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Super Bowl Sunday: Après le Déluge
The best thing I saw on Super Bowl Sunday? Pan’s Labyrinth. But that’s a different story (or a different column). Anything to get out of doors (even in the frigid cold) to skip the first few hours of pre-Super Bowl hype.
The worst thing I saw on Super Bowl Sunday? A typically unpleasant, thoroughly predictable episode of Criminal Minds that followed the big game. More on that later.
In between, we had a game played in torrential rain that had plenty of reversals (how slippery was that football, anyway?) and was plenty exciting, especially to a former Indiana resident and current Peyton Manning fan. The buzz about Super Bowls is that this is usually the one night of the year when you actually watch the ads and zip your TiVo through the game. This year, that would have been a mistake.
I lost count of the number of moronic Bud Light ads I had to sit through just to get to the two memorable ads for classic Budweiser. As usual, there was a classy one involving Clydesdales, this year focusing on a mutt who, when splattered and spotted with mud, gets to pretend to be a Dalmatian and thus ride in a parade with the mighty horses (and the beauty queens). Later in the game, another clever Budweiser ad (clever because the animals didn’t actually speak) offered up a gathering of crabs on the beach who scuttle away with a cooler of Buds; when the sun hits the cooler and two longneck bottles, casting a shadow that resembles a godlike crab, the crabs mimic and bow to it.
The celebrity ads seemed a bit of a bust. I’d heard that Robert Goulet was spoofing his fame (such as it is) in an Emerald Nuts ad, but the concept was awfully random, casting the singer as an office gremlin who messes things up while employees take their afternoon nap. He didn’t sing a note, which made me wonder: Is Goulet truly that iconic? What gives? The other quasi-celebrity ad of note featured Kevin Federline dreaming of rap stardom while pushing fast-food fries in his more humbled post-Britney existence. I guess that's more funny than sad. Hard to say.
The only star sighting I truly enjoyed, because it was such a surprise, was the quickie David Letterman promo that showed him and Oprah curled up on a couch watching the game. “Honey, don’t talk with your mouth full,” she said. Great gag. (Almost as funny as Jim Gaffigan’s beard comb-over in a Sierra Mist Free ad.)
Of the many talking-animals ads, a Super Bowl staple, the best were for Blockbuster, which gave new meaning to “dragging the mouse”; Bud Light, in which a gorilla is too busy posing for pictures to participate in a smash-and-grab plot; and Taco Bell, with lions jawing about the pronunciation of “carnes” (with a fun swipe at Ricardo Montalban) while watching campers chow down.
If the ads were mostly ho-hum, at least the game had its moments and moved relatively swiftly. As for halftime, CBS’ first since the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake debacle, Prince kept his clothes and his groove on, in what may go down as the most memorable superstar performance in the driving rain since Diana Ross’ infamous Central Park concert.
From a purely TV perspective, and regardless of what the ratings reveal today, I am still so disappointed in CBS for giving Criminal Minds the post-game position. I know why they did it. A year ago, ABC took a second-season rising star, Grey’s Anatomy, and programmed the first of a two-parter after the game, and the show’s fortunes climbed. The same could happen here. The difference, however, being that Grey’s is fabulous entertainment with one of the most appealing casts in all of TV, while Minds is the grimmest and grossest of CBS’ soul-numbing surplus of crime dramas, featuring an ensemble that often looks like it’s in a competition to see who can look the most constipated.
Where Grey’s stepped up with a gripping (albeit melodramatic) crowd-pleaser that may very well have won Chandra Wilson her SAG Award of a week ago (and perhaps the cast its ensemble trophy as well), Minds delivered a particularly derivative time-waster that borrowed more than a little from Psycho, featuring former Dawson’s Creek throb James Van der Beek as a transparent clone of Norman Bates. Even if the shot of blood going down the shower drain wasn’t a giveaway we were in Psycho territory, only a novice to this genre would have been surprised by the reveal that our tormented Dawson (frequently flashing back to childhood scenes of abuse by a religious zealot father) was two villains in one, channeling the spirit of his mad father as well as his more timid tech-support self. The cliff-hanger climax was especially silly, in which nerdy Reid tried to go all action-hero but was felled in a cornfield by split-personality Dawson; meanwhile, JJ was in a barn, facing down killer dogs who had devoured an earlier victim in a typically nauseating scene.
What I really hate about Criminal Minds is its smug, smarmy hypocrisy. Here’s a show that’s produced as cheesily as any slasher flick, but when these FBI hacks are told that this week’s murders have become the most downloaded videos on the Internet, Mandy Patinkin’s dour Gideon clucks his tongue: “Murder as entertainment.” As if Criminal Minds isn’t all about serving up a weekly diet of gruesome tableaux for the audience’s voyeuristic amusement.
After a night of good sportsmanship from two coaches who seem the epitome of decency, and amid a tone of overall celebration and revelry, CBS bungled badly with this deadly choice. I know the network wants to position this show as an even bigger hit, especially with the American Idol juggernaut facing it for the rest of the season, and this may have done the trick (although I’d like to think it scared away more viewers than it attracted). But by putting it on this most high-profile of nights, CBS has basically anointed Criminal Minds as a signature show, something to be proud of. For shame.
When you watch How I Met Your Mother tonight, in a silly but enjoyable farce that’s themed to the Super Bowl, try to convince me that it wouldn’t have been a much better choice to close out this Sunday. Heck, I’d even have settled for a CSI: Miami two-parter. At least it would have been location-appropriate. And after all that rain, I could have used a little sun.
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Feb 5, 2007 12:26 AM
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Maybe I'm just relating really well at this point in my life, but I thought the Career Builder ads featuring office workers fighting for survival were really funny too.
