Super Bowl LXII Ad Blog: Fourth Quarter

Sunsilk (celebrity hair): decent commercial, but not for the Super Bowl. B+ ad; D- on media buy.

Coke: Thirsty parade floats of Underdog and Stewie battling it out for a coke. That Charlie Brown finally gets. (and no Lucy to pull it away at the last minute, or break the bottle and stab him to death with the shards). Awwww, the little dude wins something after all. Nice. A-

Coke: Carville and Frist bond over a jinx and a Coke. Not bad. B-

Toyota Sequoia. I’m not even sure what the hell that was about. F

Movie (Don’t Mess With the Zohan): I’m sure it will make $100 million. But not from my wallet. D

You know, if I wasn’t already watching the Sarah Connor show, I might check it out based on the commercials. They’re kicking ass. A

ETrade. Fucking talking baby again. Nightmare fuel, in so many ways. F

Taco Bell: Fiesta Platters. Ola. Suddenly, I’m hungry. Again, worth $2.7 mil? Probably not. Will I order a Fiesta Platter? Probably. B-

Gatorade: Thirsty dog. Man’s best friend. Meh. C-

Bud Light (Will Ferrell’s new ABA movie ): “Refreshes the palate. And the loins. Suck one.” B+

Hyundai Genesis: Not flashy, in a commercial sense. But I think they’re getting their point across. B

Victoria’s Secret: Tom Brady just threw a pass to put the Pats ahead. And will probably have all these chicks by the time he leaves the locker room. B-

Amp: Dude jump starts a lady’s car via nipple clamps, an energy drink and “Push It.” When I think of nipple clamps, this is not what I want in my head. Premise makes sense, but makes me queasy. And not in the mood for an energy drink. C-

All in all, not a stellar lineup of commercials tonight. Bridgestone rocked, salesgenie.com sucked cock and many, many companies wasted their money. And Clydesdales and Dalmatians are always cute. Oh, and the New York Football Giants won! I don't think Tom Brady will be getting those models after all. And this probably means we'll be doubling our quota of Manning commercials on Sundays next fall.

Hey, there's a new House on!

Super Bowl LXII Ad Blog: Third Quarter

Cars.com: Plan B was having a witch doctor shrink the head of an unhelpful sales guy. This is such a terrible campaign. And I can’t believe Hodgins from Bones was slumming in this one! D

Salesgenie.com: psychic pandas, and another offensive stereotype. Where’s an animated Mickey Rooney from Breakfast at Tiffany’s? F

Vitamin Water: Shaq as a jockey. Decent CGI. I laughed at the play by play guy’s “he’s coming up like an angry Viking.” Did the water help the horse? Meh. C-

Bud Light (cavemen): You can usually count on Bud Light commercials to bring the funny, but the batting average isn’t great this year. This one was okay (“Bottle opener sucks!”). B-

Ice Breakers: Carmen Electra is impressed by gum. D-

Bridgestone tires (deer in headlights): Bridgestone is rocking this year. You think you’re in another, run of the mill “avoid the deer” car commercial, when all of a sudden Alice Cooper – and his snake – pop up. Then Richard Simmons, followed by a gunning of the engine. Great. Demonstrate the product benefits, surprise me, make me laugh. A+

CareerBuilder (wish on a star). Not bad, but a big let down from the beating heart leaping out of the chest. C+

Hyundai Genesis: Hyundai is entering the luxury market. We all laughed when the Japanese car makers did it. Wonder if the Koreans can pull it off? Salesgenie should follow this up with animated Koreans complaining in thick accents about getting not getting enough leads, while they’re dining on a Budweiser Dalmatian. The car doesn’t look too bad. Simple, straightforward approach. B

Movie (Wall-E): Pixar can do no wrong. A

Movie (Jumper): The flick will probably be terrible, but for some reason, the trailers and the premise really intrigue me. B

E-Trade: Oh fuck, talking baby. Makes me want to put on a condom. And I’m alone. F

Bud Light (Fly): I’m not sure what to make of these “ability no longer included” ads. Kinda amusing. B-

