Episode 166: Super Bowl Roundup with Ian Chillag

Doug Gordon: This is The War on Cars. I’m Doug Gordon, and I’m here in the studio with my co-host Sarah Goodyear.

Sarah Goodyear: Hello, Doug.

Doug: Hey there. Welcome to episode number CLXVI of the podcast.

Sarah: I’m sorry, I can’t do the Roman math on that.

Doug: I had to look that up. That’s 167.

Sarah: Okay.

Doug: 166? 167. No, wait a minute. Let me do that again.

Sarah: It’s 166.

Doug: That’s wrong. Anyway, it’s our annual Super Bowl roundup, regardless of what episode number it is. This time, just like all times, we take a look at the automobile ads that ran during the big game, and we ask some important questions like: What do these ads say about driving specifically, and the state of our nation in general? We also ask: Can the republic survive another year of this? How many AI companies can one country support before it all comes crumbling down? And a whole lot more. Sarah, did you watch the game?

Sarah: No, I didn’t, because I was on a train coming home from Toronto. So I …

Doug: Why do you hate America so much, Sarah? On a train from Canada?

Sarah: That’s—that’s what they asked me at the border. [laughs]

Doug: [laughs] Okay. Okay. We’re gonna get to that and our guest in a moment. But first, we have some business.

Sarah: If you like what we do here at The War on Cars, please support us on Patreon at Patreon.com/thewaroncarspod. You can also order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, wherever books are sold. Find out more and learn all about our book tour at LifeAfterCars.com.

Doug: Yeah, and we have some big dates still left on the calendar. This week, as you’re listening to this, we will be in Phoenix on February 11. You can get tickets for that one at LifeAfterCars.com. Sarah is gonna be speaking at the New Jersey Bike and Walk Summit in Princeton, New Jersey on March 7. We have a big show in Atlanta on March 13, March 16 in Memphis, April 9 in Montréal, May 14 in Philadelphia. And we rescheduled our Columbus dates.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s right. So we’ve got a lot of great stuff coming up.

Doug: Yep, go check the site. Here to help us examine our annual festival of consumerism and violent spectacle is our friend Ian Chillag. Ian is the creator and host of the award-winning Radiotopia podcast, Everything is Alive. He’s the co-host of NPR’s How to Do Everything, and a senior producer of NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, the New York Times, A Public Space, Pop-Up Magazine and yes, the German language official quarterly of the Bavarian National Opera, which I guess we’re gonna get you to explain.

Ian Chillag: [laughs]

Doug: Ian Chillag, welcome to The War on Cars.

Ian Chillag: I’ve been waiting so long to hear those words. Thank you.

Doug: Wow! All right. Explain that last one. The Bavarian National Opera.

Ian Chillag: It is—yeah, it is the weirdest paycheck that I get, but the quarterly of the National Opera of Germany runs a piece that I write every quarter. And they’re in German. So I think they’re translated well, but I don’t know.

Sarah: You’re not writing it in German?

Ian Chillag: No, no.

Sarah: Okay.

Ian Chillag: Nor was I intending it to be in German.

Doug: What are you writing about?

Ian Chillag: Usually it’s sort of variations on my podcast. So it’s me interviewing an inanimate object about its life.

Doug: I was about to say, if you haven’t listened to Everything is Alive, it is great. It’s probably going to come into play. It’ll be a helpful skill that you’re bringing into the room as we analyze the ads for consumer products on the Super Bowl. Everything is Alive is a really great podcast.

Ian Chillag: Oh, thanks.

Sarah: I would just like to say that in the United States, the great opera companies of this nation can’t even get funding to put on operas, and somehow in Germany they have funding for you to write a somewhat whimsical column.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Sarah: I just wanted to point that out.

Doug: You’re stealing German jobs.

Ian Chillag: [laughs]

Doug: Okay, let’s talk about Super Bowl LX, Super Bowl 60, held at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California last night as we record this. Thoughts on the game? And did you watch?

Ian Chillag: I did watch. Yes. I live—the apartment next to us is full of people from Boston who are sports maniacs. We thought we were gonna be over there watching with them, but they’re so serious about it that they actually did not want any distractions. So we stayed in our apartment and watched it. I respect this, by the way.

Sarah: You’re very distracting. [laughs]

Ian Chillag: So I watched a quarter with my almost six year old before she went to sleep. And she just kept asking, is Jason—our neighbor who loves the Patriots, is Jason okay? I just want Jason to be happy. And uh …

Doug: The empathy of a child.

Ian Chillag: I said, he’s not. Jason is not okay.

Sarah: Yeah. I didn’t watch—or perhaps I should say I didn’t have to watch—because I was on a train coming home to New York from Toronto. I’m not the hugest football fan to begin with, but it sounds like it was not the most fun game to watch, even if you weren’t a Patriots fan.

Doug: Yeah, we’re gonna get to this, but this was the first Super Bowl I can remember where, even compared to last year where Kendrick Lamar was the halftime show and everyone was talking about it, and he did such a great job highlighting American racism and all the rest, this was the first game I can remember where it felt like we were there for the halftime show and there was just a little football on either side of it. That was it.

