Like any decent American I watched the Super Bowl last night, and the game actually turned out to be worth it. In addition, my bets paid off handsomely and I have a little more cash in my pocket and a Grande latte from Starbucks coming my way.
Although you can't count on winning bets or even a good football game in most years, you can usually depend on the commercials to make your viewing worthwhile. Besides, at $2.4 million per 30-second spot there's a lot of pressure on these companies to make ads that are watchable, illuminating and memorable. Sometimes they even suceed.
This year there were still the perennial advertising heavyweights such as Budweiser, who pulled off some good spots (the skydiving one was by far their best with the stupid designated driver dance being not so hot).
But there were also several new offerings that were worthwhile from companies like Ameriquest (loved the boyfriend mix-up where he appears to be butchering his girlfriend's cat when she arrives home) and the new Internet offering GoDaddy.com, which thumbed its nose at the FCC with its blatantly gratuitous ad featuring a buxom woman in front of panel of bureaucrats.
For the rest of the competition, however, it was a zoo out there. Literally.
I don't know if there was a discount on animal performers or if everyone was using the same ad agency, but the general consensus seemed to be that when all else fails throw some non-mammals onscreen and get out of their way.
Giraffes, storks, bears and especially monkeys were running amok everywhere I looked. Generally, members of the ape family do bring a smile to my face, but by the 3rd or 4th Careerbuilder.com monkey spot I felt like finding a gun and starting a monkey massacre. And I've never shot anything or anyone in my life.
At least Fed Ex acknowledged the inherent cliche of animal performers during their ad, which also featured Burt Reynolds, cute kids, cheerleaders and of course a bear. On the plus side, I can't deny there seemed to be a certain karmic justice to watching the aforementioned bear kick Burt Reynolds in the crotch.
But now that the football season if officially over I feel a certain sense of loss in both my heart and my wallet. I have a hard time betting on the NBA, but the NCAA tournament is right around the corner.
In the interim, it's time to finally send our script off to the various contests we want to enter and certainly time to start a new one. I already have an idea, and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself but it just might involve some monkeys . . .
You've got to give the people what they want, eh?
-BDS
Make that a tall Latte and I agree about the animals.