4:19pm: Journey takes the stage. YEAH! Dan Patrick tells us it’s the #1 downloaded song in the history of iTunes. That makes me laugh, and makes me yell, “YEAH!”
4:50pm: It’s rare you get to hear some unfiltered comments from NFL players, so color me interested when NBC got close enough to hear QB’s Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger having a conversation about their pregame prep on the field. Leave it to Bob Costas to horn in, feeling the need to start reciting poetry instead of letting us get to hear the end of their conversation. Bob, shut the frick up.
4:55pm: Jay Leno offers us a fake story (as he does often on “The Tonight Show”) about his time on his high school football team. Shut up, chinface. I’d like to see Letterman punch you in the chin.
5:00pm: Kurt Warner tells one of NBC’s reporters he shaved his playoff beard to please his wife. Uh-oh, Cardinals fans, you’re done!
5:10pm: Matt Lauer interviews President Obama live. Amazing to see a guy who so seemingly “gets it” actually be our President. Good job, America. Or maybe it’s that my standards are low after having a President who couldn’t speak English for eight years.
5:57pm: Now at our wizbang Super Bowl party, Steve and I fire up the HDTV down in the basement to see the horror of Mike Holmgren’s massive head in HD.
Thankfully, it was just the zoom function on the cable box that was malfunctioning. We quickly resized the aspect ratio and Holmgren’s head was reduced to watermelon size.
6:01pm: Faith Hill starts the gamecast off with her traditional Sunday Night Football theme song, though her green-screen background has been gussied up with some multi-million dollar special effects consisting of flashing lights and a shiny Lombardi trophy.
6:10pm: Both teams are introduced and take the field ready for action as the crowd roars. I’m sure we only have three hours left ’til kickoff now. I should probably stop crafting jokes based on the interminable length of Super Bowl pregame shows. Everyone knows they’re eight hours too long already.
6:12pm: A commercial for Best Buy, featuring actual employee “Power” Jensen telling his story about hooking up an HDTV for a customer on gameday. Uh, okay. Hey Power, how ’bout you go power-wash the dumpster behind the store?
6:15pm: On-air is a promo for a multitude of NBC shows, featuring all of the actors singing along to “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.” FAIL. I’ll be sure NOT to watch any of these NBC shows now. Well done.
6:28pm: Why the frick did Arizona DEFER the kick-off? Your biggest strength is your offense, and instead of taking the chance to seize momentum right out of the gate, you let Pittsburgh take the ball. Questionable decision by Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt to start the game.
6:45pm: A great start to the commercials with a Doritos ad. A guy throws his “crystal ball” (actually a snowglobe) through the vending machine glass, declaring it “Free Doritos Day.” Good stuff.
6:49pm: Conan O’Brien stars in a Bud Light commercial to air only in Sweden. Fantastic. I especially liked the flaming cat eyes.
7:01pm: The first quarter comes to a close. It’s been a hard-hitting affair thus far on both sides, but overall I’m still thinking Arizona is gonna regret deferring that kickoff.
7:03pm: My prayers have been answered! Chimps have returned to the Super Bowl commercial airwaves!!! An ad for Castrol motor oil features almost nothing but chimps, who show up after the guy in the commercial buys a quart of the oil. It makes no sense, and that’s why it’s so great! There definitely could’ve been more screeching, though.
(I love that the ad’s title is “Edge Monkeys.”)
7:10pm: Another good Doritos commercial in which each crunch of the chip results in a woman’s clothes flying off, money flying out of an ATM, and a cop transforming into a monkey. To cap it all off, the guy gets hit by a bus. Excellent!
7:15pm: Pepsi Max – I’m Good. Any commercial featuring high-speed projectiles hitting people in the face = great success.
7:21pm: Oh yeah, there’s a football game on today. Arizona scores and we’ve finally got ourselves a game. Had they not scored right there, I think their chances for winning the game would’ve been slim and none with the Pittsburgh defense going into all-out attack mode.
7:35pm: “HYUNDAI!!” Super Bowl car commercials are typically of the staid, boring variety, featuring cars driving up windy roads in the countryside, or zooming along the abandoned streets of a major metropolis. Color me pleased when Hyundai chose instead to focus on screaming foreign car executives.
7:36pm: The creepy E-Trade baby never did much for more in past years, but adding the sidekick baby singing Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings” met with my approval.
Still, I can’t forgive the company that started the chimps-in-commercials revolution years ago for abandoning it for talking babies. Couldn’t you have at least thrown a screeching simian in the background somewhere?
7:52pm: TAINT ALERT! (That’s a touchdown-after-interception for those of you unfamiliar with, uh, taints.) An absolutely humongous turnover by the Cardinals that Steeler James Harrison returns 100 yards for the touchdown as time in the first half expires. There’s still a half of football left to be played, but that might’ve been the death knell for Arizona.
8:00pm: The much-hyped SoBe 3-D commercial hits the air and I’m not sure what the hell is going on. Some NFL players dressed up in white leotards dance around like ballerinas as lizards fly through the air trying to drink SoBe in the background. All in 3-D.
WTF? Along with the 3-D glasses distributed in convenience stores across the country, SoBe might’ve though to include illegal narcotics as well. I’m not sure how else this ad would’ve made any sense.
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