Here’s an open thread as we gaze upon the Superb Owl…

Hands down, the year’s most provocative and interesting Super Bowl commercial, from Clint Eastwood.

This year for the first time, you can watch the Super Bowl online at NBC Sports. It requires Microsoft Silverlight, and has a neat picture-in-picture feature that lets you switch between different camera views, including an aerial view of the field.

The game starts at 6pm ET, so in the meantime here’s the Volkswagen Super Bowl ad…

OK, I give in. Here’s a thread for Super Bowl 45, with one of the best ads.

As the Super Bowl draws to its inevitable end (who didn’t like the dramatic hamster ad? or the weird giant toys driving an Acura or whatever it was?), here’s an open thread…

UPDATE at 2/7/10 7:04:49 pm:

Breaking news: a major factor in New Orleans’ win tonight — Bobby Jindal held an exorcism in the locker room right before the game.

Here’s an open thread for Super Bowl discussion, boasting, and/or remorse, as the game heads into the fourth.

You have got to be kidding me. Super Bowl Ads of Cartoonish Violence, Perhaps Reflecting Toll of War. (Hat tip: jimo.)

No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials.

More than a dozen spots celebrated violence in an exaggerated, cartoonlike vein that was intended to be humorous, but often came across as cruel or callous.

For instance, in a commercial for Bud Light beer, sold by Anheuser-Busch, one man beat the other at a game of rock, paper, scissors by throwing a rock at his opponent’s head.

In another Bud Light spot, face-slapping replaced fist-bumping as the cool way for people to show affection for one another. In a FedEx commercial, set on the moon, an astronaut was wiped out by a meteor. In a spot for Snickers candy, sold by Mars, two co-workers sought to prove their masculinity by tearing off patches of chest hair.

There was also a bank robbery (E*Trade Financial), fierce battles among office workers trapped in a jungle (CareerBuilder), menacing hitchhikers (Bud Light again) and a clash between a monster and a superhero reminiscent of a horror movie (Garmin).

It was as if Madison Avenue were channeling Doc in “West Side Story,” the gentle owner of the candy store in the neighborhood that the two street gangs, the Jets and Sharks, fight over. “Why do you kids live like there’s a war on?” Doc asks plaintively. (Well, Doc, this time, there is.)

During other wars, Madison Avenue has appealed to a yearning for peace.

This kind of absurd tripe is how you end up losing $648 million in one quarter.

UPDATE at 2/4/07 7:58:52 pm:

Satisfy your knuckle-dragging war lust at Hot Air: Super Bowl XLI; Update: Commercials galore.

Here’s an open thread for a Sunday afternoon. I understand there was some kind of sporting event today?