Come on, boys. Time to bear down.
February 4, 2007, 10:29 am
Posted by Grant Gallicho
Play it, Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
(Thanks for the opening, Eduardo.)
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Not today, Grant. The Bears are a threat with their special teams and super ability to wrest the ball from offensive players. Except that here is this Manning, who may well be the best of all time, prepared to have the game of his life.
What will be shown today is not only that Peyton is the best but that even the best cannot do it without a good defense. He did one for the ages against the Patriots two weeks ago. Fans are still reeling from the greatness of that game.
The media has fun talking about how Peyton struggled to win the big one. Makes for filling time and demanding attention. But it is the wrong track. Winning the big one this year does not mean that Peyton finally won. It means that that he finally got a team that could complement him.
Very poetic. Unfortunately for Colts fans, this season has shown that even when Manning throws like a god, the team is eminently capable of losing. Rex Grossman doesn’t have that problem.
I had long suspected that the Superbowl was one of the sacramental rites of the Ecclesia Americana. It seems I was right.
If you’re pretty much snowed in, as we are up here in Michigan, and don’t want to hazard the treacherous roads just to get away from the game, you may want to follow the “game within the game”–that is, what amounts to an advertising competition during the Super Bowl that pulls in one of the biggest TV audiences during the year.
MSU advertising profs follow the “game within the game” during the Super Bowl, that is the advertising game.
Advertisers roll out their biggest and best ads during Super Bowl, and the time slots cost millions because of the audience the game garnishes.
I usually do a pre-game test, asking students which ads they remember from the previous year.
One of last year’s biggest flops according to the raters was the Busby Berkley inspired BK ad. But in retrospect it was one of the most memorable. Students could still remember the product being advertised.
Favorites included the “executive chimps” and “magic fridge” beer spots, but could not recall what was being hawked.
So get a pencil and do your own ratings. You can check them against the experts at http://www.msu.edu tomorrow.
I wish I was in the Chevrolet board room when they were choosing which songs would make the final version of the commercial with the lyrical Chevy references.
The biggest song not make it was Sammy Johns’ great poetic epic “Chevy Van”.
OK, it’s neither poetry nor the type of song most parents would want the kids to hear, but you know it was a discussion point in the boardroom.
Best ad for me: The short blurb for “The Late Show” with Oprah. That had great surprise comic timing..
I have to say that the “Robert Goulet comes and messes with your stuff” if you don’t eat Emerald Nuts had me in stitches. I wonder how many people know who Robert Goulet is, though.
But I liked the Oprah/Letterman spot, too. Especially since she was ticked when Letterman made fun of her name during his one-time, ill-fated Academy Award host stint.
I also enjoyed hearing Dean Martin sing “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” I enjoy hearing Dean sing anything. I’m not sure how it fit into the visuals, though.
I went to watch Masterpiece Theater at 9 p.m., though, and put the rest of the commercials on tape to watch this morning.
Yes, I thought the Goulet spot was great, too. I can’t get the image of him crawling on the ceiling out of my head. Very ‘The Exorcist.’ Part of what made the commercial so amusing to me was my memory of Will Farell’s Goulet impression on SNL, in which Goulet repeatedly sings his own name, stretching out the last syllable. At any rate, that spot was one of precious few pleasant moments in the game for those of us rooting for the Bears.
The better team clearly won. It is a tribute to the versatility of the bears that they kept it close.
What Bear fans, and all fans, should object to is Richard Dent not making the hall of fame.
Yeah, too bad about the Bears. They had their big moment about 10 seconds into the game with that first omigod touchdown, and that was pretty much it.
I did like how the game was positioned as the first time two African-American coaches were heading up teams, and that lent a nice “we all win” touch.
But enough about that.
Why is Robert Goulet such a big joke? He used to be on variety shows like Ed Sullivan singing songs from “Camelot.”
Then he started appearing as the butt of jokes, starting with Bill Murray’s “Scrooged,” in which he was depicted as the host of “A Cajun Christmas” poling some sort of swamp canoe through a Louisiana bayou in a crushed velvet tux.
Has he not been abe to live down bollixing up the national anthem before the Clay-Liston fight or what?
I have never watched a Superbowl but I do know who Robert Goulet is and I think he has/had an attractive wife who also sang–Carol Lawrence? I suspect he was a better singer than an actor. The sort of musical he worked in is out of fashion. Perhaps that explains something. There is no account for tastes.
Ah, the lovely Carol Lawrence of the bouffant hair and chiffon cocktail dress. They’re divorced now.
Here’s how our advert profs at MSU rated the commercials:
http://newsroom.msu.edu/site/indexer/2981/content.htm
If you are going to situate Robert Goulet you need to hear the song by him “If Ever I would leave you.” The music and the lyrics are proof for the existence of God as far as I am concerned.