Ian Chillag: The weirdest opening act that Bad Bunny had ever had was two quarters of a football game.

Doug: Yeah, basically. I mean, it was just, you know, so low scoring and just field goals, no touchdowns until the final quarter. It was a terrible game. I am from New England. I grew up there. I am not a Patriots fan, largely because Bob Kraft—we can get into this later.

Sarah: Okay.

Doug: And they’re sort of like the evil empire to me, like the way that, like, some New Yorkers just hate the Yankees, you know, if you’re a Mets fan. And that’s how I feel about the Patriots. So I was rooting for Seattle. I didn’t have a Seahawks hat. I had my Seattle Kraken hat from tour.

Sarah: Okay.

Doug: So at least I was representing.

Sarah: That counts.

Doug: Okay. So we are here to talk about the ads. According to USA Today, a 30-second commercial during Super Bowl LV cost about $8 million. Some companies paid $10 million. It all depends on placement, length. That’s up from $7 to $8 million last year. So thanks, Joe Biden. Inflation, still a thing.

Sarah: I actually think that they were paying more because of Bad Bunny.

Doug: Oh, I would bet.

Sarah: Yeah.

Doug: Yeah. I mean, they just knew that lots of people would be tuning in, for sure. I kind of broke down the themes of this year’s ads into a few different categories. Let me know if you agree or disagree. First, in one big bucket was weight loss, insecurity and appearance.

Sarah: [laughs] Okay.

Doug: Okay?

Ian Chillag: Yes.

Doug: That’s pretty traditional for a lot of advertising in this country. Second bucket was what I’m calling “Life in this country is harder than it needs to be.” Right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Doug: Third, obviously, is AI.

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Doug: And the last bucket—I’m kind of just lumping—patriotism, prejudice, and religion. Otherwise known as just America.

Sarah: Okay. All right. Wow! I missed a lot.

Doug: You missed a lot. Yeah.

Ian Chillag: Yeah, I spotted another theme.

Doug: Sure.

Ian Chillag: Which is lost animals and the lengths we will go to save them.

Doug: Oh, we’re gonna get to that one.

Ian Chillag: Okay. Okay.

Doug: Yes, absolutely. There were two ads, right? Featuring lost dogs?

Ian Chillag: Yeah. And I mean, I don’t want to jump ahead, but I will say one of them almost made me cry, and one of them made me want to go live off the grid far away from all technology.

Doug: If you watched the game, I think most people know which ads those are. We’ll talk about that. I will say overall, I thought the ads were bad. I really thought they were boring. I thought there was nothing that people would be talking about today other than us on a podcast because we have to every year. There was nothing that stood out. I just feel like there’s nothing that really broke the form, or there was nothing that met the cultural moment, really. It just felt like a rehash of all the stuff we’ve seen a million times.

Ian Chillag: Yeah, I felt the same way. And it felt like there was so much just fan service where I’m gonna put a face you know in a concept you’re familiar with and that will be enough.

Doug: Yeah.

Ian Chillag: And that—that was depressing.

Doug: Yeah. There was the Dunkin’ ad that was like a sitcom of Good Will Hunting.

Ian Chillag: Yep.

Doug: Just with Ben Affleck and de-aged Ted Danson, Jason Alexander, a bunch of other people.

Ian Chillag: I will say I do think de-aging technology is getting better, and that was showcased last night.

Doug: Oh, for sure.

Sarah: Okay. It sounds like it was just a lot of rehashing of stuff because—I don’t know, maybe it’s too scary to create original things in the United States right now.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Doug: I’m reminded of an Onion article that was like, “US Department of Retro Warns We Are Running Out of Past.” That sort of feels like what happened.

Ian Chillag: Yeah. I feel—it feels like a peak oil moment, but for celebrities. Like, we’ve—we’ve done them all, and now we’re just using the ones we have until they run out.

Doug: Yes, exactly. Okay, so in the weight loss/appearance/insecurity category, we had Serena Williams for Ro, and Kenan Thompson, DJ Khaled, John C. Reilly, Danielle Brooks, Danny Trejo, Ana Gasteyer for Wegovy. So GLP-1s. My favorite thing about that second ad that I just mentioned there for Wegovy, it was a 90-second ad. The second half, a full 45 seconds, was about possible side effects of the drug.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Wegovy ad: Don’t take if you or your family had MTC, MEN2, or if allergic to it. Tell your provider if you plan to have surgery or a procedure, are breastfeeding, pregnant, or plan to be. Stop taking and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or any of these allergic reactions. Serious side effects may include pancreas inflammation and gallbladder or severe stomach problems. Call your prescriber if you have any of these symptoms. Wegovy may cause low blood sugar in people with diabetes, especially if you take medicines for it. Call your prescriber if you experience vision changes or heart racing at rest. Side effects of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea can lead to dehydration, which may cause kidney problems.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Wegovy ad: [John C. Reilly] That’s not your car, is it?]

