It sure doesn’t suck to be Adam Vinatieri, does it? Two blown field goals and he comes out the hero anyway. Life is beautiful all the time.
Was it just me, or was there a serious shortage of genuine, memorable, worth-talking-about-on-Monday Super Bowl commercials? There were some good ones – the AOL series with the American Chopper guys was cool – but I can’t remember a more boring overall set of ads on any previous Super Bowl. And to think CBS declined to air the Move On ad.
Of course, I also can’t remember a Super Bowl that featured as much “accidental” and intentional nudity in it. Larry has the best quip you’ll see about this. And I just love Justin Timberlake’s explanation:
“I am sorry that anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl,” Timberlake said in a statement. “It was not intentional and is regrettable.”
“Wardrobe malfunction”. I gotta remember that one the next time Tiffany says “You’re not wearing that, are you?” to me. For what it’s worth, the consensus at our house was that Janet had a pastie on, which led us to conclude that the bodice-ripping was intentional. But I think I like “wardrobe malfunction” better.
Great game, but I’m glad I watched it on TV instead of in person.
UPDATE: Jesus Christ, I can’t believe what a total candy-assed whiner Bill Simmons is.
I’ve been thinking about it … I’m going to miss Houston. Remember when the SLA kidnapped Patty Hearst, and she started to identify with them, and pretty soon she was robbing banks? That’s how I’m feeling. I like being miserable. I love traffic. I don’t need to see the sun ever again. I might never leave.
Here’s how I spent my Saturday night before the big game. We went to the Playboy party, had VIP access, stood in line with all the other VIPs … and the line never moved. So much for VIP access. Hey, at least we were standing outside in the freezing cold.
The weather on Houston on Saturday was a bone-chilling 55 for a high and 48 for a low. What an unbelievable wimp.
UPDATE: Now here is someone from Simmons’ backyard who gets it.
Patriots fan Danny Chick of Lynn, Mass., fell in love with Houston on his first visit.
“Everybody is so damn friendly,” he said. “How could you not want to come back to Houston? Incredibly nice. If we weren’t here, we’d be in 20-degree weather.”
Thanks, and come back any time (though I’d suggest avoiding July or August). As for your former compatriot, he’s welcome to stay in LA for as long as he likes. The longer, the better.
UPDATE: And score one for Julia in the Nipple Quip department.
Thanks, Chuckster. 😉
Super Bowl Notebook
Well, I sure as heck didn’t expect anything like this. I thought for sure the Patriots defense would have Panthers
Umm, not to seem obsessed about this (my gawd look at the time!), but …
The Chron refers to the pastie as “a nipple piercing shield.” I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds … umm, vaguely hygenic, I guess.
And Drudge, citing an unnamed “well-placed source,” claims that “[t]op CBS executives approved a musical skit where Janet Jackson would expose her breast.” Drudge, with a linked blow-up to support him (so to speak), describes the device as “a metal ‘solar’ nipple medallion,” and also offers up a link to an repeating animated .gif of the unveiling.
I’m guessing a different part of the costume — not the bra cup — was intended to be ripped off, leaving her in something more revealing than the samurai armor but less revealing than she ended up. If I recall correctly, Britney Spears had a tear-away costume at an event celebrating the opening of the NFL season. (Not that I’m obsessing. I’m really not.) Maybe Justin grabbed the wrong bit of cloth?
Final note for the night: CBS (which broadcast the game)and MTV (which produced the half-time show) are both owned by Viacom.
“Wardrobe Indiscretion” is to Justin Timberlake as “Youthful Indescretion” is to George W Bush.
The way I see it, if Lil’ Kim can wear a pastie at the MTV Music Awards, Janet Jackson can wear one at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
Sorry, I meant “wardrobe malfunction”. The analogy still works. 😉
Since I didn’t bother to watch the halftime, I’ll agree that the commercials stunk. I didn’t even like the AOL ones.
And was it just me, or did it seem like CBS kept most of the time for themselves? Maybe the reason we didn’t get any good ads was because we kept getting CSI and Survivor crammed down our throats.
There were an awful lot of CBS promos. I know there’s always some of that, since this has to be the best way to hype upcoming shows, but in this case I have to wonder if CBS had some unsold time that it needed to fill in. Can’t find any mention of that in Google News, though, so maybe not.
Yep — the commercials sucked. And as we rarely watch the halftime show, I didn’t see what happened to Janet (Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty).
It seems like the commercials are declining in quality and humor factor. About 3-4 years ago there was a particularly good crop of commercials, as I recall; since then it seems to be steadily dropping in terms of entertainment value.
Have any of you men ever worked onstage in costume? In my experience, costumes are not exactly the highest quality clothing, and they do tend to come apart at inconvenient times. Not that I don’t think Timberlake and Jackson wouldn’t have intentionally contrived it and pulled it off (so to speak), but the “wardrobe malfunction” explanation rings true to me.
Meanwhile, tinheart left a particularly apt hypothetical headline on one of my comment threads: “America sees naked breast. World comes to end.”
Speaking of the world coming to an end because of an exposed breast, this is nothing new to today’s society. As early as 1917, there was a moral controversy about the design of a new quarter.
The image was that of a woman representing “Liberty” (ah, the good old days, before all of our money had nothing but dead presidents on it) standing, wearing a robe and holding a shield. The designer decided to flash a little T&A into it, though, leaving one breast exposed.
America was outraged. And before 1917 drew to a close, the coin was redesigned to make Miss Liberty more modest, a design that persisted until 1932 when her image on the quarter was replaced by…naturally, a dead president.
The commercials were GOD awful. The one that really made me angry was the !@#$ing Gillette commercial. At one point, the ridiculous voiceover said “Every word is cool.”
WTF?!?!?!
It was just so brazen, so over the top, like YOU WILL BUY THIS RAZOR RIGHT NOW DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT $200 ABANDON THE WIFE AND KIDS NEVER COME BACK JUST BUY THIS RAZOR RIGHT NOW BUY BUY BUY BUY.
Grrr. Made me so mad. I will never, ever buy that razor just b/c the commercial was so infuriating. Come on; show some subtlety, some originality, some cleverness. Or just use a hired gun, like MasterCard with Homer Simpson.
Steve, I hear what you’re saying, but Janet was wearing an outfit, not a costume. I’m not saying that there couldn’t have been a “malfunction”, but we’re not talking about something she bought at Southern Imports here. Whether the result is what she and Justin Timberlake expected, I couldn’t say. I’m just saying that he definitely intended to do something to her outfit, and she seemed to expect him to do so.
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