NFL.com (NFL Stories): I play the oboe. A tale well told. Cute, heartwarming. (I heard the “uncut version” featured a story about beating David Carr within an inch of his life with the oboe). A-

Super Bowl LXII Ad Blog: Second Quarter

Movie (Wanted): Badass gunplay, based on a videogame. Bonus points for having Angelina Jolie back in Mr. and Mrs. Smith mode. Could be dumb fun, but probably a stinker to watch on Cinemax after a bottle of cheap whiskey. C+

G2 Gatorade: A baseball field follows Derek Jeter around while he drinks the beverage. Product tie is not bad. Of course there’s a Peyton Manning cameo at the end. Not bad. B+

Go Daddy: Attempting to drive you to their website for “Exposure,” a supposedly racy Danica Patrick commercial. She takes herself waaay too seriously to be worth an extra mouse click. Good thing they sell cheap domain names. D

Dell (Red): guy gets congratulated and mobbed for buying a laptop with the “Red Campaign” benefits for saving lives. Mick Jagger sings in the background. You wanna save lives? How about giving the $2.7 million that lame commercial to starving folks in Africa. That could buy a lot of beef jerky and Snapple. D

FedEx (carrier pigeons): guy solves shipping problems with trained carrier pigeons. Not just regular size, but also dinosaur size mutant pigeons. With robot looking helmets. Very funny scenes of the chaos they cause on the streets below. I laughed out loud as the pecked on cars. A

Cars.com: Fighting Gondor in the circle of death. Mildly amusing, but will never, ever relate that to cars.com again. C-

Tide to Go (talking stain): Communicates the product benefits beautifully, shows the product clearly at the end and makes you laugh. I rewound just to hear the babbling stain. A

Budweiser (Horse and Dalmatian) Undersized Clydesdale trains with dog to make the beer truck team, all set to Rocky music. These are always adorable and touching. Both animals are established icons for the brand, and this one (as usual) made me smile. A

Move (Iron Man): Every teaser and shot I’ve seen from this looked fantastic. One of my most eagerly anticipated movies of 2008. Robert Downey Jr. should make a spot on Tony Stark. Was it just me, or did that last scene, where old shell-head takes down a tank, look fake like a video game? Not a fan of the music, either (Sabbath’s “Iron Man” from the teaser was perfect). Some good, some bad. I was underwhelmed compared to expectations. Still, they’ll have my $10. B-

Toyota (quiet cabin and sleeping badgers): Tied to product, and funny. What can I say, badgers are amusing. B+

Movie (Leatherheads): Not much too it, but looks like a good cast and fun flick. B+

Garmin: LOVE the product, but not too sure about Napoleon here. What the fuck does a French dictator and his tiny pony have to do with a GPS system? D

CareerBuilder (follow your heart): Loved the payoff, and the chest-bursting was the right amount of shocking, gross and funny. A-

Lifewater: A chick and lizards doing “Thriller.” D

Out of work drug dealer: Surely you can find better ways to spend almost $3 million on fighting drugs. Maybe on subsidies for the alcohol industry so people will drink instead. Because Clydesdales and Dalmatians are cute. D-

GMC Yukon Hybrid. Very stark and fascinating graphic approach to the execution, with a figure pushing a huge boulder up a hill. However, it has nothing to do with an SUV. That would have been great for an investment firm. Or a marriage counselor. Graphics: A. Effectiveness: F

Bud Light (Mencia and English pick up lessons): slight tie to previous commercials. Not that funny. Well, maybe the guy with the chicken. C-

Movie (Narnia / Prince Caspian): I’m not down with the C.S. Lewis message. Whatevs. C-

Planters: Head turning unibrow gal, because she dabs with cashews. D

TMobile: DWade finally gets into Barkley’s Fave Five. Ongoing campaign, and this was the funniest of the bunch. B+

Pepsi: Justin Timberlake gets carried across down in cartoonishly violent way. Each sip “gets you closer to Justin.” Message connected to offering, and smug popstar abuse is always appreciated. B+

Doritos (mousetrap): Much better than some lame song I’ve never heard. Bonus for antagonistic, vengeful guy in felt mouse costume. B

Halftime: I like Tom Petty as much as the next guy, but I can’t see anything topping Prince’s fantastic turn last year.

