The National Grid-Iron Championship Game

[captainsblog]

Forget XLVII; Super Bowls for me are WW (as Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto used to mark scorecards)- "wasn't watching" unless the Bills are involved. After two weeks of hype, the game itself is always anticlimactic. This year's, though, outdid all its predecessors with the anticlimax actually occurring during the game itself.

I learned about it in an odd way. Eleanor had toodled off to bed, and I was in here, Netflix-streaming the debut episode of the Kevin Spacey remake of House of Cards (so far so good- he certainly out-FU'd FU in the opening scene), and suddenly the audio and video tracks found separation and the one began running about 10 seconds ahead of the other. 

Must be some unusual chatter on Teh Interwebs, huh. I turned to Facebook and began seeing one line after another about it:

"I thought YOU paid the electric bill!"

Ok who stepped on the power cord?

If the late Dandy "Don" Meredith were calling the game, he'd be singing, "Turn out the lights, the party's over."

"Don't worry, G.W. Bush will be there in a week and a half to fix it."

But the best riff came from the dude who, within minutes, had tracked down and posted the picture of the one true perp of this electrical disaster-



- which I then shared, and annotated, as the return of the longlost third Harbaugh brother- not Jim, or his brother Johnny, but his other brother Johnny.

Meanwhile, the "no American football, please, we're British" crowd was typically sedate. Yes, the BBC does cover the Super Bowl, and during the Wall Street Journal's liveblogging of the whole event, you get a good sense of just how they do so:

• 6:22 pm
• Pregame

Checking in from London, where the BBC coverage helpfully informs us that Colin Kaepernick weighs 16 stone, 6 pounds, or 230 pounds for us Yanks.

• 6:47 pm
• 7-0 Ravens, 1st Quarter, 10:36 left

The BBC is showing its own commentators in lieu of the U.S. commercials. They just did a miniprofile of Baltimore's Michael Oher, subject of the book and film "The Blind Side." Rather than show a photo of Oher from his high-school days, the producers inserted a still from the film. And that's how Sandra Bullock just appeared on our screen during the Super Bowl.

and then, once disaster fell:

• 8:40 pm
• 28-6 Ravens, 3rd Quarter, 13:22 left

With the lights out and power off in the stadium, even the BBC booth can't get audio working. So the producer cuts from the silent feed to highlights of the 49ers-Bengals Super Bowl in 1989. Underneath, the words, "We apologise for the sound problems."

You don't suppose Keyser Soze had anything to do with it, do you?

Comments

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

I was watching Auntie's coverage of the Super Bowl-- after CBS coverage came back up, they showed that for a bit (I've never seen Steve Tasker look more deer-trapped-in-headlights') then the Beeb transmitter got power back. You'll be amused to note that the broadcasters apologised for turning away from the camera ('We don't want to appear rude') so they could monitor what was going on! :)

You might enjoy the BBC coverage, actually-- it's very British. Coverage featured a British Olympic medallist being encouraged to introduce himself to some of the players he was near in the NFL box, discussion of family groups in the NFL which were given in terms of mediaeval guilds (this by an American, btw) and intelligent discussion of the various events. I quite enjoy it. :)