UPDATE: Check out the plentiful pulchritude on display in our full photo gallery from the Maxim Super Bowl XLV Bash.
In its current issue Maxim, the titillating big gun of U.S. men’s magazines, takes on the Super Bowl with a sports column suggesting ways to make the big game even more super. Among other things, the article humorously lambastes Dallas’ Troy Aikman (“devoid of personality,” it says of Troy) and the Black Eyed Peas (calling its music “overly focus-grouped *hit-hop”). None of that, of course, kept the freewheeling “lad” mag from showing up to celebrate Super Bowl XLV here Saturday with its annual Super Bowl party, turning Fair Park’s Centennial Hall into a “midway” that riffed on the State Fair of Texas.
Dubbed the Maxim Party Powered by Motorola Xoom, the bash drew 1,500 invite-only guests as well as a clutch of entertainers and athletes. Among them: Ryan Kwanten of True Blood, Entourage’s Kevin Connolly, and pro footballer Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson. The celebs paraded across the red carpet–posing with a dozen Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Melanie Iglesias, the magazine’s “Hometown Hotties” winner–before hitting the “midway,” where acts including Wyclef Jean performed. “The Super Bowl is the ultimate guy event, and Maxim is the ultimate guy’s magazine,” said Joe Levy, the magazine’s editor-in-chief. “They go together like burgers and fries, and we’re proud to be the fries in this equation–the side dish that makes the main course shine.”
If you’re not totally Super Bowled out by now, jump for a couple of more juicy details.
In addition to the party’s State Fair theme–think bumper cars, an Agave cotton candy-themed bar, and a Motorola Xoom Perfect Pitch booth–the Saturday bash was fashioned unashamedly to promote the magazine’s current issue. At least two of the celebs who walked the red carpet, for example, are featured in the February issue: Rebecca Mader, who wore considerably more Saturday than she does in the issue’s photo feature titled “Red Fox”; and Food Network chef Guy Fieri, whose profile in the magazine is headlined, “Who the Fork is Guy Fieri?” The Jersey Shore’s Pauly D also turned up, exuding charisma.
Out on the crowded “midway,” meantime, there was no shortage of high-heeled, mini-skirted women cruising in twos and threes, or guys roaming in packs with their shirts untucked, swigging from bottles while enjoying the scenery. Deejays kept the ear-splitting club tunes pumping, and scantily clad “cigarette girls” wandered around the airplane-hangar-sized space, flirtatiously stuffing Armani Code samplers into men’s coat pockets.
Tongue firmly in cheek we asked Levy, the Maxim editor, why Dallasites shouldn’t take offense at the criticisms of hometowner Troy–or of the Black Eyed Peas, who after all did perform Sunday at our Super Bowl XLV. “That’s some not-so-gentle satire, and you shouldn’t take our suggestions for replacing the commentators or halftime performers any more seriously than the one about lowering the ticket prices to $1 a seat,” Levy replied. “Although you have to admit that any of them would make things pretty interesting for the average fan at home yelling at his TV about being able to call better plays and dance better than Fergie.”