Doug: Ian, thoughts on these ads?

Ian Chillag: Well, that ad was amazing. Like you said, the second half, the side effects, I guess that’s what happens when they read the side effects at a normal pace of speed, because it took forever. And my experience watching that as it went on and on and on is, wow, they have a lot of money to spend that they are taking this much time where really nothing is happening in this ad. They can afford to do this, and good for them, I guess.

Doug: Yes. I got up to use the bathroom. I had seen this ad already, so yeah. Okay, next one real quick. I feel like Ian, this one was tailor-made for you. This was the “Hair Ballad” ad for Manscaped.

Ian Chillag: Mm-hmm.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Manscaped ad: [singing] Once I danced upon your chest, covered your pecs. I did my best. I was your scruff, your loyal friend, sworn to protect your dimpled chin. But with Manscaped, I’ve met my demise when you chop me from between your eyes, and that awkward part of your thighs. Although we may be small …]

Sarah: Okay, I will say that to me, yeah, that’s like some masculine vulnerability. Like, women have to be dealing with grooming ourselves and sort of being humiliated about our grooming all the time. And I think we don’t usually think of men as having as much anxiety, especially there’s a shot of a guy sitting on the side of a bathtub being shaved. Like, I don’t know, I kind of like the masculine vulnerability there. It kind of cuts against the football image of what men are like. And I found that kind of charming, actually.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Doug: Ian, I feel like—like I said, this one was tailor-made for you. Would you on Everything is Alive interview, like, a pile of shaved hair?

Ian Chillag: A ball of hair? Yeah, that’s a good question. I did try to interview a dust bunny that had collected under someone’s bed. It didn’t go well, so we didn’t air it. But this ad, it—my initial reaction was I was repulsed by the ball of hair. But by the end, I was—it won me over. It was an emotional roller coaster. I was—I loved the hair. I also felt like this ad, in contrast to those really fan-service-y celebrity things, this ad did more than it needed to. Like, the song had key changes. You know, it was—it was good. Yeah, I like this one.

Sarah: Okay.

Doug: Okay. So the next bucket I said was “Life in this country is harder than it needs to be.” We had the Trump investment accounts ad, which is a bunch of kids talking about saving for their future. We had Hims & Hers, “Rich People Live Longer.” And then we had Adrien Brody for TurboTax as the expert.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, TurboTax ad: They say death and taxes are the only guarantees in life. At least death only happens to you once. Brace yourself! The pain is coming!]

Doug: So it’s basically Adrien Brody being Adrien Brody, like the consummate actor that he is. And, you know, yeah, taxes, doing taxes is a pain, but that’s because companies like TurboTax make it hard. Like, that’s—like, I think in the Big Beautiful Bill they stripped out any sort of provision that would have made it easier for the IRS to just send you a bill, basically, at the end of the year, a statement, and you could just file right away like they do in civilized countries. So yes, life in this country is harder than it needs to be.

Sarah: That is so darn true. And I feel like we all—like, the inside of all of us feels like Adrien Brody’s face at this point. Sort of craggy and crooked, and just like it’s had the life crushed out of it. Yeah. And I like the noir aesthetic of that, too. It’s a dark time, a dark ad for a dark time.

Doug: Yeah. I do like celebrities making fun of themselves. I think that’s always good material for a Super Bowl ad. I think that’s a deep vein to mine.

Ian Chillag: Yeah. A lot of these ads take a great actor and ask the question: What if they weren’t a great actor?

Sarah: [laughs]

Doug: Yeah. Or what if they were a pain in the ass? Which is part of the point of that ad. Okay. So the next category—and this was a big one—was AI and tech in general. So we had Oakley and Meta in what they were calling “Athletic Intelligence.” It featured athletes and people doing all kinds of stunts, including Spike Lee shooting a slam dunk while he’s wearing the Oakley-Meta AI glasses.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Oakley/Meta ad: But confidence isn’t just built in the gym. Try Step Boost Max, the insoles that add one vertical …]

Doug: Then there were a couple ads for Anthropic’s AI Claude. So it says “Ads are coming to AI but not to Claude,” and the tagline is “Keep thinking.” Which I find ironic because, like, aren’t we told that the entire point of AI is that you have to stop thinking? You don’t have to think. You can write a whole book without thinking.

Sarah: But like, this is the thinking man’s AI, Claude.

Doug: Yeah, it just won’t have ads.

Sarah: It won’t have ads. And you’re gonna think—and also the young man in the ad, you know, his teeth are a little crooked. He’s—he’s an imperfect thing. And then the guy who’s talking to him is weirdly perfect and scary looking. So it’s kind of saying, like, “No, we’re not that AI that is …” 

Doug: Right. Because the dude is creepy. There’s another ad with a woman playing the part of the AI, and it has a very Stepford Wives quality to it. And you’re like, oh no, the creepy thing about AI isn’t that there might be ads, it’s that it’s a non-human person machine acting like a real human, but not quite.

