As I type this, it is a little after midnight which means that technically, I did watch the Super Bowl Half-Time Show last night.

Why Was I Watching It?

To be honest, this was the first Super Bowl I’ve ever actually seen.  I’m not totally sure but I think this was also the first time that I’ve ever actually seen an entire football game.  I wasn’t planning on watching the Super Bowl.  As a matter of fact, I had already turned down an invitation to go to a super bowl party at my sister Megan’s precisely because I had decided I had no interest in watching the game.  I also turned down an invitation to go watch the game with Jeff’s family.  Instead, I thought I’d simply take advantage of everyone else watching the game by spending all of Sunday on a nice, big shopping spree.  However, about two hours into that spree, my asthma started to act up so I came home early, turned on the TV, and there was the game.  So, I left the game on while I did some online shopping (I nearly bought this until I noticed that it cost $725!) and then once I got onto twitter, everyone was talking about the game so I continued to watch the game and I ended up having so much fun commenting on it that I ended up watching the entire thing.  I do have to admit that I was, for the most part, completely and totally lost as to what was going on but no matter.  I had fun.

Anyway, once I started kinda watching the game, I realized there was no way I couldn’t watch the Super Bowl Half-Time Show. 

What’s It About?

Apparently, every year, some other band plays the Super Bowl during half-time.  This year, the band turned out to be the Black-Eyed Peas.  I have something of a girlcrush on Fergie.  Or at least I did until I saw the half-time show.

What Worked?

Uhmm…maybe this would work better if we start with what didn’t work.

What Didn’t Work?

Pretty much the entire show.  The Black Eyed Peas have been performing this exact same show for a few hundred years now and they could pretty much do it in their sleep which is what they appeared to be doing here. 

However, just saying that the Black Eyed Peas looked bored — well, that doesn’t begin to explain why this show inspired thousands of people to stare at their TV and scream, “Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!” like George C. Scott in Hardcore.  It’s not just that the show was bad — it was that it was bad in so many different ways and, in each case, it stretched the boundaries of what had previously been considered to be a believable level of failure.

Hence, Will.i.am not only appeared to have been replaced by a robot but he appeared to have been replaced by a robot that was actually Cartman underneath a cardboard box.  Fergie — who, in the past, I felt never got enough credit (her performance in Nine was one of the few exciting moments in that film) — was not only pitchy but actually sounded like she was auditioning for American Idol.  The two other Black-Eyed Peas were — well, who really cares about them?

Then you had the dancers in the neon costumes who all looked like they had wandered off of the set of Tron.  And, seriously, do we really want to be reminded of Tron at this point?

And then, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, Usher showed up.  “Look,” I said to my cat, “Usher’s still alive.”  “Meow,” the cat replied.  Usher sang a few notes that pretty much evaporated in the stadium and then jumped in the air and did the splits.  Which I guess would have been impressive except for the fact that he’s Usher and guys aren’t supposed to be able to do the splits like that.

I’m sure I could come up with a few more things that didn’t work but, quite frankly, I think my mind is repressing them right now.

What Worked?

Twitter.  In the nearly two years that I’ve been on twitter, I have never seen everyone as united as they were in their general ridicule of the Super Bowl halftime show.  So, in a strange way, the Black Eyed Peas brought the world together for about 15 minutes.

Here’s a few of my own tweets from the Half-Time Show:

Uhmm…is the half-time show a tribute to Tron? Where’s Jeff Bridges?

lol, Fergie couldn’t wait to get away from the rest of the Black Eyed Peas.

The Black-Eyed Peas are reminding me of that Stop Smoking Act from that episode of South Park.

The reason the crowd is cheering is b/c they can’t hear the Black Eyed Peas. That stadium is huge.

Oh good. I was just thinking that only Usher could save the half-time show.

And so, sadly, ends my girlcrush on Fergie.

Oh My God!  Just Like Me! Moments

I can’t sing that well either.

Lessons Learned

The Black Eyed Peas are about to reach that point where they end up with a reality show on VH1.