Super Bowl LIV: Not Just a Bunch of Beer Commercials

What are your favorite Super Bowl foods?

Super Bowl LIV is in the books.  Between the game, the commercials, and the Halftime Show, it's an event designed to over-stimulate.  Every second demands our focused attention.  No bathroom breaks during the Super Bowl!  If you step away for just a second you'll miss a crucial play, a clever commercial, or a meme-able moment in the Halftime Show. 

It's also one of the few things Americans are still watching together, in real time!     

The game itself was close & competitive---neck and neck the whole way.  The 49ers and Chiefs were tied at halftime, and in the final minutes of the game, Kansas City inched ahead of San Francisco with a winning touchdown.  An astute Tweeter noticed that the 24-20 final score hearkened back to Kobe Bryant.  His spirit, surely, was at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.  

Fortunately, I wasn't emotionally invested in either of the teams so it didn't stress me out to watch the score go back and forth.  This is the ONLY football game I've watched this season, too.  Living in Hong Kong, it's hard to justify watching football when the games are at 7 am on a Monday! 

Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes II wrangled this victory at the ripe young age of 24--in only his second year with the NFL!  

And it's nice to see the Chiefs win--it's been FIFTY YEARS since they won the Super Bowl.   Nice, too, that for once we're NOT talking about you-know-who--that team who's usurped all the NFL's attention for the past several years.

Anyway.  Some of the real excitement, for me, came in the out-of-game content. 

Halftime Show

Just one of the dazzling outfits these two wore.  How in the world do they change wardrobes so many times?  

Shakira and Jennifer Lopez crushed the Halftime Show.  JLo began with a disarming "I'm Jenny from the Block", but the fireworks studded performance was anything but "just".  

The fourteen-minute show (that went alarmingly quickly) packed in Shakira's six-minute intro (tongue-wagging & all), duos with Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny, and a touching performance with Lopez and her 11-year-old daughter singing "Born in the USA" while holding Puerto Rican and US flags. 

Shakira's tongue wag has generated some popular memes on Twitter.  It's apparently a tradition at Carnival (aka Mardi Gras) in her native Columbia.  

Shakira (43) and Jennifer Lopez (50!) danced like they were half their age.  How IS IT that they can look as good as they do?  I know, I know.....they have personal trainers and can afford $495 facials.  Ok, but still.  It's impressive.

Coming on the heels of the Netflix special, Miss Americana, Taylor Swift sounds myopic bemoaning turning 30.  Looks like middle-age women aren't doomed to retire from the spotlight while fame seeks out the shiny new toy, as Swift frames it. 

Commercials!

This was the life of the Super Bowl!  Definitely not just a bunch of your basic beer commercials.

Although the commercials for beer did runneth over.  There were  inspiring beer commercials, such as Budweiser's "Typical American", highlighting everyday selfless acts of everyday Americans, and funny-ish beer commercials, such as Michelob's, where Jimmy Fallon makes a (believe it or not) humorless joke, and next-best-thing beer commercials, such as Bud Light's, where Post Malone deliberates whether to purchase tried-and-true Bud Light or the Bud Light SELTZER.  (--A commercial aimed at the Next-Best-Thing Generation, aka Millennials, for sure.)

The fastest way to America's pocketbook must be through the stomach, as the Super Bowl ran plenty of advertisements for food, including Pringles (stack different flavors to create your OWN unique flavor), Cheetos (MC Hammer made an appearance--"you can't touch this" when you have Cheetos Hands), Doritos (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly spoof with Sam Elliot and Lin Nas X), Sugar-Free Mountain Dew (Shining remake with Brian Cranston), and Little Caesar's Delivery (the best thing since sliced bread).  

And the commercials certainly were not without celebrity.  Chrissy Teigen and John Legend sold "new luxury" with Genesis cars, The Rock and Oprah made a pitch for Weight-Watchers, and Bill Murray and Sephen Tobolowsky spoofed Groundhog Day in a "doozy"of a Jeep commercial.  

Not to be left out, the NFL built up its own brand with a commercial featuring the first-female offensive coach, Katie Sowers, and another highlighting the sophisticated research put into making football a safer game.  


And.......it's a wrap.  The NFL put on a good show this year.  Glad I got up at 6 am to see it.  There's been discussion on Twitter that the Super Bowl should be moved to Saturday.  One commenter said that instead, Monday should be a holiday.  I'm kind of in favor of the latter.    

What were your thoughts?  Did you watch the Super Bowl?