Here we go. And feel free, for those of you who are interested, to post what you think the final score will be. The closest person gets absolutely nothing.
6:02: Ah. It’s the pre-kick show. Not sure if the new commercials have started. What’s a bit of a bummer is that a number of them have already gone up on line. I think that sucks. Takes some of the fun out of it. Aside from the Darth Vader commercial I have stayed away from them. Anyone know the time of kick off?
6:06: The problem is that I spend so much time speeding through commercials via DVR that I can’t tell what’s old and what’s new. Of course, if I see one that’s super bowl themed, that will be pretty obvious.
6:10: Not that I have any emotional investment, but I’m pulling for the Packers since the Steelers beat the Jets.
6:17: Play 60. Getting kids to exercise. Sounds fine to me.
6:24: Kathleen said, in regards to Christina’s prolonged anthem, “Aw, c’mon, Burlesque didn’t do THAT well; knock it off.”
6:25: Kung Fu Panda: “We will Wok you.” Brilliant.
Cute McDonalds commerical of a father bear taking his son out for burgers and fries…by accosting a parked tourist. It’d be funnier if the Chicago Bears had been in.
6:27: Great Fox ad which had the stars of various Fox series tossing a football from one to the other. My only quibble? House would have stabbed it with a scalpel.
6:36: Here’s a book title: Pride and Prejudice and Zombo.
6:43: What’s scary is that it took the contractor five weeks over schedule to redecorate using the one six pack of Bud.
6:45: Well, I’m not gonna buy an Audi, but “Hit them with the Kenny G” is my new slogan for dealing with difficult situations.
6:50: The single most disturbing Doritos ad ever. I’m not sure if the subtext was homosexual or fetishist or both.
6:51: Pepsi Light. The wife has serious issues and if you want to lose weight, drink water.
6:56: You know, I always figured period pieces were hard to get approved because you can’t do product placement. Bud Light proved me wrong.
6:57: GREAT Chevy commercial. “I didn’t even know this town HAD a volcano!”
7:01: There seem to be quite a few pople getting hurt in Pepsi Light commercials. What’s up with that?
7:03: I had to go back and watch the Doritos commercial twice before I fully understood it, it went by so fast I get it now: Doritos bring you back to life. I dunno: I never really thought of Doritos as an energy food.
7:05: New commercial giving us a bit more footage of “Oblivion”…I’m sorry, “Cowboys and Aliens.”
7:06: Well, I think Kia Optima wins the prize for crossing the most genres in a single commercial. I counted: espionage; myth; science fiction; ancient Aztecs (not sure what genre that would be).
7:08: Oh, that reminds me: We have M&Ms to eat during the Superbowl.
7:15: A Bridgestone commercial tied to something everyone can identify with: emailed sent to the wrong people. Nice.
7:17: GoDaddy commercials may have hit a new low.
7:18: “This is our House.” I was wondering where they were going with that commercial.
7:23: Wasn’t sure where they were going with the Budweiser “Tiny Dancer” commercial and now that they got there, I’m still not sure.
7:24: “My heart told me to.” Another line I’m going to be using.
7:25: Did I mentioned I wrote the novelization for “Transformers 3?”
7:27: An All American car company. Okay.
7:27: I love that he was reading “1984” for the Motorola version of an iPad. But good lord, did you see that girl? She was gorgeous. Features like porcelain. Don’t be surprised if a few years from now she’s a film star and people point to this commercial as an early appearance.
7:31: A CGI fantasy epic promoting Coke? Okay, well…that was kinda cool.
7:32: Thor looks more kick ášš every time I see it.
7:33: So that’s the thirty second version of the Vader VW commercial. I’ll tell you this: People who seem to think that actors cannot truly act if their faces are completely covered (and thus Spider-Man always has to have his mask ripped off at key moments) should watch that kid in the Vader costume. His body language conveys a host of emotions effortlessly.
7:39: From the people who gave you Betty White and Abe Vigoda comes Roseanne Barr and, dammit, I’ve blanked on his name. Richard, Robert…nuts! What’s his name!? Great commercial, though. Richard Lewis! That’s it.
7:49: Why are you checking your facebook status while in the car.
7:50: First footage I’ve seen of “Captain America.” That’s gonna be a hëll of a one-two punch with the Thor movie.
7:51: I wouldn’t have thought a Carmax commercial could be funny. Nicely done. Now I just wish I had a clearer idea of what Carmax was.
8:01: Larry the Cable Guy on the History Channel? Isn’t that kind of like having pro wrestling on the discovery channel?
8:03 Dammit, that’s not an android. That’s a robot. I don’t care that it’s called Android. Roy Batty was an android. This was a robot. Get your gøddámņ terms right.
