Poor O.J. Simpson never played in the Super Bowl.
Ladies and gentlemen! Strap on your helmets, gobble down a bunch of steroids and gear up for America’s annual celebration of beer, trucks, sex, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and so much more. Welcome to this exclusive pre-game coverage of Super Bowl Forty-Something. I’ll be your host, Blitz Butkus.
But before we begin, I don’t need to remind you that one of the major storylines for any Super Bowl is the commercials. Yes, as the Cavalcade of Concussions unfolds on the field, the super-hyped subplot is the annual avalanche of advertising excess.
Only in America on Super Duper Sunday do companies with serious bucks to burn pony up $4 million (yes, 80 to 100 times the median salary of an NFL fan) to air a half-minute ad.
(Keep an eye out for the one featuring a pint-sized Darth Vader, Arnold Schwarzenegger and animated polar bears frolicking with girls in bikinis and the legendary Clydesdales. So adorable.)
Of course, the spotlight on Super Bowl messaging also extends to newspapers.
And because this page features information about the Big Game, each of the advertisers below has paid upwards of $1 million to broadcast their message directly to you.
(So please: Consider patronizing Optima Bank & Trust for all your Optima Banking and Trusting needs.)
Meanwhile, back to our telecast — my time-honored blueprint for reporting on the Super Bowl goes something like this.
Welcome, sports fans. TV officials say elevendy billion people will be tuning in today. Fox promises that the telecast (dubbed “American Gridiron Devils” for fans in Iran and North Korea) will feature several full minutes of action jam-packed into the evening-long commercial-thon. It will, as always, be close-captioned for the pigskin-impaired.
So-called “Super Sunday” comes but once a year. That special day when our nation’s burliest, body-armored millionaires square off in a Roman-numeraled orgy of all-American overkill — recreational violence with a VIP sideshow played out in a virtual coliseum of consumerism.
As always, it is my duty to issue the following Super Bowl public service announcements — in partnership with the Surgeon General, the Committee to Prevent Cheese Breath and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Chicken Wings.
To avoid sustaining an “NFL-style” concussion during the game, do not “head butt” fellow fans, even after witnessing a particularly thrilling “bootleg,” “extra point” or “pump fake.”
To stay at least semiconscious until the fourth quarter, do not (repeat: DO NOT) drink alcohol every time you hear Denver quarterback Peyton Manning yell “Omaha!”
If you should suffer a dislocated jaw while wolfing down fistfuls of orange-colored cardboard, motion for a teammate to stiff arm the mandible back into its socket — resume eating. (For best results, do not inhale more than three 128-oz. sacks of Zesty Chipotle Jalapeno Doritos before halftime.)
If you become overcome by heightened levels of Super Bowl hype, help is available from the good people manning the hotlines at NFL-holics Anonymous.
Finally, you have no doubt heard that the annual Puppy Bowl will be broadcast at 3 p.m. today on Animal Planet (yes, network executives have been repeatedly penalized for unnecessary cuteness).
Stay tuned for updates: I’ve got several networks bidding for my latest brainchild — a 2015 Super Sunday triple-header kicking off with the Miller Pepsi Viagra Monkey Bowl, rolling straight into the FreeCreditReport.com Chevy Butterfinger Guinea Pig Bowl and culminating with the who’s your granddaddy of them all, the Coca-Cola Chrysler Goldman Sachs Goldfish Bowl.
— John Breneman
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