Super Bowl LXII Ad Blog: First Quarter

Bud Light (Firebreathing): I’ve liked some of the “ability not contained in Bud Light” commercials before. This one didn’t do anything for me. C-

Audi R8: Great take on the classic scene from The Godfather. The brand message and the original scene aren’t a 100% match (to owners of other luxury cars need to be intimidated into giving Audi a “fair chance,” a la Johnny Fontaine?), but it’s funny enough to let that slide. Plus, the car looks badass. A-

Diet Pepsi Max (Nodding Off): Featuring Haddaway’s tune from the SNL “Butabi Brothers” skits, shows people nodding off from lack of energy, which the soft drink fixes with a pick me up. Eh. Only truly amusing moment is a cameo from Chris Kattan at the end. You know you don’t have a winner when a Chris Kattan appearance is the high point. C

SalesGenie.com (Acme cartoon): stylized cartoon, with a sales rep that sounds like Apu. Awful. D-

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Nothing we haven’t seen before, but this one is focused on scenes with Summer Glau’s terminator kicking ass and spouting deadpan lines. Love it. A

Bug Light (wine and cheese party): Similar to one from days gone by with men having Bud Light in hidden sections of the women’s clothing department of a store, except the beer is hidden in cheese and baguettes. C+

Under Armour: People training in a stylized urban environment. “The future is now!” I get what they’re trying to say – “hey, you fucks in Beaverton, we’ve arrived!” – but it left me flat. Solid strategy, boring execution. Not a good way to spend a ton of dough. Pay a college team to get a uniform endorsement. C

Bridgestone (Squirrel in road): Demonstrates product features, features always popular cute animals. Looks of terror and shrieks of horror from the woodland creatures was cute and well edited. A

Doritos: some online contest featuring voting for unknown artists. Snack chips and songs you’ve never heard before. Good time for a bathroom break. D

Unhitched: A new FOX comedy that looks awful just like every other sitcom they’ve attempted besides Arrested Development. When that didn’t garner ratings (just universal critical acclaim and Emmys), it seems they’ve gone out of their way to make every other offering as insipid as possible. Mission accomplished. F

GodWatch, Part 1

First in an ongoing series of updates regarding the powers and interests of The Almighty.

Evidently, all diseases have been cured, wars have stopped and the crisis in Dafur has been handled, because America's Most Popular Diety (tm) took time out of his busy schedule to ensure that Jennifer Hudson got her revenge on Simon Cowell and won Best Supporting Actress last night at the Oscars.

This, after manipulating the time/space continuum, the NFL draft and causing an egg to be fertilized in the Grossman household a couple of decades ago, leading Tony Dungy to a Super Bowl title.

With omnipotence, all things are possible.

Big Game my ass

The NFL is going a little overboard on controlling the "intellectual property" of the Super Bowl moniker. Yes, I realize that sponsors pay top dollar for a marketing link to the biggest event of the year. And I completely understand that they don't want every company under the sun using their logo and likenesses without having paid for the privilege. But now there's this?

They want to stop the use of the phrase "the big game?" They want to crack down on retailers that put out a sign that says "stock up on chips and dip for the big game?" I mean, if it was "Get your officially licensed NFL chips for The Super Bowl here, and Roger Goodell will come to your house and mix up some mean french onion dip in Petyon Manning's helmet" I might understand their point. How vigorously are they going to "police" this? Will we be seeing ads about "the huge pigskin contest on Sunday?" Or, as a helpful suggestion, here are some other marketing phrases to describe "the big game:"

The game with the overlong and relentlessly nauseating pre-game shows.

The game with the halftime show that is free from titties now.

The game with increasingly less interesting and creative commercials.

The house that Prince built.

The game with an endless parade of cavity-inducing "human interest" stories instead of real X's and O's.

The game that Marty Schottenheimer has heard about.

The game that turned into "let's slurp Peyton Manning" softcore pornography.

The game that in comparison, makes Studio 60 looked underhyped and overperforming.

