Catching the Best Moments From Super Bowl XLIV
After a light 237 hour pregame show, the Super Bowl is finally here. And while there is an actual game to be played, we're here to catch all the awkward live moments and best commercials throughout the night.
And I'm spent. But boy was that fun. Congratulations to the Saints and the city of New Orleans. And boo to the commercials, they were average at best this year.
9:55 PM EST
Drew Brees is crying with his adorable son. Drew Brees can do no wrong. Drew Brees will rebuild post-Katrina New Orleans. Drew Brees is a National Hero.
9:40 PM EST
And Jim Nantz will impress you by naming as many neighborhoods and streets in New Orleans that he can remember in under a minute. Wow, there's an Uptown in New Orleans!? Thanks, Jim!
9:28 PM EST
Peyton Manning throws a pick to put the Saints up 31-17, and it looks to be all over. He looks quite sad.
9:04 PM EST
So the Colts just missed a field goal, giving the Saints great field position and making this a verrrry interesting game with 10 minutes to go. But more importantly, the best commercial of the night just aired. Vizio had an adl showing a throng of internet memes for what's sure to be a television that blurs the lines between TV and computers. How anyone over the age of 40 understood this commercial is beyond me.
8:50 PM EST
In what's shaping up to be a pretty good game so far, Google comes out with what may be the best ad of the night. And while what aired wasn't exactly this awesome commercial, they did air a commercial very similar to it. And they also managed to sum up how Google is taking over our lives, but in a good way!
8:30 PM EST
Chevy Chase as Clark W. Griswald in an ad for Homeaway.com. The commercial was funny, Chevy Chase wasn't. Kind of sums up the last 10 years of Chase's career.
8:22 PM EST
How about these for some awful, awful puns. Who boy! This is the Who-iest game I've ever Who'd!
8:15 PM EST
And this has to be the third time I've heard Arcade Fire in tonight's broadcast alone. For promos, in packages, and now played in the stadium. It is kinda epic and uplifting.
8:00 PM EST
Hey, look! CBS got that band that does all the CSI Promos to do all the CSI Promos in one megamix! But I'm not too sure I've ever heard of CSI: Pinball Wizard. Here's this band called The Who doing the theme for the original CSI, "Who Are You." And boy are they not getting any younger.
Pretty much sums up that halftime show.
7:40 PM EST
Kiss is teaming up with Dr. Pepper and a roaming band of little people to sell Diet Caffeine Free Cherry Dr. Pepper. It's the adjectiviest cola out there!
7:20 PM EST
And here is probably what will be the most bizarre and awkward commercial of the night. Jay Leno, David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey doing a promo for The Late Show With David Letterman. If it's new, it should be considered a miracle to get those three in the same room together, if it's an archival find, then whoever found it deserves a a raise.
Update: According to Oprah's Twitter, this commercial was filmed earlier this week at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
7:05 PM EST
And now we have our first big dud. The Simpsons had an ad for Coke in which Mr. Burns was broke and had to give up all of his things. But none of that matters, because he'll always have Coke! Not a single joke made, and a whole lot of really weak sight gags. But it definitely grabbed my attention.
6:50 PM EST
Doritos is using social media to allow "fans of Doritos" to pick their commercials this year. Will this lead to people eating fistfuls upon fistfuls of Doritos until they're blue in the face and covered with cheese dust? Only time will tell. But the commercials were pretty freaking funny.
6:40 PM EST
And we have our first great commercial. It involves Betty White and gratuitous violence, so you just know it's a winner. It also involves Abe Vigoda and violence, so Snickers is setting the bar pretty high tonight.
6:30 PM EST
Emmitt Smith had the honor of flipping the coin for the coin toss, and he did a fantastic job botching it by throwing it directly into a Saints player. The Saints won the toss, making it 13 consecutive years the NFC has won the coin toss. Facts!
6:25 PM EST
Carrie Underwood came out to sing The National Anthem in a stunning(?) white dress. Well, it was definitely white. Everything sounded great until it the very end, where Underwood sounded like a pubescent 13-year-old for a second.
6:17 PM EST
Queen Latifah, singing America the Beautiful, had a little trouble with her earpiece, so she decided to just do away with it altogether.
4:50 PM EST
Hey, Steve Winwood is still around! Here he is somehow butchering his own song, "Higher Love." At least The Who doesn't have to worry about being the least relevant musical act tonight.
4:30 PM EST
Obama seized this opportunity to talk to a not-yet-drunk viewing public about health care, the economy, and holding the 9/11 trials in New York City. It being Super Bowl Sunday, however, Katie Couric asked for Obama's picks for tonight's game. He thinks the Colts are going to win, but he's rooting for the Saints since you'd be hard-pressed to find someone outside of Indianapolis rooting for the Colts. Additionally, because the Colts beat his Bears in Super Bowl XLI. The man can hold a grudge.
4:15 PM EST
The much talked about and supposedly controversial Tim Tebow Focus on the Family commercial ended up being a whole lot of noise and not much of a controversy at all. Here's the 30 second ad that just urged viewers to go to the website for the "full story".
[pic via Yahoo]