Keeping With Our Annual Tradition

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

As always, I don’t give a crap about the Superbowl. If the Jets had gotten in, there might have been an uptick in my interest. As it is…no.

But I will be live blogging the commercials. So feel free to heat up the nachos tomorrow and hang out.

PAD

29 comments on “Keeping With Our Annual Tradition”

  1. It strikes me that in recent years – and especially since the Great Recession – the ads have ceased to be as big an event. Even though the game remains the one sure thing for advertisers. It will be interesting to see if there is anything lurking that changes my opinion.

    Then again, I haven’t got looking for “spoilers” about who’s advertising.

    At least we have the Cap trailer to look forward to.

      1. Aw, c’mon, Luigi….
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        What’ve you got against shows in which the female characters run around in catsuits, while the series’ own internal logic is ignored? 😉
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        –Daryl

      2. yes, the very name sends chills. He, along with Berman, took a beloved, enduring franchise that by it’s very premise had infinite possibilities and managed to almost destroy it.

      3. Yeah, when I heard about Brannon Braga, I had the same thought I had for FlashForward: The time travel will make no sense.

  3. I already have a favorite.

    It’s a 30-second spot for the new Volkswagen Passat featuring a young child dressed as Darth Vader trying to use The Force. And that’s all I’m sayin’. Except to add that my 8-year old daughter has done similar things in the past…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BgZ8Ba8TxM

    1. I’ve seen that — it’s so dámņ funny. And yes, I could see myself pulling exactly that stunt on my kid.

  4. I’m going to stick to the tradition I’ve picked up in the last few years: Skip the game and watch the commercials later on the internet.

    Isn’t there supposed to be a Captain America trailer?

    I’ve felt for awhile that the commercials for the Super Bowl generally aren’t any better than usual. They just have two advantages.

    1) They tend to be the funny kinds of commercials and I like those better than informative commercials.

    2) They’re new. Really, the only thing that makes commercials bad is that we see the same ones over and over again. Geiko puts out a million commercials and because they change them so often, they don’t get old. If every company could do that, nobody would mind commercials.

    2. I’ll probably stick to the similar, and yet oh-so-slightly-different tradition I’ve been doing the last few eyars… skip the game, plan on watching the commercials on the internet, bookmark a couple of sites… and just never get around to it.
      .
      In the past, however, I’ve been known to tape the game and later fast-forward through all the boring stuff involving men in funny outfits trying to kill each other over an odd-shaped ball. And the even more boring stuff involving the same men just standing around…
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      People may say that baseball is boring, but at least it doesn’t try to CLAIM being an hour-long game…

    3. I’m going to go ahead and DVR the game and go through the commercials after an hour or two into the game.
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      After all, I’ve got the HDTV, I might as well get some use out of it. 🙂

  5. Funny, I think I stopped caring about the commercials before I stopped caring about the game.
    .
    The movie trailers are always online within 12 hours, anyway.

  6. I will check out this blog later tomorrow night, but I’m not watching the Super Bowl. Just have zero interest in Football. And like people have said, the movie trailers will be online eventually anyway.

    Instead, I’m starting a new tradition. I’ll be watching lots of Netflix streaming tomorrow! Well that and I’ll probably play a couple video games too. Thank goodness for Netflix. Something to watch! lol.

    Though I do look forward to reading your commentary on the commericals PAD. 🙂

  7. And I hope everyone saw the ONION SPORTSDOME report that the Super Bowl would be postponed until Doritos makes a truly great ad.

  8. You know you’re surrounded by nerds when the Super Bowl in on and they’re only interested in the ads.

    Go Steelers!

  9. Since about 1993 my main nerd interests have been: comics, ST:TNG, pro wrestling and the NFL.

    .

    So…fake characters with word balloons doing battle with villains, fake characters in a flying ship set in the future doing battle with villains, fake characters inside a ring doing battle with villains, and a bunch of real guys playing football.

    .

    If you think one stands out as not quite fitting…you aren’t looking close enough.

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    In a vacuum, what is a comic to a non-fan? Nothing more than a few pieces of paper stapled together with pictures in it. What is Star Trek to a non-fan? Just a bunch of people standing around talking about anti-matter servo generating nucle-oid romulus manufacturers. What is pro wrestling to a non-fan? A bunch of shirtless guys rolling around pretending to hurt each other.

    .

    But, in all of these, as we all know, lies so much more. The history. The classic hero versus villain storyline. The thrill of battle. The intrigue of watching a character develop over the years. Whether it’s Wolverine, Data, or Kane from the WWE, we follow their story as they grow as individuals through fiction.

    .

    So, what is any given NFL game to a non-fan? Just a game of guys grunting and running around for a few seconds at a time.

    .

    Ah, but in that lies so much more.

    .

    To follow the NFL, from the draft in the off-season, through training camps and the preseason games, through the regular season, the playoffs, and finally the Superbowl…there is no bigger storyline in all of “fan-dom”. You just have to look for the stories. The drama of which team will select which prospective players in the draft kicks off the season every year. Following their progress, who gets cut, who stays on is a story in itself. Who shows up to training camp? Who has a contract dispute? Who is complaining? Who is stepping up? Will there be a quarterback controversy?