8:08 The Daytona 500 or, as we call it around here, “Cars: The Live Action Movie”
8:09: Apparently Claymation style is the animation style of choice for the Superbowl.
8:10: Caroline is a little disappointed that it’s the Black Eyed Peas. For some reason she was under the impression it was going to be Bowling for Soup who did the theme song for “Phineas & Ferb.”
8:22: I’ve never heard Caroline say, “Is it done yet?” as much as she did during that half time show.
8:23: Sleepys. Most risque mattress commercial ever. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, we could use a new mattress…
8:25: “The Daily.” Sounds interesting. Let me check who’s doing it.
8:26: Rupert Murdoch. No thanks.
8:27: Get the NFL anytime, anywhere. But only if you’re a Jets fan.
8:37: The cowboy who got hit with arrows in the cars.com commercial should really have been wearing a red shirt.
8:38: That was OZZIE? He looked worse than usual. The commercial was funny, though. Bieber is starting to become omnipresent.
8:43: “Pirates.” You need to see that shot where the sword comes through the door in 3D.
8:44: “Cram it in the boot.” Why do I have the feeling that’s a euphemism for something?
8:50: Hyundai wins the award for commercial that kicks ášš in 3D.
8:50: Okay, well…I like Timothy Hutton in “Leverage.” Wasn’t wild about his commercial, though.
8:51: I’m now convinced that Coca-Cola could achieve peace in the Middle East.
8:53: Boy, that looked like Adrian Brody doing a beer commercial.
8:54: I like the Carmax commercials and STILL don’t know what it is.
8:54: “X-Factor.” Simon Cowell IS…Jamie Madrox.
9:00: Nice commercial, but I’m still not anxious to go back to Detroit anytime soon…
9:21: What a GREAT NFL commercial! A ton of sitcoms old and new saluting the fans. My hands down favorite commercial of the night.
9:32: How did I just KNOW the Bud Light commercial would end with dogs playing poker?
9:34: Not a bad Hyundai ad.
9:35: Well, at least it was a Pepsi Max ad where no one got hurt.
9:35: “Rio.” Or, as I think of it, “Enchanted Tiki Room: The Movie.”
9:44: Bridgestone’s moral: Always try to avoid killing animals. You never know. I like it.
9:45: Go daddy’s string of commercials that do nothing to make me want to use them continues.
9:46: Yeah, well, when you’re Diddy you can afford a Mercedes.
9:48: Gregory House: Meaner than Mean Joe ever was.
9:57: Verizon: Please tell me we’re done with the “Hear you now” guy.
9:59: I can finally stop walking through the drive through window. God, I love Brittany.
10:00: “Terra Nova.” Science fiction on Fox. What could possibly go wrong?
10:02: As a totally irrelevant aside: This is a pretty exciting game.
10:06: Well, Jets fans should be happy.
10:09: Okay, sorry, “Wendys”…I’m not making the connection between a good sandwich and smacking someone.
10:22: And with a second and final, “Yes, I really did write the Transformers 3 novelization” I’m signing off. Talk amongst yourselves.
• 
Ah a No-Prize.
I believe kick-off is 6:30pm (or so) Eastern.
Ah Lea Michele… beautiful!
Just sing the dámņ song!
Is it me, or did Christina get the lyrics out of oreder?
I think she also said “watching” instead of hailed, and “for” instead of “o’er”.
She left out the whole lyric:
“O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming”
Cristina is starting to look like Cindi Lauper
Why didn’t the officials throw a flag at Christina’s lyrics?
“Delay of game, #2, Entertainers; 15 yard penalty, assessed on the Artist’s Career. First Down!”
Man, that Lea Michele is a cutie-and-a-half.
I’m rooting for the Packers, and think they will win by 10. As far as a specific score, I have no idea if it will be a high- or low-scoring game.
That Doritos commercial is easily one of the most disgusting I’ve seen. >:P
That one hit too close to home for me.
Perhaps I’ve said too much.
Ok, Doritos redeemed themselves with the grandpa one. 😀
Nothing like making fun of domestic violence to sell some Pepsi.
People don’t want “Light” taste, they want “Max”imum taste!
James Bond, Indiana Jones, and 13… looks like a must see
Green Bay 27-24 over the Steelers.
Oh, come ON. You can’t put in a guess when the Packers are already up by two touchdowns.
.
PAD
Best pick line of the day, courtesy of Don McPherson: “I’m picking the Packers and hoping they get drunk after the game so I can say I picked a peck of pickled Packers.”
PAD, remember who you’re yelling at.
.
Wally: get the baseball bat handy.
.
J.
It’s amusing seeing Chevy advertising their “Volt” electric car, considering their history with possibly undermining the EV1.