Sarah: Right.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Doug: One of the big ones that everyone was talking about was “Search Party,” which was an ad for Ring. This, I think, is very war on cars adjacent because it’s about suburbia and suburban paranoia.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Ring ad: This is Milo. Pets are family, but every year 10 million go missing. And the way we look for them hasn’t changed in years. Until now. One post of a dog’s photo in the Ring app starts outdoor cameras looking for a match. Search Party from Ring uses AI to help families find lost dogs. Since launch, more than a dog a day has been reunited with their family. Be a hero in your neighborhood with …]

Doug: Okay, so this is available to everyone who has a Ring camera for free. How nice of them to do this for free.

Ian Chillag: How is this not just the first act of a Black Mirror episode? Or, like, the—it’s like if a Shirley Jackson short story ended halfway through. Like, this is clearly a disaster.

Sarah: Yeah.

Doug: Yes. I think it’s a bit like all the surveillance technology, like CLEAR at the airport or whatever. It’s like, hey, look at this. If we just take your picture, you get to breeze through security. Isn’t this a lovely thing we are doing for you? It’s like, no, you are helping them build the surveillance state. And yes, it’s a cute white Labrador now, but next time it’s just gonna be, like, an immigrant or someone the government deems as, like, someone we need to find and arrest and deport.

Sarah: Yeah. And the neighborhood that this is taking place in, it reminds me of Minneapolis, actually. Like, the sort of image of the steps and the doors, and people kind of going up to those steps and doors, I just immediately flashed on people in Minneapolis having their doors broken down, and people going house to house. And then yeah, that aerial shot where you see this sort of web of surveillance going over the neighborhood. I mean, my question is: Did they not get that that might have negative connotations for some of us now? I mean, or—but I guess they’re dog-washing it, basically.

Ian Chillag: [laughs]

Doug: Basically.

Sarah: Yeah.

Doug: My favorite was I saw a post on Bluesky that was like, “Hey, man. This Ring stuff. Does anybody have a suggestion for a doorbell camera that doesn’t tap into this surveillance network?” And someone responded saying, “Yeah, you know what it’s called? A fucking doorbell.”

Sarah: [laughs]

Doug: You do not need a camera. Like, when did we become this society where you need a camera to tell you, like, oh, I don’t know, if a package goes missing? Fine. Better than building a giant surveillance state. That’s just my opinion.

Ian Chillag: Honestly, I think the solution is just programmable dogs, you know, so they don’t get lost in the first place. It’s a proprietary—it’s technology. It’s contained. You control the dog. You tell it to come home when it’s lost. That’s the simplest solution.

Doug: Don’t dogs—you can get chips embedded in them now, and you can put an AirTag on their collar. We don’t need this. We don’t need this.

Sarah: It’s the thinking man’s dog.

Doug: Then there was Chris Hemsworth for Alexa+, where Chris imagines all of these different ways in which AI is gonna try to kill him.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Alexa+ ad: I moved your meeting, and your car will be here in five. Perfect.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Alexa+ ad: Look at this little beauty I found in the garden.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Alexa+ ad: Nice snake, Chris.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Alexa+ ad: Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa! What is that?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Alexa+ ad: Oh, I’m your Alexa+]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Alexa+ ad: She’s not living here. That is full-on AI. I mean, we’re all buddy-buddies and then the next minute she’s trying to kill us.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Alexa+ ad: Now Chris, how exactly would I do that?]

Doug: So we basically see a bunch of different ways in which sort of Final Destination style Alexa is gonna kill Chris Hemsworth, like a garage door falling on his head, the pool cover going over while he’s swimming in it. I thought this ad was sort of meant to make people who think AI is bad look like idiots, like, oh, AI’s not gonna come and kill us all with, like, a robot army in The Matrix or Terminator. You’re paranoid if you think that’s what it’s gonna do.

Sarah: Am I?

Doug: [laughs] Right. Well, I thought all of these things are ways of softening actually what—like, my fear about AI is not that a garage door is gonna fall on my head. My fear of AI is that it’s gonna destroy democracy and just spread disinformation and misinformation. That’s my fear. And that’s what’s happening right now.

Ian Chillag: Was there an extended version where it did destroy democracy after?

Doug: Yeah, I think that’s just called “Look outside.”

Ian Chillag: I actually—I thought this ad made me feel like, “Oh, Amazon, they just don’t care anymore. This may happen. That’s not gonna stop us.” You know?

Doug: Right.

Ian Chillag: It felt the same thing in that Claude ad too, where it’s saying, “We’re not gonna—you’re never gonna have ads on Claude. Yeah, we are.”

Sarah: Yeah.

Ian Chillag: They don’t care that we’re gonna be able to look back at this ad and say, “But you said we weren’t,” because it’s all so big that it’s unstoppable and they’re fine with that.

Doug: That was my takeaway with the Claude ad, too. It was sort of like my “We’re never going to have ads on AI” t-shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered.

