Amazing Times on Mainstream TV

Last night's NFL Super Bowl was a great TV spectacle. That was true even for a guy watching with a major handicap; only really understanding the rules for the 'football' they play outside America. I loved the athleticism and the chutzpah of all that Texas-Large! And we all saw that George W and Condoleezza were loving it too.

I was amazed by the Black Eyed Peas at the Super Bowl halftime. And I was surprised that a staff writer for the Washington Post was a lot less amazed. Probably he just wanted the football to return. It was a thrilling game. Then I was cheered up by a celebrity column in the same newspaper, even though it's only a little less harsh: "The Peas don't possess even a fraction of the musical credibility owned by recent Super Bowl halftime performers like The Who, Bruce Springsteen or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. But the abundance of Tron-esque effects in their performance, not to mention the trademark Peas spunk, managed to make this halftime spectacle more entertaining than expected."

I own albums from all those previous Super Bowl acts but I'd never heard this music before. How come? Only last year I'm sure my best buddy from my (mercifully brief) college research career told me he had paid big to see the Peas? Yet I'd hit the disco floor alongside him back then when we both were cool (wait a minute though - perhaps he'd said the Pet Shop Boys?). I was worried the Peas might be awesome and I'm losing touch. But how come my wife was singing along! I'm confused. Maybe it was only because she teaches Tweens.

What also confused me was that in the Super Bowl sponsorship breaks CTV aired another edition of  long running TD Bank commercials that star two craggy dim-witted 'oldsters' who look to be younger than me. Here's what Zoomer Media's David Cravit has to say: "Logically, marketers and policy-makers would be all over this (i.e.that Boomers are destroying old ideas about 'oldness')....In fact, what's really 'old' today is the attitude of the media, marketing and policy-making communities." I can't help wondering just what age groups CTV and TD Bank thought were watching the big game last night?