… AllTel Stadium cleaning crews are sweeping the stands finding the inevitable diamond earring. Millions of fans are going to godaddy.com where, yes, you can download “the ad”. Boston gets ready for ANOTHER parade, Andy Reid is now a bum and Tom Brady joins Bradshaw, Montana, and Aikman on NFL’s Mount Rushmore. I’m OK with all of it … especially with Paul McCartney.
Maybe it took last year’s wardrobe malfunction or perhaps it was the Ashlee Simpson disaster at the Orange Bowl but somebody at Halftime Shows R Us FINALLY woke up. Guess what … Baby Boomers watch TV sports and Baby Boomers have discretionary income and Baby Boomers despise screaming crotch-grabbing no-talent punks. The Paul McCartney performance during halftime was tres cool.
As the fireworks exploded on cue with the Live And Let Die notes, even the usually blasé Mizzus Swagger exclaimed THAT’S NEAT! … and “neat” it was. Proving once again that the Abbey Road 
album cover was simply “an album cover” the “cute Beatle” is very much alive and showed what musical showmanship is all about.
My question … where did that on-field crowd come from surrounding McCartney’s stage? They were not $500/ticket attendees who left their seats to create a concert mosh pit complete with their little light sticks. Were they employees of Wayne Weaver’s shoe stores assembled outside and herded in for halftime? If anyone figured that out, let me know.
T.O. played and played well which will now discredit any medical prognosis for injury recoveries. The official comeback model for “broken ankles” is now 5 weeks. I wonder how Dr Tim Taft, orthopedic surgeon extraordinaire, feels about that?
Another Tar Heel earned a Super Bowl ring – Dexter Reid. An Eagles fan who must have been a State fan too, was frantically trying to reach Andy Reid on his cell phone to suggest he simply hand the ball to Greg Jones and aim him at Dexter. Ouch! Reader Dan reports that on that holding on the punt return, Dexter told the ref his name was Bosley Allen! Of course, Dexter now has one more SB ring than Bill Cowher does. YIKES!
Donovan failed in his attempt to become the 2nd black QB to lead his team to a Super Bowl win but he was the first player named “McNabb” to ever start a Super Bowl for a city beginning with the letter “P”. Are these Super Bowl trivia facts getting just a tad ridiculous?
Hands down the godaddy.com ad won the annual “Best Ad” contest. It was cute, satirical, poked fun at itself, and added a new “ad hottie” to our list. I actually thought it was Ali “Doritos Girl” Landry at first but it wasn’t. Her name is Nikki Cappelli. She will get lots of gigs to work trade show booths for the next year as “the godaddy girl”. She will have the ubiquitous “offer to pose for Playboy” by noon today and be on The Jimmy Kimmel Show within 48 hours. These things are all pretty predictable when one is as cynical about modern consumer society as I am.
I also liked the P. Diddy Pepsi truck ad. The Ford convertible thing was funny the first three times then it started to wear a bit. They should have tricked us with a different ending for the last time it ran. The cop takes off the frozen guy’s glasses and it’s Nicolette Sheridan.
Kudos to Budweiser for the “soldiers in the airport” tribute. Mizzus Swagger actually does that whenever she sees a soldier in uniform.
The monkey stuff was OK and fulfilled the “we gotta have at least one monkey commercial” requirement that Pete Rozelle’s will apparently stipulated. All in all the humor seemed more sophisticated than the “fart jokes for frat boys” that have dominated in recent years. Thank you NFL and Fox!
I did not watch the 3-hour pre-game lead in. Jillian Barberi modeling Bill Belichek hooded gray sweatshirts is fine but the cadaver of Pat Summerall declaring the winner of some silly “lucky fan” promotion was too much. Pat, go find Tom Brookshire and play shuffleboard until “it’s time to go”. It won’t be long now.
It was a good exciting game which means 4th quarter ads got good exposure too which is pretty darn important.
… Is it humanly possible for Tom Brady to “have it all” any more than he does? Even with that, his grandmother died last week at 94. She only saw him win his first two SB rings. I think she is very proud of him as the Heavenly Welcome Wagon introduces her to the other angels as “Tom Brady’s Grandmother”.
The story about Bill Belichek growing up with his dad coaching at Navy was AWESOME. If you missed that you missed a very touching story of Father-Son and sports. Between Belichek, Brady and Bruschi the Patriots are actually making pro sports look worthwhile. The pre-game clip of Tedy romping with his little boys was neat too.
Since sports franchises tend to copycat success stories, do you think other owners MIGHT try and copy Bob Kraft’s model of how to build and maintain a winning franchise. Wouldn’t THAT be nice!
One discordant note … we tried a Rachael Ray recipe for “chili-dog nachos” that was a one and done experiment. Sorry, Rachey. Shoulda just gotten a big order of Chili’s boneless wings and a bag of those great chips from Salsa Fresh.
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Swagger’s Stumper
Which strap broke on the godaddy girl’s top?
This might be our first 100% correct answer EVER!
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Tons of responses to our recruiting column. I’m waiting for the first report of a 13 year old baby phenom holding a press conference to pull a high school cap out of his backpack. No one is laughing cause you KNOW its coming soon.
Barbara Bain’s character’s name was Cinnamon Carter. Babs was actually married to Martin Landaus who was the disguise guy. Barney (Greg Morris) was always crawling through HVAC ducts.
