It seemed to me that a good manly way to commemorate the Super Bowl would be to have a nice steak for dinner. Unfortunately, I screwed up cooking it and completely ruined it. By "ruined" I don't mean that it wasn't very good, by "ruined" I mean it was completely inedible. In fact, eating it would have been dangerous.
Not Pictured: My steak's wellness.
So then I made some spaghetti and fortunately I didn't ruin that.
Next up was what to watch. For Christmas I received a DVD of the "Best Of" the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, so I thought I'd watch that. The fact that it contained the word "super" seemed too good to pass up. But it turns out, it's just the cartoon segments without the live-action segments with Captain Lou Albano. Come on, that was the best part!
Gotta have Lou. So then I turned it off. I could've watched a few episodes on Youtube but I didn't think of that at the time.
Of course, in the process of writing this I realized that Best of the Worst is what I did last year too. And I've used the word play of this post's title before as well. Bahhh! This whole thing is a giant sham.
This post is part of a continuing mission to boycott every Super Bowl in which I don't have a rooting interest and replace the watching of it with various very non-Super-Bowlish activities.
This year was kind of an off year. Firstly, I didn't really plan too much ahead of time - due to problems at work, I wasn't really fertile with imagination. Then, when the day came, I was stuck in bed, feeling the physical and psychological effects of some tainted ice cream I had eaten the day before.
In such a lowly state, the order of the day was simply finding something fun, something easy to watch, something low-key; finding the entertainment that best compliments a warm blanket and hot soup. For that purpose, what could be better than plowing through a "Best of the Worst" marathon on youtube?
In "Best of the Worst" the "gang" from RedLetterMedia watches three B-Movies (usually on VHS), discusses each one, analyzes them, breaks them down and then decides which movie is "Best of the Worst". If any movie is determined to be especially egregious, it will be destroyed in some creative manner.
In this episode, the gang watches movies from the dinosaur craze of the mid-nineties. This episode features Academy Award Winner Whoopi Goldberg and Academy Award Watcher Denise Richards.
There is also a sub-genre of "Best of the Worst" called "Wheel of the Worst". In "Wheel of the Worst", the guys put even worse and more bizarre VHS tapes on a wheel and spins it three times. The three movies that the wheel lands on are the three that they must watch.
This episode features the classic VHS "How Can I Tell if I'm Really in Love?" which stars Justine Bateman, Jason Bateman, Ted Danson and a step ladder. Or is there a step ladder? Either way, it's a star-studded affair. But even with that level of star power, it may not be enough to match "The Osteoporosis Dance" which features no stars (unless you count Tay Zonday) but does feature old people flailing about semi-randomly.
Part 2
Feeling slightly better, I was ready to take on some amount of excitement. So I watched Game 1 of the 1990-91 NBA Finals: Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls vs. Magic Johnson and the Lakers. Sometimes you just gotta relive the Michael Jordan glory days. Also the Marv Albert glory days, as he calls the game.
One of the great "bonus add-ons" that you get with this era is reliving the Chicago intro that featured "Sirius". From my memory, I thought the intro stopped at "Sirius" but I could have sworn I heard it transition fully into "Eye in the Sky" on this particular occasion. I THINK that's what I heard, I could be wrong.
The music fun didn't stop there. You know what music seriously dates the game? When "Hangin' Tough" played during a timeout. Man, oh man.
But then there were a lot of ways that 1992 has started to really look old. There were a large number of men in the crowd wearing pink shirts, for one. And the arena had a large banner ad for Winston Cigarettes. I wonder if those even exist anymore. Also, the cheerleaders were wearing the old-fashioned pleated cheerleader skirts that no one wears anymore. NBA cheerleaders these days wear... wait, what do they wear?
As for the game itself, it's a pretty good game. It was close, exciting till the end but the Lakers won. Oh well, the Bulls will hopefully bounce back. Game 2 takes place in a few days / 25 years ago.
Yesterday before the Top Ten List, Letterman announced - somewhat mysteriously - that he had called Conan O'Brien.
See the clip within this montage:
My best guess for asking "if everything is fine" refers to the Letterman/Leno/Oprah Super Bowl of Love ad. Based on Bill Carter's book "The War for Late Night", it seemed Conan was offended by the idea and/or that he was asked to participate. When word was passed to Conan that he was wanted for the piece, he reportedly said, "No fucking way I'm doing that. It's not a joke to me -- it's real."
However, it is total speculation that that was what this latest call was really about. Either way it would be silly to "feud" over something so trivial and hopefully this paves the way for Dave and Conan as guests on each other's show. Make it happen, science.
As plugged in to popular culture as I tend to be, the Super Bowl is a giant disconnect. If someone asks me, "Did you see that one play where that one thing happened?" the answer is automatically, "No."
"Did you see that singer do that thing during the halftime show?"
"Nope."
"Did you see X, Y and Z commercials? I liked Y best." "Don't know what you're talking about. Didn't see any of them. I can't decide if small talk about commercials is even more inane, tedious and annoying to me than small talk about the weather. Uh oh, did I just say that out loud?"
That's because I've imposed a strict ban* on the Super Bowl for probably about a decade. One year me and a friend, in lieu of watching the Super Bowl, watched "Muppet Treasure Island". Another year me and another friend, in lieu of watching the Super Bowl that year, watched "Puppy Bowl I" on Animal Planet (narrated by the great Harry Kalas). Two of my favorite Super Bowl (or non-Super Bowl memories) of all-time. Later, there was a plan to watch "Follow that Bird" on Super Bowl night but I can't remember if we actually did that.
Having said that, did you see the one ad that aired during the Super Bowl???? In case you're like me, here it is:
* The exact ban is: I don't care about the Super Bowl if my team isn't in it. If my team was in the Super Bowl, I would not only watch, but agree that it would be the biggest sporting event of the year. Without my favorite team to root for, the whole thing is an over-hyped mass-produced, dumbed down, overblown corporate crapfest in my opinion where the game of football comes secondary to everything else.
Edit: The title is "Super Bowl of Love II" because the first one aired last year and can be seen here. The title is not just derived from the fact that it airs during the Super Bowl. I mean, that's obviously part of it, but it comes from a long running gag on the Late Show which would take too long to explain here.