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah.

Doug: Like, it’s like, why do you need to say that out loud if you’re never gonna do that?

Sarah: I don’t feel reassured. I’m just gonna say that I do not feel reassured.

Doug: Also for AI was for Google Gemini. It’s called “New Home.” So this, we see, “Pull up photos of our new house in Glenville.” It’s being typed into Google.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Google Gemini ad: Glenville.]

Doug: And it’s an empty house. And we hear a kid’s voice, and it’s basically merging photos of, like—so it’s a family that’s moving, and a mom is trying to describe to her son, this is what our new house is gonna look like, to sort of make him feel better. And we just see a bunch of different prompts being put into Google Gemini. So for me, my reaction to this one was sort of like, AI, what if you could just remove all uncertainty and imagination out of life? Like, part of what it means to be a kid is to deal with expectations and uncertainty. And it is scary to move into a new home when you’re little but, like, it’s fun to imagine things. You don’t have to have it all served up to you in this clean way.

Sarah: Yeah. I mean, I find it also just disturbing that the image that they’re promoting of this family is a little bit of a tradwife kind of thing, where the mother is creating this beautiful cocoon for her children that will include, apparently, a very elaborate food-producing garden. And that that’s being enabled by AI, this sort of traditional, low-tech world that she’s only able to envision that and show it to her kids through the AI prompt, but that fundamentally it’s like a really retro vision of what the family is gonna look like.

Ian Chillag: The mother and child in that ad had to relocate because she lost her job to AI. That’s what makes that ad so interesting.

Sarah: [laughs] Yeah.

Doug: Okay. So then there was kind of the bucket I’m calling, like, “The state of the nation.” There was, of course, a Clydesdale ad, Budweiser “American Icons,” in which we see a Clydesdale protecting a baby bird that grows into a bald eagle.

Ian Chillag: Watching this, when they cut back to the game, the Clydesdale was at the stadium with an eagle mounted on its back.

Doug: Oh, I didn’t see that.

Ian Chillag: On this, like, special saddle that had a bar that the eagle could stand on. It was missing the magic and cinematography, and it just looked like two sad animals that didn’t know where to go.

Doug: [laughs] See, that’s why you need AI to generate these animals.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s almost like they were trying to do an AI thing in real life but, like, it just looks like some weird 1950s circus act for, like, some washed up circus. Yeah. Yeah.

Doug: Where’s PETA when you need them?

Ian Chillag: When was the last Super Bowl where there wasn’t an ad where—with unlikely animal friends, right? Like, that’s …

Doug: Often.

Ian Chillag: It’s always a winner.

Doug: Yes.

Ian Chillag: And I think that was probably the only pair last night. But yeah.

Doug: Okay, then there was He Gets Us, “Is There More to Life Than More?”

[ARCHIVE CLIP, He Gets Us ad: The one who dies with the most toys wins!]

Sarah: Okay, so there’s a little girl just surrounded by dolls. There’s people playing pinball. It’s just this very hyper, visual environment with fireworks going off and people with virtual headsets in a classroom and a woman with dogs running around. It’s just extremely overwhelming.

Doug: Traffic. Big shot of traffic.

Sarah: Big shot of traffic. And more, more, more, more, more cars going around a racetrack, faster, faster, crashing. Bodies that are pumped up and sweaty and more dollars. And a car falling out of the sky?

Doug: Yeah, a car falling out of the sky.

Sarah: Wait a second. Oh my God. And, like, bodies being smashed. Okay. And this young woman’s watching the sky. “There’s more to life than more. What if Jesus shows us how to find it? HeGetsUs.com.” Okay.

Doug: Okay. They run—He Gets Us runs an ad almost every year.

Sarah: And they have been ads that showed, like, real—or not real, but conflicts that were made to look real between different political—you know, in a demonstration with people yelling at each other. And this struck me that instead of sort of trying to recreate the images that we are seeing on our televisions or on our social media feeds of actual confrontations between fascist shock troops and regular people in their neighborhoods. They couldn’t do that this time, because that is too real. So instead, they just went for a critique of American capitalism writ large or, you know, hyper-consumerist culture writ large, because that’s a safe thing. It feels much, much safer than their previous ads.

Doug: I love that, you know, this ad is so frenetic and it’s cut really fast. And then as it builds to a crescendo, as you called out, a car falls out of the sky, and you see, like, crash test dummies or bodies and broken glass. Like, that’s what builds it all it’s all this car crash that is coming and it’s gonna end everything. And then like a biblical plague, cars falling out of the sky. Like, that’s the eleventh plague at Passover.

Ian Chillag: No, I mean, if any advertisement at this year’s Super Bowl was part of the war on cars, it was this one. More cars were harmed during the making of this ad than any other.

Sarah: Yeah. And I sort of don’t understand how seeing the crash test dummies crashing around inside of the car goes with the “more” theme. It just—yeah, it’s like, it’s that feeling that America is a car crash that is happening, and we’re just watching it in real time. I’m very disturbed by having seen that ad. Thank you.

