Joyeux Noel.
Love that phrase. It's hot. It's steamy. It's yeuxy. It's forbidden yet French. Sometimes I feel like "forbidden" is a term that can only be used when referring to something in the Latin culture or fruit. Oh, hot damn. This is my jam (made from a
Hours have declined every year since Facebook's inception but I have consistently looked for a girl named Noel/Noelle/Noele (see how tricky it can be?!) on the 'book for the past seven years to no avail. She lived next door in Barrett House my freshman year of college and I knew she must have had a class on Tuesday's at 12:30 p.m. It was the only day of the week I did not eat lunch at noon provided I was up before noon and those days increased after the 2.54 GPA of
Joyeux Noelle (I think).
Many of those in the non-reading portion of our country will look at their two heroic SEC conquerors tonight and view the game as a no-lose situation (despite being unclear about what a "no-lose situation" means) between their "ESS-EEE-SEA" chants.
Tonight is lose-lose for the rest of us. The BBVA Compass Bowl commercial will cease to be no more and yes I know that's a double negative. Nothing has brought me more joyeux during the past few weeks than the above commercial. Please excuse my cougher's smoke that is interspersed throughout the finely shot video where you can actually see my address in the upper right-hand corner. 646 in the 614! That sounds stupid. The cougher's smoke and snuff-film like camera work can be attributed to the three hours of sleep this past Friday night and all the petdoganimals and cab rides that led me to that state. I will be sad to see the end of bowl season this evening because that eliminates my random viewing of this add-vir-tis-ment. Daily clicks on the link likely will happen whatever the "twice" word for eight times is. I'll be sad for entirely other reasons if LSU doesn't win by at least two-and-a-half points.
Let's go over the script and while I think of myself as an intelligent, charming and thoughtful individual I still have yet to "flip the script" on anyone during my time on this planet terra firm:
1. The commercial opens with "71,000 fans."
Attendance at this year's BBVA Compass Bowl read 29,726. 29,727 if you count the "one trophy." Just a smoot short of 71,000. No matchup in college football would have attracted any more than 50,000 fans to Birmingham, Ala. on a Saturday afternoon at noon on the seventh day of the year.
2. "125 players."
Not going to look up the roster sizes and this is a stretch, albeit, but it lends itself to the narrative. Why not use an even number of players? This 125 numbie implies one team had more guys on their team. I'm guessing the white team. They needed it. The non-blue team has a white dude running real hard toward the camera and teams with lots of white guys who have to run fast are usually less good.
A stretch #iknow. But I wanted to do the whole ad.
3. "One trophy."
After stammering, "YES! YES! YES! It's on!" every time this commercial aired and pausing the TV so I could invite random strangers into my house to watch, I usually began laughing right about this part. As I did here. The combo of the cheesy music and the cheesier announcer's voice letting us know that they'd be playing for "one trophy" Look at the trophy. It's not even the real trophy used in the bowl game. The trophy is a football on top of a box that says "CHAMPIONS."
4. [FOOTAGE AND CLICHES]
The random dude running toward the camera is funny enough. He's white and you know how I feel about "teams that play too many white linebackers" if you watched any of this just completed 6-7 Ohio State football season with me. But the play that not even I thought this advy could mess up occurs when blue team quarterback number eight throws a pass that is completed for a touchdown. One small problem. White team player is next shown diving in the endzone. Possible interception return for a touchdown? Yes, but ... the end zone where the scoring is being scored is the same one the quarterback is throwing the ball toward.
5. The ref
My favorite part of any commercial that has ever happened on the Internet or television but not radio because I have never heard one of those as we just flip the channel when they occur.
A. The ref is grossly out of position.
B. What is up with the white undershirt???
C. The field goal may be no good.
D. I guess it's also worth pointing out that HIS BACK IS TURNED TO THE GOALPOST AND HE'S NOT EVEN WATCHING THE BALL. HE CANNOT SEE THE PLAY.
6. "CHAMPIONS" trophy raised before text
That not at all looks cheap.
The 2013 BBVA Compass Bowl is about 364 days away from us. I hope they spend no time in between making a new advertisement.
