A flawless national anthem and halftime show?
Alicia Keys actually knew the words to the national anthem! She was poised and polished, and took a couple little liberties here and there, but she performed one of the most difficult songs to sing in front of millions, flawlessly. We were all at once relieved and disappointed. Then Beyoncé took the stage for the halftime show, and in the wake of a lip-synching at the presidential inauguration controversy, gave us an unforgettable mini-concert. No wardrobe malfunctions. No lip-synching . No middle fingers. We had to wonder if we were actually watching a Super Bowl halftime show. Some viewers are griping because they felt that Beyonce’s dance moves and wardrobe were too provocative, but those people will always exist. Big Bird could do the halftime show and they’d complain that he wasn’t wearing pants.
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Power outage
Right after the Ravens came out of the halftime locker room and rubbed salt in the 49ers wounds by scoring a touchdown immediately, the lights went out. That’s new. A power outage? Had Beyoncé used up all the juice for her halftime show? Regardless of the reason, the power outage lasted an excruciating 34 minutes. The talking heads, er, sportscasters took 34 minutes bouncing back and forth to one another to remind us what we already knew — the power was out and they had no idea when it would come back on. In the meantime, conspiracy theories ensued that centered around the 49ers somehow turning the lights off to kill the Ravens post-halftime momentum. Those were later debunked when the Ravens won the game.
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Football player drops F-bomb
This was f***ing awesome. Right after the Super Bowl, CBS cameras kept rolling and caught Joe Flacco, Ravens' quarterback and the Super Bowl’s MVP saying that winning was “f***ing awesome.” Who can argue with that? It was a great game, a tight score, and a memorable Super Bowl — all this from someone who was rooting for the 49ers! So what’s not to love about this? It’s just sort of entertaining that NFL, CBS and FCC watchdogs do everything to avoid controversy through halftime shows, etc., and then the quarterback of the winning time lets the queen mother of expletives fly. Classic. We’re guessing next year, the microphones will be turned off during the postgame celebrations.
Commercials
Even people who don’t give a rip about football or the Super Bowl tune in for what we go out of our way to avoid the rest of the year — commercials. This year, Super Bowl commercials flat-lined. We watch for the commercials that will make us laugh no matter how many times we watch them, and this year that category was bone empty. Amy Poehler did make us giggle in the Best Buy commercial when she asked the salesperson if he’d read Fifty Shades of Grey to her, since the tablet she was interested in wouldn’t.
Amy Poehler Best Buy commercial
But where was Bud Light this year? They cranked out sort of an amusing voodoo commercial with Stevie Wonder, but where were all the “boys being boys” commercials? They didn’t take all that “sexist” stuff to heart, did they?
Bud Light commercial 2013 Super Bowl
Ironically, the most talked about commercial was about farmers. Dodge probably wants you to think it was about their trucks, but their commercial featured a Paul Harvey voiceover about why God made farmers. Like Jeep’s ad about our military serving overseas, this commercial embodies the American spirit, much like the Super Bowl itself.
"God made a farmer"