Ian Chillag: [laughs]

Doug: All right, let’s move on to the next one. That’s what we’re here for. Okay. So the next one was for Redfin and Rocket Mortgage. And this was another lost dog one, Ian, that you were talking about.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Rocket Mortgage ad: [singing] It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor.]

Doug: So we see a family that’s about to move. Kid in the backseat of the car saying goodbye to her friends. Another kid, also moving. A reference to a dad that is now probably out of the picture—a divorce. She’s walking a dog. She sees the other kid. The dog barks. The kid backs up. They are not friends. And we see the racist neighbor who will not make small talk with his brown-skinned neighbor. Now she’s looking for Frankie, the dog. And that’s Lady Gaga singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” —Mr. Rogers. And then we see the two girls who were suspicious of each other hugging. We see the brown-skinned neighbor helping the racist neighbor. It says, “America could use a neighbor just like you.”

Ian Chillag: I like the subtext just at the very end that if you’re having problems with your neighbor, just surprise them in their front yard holding a chainsaw and it will be okay.

Sarah: [laughs]

Doug: Yes, cut down a tree and their neighbor—you know, so it says America could use a neighbor before “just like you” fades in. And when I saw it for the first time as I was prepping this episode, I thought America could use a neighbor. We have two: Mexico and Canada. One we’re threatening to bomb, the other we’re threatening to annex. Maybe we should be better neighbors than that. But then it says America could use a neighbor just like you. And, like, I don’t know if I want that racist dude with the American flag as my neighbor. I’d rather have the brown-skinned guy with the chainsaw helping me out. But yeah.

Sarah: I mean, I have to say, I started crying. I mean, I’m an ad crier, and that one got me.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Sarah: And I’m very resentful of that. And I’m also mad that the Lady Gaga cover of that song, which the video of her recording it is really wonderful.

Doug: I felt like this was such a bait and switch, because I saw that song on Instagram. I saw her playing the piano. I thought, “Oh, this is so nice. She’s singing, like, just the most lovely song from all of our childhoods. Like, we really need this song right now.” And then to find out it was for an ad? Oh, man.

Sarah: I know. It bummed me out especially much, because I was successfully manipulated into crying about a mortgage ad. But again, that neighborhood, I mean, it is very resonant. And the subtext here, which we all are feeling and knowing, is that these neighborhoods are being actively smashed up and terrorized. And I mean, it’s very interesting to me that advertisers are willing to point to that, and—because it feels almost risky, because what is really happening, and that we’ve all seen, and we can superimpose the images that we’ve seen onto that neighborhood, like, I don’t know. Like, I’m not thinking about mortgages while that is going on, you know? But I guess it’s worth it to them?

Ian Chillag: Yeah, that is one where as it was happening, I had no idea what it was selling me until it came up at the very end.

Sarah: That would’ve been like, I would’ve expected it to be Jesus that they were selling me, right? You know, but …

Doug: It could have been.

Sarah: Yeah, Jesus and mortgages, that’s America.

Ian Chillag: It’s weird what becomes interchangeable on Super Bowl Sunday.

Doug: [laughs] All right, the next one. Okay, so I’m not sure if you saw this one, Ian. This was the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate ad. It’s called “Sticky Note.” You see a kid walking down the hall, getting bumped into, clearly kind of, you know, being bullied a little bit. Opens his locker, feels something, sees something, and on his backpack is a sticky note that says “Dirty Jew.”

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Blue Square Alliance Against Hate ad: Thank you, man.]

Doug: Quickly covered up by another kid, Black kid. It says two in three Jewish teens have experienced antisemitism. Share the hashtag with a blue square to show that you care. Stand up to Jewish hate. Do you know anything about this ad, either of you, about the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate?

Sarah: No. Do tell.

Doug: It’s a nonprofit founded by the Patriots owner Robert Kraft. And I would be like, okay, yeah, you know, I’m Jewish, I experienced antisemitism in high school. And sure, that’s a thing worth calling out. It would be better if Robert Kraft weren’t buddy buddies with Trump. He was at the Melania premiere recently at the Kennedy Center. So I guess …

Sarah: I think you mean the Trump-Kennedy Center.

Doug: Oh, sorry, sorry, the Trump-Kennedy Center. So, you know, like, I think very much like the Rocket Mortgage ad, it’s like, “America could use a neighbor,” or “If you see antisemitism, speak up against it.” Okay. Yeah. Like, that’s—those are good values to instill in people. But wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t have a president who, you know, was buddy buddies with Nazis, like, and a vice president who’s, like, friends with Curtis Yarvin? Like, that’s—the real antisemitism is coming from inside the White House, not the halls of some high school.

Ian Chillag: I had not seen that ad until you just showed it to us. And my main reaction is, so this kid gets this antisemitic slur slapped on his backpack with a Post-it note, and then another kid comes along and helps. And he helps by putting a Post-it note over that one. He doesn’t—why? You could put—why didn’t you remove the antisemitic slur?

