Not Without Robert Goulet

So, the Superbowl has ended and now watercoolers across the US have been bubbling peacefully with talk of those infamous commercials.

The Chevy Ad Challenge I've mentioned before (and if you want a refresher, Lilly Buchwitz's Mcom 72 blog is the place to go) has also come and gone. Katie Crabb, 18-year-old freshman at the University of Wisconsin was the proclaimed winner, and if you saw a Chevy spot for the HHR with a bunch of hot studs and one old man washing it, you saw her concept. Not exactly as it was pitched, but it works on a few levels, even if not everyone has those levels. Watch the webisodes at cbs.com/chevy if you want to know more about her original idea. What in the hell is a HHR again? I was blinded after Grandpa.

Her win logically means that San Jose State's team did not win. Their concept, according to Lilly's blog, was as follows:

"Ugly Betty." A man gets out of his Corvette and rings the bell of a house. A homely girl answers — his blind date. He walks her to the car, opens the door and she gets in. As he walks around to his side of the car he quickly makes a call. We hear him say something like, "You're going to owe me for this!" Inside the car, as soon as Betty sits down the seat's lumbar support kicks in, improving her posture and thrusting out her chest. The seatbelt moves around her, pulling down her zipper to show cleavage. The mirror tilts so that the sunlight makes her face glow. And the air conditioning comes on full blast, blowing her hair Farrah-Fawcett style. The music builds to the chorus of Tom Jones's "She's a Lady" just as the man opens the driver side door and sees now-beautiful Betty. He clicks shut his cell phone. Tagline: CHEVY'S GOT YOUR BACK.

Okay, so maybe I'm bitter because I've actually been Betty and gone on blind dates that didn't end so glamorously. Maybe I think it would have been better if Betty had started going on about the positive attributes about the car, spastically spouting off a bunch of technical car terms, endearing her Mr. Shallow and actually informing the audience what's so great about these new cars. And then a light would reflect on the rear-view mirror to make it look like she had a halo around her.

Oh, wait, that's not "marketable." (We know it's marketable because it's been done before.)The point is that SJSU's pitch was exactly was Katie's was going to satirize-- a beautiful girl and a beautiful car. For the best, I suppose. This year the only boobs I witnessed were for GoDaddy.com...and those guys are jerks (for entirely different reasons I'll express later.)

Actually, the Chevy ad I heard about around school was "Everybody Wants a Chevrolet" (I had a similar idea that I canned right before I decided not to enter, no lie.) It was up there with the bunny fron Blockbuster and Kevin Federline's Nationwide plug. Oh, and Snickers-back Mountain. Go to ifilm.com/superbowl to watch them all.