Say Cheese

Raise your hand if you will be at work today but wish you could have taken a sick day? My hand is held high after not only watching last night’s Super Bowl but the post-game show and even the hyped up episode of “Glee” afterwards plus I got up before 3am. Needless to say I feel about as good as Christina Aguilera did after screwing up the National Anthem. Anyway we were treated to a fairly entertaining game between two of the NFL’s most-storied franchises with devoted and passionate fans all over the country. Aaron Rodgers has finally escaped from the Brett Favre shadow after leading the Packers to a 31-25 victory, a game in which Green Bay never trailed but the outcome was in doubt until the final minute.

My Super Bowl Sunday saw me purposely stay away from the Fox pre-game show which is usually dreadful. I did turn on to see Michael Strahan attempt to interview actor Harrison Ford on what was supposed to be a red carpet. The former Giant turned broadcasters’ first question was, “how many Super Bowls have you been to? Ford, who looked totally out of place answered, “At the end of this game I will have been to one.” It was all downhill after that.

I caught Bill O’Reilly from Fox News interview President Obama in the White House and the give-and-take was pretty good although I think the President was offended when O’Reilly questioned how much of a football fan he is. He was emphatic that despite hosting a Super Bowl party when the game started he was paying attention to the TV and not his guests, including Jennifer Lopez.

Of course much of the talk today will be about the commercials which I thought were more understated than in the past. At $3 million for a 30-second ad you don’t want to miss and the best of the ads were the Volkswagen one featuring the young Darth Vader, the various Doritos ads, the Bud Light commercial in which a guy dog-sitting throws a party, the love hurts Pepsi Max spot and I liked the edgy 2-minute Chrysler ad featuring Eminem. Among the worst was Groupon’s fake public service ad featuring Timothy Hutton.

It seems just about everyone is killing the Black Eyed Peas’ halftime performance but I’ll be a bit kinder and say it’s a tough venue to really succeed. Fergie looked good but sounded really bad at times and the best part was probably when Usher joined the act for a bit. I’m old enough to remember when college bands and “Up With People” made up the halftime show. Of course the big winner Sunday was the Packers who will bring the Lombardi Trophy home today and that’s pretty cool.