Sarah: And crumple it up. Yeah.

Doug: As a metaphor for America. Like, we’re not gonna remove the racism, we’re just gonna cover it up for a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Now we’re gonna get to the most car-adjacent ad, and this is WeatherTech. They make accessories for cars. They often purchase at least one, if not two ads.

Sarah: Yeah, they’re a big one.

Doug: They’ve got some money. There’s a lot of money in floor mats and all the rest. This one is called “TaDa.”

[ARCHIVE CLIP, WeatherTech ad: No way this all fits.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, WeatherTech ad: Watch me.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, WeatherTech ad: Oh, we’re watching, Gary. They’re right. We need WeatherTech.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, WeatherTech ad: I thought they only make floor liners and cargo liners.]

Doug: We’re seeing all the stuff that WeatherTech makes, and we see the hitchback, getting a cooler, we see roof racks getting all the luggage that wouldn’t fit in the SUV.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, WeatherTech ad: Just ordered WeatherTech’s newest product.]

Doug: You can go to WeatherTech, check it all out. I kind of love this because it’s like, is your giant SUV not big enough?

Sarah: [laughs] Yeah, right.

Doug: We can make it even bigger. More cargo capacity. Thank you, WeatherTech.

Sarah: Yeah. And also, this is a long-running theme in American culture in general is the guy thinks he has it under control, and it’s so cute to watch him flail around. And then the woman comes in and actually solves all the problems, and looks cute doing it. And the idea that we’re still sort of fetishizing this male incompetence and finding it adorable, and that the women just have to step in, and have—previously she’s ordered everything already, because she knew. And also, that’s kind of passive-aggressive, isn’t it? That, like, she had the solution, and she let him cram all that stuff in there knowing it was gonna fall all over the driveway.

Ian Chillag: Yeah. Making her children watch as Daddy failed. [laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, I just …

Doug: I want a whole fan fiction about this family now. I also am curious, why are they shoving everything they own into this car? It’s not even—they don’t even show, like, a kid going off to college and you’re trying to cram, like, all of their belongings. It’s just like this is their camping trip, their Disney World trip.

Sarah: No, they’re being evicted.

Doug: Right. Yeah, that’s fair. The climate disaster has come along and forced them from their homes. They didn’t have a neighbor with a chainsaw to remove the tree, and now they have to move.

Ian Chillag: I always feel for ads—like, I feel like there’s always one ad that didn’t get the dress code right. Like, there’s like—there’s an ad with, you know, Jon Hamm and Bowen Yang and Scarlett Johansson, and then there’s these normal people in a driveway, you know? And you’re like, “No, it’s Super Bowl night. Come on, guys. What are you doing?”

Doug: Maybe they stand out by being boring. Maybe that’s how it is. And we’re talking about it, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Doug: Okay. The main event, the car ads, of which there were very few this year. There’s a report from Mike Wayland at CNBC where he says that automakers are largely sitting on the advertising sidelines during this year’s Super Bowl amid broader uncertainty in the US automotive industry. GM, Toyota, and Volkswagen were the only automakers that ran ads last night. He says that automakers accounted for 40 percent of Super Bowl ad minutes in 2012, but dropped all the way to 7 percent last year. So it’s gotta be similar or even less this year. However, automakers are still—you know, they’re investing lots of money in advertising. They’re just not running them during the big game. They actually ran a bunch during the conference championships and other sporting events. He says automakers now represent roughly 60 percent of the spend on live sports.

Sarah: And the rest is gambling. [laughs]

Doug: The rest is gambling and GLP-1s. Yeah. And Stellantis, which was the only automaker that ran ads last year, they said they’re focusing on the 250th anniversary of the US. And they launched an ad for Jeep last week featuring Billy Bass, the singing fish.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jeep ad: Hey, Dad?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jeep ad: Yeah, bud?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jeep ad: Can we please take him?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jeep ad: You want to take him to the …]

Sarah: Okay.

Doug: Sarah, this one is your beat because you’re all about cars and nature.

Sarah: Oh, that’s …

Doug: There we go.

Sarah: Okay, I can’t wait. That is a very burdensome fake pregnancy the woman has got there.

Doug: They get in a blue Jeep Cherokee, 37 combined miles per gallon.

Sarah: He’s petting the fish.

Doug: Is this the dumbest kid ever?

Sarah: I don’t know. I was gonna say this kid should be, like, three years younger than he is in order to be actually asking these questions.

Ian Chillag: Okay, at least he took it …

Doug: Okay, we’re at the river. He takes it off the wood plaque, yeah, and throws Billy …

Sarah: The plastic fish.

Doug: And then actually it does swim.

Sarah: Oh my goodness!

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jeep ad: Is he waving?]

Sarah: Yeah. Wow, Dad.

Doug: And then a bear attacks it.

Sarah: Oh my God!

Doug: So Billy Bass, I guess, is …

Sarah: Oh my God!

