Along with most of the rest of the country, I was rooting for the Arizona Cardinals [that still doesn't sound right--it'll always be instinctive for me to say "St. Louis"--Ed.] to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in yesterday's Super Bowl, while at the same time thinking the Steelers were going to win the game. And that's how it turned out . . . but it wound up being a much more fun game to watch than I expected. The Cardinals scored a touchdown on a long pass and run play to take a 5-point lead with over 2½ minutes left. I confess to thinking at that point that they scored too soon, that they left too much time on the clock for Pittsburgh to come back and retake the lead--which is exactly what happened.
I just hope the Cardinals don't go away feeling bad. They played a great game, but trying to beat Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl is akin to trying to beat the New York Yankees in the World Series. Ain't normally gonna happen.
I'm going to rank this game among my all-time favorites. My own #1 favorite will always [until they get back in and win it again, that is--Ed.] be the Kansas City Chiefs' win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. My dad raised me to be a Chiefs fan (I told you I have lots of bad habits), and I'm not going to apologize for that no matter how badly they've stunk since Len Dawson and Joe Montana retired.
My second favorite is the San Francisco 49ers' win over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XVI, not only because it was the start of the Niners' brilliant run as the team of the 80s, but because it, too, was a fun game to watch, what with the Niners coming from behind at the end of the game to win 26-21.
My third favorite is last year's win by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots, because that game played out more like a college bowl game than pro game ever could, right down to the underdog beating the previously undefeated and presumptive champion on a virtually last-minute improbable play.
But yesterday's game is right up there in my own Top 5.
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The commercials were, in general, less obnoxious yesterday than many in prior years have been, too. The main exception was the GoDaddy.com series, which was incredibly sexist and trashy. I don't care that Danica Patrick is GoDaddy's spokesperson--she's doing a disservice to her "sisters in arms" everywhere. When are GoDaddy's owners going to realize that women watch these games, too, and that they aren't helping their market share by offending a large part of their audience?
I liked all the Budweiser Clydesdale ads I saw this year. The Clydesdale's love affair with the circus horse was the best, though the Clydesdale playing fetch was laugh-out-loud funny. And the one about the grandson of the Clydesdale which emigrated from Scotland was equally humorous, though on a higher level--you have to know about both US history and the geographical origins of the Clydesdale breed to appreciate it fully. I confess to having missed the first five minutes of the game because I was under the impression that kickoff was set for 6 p.m. Central Time, not Eastern Time. So I do not know if there were any other Clydesdale ads which I missed.I did see the Miller High Life one-second commercial and found it amusing, but that's mostly because I like the delivery guy character who's become Miller's spokesman.
The Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head driving in the mountains commercial was funny--though sexist [not as blatantly exploitative as the GoDaddy ones. It was more like a Borscht Belt comic's routine: "Take my wife, please!"--Ed.]--but I have forgotten which product it was advertising, so how effective could it have been? (Was it also a Bridgestone ad? If so, I applaud Bridgestone for its focus on humor--if not, I don't know what to say. Remembering the ad but not the product advertised isn't exactly the point, now, is it?)
The Bridgestone ad with the space aliens stripping the astronauts' planetary excursion vehicle (especially for its tires) was also laugh-out-loud funny. Bravo, Bridgestone!
But Hulu had the best ad of the night, hands down. It made no bones about what Hulu does--by letting you access your favorite videos (TV episodes, ads, whatever)--whenever and wherever you wish, Hulu turns your brains to mush. Self-deprecating honesty is funny, but the Hulu ad had an additional twist that took it to the top: Hulu is run by space aliens who like to eat mushy human brains--and Alec Baldwin is not just Hulu's spokesman, but one of aliens. Bravo, Hulu! It was far and away the best commercial of the night.
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