The Super Bowl has come and gone to wrap up another season in the NFL. And to quote the greatest play-by-play announcer I’ve ever heard (ABC’s Keith Jackson), “it was a dandy.”
The New York Giants capped off one of those improbable seasons with a win over the New England Patriots, and no matter who you are a fan of–it was a great game that kept you on the edge of the seat until the end, because the two quarterbacks on the field have done the miraculous come-from-behind-to-win-at-the-end thing a few times in their careers.
Plus, I think its great that Eli Manning has shown everyone that he can surpass his big brother, winning his second championship ring in the town that hosts Peyton’s team. There is something magical about that kind of a storyline in the sports pages.
The other great contest of the year is over too. That, being of course who would have the best Super Bowl TV commercial.
Given that the Super Bowl is usually the biggest thing on television each year, drawing the largest audience of any television program, and often rates in the highest television audiences of all time, and given this Super Bowl featured teams from two of the largest television markets in the country–well the competition was bound to be tough.
And there were some interesting match-ups here too:
Jerry Seinfeld’s reprise of “Seinfeld” moments to be the backdrop for his efforts to be the first in line to buy Acura’s new NSX sports car was cool, and a bit more inventive that Matthew Broderick trying to recapture the “Ferris Bueller” moments of his youth for Honda’s CR-V.
Betty White shilling for “The Voice”, was better than Regis Philbin shilling for Pepsi Max.
Victoria’s Secret Super Model Adriana Lima was sexier for Teleflora florists than Adriana Lima was for Kia’s Optima.
The oh-so-incredibly-hot Italian speaking woman for Fiat was way sexier than the annual ham handed sexist use of Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels for GoDaddy.com
The latest version of the E*Trade baby was as stale as day old infant puke, though the latest version of the talking MM’s was worth a chuckle.
Budweiser proved again that it knows how to make a Super Bowl commercial that is something special–and worth the millions they paid for the airtime.
And finally, I don’t know how much it cost for the two minutes that Chrysler took to have Clint Eastwood remind us of why Americans bought into Ronald Reagan’s “Morning In America” political commercial 33 years ago, but “Dirty Harry” himself telling us that “It’s Halftime, America” was just jingoistic enough, just patriotic enough, and just beautiful enough to almost get me to go buy one of their cars. I
Yeah, it’s probably my favorite Super Bowl commercial since Apple introduced the Macintosh with the all time best Super Bowl commercial, “1984” in the same year.
The same year “the Gipper” began his second term in office.
(You can watch all of the Super Bowl commercials, if you missed them in real-time, and vote for your favorites by clicking Right Here.)