The game that the lord god almighty stopped what he was doing, and made Tony Dungy win.

The game where Eugene Robinson goes for blowjobs.

The Canon: Super Bowl Commercials

An ongoing series of lists that provides the definitive order of things in the universe.

Overall, a very, very lackluster crop of Super Bowl ads last night. Only a few really stood out, entertained or made me chuckle.

Here's what USA Today's annual round up of ad rankings had to say.


I'm not completely in tune with how America rated them (go figure) with regard to the best ads. After all, one of my favorites -- the Garmin GPS ad that featured a note-perfect take on a cheesy "Ultra Man" like hero fighting the "paper map monster" -- ranked in the bottom. I guess there weren't too many fans of Ultra Man watching last night. That's a shame, because that shit was hysterical.

My take?

Best Super Bowl Ads:

1. Bud Light Rock, Paper, Scissors
2. Budweiser Clydesdales and "dirty" dog as dalmatian
   
3. Garmin "Ultra Man" spoof
4. GM "sad robot"
5. Bud Light scary hitchhiker
6. Emerald Nuts Robert Goulet as office gremlin

And though it wasn't a true commercial for a product, special kudos to David Letterman and Oprah watching the game.

Super Bowl XLI: Prince was even better than Peyton

Highlights and lowlights from yesterday's Super Bowl XLI.

My prediction didn't seem that far off. I must admit, after the first 5 minutes, I was wondering if I had stepped too far onto the "logic" bandwagon.

Peyton Manning played well enough to win. Good for him. Now that monkey will have to find someplace else to live.

Rex Grossman played just as poorly as everyone expected him to. To paraphrase Dennis Green "He is what we thought he was!" Now the big question will be, what to do with him? Truth be told, he hasn't started that many games, despite his years in the league. But if I was a die hard Bears fan, that wouldn't exactly fill me with confidence.

According to noted bible thumper Tony Dungy, god played a role in getting the team though adversity and reaching the pinnacle of their sport. Surely, this was at the top of his list. After all, it rained, and god must have bet the under. As for visiting a plague upon your enemies, Rex Grossman has to be up there with boils, locusts, frogs and diseased livestock. (And Shannon Sharpe, for TV viewers).

Speaking of which, I'm still waiting for Sharpe to say something intelligible. The rest of the broadcast was well handled. Nothing spectacular, but nothing egregiously wrong, either (excluding Sharpe, of course). CBS did allow James Brown to talk over a cheering crowd from Baghdad, but that's about it for glitches. I usually completely tune out the fluffy, sappy pre-game fair, but did notice something else. Katie Couric's story on Hines Ward (can't knock a truly nice guy, great player and Bulldog getting some props) would have seemed relevant, oh, say, a year ago? When it happened? And when his team was in the Super Bowl?

I usually don't watch Criminal Minds, but I did enjoy the nifty transition from the post-game to the show. The pre-fab Nantz and Simms piece had to have been filmed before, and it was eerily on target with their talk of "turnovers" playing a role (not exactly a stretch, but it did work). And Tony Dungy probably wasn't happy with the plot, with Dawson and his FiveHead paying a little too much attention to his religious upbringing. (maybe if god hadn't been paying attention to getting the Colts a Vince Lombardi trophy and winning the "under" bet, he could have made sure the Beek didn't go on a killing spree).

I'll address the ads in a separate post, but the highlight of the entire coverage? That would be The Purple One, Prince, peforming The. Best. Halftime. Show. Ever. Except for the Aunt Jemima headgear and Dolphins inspired wardrobe, the halftime show simply rocked. Hard. First, it's great when a true artist, who actually writes songs, plays instruments and sings, performs live and doesn't lip synch. But to do it in a rainshower? Without getting electrocuted? And without controversy (as opposed to "Controversy," which would have been cool, too)? The song choices were fantastic. Opening with "Let's Go Crazy" and then a combo of "Baby I'm a Star" (one of my favorite Prince songs) and "Proud Mary?" Then throw in some Hendrix, screaming (and again, "real" and "live") guitar, A Foo Fighters cover and end with Purple Rain -- while it's raining? Simply spectacular. Oh sure, it's hard to beat "Up With People" or Michael Jackson with 3,500 kids (Super Bowl memento - free restraining orders!), but his royal badness totally delivered the goods.