Prince was FANTASTIC. The man was born to be a performer. His did not feel like a "Superbowl" performance. Most Superbowl acts have a tendency to become incredibly cheesy. From the time he hit to stage to the last note, the man was on fire (and luckily, the rain didn't put it out!). Just Amazing.
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Feb 5, 2007 12:52 AM
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This was Criminal Minds' chance to impress some of the naysayers (me) and I wasn't impressed at all. I'm not judgmental because I love procedurals and I used to be a full-time viewer of the show but if that's the best CM can do i'm glad I jumped off the bandwagon
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Feb 5, 2007 2:46 AM
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its sad when a 25 second promo for HIMYM is more entertaining than an hour of a so-called hit show.
I have been a Colts fan for years and so imagine all the excitment in the room after years of frustration. I was happier than I have been in so long, but it was all but gone after watching that depressing show.
(True Story)
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Feb 5, 2007 2:58 AM
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I thought Prince was pretty good tonight. I did laugh when they put him behind that sheet. His guitar looked like something that families probably didn't want to see. Classic unintentional comedy. Gotta love it.
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Feb 5, 2007 3:53 AM
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I also wish HIMYM would have aired after the bowl.
And the ads were horrible this year. The only two that gave me a chuckle were Oprah and Dave and the Budweiser one with the slapping (mostly because it reminded me of HIMYM's Slapbet episode).
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Feb 5, 2007 9:08 AM
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Matt, couldn't have agreed with you more. I just kept screaming at the supposed FBI agents to figure out that Dawson had a split personality - I figured it out in the first 10 minutes. Geez, I thought that's what their unit specialized in. And by the way, did everyone in their office have the night off for the Super Bowl or something? Except for Gideon of course who made his regular(?) trip to the Smithsonian. What? I will admit that I am a casual fan of this show because I liked the original premise of using psycho-analytic profiles to catch criminals. But in my opinion, this show has really abandoned that formula and has instead gone the way of the CSI franchise which I have absolutely no interest in. And yes, it was a depressing and disturbing denouement to an otherwise celebratory night. However now that I know how much Mandy Patinkin and Thomas Gibson hate each other (courtesy of Mr. Ausiello), i'll tune in to watch the tension!
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Feb 5, 2007 9:19 AM
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the Budweiser one with the slapping (mostly because it reminded me of HIMYM's Slapbet episode).
Posted by mdjones
Oh! I forgot about that one! I thought of slap bet too, and I tried to tell my parents and sister about it, but you just gotta see it to really understand how funny it is. What do you bet whoever made that commercial is a fan of HIMYM??
Tonight's episodes of Mother and The Class would have been so awesome after the game. I would have actually have kept it on cbs. But I switched over to espn and got on the internet.
I used to live in IN too, Matt. I would have loved to have been there yesterday. I would have loved to have watched the game with my friends.
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Feb 5, 2007 10:26 AM
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I have been occasionally watching Criminal Minds since it first premiered, so I decided to check out last night's episode, thinking that it would be really good. I mean, I figured that knowing it was the post-Super Bowl slot would cause them to create the best episode so far. It was really ironic, then, that I found it to be one of the worst episodes I'd seen. Not only was everything incredibly obvious, but the scenes seemed to run together in a very disjointed way. That's it for me, then. Not only am I not interested to see the conclusion of the "cliffhanger", but I most likely will not watch another episode. Like I said, ironic.
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Feb 5, 2007 11:09 AM
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I actually liked the "auctioneer wedding" Bud commercial myself...
As to CM, the thing isn't that CBS wanted a big audience after the game, they want new viewers to tune in to the 2nd part of the episode (and possibly beyond) on Wednesday night, when they go up against Lost. So the ratings for Wednesday are more important than Sunday- If CBS wins that timeslot (or is at least competitive) because of the episode after the game bringing in viewers, it's a success.
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Feb 5, 2007 11:39 AM
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As a person who lives in Indiana, I just have to say WOOT! Go Colts!!
Okay... last year I watched the post-game Grey's and became instantly hooked on the show. This year I debated watching Criminal Minds for the first time, since I thought there had to be a reason it was being given the special spot and watching the post-game show worked out so well for me last year. But the Indianapolis TV market understandably didn't stop their coverage of the game until around midnight, and by that point I had no interest in watching an hour long crime drama. It would seem, after reading all your comments, that I made the right decision.
Oh and Peyton Manning is my hero. 
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Feb 5, 2007 11:45 AM
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klmcwilliams,
Did you happen to tape any of the Indy news coverage? That's something I really miss since I live in Oklahoma now. I would love to see video of all the people downtown and everything.
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Feb 5, 2007 11:57 AM
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The funniest thing about the superbowl occured to me during the halftime Prince show during the driving rain. All I could think about was Prince dying of an electrocution via sabatoge, requiring Horatio Caine and his crew from Miami CSI to stop the game, lockdown the Superbowl, then proclaim "We have 75,000 witnesses and not a "Prince" of a suspect" or something like that!
It would have been more entertaining that Criminal Minds who's most original scene of the show was the fake broadcast by Phil Simms and Jim Nance at the beginning!
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Feb 5, 2007 12:07 PM
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I was also wondering about the electrocution risk during the halftime show, but, instead of CSI Miami, I was thinking of the scene in Almost Famous when Billy Crudup's character got an electric shock during a performance when he grabbed the microphone while standing in water.
Does anyone know if Prince's guitar solos were recorded ahead of time and played back during the performance so that his guitar didn't have to be turned on then?
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Feb 5, 2007 1:19 PM
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I don't remember hearing them mentioned at all, but the college band that was playing during Prince's halftime show was Florida A&M University (FAMU).
The commercials I liked best were the slappers and "rock, paper, scissors".
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Feb 5, 2007 1:32 PM
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