xargs and maverick tars

Ever had a tar file which didn't have a directory as it's top level entry? I really hate these maverick tarballs - I really like the idea of tarballs storing a directory and it's contents rather than merely a directory. Why? So that when untarred, it doesn't spew files in the current directory and mess things up. Sybase's ASE tarballs come to mind on this one. Anyways, if you have to clean the mess, it's not a big deal. I use
tar tf filename.tar | xargs rm
Of course, use jtf for filename.tar.bz2 and ztf for filename.tar.gz. :)