They seem to have learned their lesson well.
I like how the bridgestone commercial said “Do Not Attempt” at the bottom. Darn. Guess I can’t overreact to “reply all”s anymore.
Did anyone else retch at that intro where they tried to invoke the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, and 9/11?
Equating citizens rallying in times of tragedy to now sitting down to watch a football game being played was rather despicable. Trying to tie-in this game to actual battles was disrespectful, in my opinion.
7:27: I love that he was reading “1984″ for the Motorola version of an iPad. But good lord, did you see that girl? She was gorgeous. Features like porcelain. Don’t be surprised if a few years from now she’s a film star and people point to this commercial as an early appearance.”
.
It reminded me of Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse.
Vaguely reminded me of Sarah Michelle Gellar.
PAD: I agree, that kid in the Vader costume’s delivery of his performance was great!
Funny, I was thinking Sarah Michelle Gellar.
I went “Who is that?” when that girl in the Motorola commercial showed up too!
OK, anyone else want a mashup commercial featuring Volkswagon’s Kid Vader as Tommy trapped in the volcano in the Chevy truck commercial?
Tagline the VW commercial missed using. James Earl Jones intoning “I find your lack of a Volkswagon…disturbing”. (hey, it beats “Luke, I am your Volkswagon!”)
“…(and thus Spider-Man always has to have his mask ripped off at key moments)…”
.
Personally, I think that’s because they want to show the face of their star more than anything. (the same reason all movies have extreme color spectrums of ORANGE faces and TEAL backgrounds.) I prefer how Iron Man handled that face behind the mask thing.
The Motorola commercial was sort of epic. It’s amazing how much Apple has turned into their 1984 SB commercial.
I thought it was Richard Lewis and Roseanne.
.
LOVED seeing her get nailed by the trunk…
.
J.
Magaret Cho = Rosanne “whatever her name is now” Barr.
Nice Captain America spot! I didn’t know Stanley Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones were in it.
I can tell PAD isn’t really watching the game. One of the players is named “Antwaan Randel El,” and I can NOT imagine he’d let that slide unaddressed.
.
J.
Fun with Twitter and tweets in my feed:
.
Keith R.A. DeCandido
That was the first GoDaddy commercial that didn’t make me cringe. Bravo!
39 minutes ago.
.
Somebody else I follow:
GoDaddy, pull yourself.
42 minutes ago
Although it now does seem to be pretty unanimous that the half time show was god awful.
I cringed enough for both of us.
I only hope Thor vs The Destroyer lives up to how I remember it from the Kirby days
Carmax/Carfax is that company that tells auto buyers to insist on their “free” Carfax report – which, of course, isn’t free. I despise them for trying to boost their sales by telling auto buyers to demand a “free” report in order to back the dealer they are buying the car from into paying for the Carfax report to give to the car buyer. Regardless of the value of the report it’s a scummy way to do business.
Carfax is not the same company as Carmax. The latter is a used auto superstore.
No, they’re two different companies. Carfax is what you wrote about. Carmax is a chain of used car dealerships with, I believe, a fixed price no haggle policy.
AFAIK, Carmax != Carfax. Carfax is the car history report company that Michael is commenting on. Despite the similar name, Carmax is a completely separate company. It’s a nationwide used car dealership.
Since you asked, Carmax is a used car dealership chain. They only sell recent-year cars, have high quality standards, and fixed prices with no haggling. Bought our last two cars there, very happy.
As far as “android” vs “robot”, I think we lost that war when Lucas dubbed the Star Wars robots “droids”. (Which you’ll note in Motorola ads for the phone is used by permission of Lucasfilm).
I didn’t know the coach for the steelers was the lead singer for the Peas….
Of course not, because coaching the Steelers is what Omar Epps does when he’s not doing “House”
“So that’s the thirty second version of the Vader VW commercial. I’ll tell you this: People who seem to think that actors cannot truly act if their faces are completely covered (and thus Spider-Man always has to have his mask ripped off at key moments) should watch that kid in the Vader costume. His body language conveys a host of emotions effortlessly.”
.
I had a similar thought watching Iron-Man 2. I got plenty of emotion out of the performance even though the mask never moved.
My father misheard who the half-time act was. He just asked me why anyone would want to watch a black guy pee…
This Half Time show brought to you by AutoTune…
.
J.
And how! The way they were ragging on The Who last year, they should be doing so equally on the Black Eyed Peas.
Yeah, I think the Packers are going to win it.
This is the part where I pull numbers out of my butt: 32-15?
To quote PAD at many Dragoncon costume contests:
“What…the hëll…..was that?”
I swear, in the medium shots, Fergie’s lighted glitter top looks like they’re pixelating her chest…
.
J.
