Well, the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman cast a pall on just about everything in this fake holiday over a football game. The Puppy Bowl seemed dumb and dated in its tenth year; all I could do during the Kitten Bowl was smell litter. I never even bothered with the Fish Bowl, which seemed like such a cool idea when it was announced last week.
And then, the game, the pointless run-up with the terrible, larded-up interview segments, mindless banter between anchors, feigned pageantry, Bill O’Reilly thinking he’s winding up Obama in a pointless exchange, the weird tie of the whole event to the military (as if NFL was some arm of defense rather than just overblown concussion machine).
The commercials were supposed to give us some idea about the culture. Make us list the good commercials and bad ones. They were all kind of blah. Ads about puppies and horses aren’t going to make me want to buy watery beer. All those weird compilations of life meant to trip the tear ducts, but ultimately meant to sell us trucks (no thanks).
I was out getting chili when the Coke ad came with different people singing the National Anthem in different languages — a way to draw bigots from beneath the floorboards, I guess. Isn’t it the same message of “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”? Big deal.
The other apparent controversial spot, with a mixed race couple featured in a Cheerios ad, wasn’t even making its first appearance.
It was funny to see what Bud Lite thought was a perfect night for its audience: Pretty girls talking to you, a limo ride, a ping pong game with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a show by OneRepublic.
Bruno Mars’ halftime performance was fine. The kid is a solid performer. But he’s done the same thing, in pretty much the same gold lame costumes, in performances he’s given at the Grammys as long ago as 2012.
There seemed little need to have Red Hot Chili Peppers on there, except to placate those who hated the Cheerios ad. That they played “Give it Away Now” seemed a reflection of NFL’s payment for halftime performers (zero).
When it comes to blending performers, a better bet might have been Mars’ Grammy performance from 2013 with the same be-hatted, sloppy group dance to “Locked Out of Heaven” making way for a more simpatico musical segue to Sting doing “Walking on the Moon” and then Rihanna and Ziggy Marley joining them on Bob Marley’s “Could This Be Love.” But oh well.
Bob Dylan, bless his heart, still made a ripple on the event, with his music in two different commercials by the way. In the one in which he also narrated and appeared, he talked about Americans making cars and the definitions of cool, trying to pump up Detroit at a time when some other weird commercial touted Maseratis. I say good message, well told. Right in the pocket with the Eminem ad.
And yet Facebook is full of people who hadn’t been paying attention to his career in 50 years bemoaning that he has sold out.
They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car.