By Mark Gaspar

While many of you sat in a sweaty and overcrowded living room to watch the Super Bowl with your friends, I – clothed in my favorite shark skin suit – sat aloft on the 52nd floor of a Madison Avenue office building. While sipping a 12 year-old scotch, I looked down from my perch – both literally and figuratively –on all the plebian mouth breathers with disdain, and a little bit of pity.

“Yes, I pity them” I thought as I cozied up with my favorite albino cat in a cold, unfeeling mid-century modern chair. But I also love them, those out-of-shape puppets who are, this very moment covered in fried chicken grease, readily opening their feebile and facile minds to the corporate suggestions of the cabal with whom I currently sit. “My God” I whispered, “they make it all so easy. Like shooting fish in a barrel.” We all laughed our best and most full-throated laugh as we watched a wall of television screens and calmly snorted caviar off the stomachs of immaculately hairless models imported from Romania.

As the game began our notions were reinforced. Ball shots, large breasts, promises of adventure… the tried and true. There were a few hiccups. Those bastards at Audi gave us something comfortable yet subversive.

http://youtu.be/UvRUZxxeOwg

And GoDaddy actually presented something that was creative and strategic.

http://youtu.be/UDfVZgtl2zM

“Holy balls” cried one senior executive next to me “did they just do something that made sense?”

Those were but tiny bumps, for we could still forecast the USA Today top ten commercials. Surely Doritos’ “Goat” and the even more asinine “men dressing up” would be number one and two. Such stupidity. Such meaninglessness. This… THIS is what America wants… nay… NEEDS! Ah the beauty of crowdsourcing. Give these dunces enough rope and they’ll hang the whole populace.

But then something horrible happened. In the third quarter, just after we engineered the power outage (look we’re sorry, but we spent a ton of time on those CBS promos and we really thought you’d enjoy them) a television spot came on and it rocked me to my core.

FARMERS!!

I knew they couldn’t be trusted. I mean for God’s sake it made me… FEEL something. It made me THINK about something. Two of my brethren died out of shock. After all, if the mindless horde is taught to think, to feel, to laugh at more than a guy getting hit in the junk then they’ll start to rebel. They’ll start demanding more. We’ll have to work harder.

I went to steady myself with a long slug from my glass only to notice I was sweating. Sweating right through my impossibly tailored suit. Shit. Do you know how expensive it is to dry clean shark skin?

As my forehead dried I knew I had to do one of two things. I could change. I could push myself to come up with better material, respect my audience, and ignore the trapping of previous success. Or, I could ignore everything, turn on Netflix and watch “House of Cards.” And really, when I saw it like that… it all made so much sense.

Man that Kevin Spacey is a good actor.

Other winners and losers:

Winners:

http://youtu.be/fWHbugWLia8

http://youtu.be/f5HXB6MZemg

http://youtu.be/nGkD8uIqCGU

Losers:

All of the Black Crown!

http://youtu.be/ganYRWpXXew

By Mark Gaspar.
Follow Mark on Twitter at @markgaspar
You can contact Mark at mark@thecouchletes.com