately); Fabio, pitching for Nationwide Insurance; and the Enterprise's own Leonard Nimoy, pitching for Aleve.

Unexpected names to appear in unexpected ads include: Kermit the Frog, showing off Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV; and Richard Dean Anderson, going all MacGyver for MasterCard.

Hollywood movies to get a super push via a Super Bowl ad include: Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible III; Anthony Hopkins' The World's Fastest Indian; and the unsinkable Poseidon Adventure.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, only 7 percent of adult U.S. viewers watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, a 2005 survey by Eisner Communications found.

For those who are devoted to the commercials, digital cable's NFL Network will run 30 minutes worth of Super Bowl spots uninterrupted by football on Monday, beginning at noon ET.

ALTERNATIVES

Listen to the big game in Russian on Sirius Satellite Radio. Also available on channels in handy Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Danish, French, and for old-time's sake, English and Spanish.

Watch the Goo Goo Dolls and Nickelback headline The Pepsi Smash Super Bowl Bash, airing Saturday night on VH1. In a pair of non-televised concerts, Snoop Dogg and 3 Doors Down will fill Tiger Stadium on Friday and Saturday, respectively, at Bud Bowl 2006.

Catch a flight to Detroit, forget about Ford Field and head to the NFL's old Detroit hang, the Pontiac Silverdome, where coach Snoop Dogg's all-star youth football team will line up Saturday morning against the hometown favorites from the Detroit Police Athletic League. Dogg estimates attendance for Snooper Bowl II will surpass 20,000.

Experience the reunion of ex-Long Island lovers Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher as they participate in the ceremonial coin toss at Lingerie Bowl III, pitting the Los Angeles Temptation against the New York Euphoria. Game time is Sunday on pay-per-view.

See James Lipton confront Liza Minnelli with his index cards on a two-hour Inside the Actors Studio, airing Sunday night on Bravo.