I’m just happy that the NFL has decided that America has healed from the scars left by Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” and was willing to have a female performer at halftime.
That halftime show should forever now be titled Heartbeeps: The Musical…
I like the Coke commercial just because that dragon was awesome.
No matress commercial here. was it a local one?
My son came downstairs just now and asked if the Black Eyed Peas were dressed-up for “Tron” or “V”. Not having watch a second of the show what were they wearing?
They looked like members of Judas Priest wearing Christmas lights.
I thought they were wearing the outfits KISS rejected.
Man, I think I will have to go somewhere online and check that show out.
.
A KISS and Judas Priest reference. Nice
“Why are you checking your facebook status while in the car.”
.
Actually, I think the commercial did a good job of making that look useful. It isn’t remotely useful, but reflecting reality isn’t a commercial’s priority.
The Ozzy/Justin Bieber commercial reminded me of the McCain/Obama debate in which McCain staggered, out of focus, into Brokaw’s (?) closing shot.
Okay, so Usher, Ozzy and Beiber have all been recruited by the Master Control Program? I shudder to think of the musical result…
The Pirates franchise peaked with Captain Jack’s first scene in the first movie, artfully disembarking from his sinking ship…
What I’d like to know is how many millions VW spent to get the rights to use the March and the Vader character in that ad. Money maybe well spent, though it wouldn’t be enough to get me to buy the product. Been doing a neighbour a favour: she’s in Florida for most of the winter and has me take her car out every week or two just to keep the battery topped up and motor turned over, that sort of thing. But, unlike my ancient car, it’s got power everything and remote lock and all that stuff and I *hate* it. Give me a simple, reliable car without all those gadgets. One which uses a normal key to open the door(s), one which doesn’t flash, beep or sing the Marseilleise when I lock/unlock it, where the lights don’t stay on when I’m not in it, doesn’t need the power on to raise or lower the window(s) and so on and so forth. Do they even still make those any more?
Mom? Is that you? I thought you didn’t know how to use a computer?
I drive a VW (a New Beetle), but I don’t quite fit the Volkswagen lifestyle demographic; I’m not upscale enough.
Yet, I love VW’s commercials, especially the classic Cabrio commercial with Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” and now “The Force” with “The Imperial March.” The commercials hit exactly the demographic they want, the people who want to live the Volkswagen lifestyle.
Volkswagen makes unique commercials and I love them. 🙂
As for keeping the battery charged, have you thought about getting a solar-powered battery charger? I use it with my Beetle; plug it into the lighter, keeps the battery charged if I’m going to leave it sit for, oh, a week or so.
VW ads have always been terrific. Arguably one of, if not the best print ad, ever, was for the VW Rabbit back in the late 70s? Two page spread with the car in the middle, surrounded by quotes from various car magazines and similar publications. All the quotes were tripping over each other praising it. And, in modest typeface below thew car photo, the line “Money can’t buy this kind of advertising.” Brilliant.
As for the solar battery charger, good idea, but the neighbour, very kind and pleasant individual though she is, is NOT good with tech. I know, it isn’t nuclear reactor science but, trust me, if I were to suggest it to her when she returns from her latest extended trip, she’s just wave it aside and tell me she’s not interested. As it is, the only reason she has that gadget-laden car is she inherited it from her late husband. Otherwise, she’d probably use a bicycle. And I almost agree with her. I am in the tech field (computer network operations) but that’s why I know, the more complicated you make things, the more ways it can go wrong and require (usually expensive) repairs. So I’m a fan of the Keep It Simple principle.
That VW commercial with the two guys driving around to Trio’s “Da Da Da” is still one of my all-time favorite commercials. It’s like a short independent film, with oddly vivid characterizations despite the complete lack of dialogue and 30-second running time.
PAD: “That was OZZIE? He looked worse than usual. The commercial was funny, though. Bieber is starting to become omnipresent.”
.
Well, he’s 62 *and* he’s lived the life of Ozzie Osborne. You have to expect a bit of a multiplier effect.
.
And yeah, I’m not one of the Bieber haters, but haters, but that kid is really making the rounds.
But I did like it a few days ago when Bieber showed up as Jon Stewart, and we learned that the two had somehow switched bodies before that day’s taping of “The Daily Show.”
“Imported … from Detroit”
So, imported from an imporversed third world nation?
no commercials for 20 minutes?
don’t tell me they are actually playing football
That Suzuki ad seems to be a riff of the Cadillac ad where the car is dodging a hailstorm of arrows…
.
Anyone else see that, or am I hallucinating again?
.
J.
They blow the point after, and Wally’s prediction is still in play…
.
J.
Hey, NFL, thanks for the sitcom salute – now howabout making ticket prices affordable so I can attend a game?