Super Bowl XLV

     So anyone who watched or went to the Super Bowl can tell you the basics: the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31 to 25. 

     Christina Aguilera sang the Star-Spangled Banner and skipped “o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?” while simultaneously going back to the previous line and jumping ahead to the next one, (“what so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming,” is not a line from the original song, but she managed to get it in there somehow). I am accounting that to nerves, but at least she kept the show going.  I just find it humorous that she won like five Grammys, can remember the words to so many other songs, but not the National Anthem.  She also did not perform as well as the Glee star, (Lea Michele), she followed.

     The Half-Time show scored 5 out of 10.  The dancers on the field were well choreographed and rehearsed, but it must have stunk to have paid that much for a ticket to the game and not have been allowed onto the field during the show to watch.  There was a light malfunction in the stage that was supposed to say “LOVE.”  Most of the “V” was out, but then again, the entire show was set up in a matter of minutes, so malfunctions are predictable.  With how much FOX was hyping up the Glee episode that was following the game, I am surprised that the cast did not perform a number at half-time.  It would have been an improvement to the Black Eyed Peas’ vocals.  I do not know if there was back-up music or a track they were supposed to be lip syncing to that failed to come over the speakers, but most of the songs were almost painful to listen to.  Something did not sound right.

     But my favorite part of the game is the commercials, which this year scored 7 out of 10.  Here are some of my favorites from this year, in no particular order:

·         McDonalds- The first great commercial of the night featured a couple of bears ransacking a car for McDonald’s food, and shaking the vehicle for the last fry that is “always at the bottom.”  I enjoyed how the creators took something that all of us Fast Food Nation citizens can relate to, and had the animal kingdom partake.

·         FOX- For the sponsoring channel, they had some fairly creative commercials themselves.  I particularly enjoyed the Game On! one, in which characters from all of the shows were passing a football from scene to scene.  It united the shows from FOX, while maintaining their individual characteristics.

·         Doritos- They had good commercials this year.  I liked the one with the dog running at the glass door.  You expected him to smack into it, but he plowed through it to get the chips.  It had that unexpected ending that makes commercials interesting.

·         Volkswagen- The child is dressed as Darth Vader and trying to use “The Force.”  His father then uses the FOB to start the car, and the child thinks that he did it himself.  It is sweet.

·         Pepsi Max- The wife is taking away everything that is bad for her husband, and at the end she allows him to have the Pepsi since it has no calories.  Then he flirts with a jogger, his wife gets angry, she throws her soda can at him, but when he ducks it hits the jogger in the head.  I love how the couple just ran away from the scene with the girl rolling on the ground in pain.

·         Snickers- This year the commercial had Richard Luis and Rosanne Barr complaining at a log chopping plant.  It was funny (mostly because Rosanne was knocked over with a log), but no comparison to the Betty White one of last year’s Super Bowl.

·         Best Buy- Ozzy Osbourne is advertising a phone that is continuously being upgraded, until they “upgrade” Ozzy with Justin Bieber.  I liked how Ozzy had no idea what a Bieber was, and the guy behind him (who looks peculiarly like Justin), said that Bieber looks like a girl.  (Relative jokes are always more funny!)

·         Coca Cola- This commercial featured two guards patrolling the boarders of enemy countries.  They could not cross over the line separating the countries, so in order to share a bottle of Coca Cola, they redrew the border with a “see no evil, speak no evil” attitude.

·         House- The characters of House enacted their own version of the famous Mean Joe Green Coca Cola commercial in order to promote their show.  A boy offers a churro to Dr. House, who starts out mean, then smiles and tosses his cane at the child, whom he knocks out with it.

·         Bridgestone- A guy swerves while driving to prevent from running over a beaver one day.  In the next scene it is pouring, and a tree falls in front of the same car.  When the guy gets out, he sees the bridge he was about to drive across get washed away, and the beaver he saved standing by the tree stump giving him a fist pump.

     What I did NOT like, was that there were so many rerun commercials on during the game.  It is one thing to advertise a movie that is coming out in the near future, but the AT&T and Allstate commercials are really getting on my nerves.  You would think that for over $3 million every 30 seconds of air time, that companies would be a bit more creative with their commercials.

     All of the commercials from the Super Bowl can be viewed online at foxsports.com/ads, where you can also vote for the ones you liked and disliked.