On the downside, there are no hot evil robot threesomes

But in light of there being no new Battlestar Galactica tonight, there is an upside. I heard there's a football game being broadcast this evening.

Everybody and their mother (well, except for me, because my mom is dead, and maybe Drew Brees, because....) has done analysis on the game and made a pick. I guess I will too. Unfortunately, by putting my pick out here on the interwebs, I can't look like a genius tomorrow and say "I totally called that dude! I just knew that in the third quarter, Tank Johnson would pull out an assault rifle and pop a cap in the ass of Joseph Addai as he was breaking a long run!").

Colts 34, Bears 27

And your likely MVPs (not necessarily based on my prediction, and taking into account various game outcomes):

In order of likelihood:

1. Peyton Manning
2. Marvin Harrison
3. The Mute Button (for whenever Shannon Sharpe is talking during the pre-game and halftime)
4. Dallas Clark
5. Brian Urlacher
6. CBS director and editor (for Prince's halftime show, in case the "Fuck Da Eagles" chick makes a guest appearance, and I wish for whenever Shannon Sharpe appeared on my screen)
7. Adam Vinatieri
8. Joseph Addai
9. Tank Johnson's Bail Bondsman ("Chico's Bail Bonds")
10. Dwight Freeney
11. Sexy Rexy Grossman (oh come on now. I'm not that drunk yet)

Hey, Nostradamus, can you spare a bowl of rice?

Ever wonder what happens to those "Dewey Wins!" T-shirts and hats produced in advance for big games/Super Bowls that proudly proclaim that the loser of said game actually won? Well, wonder no more.

Shame on MLB for destroying theirs. Somewhere in an underprivileged and underdeveloped nation, there's probably some tribe sitting around the campfire tastefully garbed in "UGA beats Gators in the Cocktail Party!" t-shirts. Tribe, hell. At this point, there's probably an entire country wearing those.

Next Question

Super Bowl "media day" always elicits a few chuckles, with the profoundly inane questions hurled at the players and coaches. There's a good summary on SI.com. Two of the most famous – one to Jim Plunkett about his parents, and another to Doug Williams about being a black QB – are listed here (though the Williams question, while funny in a non-PC way, has been debunked as an urban legend).

Perhaps these will get asked today:

To QB "Sexy Rexy" Grossman: "Do you prefer your sexual partners to wear jorts, wifebeaters, or both?"

To QB Peyton Manning: "Have you considered doing any commercial endorsements?" Or "Are you glad Steve Spurrier isn't coaching the Bears?"

To LB Brian Urlacher: "When you were banging Paris Hilton, did you wear four or five condoms at one time?"

To Coach Lovie Smith: "How was it being married to Thurston Howell III?"

To QB Brian Griese: "Do you often feel like U2 opening for William Hung?"

To RB Adrian Petersen: "Aren't you tired from playing for both Oklahoma and Chicago the last few years?"

To P Brad Maynard: "With Rex Grossman directing your offense, do you worry about your leg falling off from overuse sometime during the 3^rd quarter?"

To DT Tank Johnson: "If I was going to kill someone outside a nightclub, do you recommend using an AK-47 or an AR-10?" Or, "Have the Bengals tried to sign you yet?"

To RB Joseph Addai: "Does Nick Saban really have cloven hooves and bathe in the blood of innocent children?"

To DT Dan Klecko: "Did Mark Gastineau ever bring Brigitte Nielsen over to your dad's house for a three way?"

To LB Cato June: "Did it bother you playing sidekick to the Green Hornet, when you could easily kick his ass?"

To Offensive Coordinator Tom Moore: "When Peyton is calling the plays, what tunes are you listening to on your Ipod?"

To WR Reggie Wayne: "Do all receivers from 'The U' get an endorsement deal for crack pipes, or is that just Michael Irvin?"

To CB Tim Jennings: "If you were playing defense by yourself, 1 vs. 11, against Georgia Tech, how many times would you intercept Reggie Ball?"