Top commercials at the Super Bowl
From Jonathan Storm's
"Eye of the Storm"
www.philly.com/philly/blogs/storm
I have become a fan on Facebook of having Betty White host Saturday Night Live. You can, too. After seeing the Snickers ad with Abe Vigoda and White playing football, an early Super Bowl hit, it's clear the 88-year-old marvel would pump some life into SNL.
The ads were better in general during the second half. Could that be the influence of the The Professor's exquisite homemade nachos and strong consumption of adult beverages? But the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Late Show promo was 15 seconds of "I Can't Believe It." (Leno and Oprah shot the top-secret spot at Letterman's Ed Sullivan Theater last Tuesday.)
Other first-half faves: The kid telling some local lothario to keep his hands off his mama and his Doritos. Villagers build a human bridge for the Bud Light truck. And the Dove ad outlining the life of a man (careful climbing that rope in gym class). It helps to have a whole minute, and it only cost (what?) $5 million.
Later in the game: Megan Fox sending a picture of herself in the bathtub out on her Motorola Blur. The E*Trade baby with the milk-aholic floozy girlfriend. And my favorite of the night (again, benefiting from a minute of air time), the jungle sleepwalker who unwittingly braved everything for a Coke. As usual, there were some funny commercials, like Sumo Death, for products I barely understand and would never use.
Disappointed at the dearth of animal ads (though highly rated for effectiveness, the fence-busting colt-calf Budweiser booster was too sappy for me), I did like the freaked-out Denny's chickens, and, like everyone else in America, continue to marvel at the ads starring Ed Begley Jr. that, I guess, are supposed to urge us all to fill out our Census forms. No wonder so many people have had it with the government.
Who Dat? The Who
From Dan DeLuca's "In the Mix"
www.philly.com/philly/blogs/ inthemix
On Sunday night, The Who went where only Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, and the Rolling Stones have gone before: Into the post-Janet-Jackson- wardrobe-malfunction Super Bowl halftime crucible. Before they did that, however, they let will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas desecrate "My Generation," in a remix in an ad for Flow TV (whatever that is) by changing Pete Townshend's iconic "I hope I die before I get old" to "Don't want to die young, I wanna get old."
It was a drag to see Townshend playing acoustic guitar at the start of "Pinball Wizard." But soon enough, he switched to electric and was windmilling away on "Baba O'Riley," "Who Are You," "See Me, Feel Me" and "Won't Get Fooled Again." No wild microphone swinging from Roger Daltrey, however. If you were keeping score, that means the half-a-Who did all three of their songs that get weekly airtime on CBS's CSI crime shows.
Townshend wore shades, and Daltrey wore sleeves - meaning I lost both of my side bets. As for the performance, it wasn't terrible, but it was far from thrilling. Daltrey did his leather-lunged best, and Zak Starkey approximated Keith Moon's talking drums, but on my TV speakers, anyway, the music didn't come through with anything like the galvanic power that the band can still deliver in the flesh. And my educated guess is that there'll be ample opportunity to see the band play live this year - if the history of Super Bowl halftime performers holds, they'll be announcing a U.S. tour this week.