Super Bowl XLII Life Lessons

The best thing about the Super Bowl isn’t usually the football, but the life lessons it generously gives us, year after constant year. Last night culminated a banner year for both good football and subliminal messages. Here are the lessons I was able to extract from the event, after stripping away all the pageantry:

1. Violence is Funny. Sources:

(a) Doritos, where a guy sets a mousetrap, opens a bag of Doritos, and large mouse jumps out of wall to beat him up (bonus life lesson: Mice will beat the crap out of you if you eat Doritos).
(b) Cars.com, where salesmen are threatened with violence as part of the negotiation process. As you know, I’m not normally a fan of violence, but I do get tempted when it is both really funny and directed at car salesmen.
(c) Toyota, where ferocious badgers attack a guy whose cell phone awakens them.
(d) Ice Breakers, where a guy gives an Ice Breaker to Carmen Electra, then gets beat up by her bodyguards because she likes it.
(e) Career Builder.com, where Jiminy Cricket gets eaten by a Spider while wishing for a better job.
(f) Bud Light, where flying guy gets sucked into a jet engine.
(g) FedEx, where carrier pigeons wreak havoc on streets by flinging cars through office windows.

2. Guys Are Oafs. Sources:

(a) Bud Light, where guys set their dates apartments on fire, hide beer inside cheese blocks, and can’t figure out how to use a wheel.
(b) Gatorade, which is so good you will lick it off the floor like a dog.

3.Racial Stereotypes Are Funny. Sources:

(1) Salesgenie.com, where Indian and Asian stereotypes find success by using their website, using comical, foreign accents
(2) Bud Light, where Carlos Mendes teaches foreigners how to pick up women in a bar (also, guys are oafs).
(3) Taco Bell, where Mexican food is always eaten with Mexican singers serenading you.

4. Short People, Tall People, and Unattractive People Are Funny. Sources:

(1) Garmin, showing a comically short Napoleon finding his way to his comically small horse using GPS.
(2) Mineral Water, where Shaq wins a horserace, and is comically tall.
(3) Planters peanuts, where men fall all over a not entirely unattractive women because she is wearing the scent of nuts (also, guys are oafs).

5.Cell Phones Are Good Ways to Stalk Your Friends: T-Mobile, with Charles Barkley harassing Dwayne Wade.

6. Caffiene is Good. Sources:

(1) Diet Pepsi Max, showing that famous people will nod their heads to “A Night at the Roxbury” when they are filled up with a sufficient amount of caffeine.
(2) AMP soda, which shows a tow truck driver jump start a car with his nipples (also, guys are oafs).

7. There is Going to be an Unintelligible Revolution. Source: UnderArmor shoes, which is what the leaders of this unintelligible revolution will apparently be wearing.

8. Personal Hygene is Important. Source: Tide, where a stain on an interviewees shirt talks as loud as the interviewee.

9. There Is Even More Sex on the Internet Than on TV. Source: GoDaddy, which all but promised that Danica Patrick would strip naked in front of us on their website.

10. Sex is Better than Football. Source: Victoria Secrets, where a model tells us with her eyes and her teddy that we should not be watching football after all.

Although not a life lesson, the Super Bowl also taught us a few other things:

• The Patriots are not The Best Sports Team in the History of Sports.


• The Patriots are not The Best Football Team in the History of Football.


• The Patriots are apparently not best team in the NFL this year.

Even as I write this, I know that last one isn’t true. The Patriots have clobbered almost everyone this year, and even a diehard Patriots denier like myself must admit that they were clearly the best overall team in the league this year. This means that the Super Bowl doesn’t actually determine who the best team is - it just decides who won the championship. The Patriots had the misfortune to bunch their loss at the end.

Still, you have to win the Championship to be relevant, as the Colts have learned the hard way over the last few years (with the shocking exception of last year) . What worries me most about this loss is that the Patriots are going to be fired up again next year, and probably have even less mercy on everyone else than they did this year (which was no mercy at all, as far as I could tell).

Anyway, for the recond, my favorite commercials were:

• T-Mobile with Charles Barkley


• Cars.com with the ring of fire guy (“uh, you should definitely step outside the ring of fire, yea, just to avoid any confusion.”)


• Tide, with the talking stain


• Pepsi, where Justin Timberlake gets sucked across the city. I have new, favorable opinion of Justin after seeing this commercial.


• Victoria Secrets (because guys are oafs, and I am a guy). UPDATE: My wife would like to amend this to slobbering oaf. Thanks, honey.