Fairweather Zealot

Marty February 3rd, 2008

It was Super Bowl time again, and once again I had a hard time caring about either team who was playing. As a Cowboys fan, it’s really tough to root for the Giants. But I found myself doing so anyway because I dreaded the thought of hearing all of the ‘Greatest Team Ever’, “Tom Brady is God” and “19-0″ b.s. for the next year. If the Patriots win (and it’s 7-3 with 6:13 left in the 3rd quarter now), it will be an endless repetition of how great they are. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a good team and one of the best to have played. But the best? Even without the cheating aspect, I don’t know that they could have held their own against the 49ers of the 80’s, the Cowboys, Dolphins or even Steelers of the 70’s head-to-head.

So, with limited vested interest in the game itself, that left the other half of Super Bowl Sunday - the ads. Sadly, they even more disappointing than last year. There were a few standouts, but most of them were the same boring stuff you see at any time of the year; more poignantly, there were some ads that were simply awful. I mean, the concept that they would spend this much money to put up the crap they showed is mind-boggling. My view (for what it’s worth):

The Good

1. Coke - “Parade Balloons”: This is what I expected to see for the Super Bowl. Great concept and really well done.
2. T-Mobile - “Charles Barkley”: Very funny, and a perfect play off of Barkley’s reputation (can you imagine him being needy?)
3. Sobe LifeWater - “Thriller”: Very amusing - and much better than that stupid Geico gecko.
4. Planters - “Unibrow”: This would have been higher, but that women was hard to look at. The wedgie at the end, though, was classic.
5. Pepsi - “Justin Timberlake”: Funny commercial. He’s actually gained credit in my eyes since his SNL hosting gig.
6. E-Trade - “Clown”: It was only okay until the closing line.
7. Super Bowl - “Chester Pitts”: Simple but cool story - gotta love an oboe-playing lineman.

Crap!!! Patriots scored. 14-10 and just about 2 minutes to go. This might be over… but that leads right into…

The bad

1. Sales Genie - either one: Absolutely dumb commercials, and moderately offensive. Using pandas with accents didn’t make it any better. Were they serious?
2. Cars.com - either one: Continuing the trend of having two commercials that both suck, Cars.com was just missing it.
3. Doritos - “Mouse”: Dumb, dumb, dumb. Not sure how an ad agency managed to sell this one.
4. Toyota - “Badger”: Huh? Animals are standards at the Super Bowl, but … huh?
5. CareerBuilder - “Heart”: What was this about? Your heart not being into your job? Dumb concept.

Woo-hoo! Giants score! Giants score! (FYI - you’ll never hear me say that out loud again).

Jay Alford (Penn Stater) just sacked Brady with 19 seconds… We Are State!

The tension is building - hell of a throw by Brady, but incomplete. 10 seconds.

GIANTS WIN! Heck of a game and the Giants deserved this win. Sorry, Tom - no perfect season for you; and we won’t have to hear about the ‘greatest team in history’.

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