Bowled over

(Upstart) What a difference a year makes.

It’s hard to believe that just 12 short months ago, the dot-coms were sitting on top of the world. The Rams/Titans match-up of Super Bowl XXXIV was the proof--advertisement after advertisement spotlighted the new economy in all its free-spending glory, each spot seemingly more expensive, more quirky and more opaque than the one before it. Together, these ads captured the zeitgeist of the dot-com boom--money was no object, and if nothing made any sense, that was your problem, Chester.

This year, however, the tenor of the times was best summed up by arguably the most creative commercial of Super Bowl XXXV: The E*Trade spot starring a chimp (presumably the same simian sighted in the company’s spot last year) riding horseback through the ghost-town remnants of the e-business landscape. Passing the gutted offices of companies like PimentoLoaf.com and the rotting corpse of the Pets.com sock puppet, the chimp’s eyes well up with tears in homage to the legendary Iron Eyes Cody as he surveys the wreckage of a utopia gone belly-up. The ad’s message? “Invest wisely.” Too little, too late, of course--damn you, monkey, where were you when we needed you? (Oh, yeah--sitting on a couch with a couple of idiots, singing and clapping and wasting $2 million bucks. Almost forgot.)

Times are so desperate that Minneapolis-based Web portal subjex.com even promised to pay $1000 per second of airtime to any fan who could get the site’s name flashed during CBS’ broadcast. (The offer was rescinded after the NFL threatened litigation.) Not everyone gave up, though--Cingular’s ads were ubiquitous throughout the game but were so abstract that it’s likely few people outside the tech world have any idea of who the company is or what they do. Worst of all, Cingular ponied up the evening’s most offensive ad, which featured a disabled artist in an ill-conceived attempt to illustrate the value of self-expression or something like that. Given how many people thought Christopher Reeve was up and walking at last year’s Super Bowl, one can only imagine the collective “Huh?” inspired this time out.

Here’s a joke: How is a dot-com like a Super Bowl? Neither one ever lives up to all its hype. The difference is that people will still care about the Super Bowl for years to come. And if all the bankruptcies, layoffs and plummeting stock prices weren’t enough to convince you that the dot-com golden age is as officially dead and buried as those people Ray Lewis apparently didn’t kill, consider this Super Bowl disappearing act the final nail in the coffin. After all, has TV ever lied to you?

As for the game itself, a few closing thoughts: If Angie Harmon’s “Law and Order” character were as lackluster a prosecutor as her real-life fiance Jason Sehorn is a defender, the bad guys would get off clean each week.... The halftime show sucked, but if only for a few minutes, Britney Spears once again gave meaning to our otherwise miserable existence.… Ray Charles would have done a better job of reading the Ravens’ defense than Kerry Collins.… Speaking of Collins, it seems safe to assume that with a name like “Kerry,” his parents must have been hoping for a girl--at least he threw like one on Sunday.

Senior Editor Jason Ankeny is just watching the market recap, drinking an import. You can reach him at jason_ankeny@intertec.com.