GoldbergBlog

The Best Super Bowl Ad (That Wasn’t on TV)

I took away 4 things from this year’s Super Bowl ads:

1.) Doritos has the best creative team followed by Bud Light

2.) Only people deep in the entertainment world really cared about the Leno/Letterman ad and responded to it as if it was the most amazing visual experience since Avatar.

3.) Women are emasculating shrews.

4.) Emasculated men can only be happy if they buy Product X.

Old Spice didn’t pay CBS the $2.6 million to air this 30-second spot and instead chose to debut it online.  It transcends the emasculation problem by being so over the top that it breaks through the stratosphere into “Holy-shit-this-is-amazing.”  Old Spice has made great ads for a while now, but they outdid themselves with this one:

Olbermann Responds to Stewart

And this is why I like Olbermann and why he shouldn’t be compared to folks on Fox News:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Jon Stewart Rips Keith Olbermann Apart

I’m a fan of Keith Olbermann’s Special Comments.  That’s why I always post them.  But starting at the beginning of this year, he started doing “Comments”, and it’s been bad for the show.  It makes him look crotchety and as hyperbolic as his rivals.  He may be more eloquent and intelligent than his right-wing counterparts, but he’s gone too far.  Ironically, when he first started doing Speical Comments, he was encouraged by MSNBC brass to do them every night, but Olbermann protested saying it would dilute the message.  He was right.

So John Stewart has come to the rescue to mock the crap out of Olbermann with a hilarious and brutal segment from last night’s Daily Show.  Stuart, using Olbermann’s rhetorical devices, impersonated the style of the segment, but also encouraged Olbermann that he was better than this inflammatory name-calling he’s fallen into as of late.  Olbermann may be right about all the things he said about Massachusettes Senator-elect Scott Brown, but he’s losing the impact his Special Comments provided.

Sadly, when asked about the sketch, Olbermann blithely responded, “It was a little bit of a ripoff of the Affleck thing, but overall, I’d give it a B-,” showing that he was able to take the joke, but may have missed the point.

Here’s the sketch.  As with most things, Daily Show, I thought it was fucking hilarious:

“Houston, we have an Arby’s.”

Frodo, Don’t Wear the Ring

One of my favorite scenes/songs Flight of the Conchords.

Special Comment: We Cannot Afford This

Christopher Walken: National Treasure

CNN: Nobody Leaves More Things There

Special Comment: Health Care

“It’s a matter of life and death.”

I always post Olbermann’s special comments because whether or not I agree with his point, I think impassioned calls that actually employ a vocabulary and have the heft of speeches rather than angry rants are worth watching especially when compared to the screeching of pundits on other programs.  I guarantee you that someone who says that Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann are just two sides of the same coin has never sat down and watched a full broadcast of “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Countdown” and then seriously compared the two.

This broadcast-length Special Comment on the state of health care and how important it is that we reform it now will be a sermon to the choir but that doesn’t make it any less of an eloquent or heartfelt sermon.  What makes this more than just 43 minutes of agreeing with Olbermann is that he realizes he can’t change the minds of the scared opponents of health care reform who have been brainwashed by conservative talking points nor can he force weak-willed Democrats to provide a serious opposition and actually stand up for what’s right.  He asks one thing: to go to this website and donate to the National Association of Free Clinics.  Whether your agree with Olbermann or not, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t donate to make a tangible difference that can’t be destroyed by an army of lobbyists or a cadre of politicians.

The Indecider

SNL, whose political blade seems dull when compared to the The Daily Show, absolutely shredded Obama in their opening sketch.  I wouldn’t say it was “funny” but it’s something the mainstream media couldn’t do because that would be “biased”.  It’s really unfair to make Rachel Maddow the only person on cable news willing to point out Obama’s shortcomings since he’s clearly come up short on so many issues. 

I understand the complications in closing Gitmo but gays in the military?  Torture prosecutions?  For a man who claimed during the campaign that the president has to do more than one thing at a time, he rarely seems to be doing even one thing, or at least something that actually makes an important difference in people’s lives. When it comes to actually presiding over the country in a practical way, he’s either tossed it aside, or worse, he’s tossed it into the black hole that is the United States Congress. Right now, Obama is basically our cool, black friend in the White House like the British have their adorable grandmother in Buckingham Palace. Remember that big, rousing speech Obama gave on September 9th about health care reform?  Well, it’s been almost a month since then and what’s changed?  How did he follow up his brilliant oratory?  The same way he’s followed up everything else he’s turned his attention to.

There’s deliberate, there’s pragmatic, and then there’s indecisive and SNL knew exactly which one when it made its most brutal stab: “It took me four months just to pick out a dog.”