R.I.P. Super Bowl Ads

(1984-2009. Survivors include viral online ads, appeal of Mad Men.) It appears that the once fertile ground of creative, expensive, entertaining Super Bowl ads is a thing of the past. I remember back in High School, Channel 1 previewed the ads for us lucky kids. Turns out it was just Pepsi trying way too hard to convince us they were cool (some things never change). You wouldn't think Americans would need snappy reminders to buy as much watery domestic pilsner as they can stomach, but ad history says otherwise. You know things are bad when the star of the evening is a spot for a scammy gold-exchange service whose normal ads pollute my DirecTV with a production value somewhere between "standard infomercial" and "public access". I also enjoyed the slapped Koala, and I'm not entirely sure why, even though all that ad did was start up a conversation on how horrible job search sites are for actually finding jobs. Hopefully this will mean no more instances of being shushed during the commercials (yes, this actually happened at a party once. Emphasis on once).