SB LVI

 Superbowl Football! Um, American Football for some of you. The NFL has managed to elevate their championship game into an almost National Holiday, not only is the game something to look forward to, but even the commercials! It's so bizarre if you think about it. It's Kardashian-level wizardry.

Rams vs Bengals. A Bengal is a type of Tiger, but I don't know enough about tigers to know if that makes any kind of difference. Can't they just say Tigers?

It was snowing for most of the day. I caught this tiny cricket in the bathroom last night, but I'm not letting it outside in that! It will stay nice and warm in this jar for the next few days until it's warm enough outside. Good thing I already bought enough snacks and food before today! I mean for me, not the cricket. The Internet says it will be fine for a several days without any food.

Hosting the game in Las Angeles got a lot of nearby Hollywood celebrities to show up. Dwayne Johnson doing his best "The Rock" impersonation to hype up the crowd right before the game was epic. He's still got those mad "mic skills", as I was sufficiently pumped up afterwards.

One of the first commercials was a meta-level crush of probably a lot of upcoming commercials. Obi-Wan Kenobi tells us that nobody will remember buying a flatter TV screen, but will always regret not going on that trip you wanted. Expedia telling you to not buy "things" but travel instead. Sorry all you other commercials trying to sell "things" now.

Not a really impressive actual-commercial, but the concept of Zeus using lightning to power an electric car was solid. Casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as Zeus with Salma Hayek as Hera was just amazing. Can that be a whole show? I'd watch that. It could be sponsored by BMW.

Super food bowl! Ah! I should have put these in bowls. That would have been more funny. Next time. My friend considers Superbowl Sunday a sort-of Thanksgiving holiday, where you can eat a bunch of snack-y food without guilt.

The halftime show was hip-hop and rap nostalgia extreme. 50 Cent was singing an old song about doing things in the club. And oh boy were those lyrics not appropriate for today's sensibilities. I think he was rapping too fast for anybody to notice the awful message he was sending to all the little girls watching.

Hearing Eminem sing the song from 8-Mile remined me how awesome that song is. So epic. He got his one shot, and years later he's singing it at the Superbowl.

I noticed the map on the ground and later heard it was of Compton. You think they thought they were like Godzilla smashing the houses? Haha I bet none of them thought that. Also, check out the almost actual-houses they built in the center of the field for this show! Where did those come from? Where did they go after the Halftime Show?!

Dr. Evil was hilarious. It was like seeing old friends again, and they were all just like you remembered. Genuinely funny; if I have to see this in a commercial, I'll take it, if that's the only way to get more Dr. Evil laughs. The characters showed growth, too. So it was very much like an actual sequel.

Another pic of the Dr. Evil commercial with evil gadgets. The moon laser beam better known as the Alan Parsons Project, some kind of robot shark, and I can just hear the whole scene in my head where Dr. Evil says "I shall call it... The "F" Bomb!" and Scott Evil mocks the name. Also, the electric car battery the actual ad was supposed to be about. Sure, that's a token Dr. Evil device, too.

An unexpected funny commercial from Irish Spring, where a lost football fan finds himself in the Irish Spring and they tell him he literally stinks. So they capture him and purify him while he acts scared and confused, only to show him happy at the end like he was brainwashed and just joined the cult.

Defensive player Aaron Donald with a couple of sacks at the end of the game sealed the victory. Check out the instant Champion Hat he's wearing. It's always fun to think about the fact that somewhere in this building are similar hats for the Bengals that cannot be used.

 

Sooo... I think the NFL is not cool with me discussing my accounts of the game. If you want to find out who won, you'll have to ask them. I don't have their written consent.

A couple more fun ads even after the game. This Samuel Adams had the night Security people getting the robots drunk. Anybody else think it must have been fun for the programmers to make the robots act drunk?

Some nerd made a commercial about "I'm you from the future!" and "I'm you from the further future!" time travel nonsense. I forgot what they were advertising, but it was a funny concept for a few seconds.

This commercial for Liquid Death was showing a college-style drinking party but with 10 year old kids. All of those kids were acting great, and it was very much an outrageous few moments. When they showed the smiling mom, also drinking a Liquid Death... was pregnant, it was truly shocking. Apparently Liquid Death is simply water, but in an aluminum can instead of a plastic bottle. Because Aluminum recycles better, and they want to get rid of the plastic bottles. Hilarious.

Go Mike Tirico! NBC flew him from the Olympic coverage in China, out to LA, so he could watch the Superbowl. He did not do any of the coverage, just a small amount of intro and a little bit at the end. So he could technically say "oh, I had to cover the Superbowl!" But really it felt like he just wanted to go, and they let him out of his Olympic duties for several days to do it. And he gets to stand on the field and everything!

I re-wound the recorded game so I could get a few pictures I missed while eating the feast. I couldn't believe hackers bought a Superbowl ad! You are constantly being told not to click on strange links blindly, or else.... hackers! And here's a whole QR Code, bouncing on the screen, for a solid minute; who knows what will happen if you click it?! Of course I'm not going to click this! Is this a test to see what percentage of the massive viewing population will be dumb enough to click on it?

Rocket Mortage had a funny commercial where Barbie was trying to buy her Dream House among various other competing characters. Next door was another property up for sale, Castle Greyskull! They said it had bad neighbors and Skeletor cackled. Fun.

There was a commercial for Disney+ which had fun mocking the term "GOAT" that some people can't stand. If I need to tell you, that's Greatest Of All Time for G.O.A.T. As they dressed up all of these goats in costumes from their shows.

The one commercial that I thought was almost-horrible was this T-Mobil ad trying to be cheeky like a charity spot, about saving your 5G Phone, as if the phones were abused puppies. It was a little insensitive because it seemed to poke fun at actual charities. Kinda not-cool. Dolly Parton and Miley Cirus have a bit of sillyness to their reputations, so they can get away with it. Barely.

An oddly uplifting moment from the game, which was one day before Valentine's Day, was when they started pointing out celebrities in the audience. Seeing ex-wife Jennifer Lopez with her ex-husband Ben Affleck, smiling and enjoying the game, together. Aww! Good for them. I'm not being cheeky, that's genuinely sweet.

Finally I have to ask how many people stood up and cheered when Eminem knelt after his performance? Apparently, the NFL saw him do that in the rehearsals and were "cool with it". That's the official word on it. But maybe he snuck it in and they had to say that to stop a controversy storm. Either way, it was a moment to mention.