The Super Bowl is a spectacle unlike any other in the United States and is designed to keep the attention of an audience who may not be particularly interested in football but is nonetheless watching the action with friends, coworkers or romantic partners. While we don’t yet know how many people tuned in, the number has been around 100 million people for years now, and that’s just the people watching legally.
The biggest spectacle for non-fans every year is the halftime show and this year’s was even hornier than the year Janet Jackson’s tit popped out and turned an entire generation into uptight prudes.
That’s a lot of ass. Like a lot of ass. And did you catch Shakira’s tongue?
This lead to quite a few colorful jokes on social media.
Okay, it was mainly just variations of that joke but a lot of people made it. Well, that or jokes about Xena: Warrior Princess.
Is that Shakira or Xena Warrior Princess? #SuperBowl
— Ryan Fitzgerald (@FitzySA) February 3, 2020
There’s a lot of those, too.
While everyone was joking about how horny the halftime show was, Jeb Bush, who was supposed to be the smart one, bumbled his way onto Twitter and showed us some of the media awareness that led to his defeat by Donald Trump.
Best Super Bowl half time show ever.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 3, 2020
Come on man, no one needs to see this.
Aside from the musical performance, the other thing non-football fans tend to be drawn to is the commercials. With about a quarter of the country watching, companies generally take the occasion to debut their new commercials that will air for the rest of the year. There were quite a few standouts, like Google’s schmaltzy downer Home commercial and Sabra’s meme-filled hummus commercial.
One of the things getting the most buzz was the return of Planters’ Mr. Peanut, who had been killed off in an earlier ad, as “Baby Nut,” which… no, absolutely not. If someone came up to me in real life and said the words “Baby Nut” I would punch them in the face.
Baby Nut (ugh) is of course a parody of and brazen attempt to cash in on Baby Yoda of Disney’s The Mandalorian. While Baby Yoda’s popularity wasn’t exactly an accident and is part of an homage to Lone Wolf and Cub, The Child (as Disney officially calls him) was at least thoughtfully integrated into its show. Planters is already selling Baby Nut merchandise and anyone who buys it should be on a watchlist.
The only generally enjoyable commercial was Bill Murray’s Jeep spot, which saw him and Punxsutawney Phil back in Murray’s famous film Groundhog Day.
Sure, they’re just using nostalgia to sell us a giant gas-guzzling monstrosity while we’re in the middle of an extinction-level event because of our addiction to carbon, but it was charming and cute and didn’t sound like the name of a dark net website run by the FBI.