Pittsburgh 21, Seattle 10--and I Give It a 4.5
OK, that Super Bowl sucked in almost every way. It wasn't a blowout exactly, which I guess is the only way it could have been worse, but it was marred by mediocre play, dropped passes, phantom penalites (almost all of which seemed to benefit the Steelers) and only a few big plays--well, three exactly, two offensive plays by Pittsburgh (including the longest TD run in Super Bowl history) and a 76-yd. interception return by Kelly Herndon of Seattle.
I know there are more fans of the Steelers than practically any other NFL team (including so-called "America's Team" the Dallas Cowboys), but the officials have to help the talented Steelers by giving them a touchdown they didn't score and taking away a Seattle touchdown on a penalty that should have been a no-call? Did Jerome Bettis bribe some people or what? Maybe you heard sometime over the last two weeks that he wanted to win the Super Bowl in his hometown? And what about that blink-and-you'll-miss-it first half? I've seen more interesting action at the Senior Center bingo night.
I thought the introduction of most of the Super Bowl MVP's at the beginning was a classy trip down memory lane, although the absence of two of the best known and most memorable MVP's--Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw--was a bit jarring. In a report on ESPN Radio it was revealed that Montana passed on appearing at the game because the NFL wouldn't pay him his $100,000 appearance fee. Never mind that all of the former MVP's had free first class air fare and were put up at a five-star hotel for the weekend. Gee Joe, way to stay classy. In Bradshaw's case, ABC may have politely asked (begged?) that the former Steeler/current Fox studio host not be included. Gee ABC, way to stay classy.
When the game is, um, mediocre, then we have to turn to the ancillary entertainment to get our time and money's worth, and Super Bowl XL was lacking in that as well. The commercials ranged from one that was actually hilarious (the Sierra Mist commercial where Kathy Griffin and Jim Gaffigan play airport security people scheming to get their hands on some Sierra Mist) to a few that caused chuckles (those careerbuilder.com ads are usually good for some laughs) to the unmemorable or downright awful (enough with godaddy.com "wardrobe malfunction" spots already! And ABC's commercial for Lost that ripped off Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" and changed the lyrics to "addicted to lost" may have been a new low in network self-promotion. Palmer is probably still spinning in his grave.)
The pregame show was, as all Super Bowl pre-game shows are, too much about too little. Poor Stevie Wonder had to share his pre-game concert medley with Joss Stone, John Legend, India.arie and what looked like the reject dancers from the cast of Fame, and he and his cohorts never got to sing any one song all the way through, even though the game was played in MOTOWN for Chrissakes!
And of course at halftime we were spared any wardrobe malfunctions (Janet Jackson's bejewled nipple being obviously the worst event of American history in the last 50 years, given the network's hysteria to come up with the safest, blandest halftime show imaginable while still maintaining some veneer of hipness), instead getting a short set from the geriatric Rolling Stones, who managed neither to offend nor to entertain, even though they were bleeped twice.
All in all, I actually feel kind of sorry for the players at the Super Bowl, as much as you can feel sorry for spoiled, multimillionaire athletes who nonetheless feel the need to have a frackin' union. In all the other major sports, the game (or games) are still the thing, but the NFL seems determined to turn the Super Bowl into a hellish Freakshow for All, which of course at the end winds up pleasing no one. At the end of the game the only way all of this bombast can be remotely entertaining is if the game itself delivers the excitement--and history tells us that this only happens about I out of every V Super Bowls.
So congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers. To even get to the Super Bowl after going 7-5 at one point this season is an accomplishment--to take home the Lombardi Trophy, well, whether they were outplayed Sunday or not, you won't see many playoff runs like the one this year's Steelers team went on and that is special.
Too bad the game left a bad taste in my mouth.
If You Think the Game Was Hell, Try Watching What's On The Other Networks
Then again, there's always Puppy Bowl II. If you wanted to get away from football yesterday afternoon, you could have flipped over to the Animal Planet channel and watched Puppy Bowl II, which is yet another sign of the coming apocalypse. My g.f. and I stumbled onto the rerun of this special program after Grey's Anatomy last night. No, I'm not making this up--imagine this: a miniature football field, but no footballs. Around the fake field are fake stands with a painting of a crowd. On the field are about a dozen puppies of different breeds, shapes and sizes, a few chew toys and a fixed water dish (which has a transparent bottom and a camera beneath it). There are no announcers, no "game", just puppies playing, biting, drinking and peeing while cameras capture all of the cuteness--FOR THREE HOURS!! Every once in a while an embarassed looking "referee" in full referee costume will jump onto the field and mouth some meaningless, punny penalty. There are also commercial breaks (this show has sponsors?) and a halftime show featuring kittens that...do what kittens do (while vaguely gay-sounding disco music plays in the background. The dogs had no musical accompaniment. Hey, I have a cat and I saw Brokeback Mountain--that doesn't make me gay! Does it?)
I guess it really is true--if a broadcaster wanted to put color bars on the screen for an hour, somebody, somewhere would watch. And then we'd have the Test Pattern Channel ("this week on TPC--magenta!") As my g.f. astutely pointed out, if this was Puppy Bowl II, then there must have been a Puppy Bowl I--and there'll probably be a Puppy Bowl III! When there's a Hamster Bowl I, that's when I officially cancel my cable, after I make sure I have carefully gouged my eyes out.
Peace...
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