Desperate Housewives.

Flags may fly, but don't look for Nicolette Sheridan to drop any more towels on Super Bowl XXIX on Feb. 6.

For one thing, the big game is on Fox, not ABC, where Sheridan is one of the Desperate Housewives. For another, boob-flasher Janet Jackson threw adult content for a permanent loss after last year's Super Bowl. This year's halftime show is headlined by a strictly PC Paul McCartney. A five-second delay is in place.

Conservative watchdogs screamed "offside" last fall when a racy promotional spot featuring Sheridan and Philadelphia Eagles receiver Terrell Owens aired during ABC's Monday Night Football. The towel-dropping teaser was called everything from racist to pornographic. Recently resigned FCC chairman Michael Powell huffed, "I wonder if Walt Disney (who created the company that now owns ABC) would be proud."

"I didn't really realize Monday Night Football was such the family viewing experience," Housewives executive producer Marc Cherry told critics at the TV press tour on Sunday. "I wouldn't let my 5-year-old watch beer commercials and big-breasted cheerleaders every Monday, but that's me."

Still, Cherry felt bad about the incident and insisted that the spot was never intended to create controversy. "We were just that stupid," he said.

The Wives plug was thrown together at the last minute at the request of ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson. Cherry assigned a crew to do an "over-the-top soap opera parody" briefly involving Monday Night Football analyst John Madden.

"A woman as glorious-looking as Nicollette Sheridan throwing herself at John Madden is just funny," said Cherry.

TV-watching Housewives Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman were then supposed to say they were sick of soaps and go, "Are you ready for some football?"

Somewhere along the way, Madden dropped out, Sheridan dropped her towel and Owens caught an armful of TV tramp.

"The spot was designed to amuse and entertain," said Sheridan Sunday. "I found it quite stunning that taking a pop culture incident such as that and its taking precedence over the major underlying problems of the world was absolutely absurd."

Cherry blamed a "particular organization" (the conservative Parents Television Council) for self-generating complaints through form letters to the FCC (the U.S. broadcast regulatory body).

Before that was sourced, however, "every punditry show on cable would talk about how scandalous this thing was and then they would play it again," said Cherry.

"At some point, you just kind of go, 'Guys, yeah, we made a mistake. Sorry.' "