    .

    The season starts. You have your team—and they have built in division rivals, three of them, they play twice a year with lasting consequences for winning and losing them. Home teams, away teams, bad referee calls, instant replays. Drama, drama, drama. Your favorite quarterback goes down? It’s like Tasha Yar leaving the show or your favorite artist leaving your favorite book. Lasting consequences. Who are the heroes? Who are the villains? A player gets accused of rape in the off season? Villain. A player has a dog fighting ring? Villain…but he turns himself around and now becomes a hero? Michael Vick is no different than Quicksilver (Quicksilver did run a dog fighting ring at one point, right?)

    .

    The playoffs are always exciting—who gets through? Who gets left behind? Every year a handful of new teams get through while powerhouses of the year before fall. It’s literally never the same.

    .

    And finally the Superbowl–the ultimate game. The season finale. And maybe it doesn’t always live up the hype–but what season finale does? But sometimes it does. If you’ve been following the entire series—even a bad game makes so much more sense. There’s always a payoff.

    .

    And it’s all real people doing real things. So that means you never get the exact same season. With comics, you know just about everything goes back to the status quo, in Star Trek, aside from the novels, you only get re-runs. In wrestling, you know Randy Orton is going to be in another main event.

    .

    With the NFL…I would never have guessed we would have the Packers v the Steelers this year. Aaron Rodgers trying to step out of Farve’s shadow with a Superbowl ring. An all-star receiving corps. A Sabertooth beast of a linebacker in Clay Matthews. The Steelers with their bad boy Quarterback who is built like tank and just about as hard to bring down sometimes. A Head-and-Shoulders picth man who is literally all over the field like a magician. A terrifying defense. Two teams who match up so well on paper. Who is your hero? Who is your villain?

    .

    And I won’t even go into how Fantasy Football is the ultimate geek activity.

    .

    So, in conclusion–I’ll be watching the game tonight. I’ll be watching the ads. It’s the biggest payoff in geek-dom of the year. Bigger than any crossover comics event, bigger than the newest Trek novel, bigger than Wrestlemania.

    .

    Are you ready for some football?

    1. A former co-worker used to make a pretty good argument for pro football being just as pre-determined and scripted as pro wrestling.
      .
      –Daryl

  10. Go Packers. The great socialist team of the NFL.
    Named after a trade union and owned by the people of Green Bay.

  11. I used to tape (yes, I’m still relying on archaic technology, don’t judge me! :P) the Super Bowl and fast forward to the commercials, but I don’t even care that much about the ads anymore.
    .
    It’s probably a facet of my not caring about broadcast/cable in general….I get movies and TV episodes through Netflix, Hulu, and network websites, local news and weather via the network affiliates’ websites and local sources such as radio and newspapers, and I have yet to genuinely miss cable or the $60/month I was paying for it (and that was just for so-called “extended basic”!).
    .
    I’ll see the good stuff, including the Cap trailer, on the internet sooner or later, and forego wasting my time on a so-called event that I have no interest in whatsoever. Professional sports spark my ire anyway; they only bring to mind my ongoing annoyance that sports fans can act up, dress outlandishly and generally make fools of themselves for their particular passion and be called “dedicated fans” with a tone of respect, while fans of anything remotely science fiction- or fantasy-ish who do the same thing are looked down upon and called “weirdos”.
    .
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    Chuck

  12. I’ll be keeping my own tradition: staying away from the Super Bowl like the plague. It’s been especially annoying this year, living in Dallas, and having to hear all the trivial details of the preparation, and the nightly news counting down til today.
    .
    This year has an element that sometimes interferes with that tradition, though. Every so often, an episode of a show I enjoy follows the game. This year, it’s happening with Glee, and while it shows a start time of 9:30, the odds of it starting right then are slim, so I’ll need to keep an eye on when the steroid case millionaires are done playing their kids’ game, so I can enjoy some entertainment.
    .
    –Daryl

  15. Maybe I’ll skip the Super Bowl this year also. I’m hoping to tune into a bowling tournament to get my kicks.

  16. I’m going across the grain. I’ve been finding the Super Bowl of recent years more entertaining and pretty decent football games.
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    I don’t have as much of a stake this year as I did a few years back, but I have some rooting interests–GO PACK! The Socialists’ Standard Bearer of the NFL–owned by the People for the People!

  17. Actually, I’m looking forward to the GAME tonight, because Packers versus Steelers is a classic match up, and I’m wondering how the 2011 version of both teams will compare to those of years past.
    But I wonder how much Visa has had to revise their advertising campaign for the Super Bowl since Robert Cook, one of the “Never Miss A Super Bowl” quartet they’ve been spotlighting in regards to the credit card company’s contest of winning Super Bowl tickets for life, will sadly be miss attending this year’s game because he was admitted to a Wisconsin hospital Thursday. 🙁

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