The Sports Event of the Year!!

All right folks, stock up the fridge and put the Foreman Grill on! It's time to gather around the tube with friends, neighbors, and that awkward guy who invited himself and watch the football event of the year. It all comes down to this.

Now, I know what you're thinking. After the past five months, expectations for Super Bowl Sunday should be low. A lot of key people went down this year, and the future is a bit uncertain for many former contenders. Still, we can expect (or at least hope) that the big names will overcome the downers of late and deliver the goods.

Of course, I'm talking about the commercials.

The Super Bowl is like the Super Bowl of the advertising world. Much hoopla has been made about the $3 million price tag for a thirty second spot. For those MENSA candidates trying to do out the math at home, $3 mil for thirty seconds works out to a lot of money per second. Who's got that kind of money, especially in today's economy? But I covered the economy in the second paragraph.

No, I'm here to salute the companies that are coming through to deliver high comedy to us while shilling for their crappy products. First up, Miller High Life knows that the market on alcohol never fluctuates. If anything, demand for alcohol should go up in a recession, though this tends to heavily favor the hard liquor department. Nevertheless, the (presumably buzzed) brain trust over at MillerCoors realized that the message of their product and hilarious spokesman (a fake-life delivery guy named Windell Middlebrooks) would be compromised by shelling out three cool millions for a 30-second spot. Thus, they have taken one of the boldest approaches to Super Bowl advertising in recent memory.

They saved $2,900,000 and bought a one second ad.

Nice work. I was not even aware that you could negotiate on commercial length. I would have loved to have been there when Miller called NBC if they could run a commercial lasting 1/60th of a minute. I would love it even more if it was a drunk dial. Surf on over to the Miller High Life website and check out the commercials that didn't make the cut (my favorite: "One Mississippi!"), but only if you're 21. They have a very high tech age verification system that requires you to at least be old enough to subtract 21 from 2009.

This one second ad should drive home a point that many Super Bowl parties I have attended were not clear on. Namely, shut the hell up. You don't talk over the game, and you'd absolutely better not talk over the commercials. Halftime show talking rules vary by household and artist. Britney? Talk away. U2? I'll kill you.

While Miller High Life is making the big splash in the blogosphere (what a pretentious word), I personally cannot wait to see if E-trade continues the spots with the talking baby. That kid is gold. I want to see his girlfriend. And his portfolio.

I am off to get a haircut to look my best for the big game. Who knows how many ladies will click "Maybe Attending" on Facebook for my Super Bowl party? These good looks don't come without $12 haircuts, you know.