Monday, February 04, 2008

Super Bowl XLII

I don't have much to say in the form of commentary on the game. The Super Bowl long ago stopped being about football. Besides, it was a New York team versus a Boston team. It's too bad they both couldn't lose. This will probably go down as one of the greatest Super Bowl games ever, which is a shame, because only the fourth quarter was any good. The rest of the game was really boring. As for the commercials, which we all know are the best part of the Super Bowl anyway, there were only seven commercials worth commenting on. The rest of the companies wasted their money in my opinion, which we all know, counts for nothing.
  • For the past few years T-Mobile has run a series of ads featuring Dwayne Wade trying to get into Charles Barkley's Fave 5. During the Super Bowl, he finally succeeded, but with unforeseen consequences. The series is funny, but has gone on too long. I'm sure this particular ad will get replayed to death on TNT and ESPN during NBA games.
  • FedEx once again delivered a solid ad. Their giant carrier pigeons were a nice touch. The best thing about FedEx commercials, is that afterward, you still remember that they are plugging FedEx, instead of other ads that are funny but the message gets lost.
  • The E-trade ad with the talking baby that rents a clown was dumb and certainly nothing new, but I laughed anyway.
  • Shaq as a jockey was kind of funny, but that's not even the best Vitamin Water ad. The older one featuring Brian Urlacher and Michael Strahan playing badminton was better.
  • A few years ago Pepsi Twist managed to bring the Osmonds and the Osbournes together for a commercial. With perhaps an even greater dichotomy, Bridgestone had an ad featuring both Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons. I never thought I'd see that. Plus, I caught myself laughing when the driver of the car accelerated toward Mr. Simmons.
  • It was another year of uninspired ads from Budweiser. The only exception was the cross-promotional ad for Semi-Pro featuring Will Ferrell. That one was funny.
  • My favorite commercial of the Super Bowl was the Audi ad that parodied the famous horse head scene from The Godfather. What's better, is the actor in the commercial was Alex Rocco, who was actually in The Godfather. Granted, he played Mo Greene and not the studio boss from the original scene, but it was still a nice touch.