Not-So-Super-Bowl... and Mostly Not-So-Super Ads

If it hadn't been for Twitter, the game would have been a total washout. (The final score of 43-8 makes it sound much closer than it really was... and that's an understatement.) Folks chimed in with some really clever bits that made me smile:

• Rob Fee: "Use the promo code PEYTON when ordering a Papa Johns pizza & when it’s delivered to your house, a Seattle DB will take it from you & eat it."
• Scott Firestone IV: "For all the points he's given Seattle, Peyton might still win the MVP..."
• Matthew Baldwin: "I hope the parents of the Broncos players take them all out for pizza."
• Mike Selinker: "Now it's a three-way race between Seattle's offense (13), defense (9), and special teams (7). It's anybody's ball game."

As it was, the ads were pretty lackluster as well. There were exceptions:

• the Tim Tebow "no contract" ads...
• the Coca-Cola "It's Beautiful" ad (we'll talk more about that in a minute)
• the Muppets ad (for Toyota, I guess)

But overall, it was pretty much the same mess of lame jokes about sex, expensive celebrity cameos and too darn much CGI.

I was especially turned off by:

• the Butterfinger pseudo-Reese's Cup ad, with sex therapy & threesomes as a joke to sell product.
• the David Beckham commercial - though, granted, I'm not exactly the target for a commercial whose key element is suggesting that Posh Spice's hubby is nekkid.
• Subway's Frito Chicken Enchilada - because nothing says "I'm ready for the Olympics" like needing a vat of Rolaids.
• Axe's "Make Love Not War"... which looked like a SNL ad parody.
• Bob Dylan selling out for Chrystler

My biggest surprise? Go Daddy ads that I could let my kids watch.

And I have no idea about the halftime show... I missed most of it.

Just a trio of notes to my Christ-following friends who are tempted to join in on the whole "America is fer peoples who speak American" bandwagon in response to the lovely Coca-Cola ad:

• An international company just paid big money to put these lyrics back into public discourse:
• America! America!
  God shed his grace on thee
  And crown thy good with brotherhood
  From sea to shining sea!
• A long time ago, some decidedly non-American guys (who spoke mostly Arabic & Hebrew & Greek) wrote these words:
• Gone is the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female—you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28, PHILLIPS)
• All the families of the Earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:3, MSG)
• After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9, NLT)
• C.S. Lewis said it beautifully:
• It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. (from The Weight of Glory)