Ian Chillag: Oh, I love this.

Doug: And an eagle takes Billy Bass away.

Ian Chillag: All right, that’s fantastic. That’s a fantastic ad.

Doug: I did like this ad a lot.

Sarah: I’m agog. I would just like to also say …

Doug: So we’ve got two in favor of this ad, one against? Is that what it is?

Sarah: No, I’m kind of loving it because it’s so extreme. It’s so freaky.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Ian Chillag: It poked a similar place in me from that Saturday Night Live “Home Alone” skit a few weeks ago.

Doug: Oh, I love that. Yes, yes.

Ian Chillag: Where—yeah.

Doug: If you didn’t see that one, it’s the family comes home after being separated from Kevin, but all of Kevin’s booby traps are still set, and he winds up basically killing his entire family.

Sarah: [laughs] Okay. Awesome.

Doug: Yeah, it’s very funny. Yeah, Sarah, what were your thoughts on this one as the nature lover and car hater?

Sarah: As the nature lover and car hater. I mean, yes, I hate the car’s driving right up to the edge of the river and putting plastic in the river that’s already filled with plastic from the tires of cars. Yeah, but, like, I kind of love the revenge of nature on the animatronic animal because here’s this, you know, ridiculous, sort of humiliating to fish, Billy Bass. You know, I mean, it’s just fish deserve much better than that representation.

Doug: Our next guest on the podcast will be a fish to talk about how humiliated …

Sarah: And—you know, and then the bear and the eagle just, you know, saying, no, actually, we’re gonna destroy this. And that I would just like to point out is another dad fail.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Sarah: Another dad fail.

Ian Chillag: A lot of dumb dads.

Doug: Yeah, dads are dumb.

Sarah: I think there’s a lot of, like, male vulnerability coming up here. And I think that, you know, the men are not all right. They’re not scoring touchdowns, either. It’s only field goals. It’s really …

Doug: They are putting on kick-ass halftime shows, I will say.

Ian Chillag: You just average all the ads, and you have a hairless male in a car falling from the sky.

Sarah: [laughs]

Doug: I also do love that they had to have a pregnant mom sitting at home because, like, as if—you didn’t need a mom in that ad at all. It could have just been a father and son, like, going on a road trip to put this fish in the water. But, like, I guess we have to explain at least there’s one responsible parent somewhere or, like, answer the questions that would have been aroused on Reddit, I should say, of like, “Where’s the mom?” Like, everyone wants to know where the mom is. And so someone at the ad agency was like, “I got it. She’s pregnant.”

Sarah: But also that if mom had been able to come on this excursion, it probably would have gone better, so in order for the full dad fail to happen, mom had to be sidelined with pregnancy.

Ian Chillag: Yeah. Mom’s adrenaline would’ve taken over. She would’ve wrestled the fish back from the bear.

Sarah: Exactly. Exactly.

Doug: Or I like to think there was a scene before this where the kid wanted to flush Billy Bass down the toilet and return him to water. And the mom was like, “No, you can’t do that.” And she turns to the dad, like, “You gotta get him out of the house. This stupid kid. We’re doing this again, actually? I can’t believe we’re doing this again.” Okay, there was another ad that began running during the conference championship games. This one is for Hyundai. It’s John Krasinski’s epic mission in the new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hyundai Palisade ad: There he is.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hyundai Palisade ad: My dude!]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hyundai Palisade ad: How you doing?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hyundai Palisade ad: Man, I’m loving this new Palisade. Yeah.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hyundai Palisade ad: [thump]]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hyundai Palisade ad: What was that?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Hyundai Palisade ad: Every time I drive, I feel like I’m in a movie now.]

Doug: So the villain and the passenger in that car is John Hoogenakker, who is Krasinski’s co-star in the Jack Ryan series on Amazon. We’ve gone from Jim on The Office to John Krasinski being an action hero. There’s another spot that is very similar. It’s called “Epic Groceries.” It follows John Krasinski as he goes to get groceries, and all kinds of weird things happen. An epic afternoon. So basically, it’s like, driving is boring. Going to get groceries sucks, but what if it didn’t? That’s basically the premise of the ad. Like, what if you were the star of your own action film every time you got behind the wheel of this Hyundai?

Sarah: And I’m gonna say again, the subtext to me is there are a lot of people driving around normal-looking American cities and neighborhoods actually being followed by armed people in other vehicles, and being cut off and being confronted with firearms and surveilled by helicopters and drones. So yeah, I just …

Doug: Yeah. Read the room, Hyundai.

Sarah: Well, but like, I just think that our collective anxiety is coming out, like, regardless, because there’s too much stuff going on. Or maybe I’m just projecting onto it.

Doug: Well, you have to imagine that all of this was pitched, like, a year or two ago.

Sarah: Right.

Doug: Before this began. And the production and all the rest takes a long time. But at the same time, like, if you are releasing this out into the world at a moment where masked thugs are, like, chasing after and pulling over and shooting innocent drivers on their way to tennis or to daycare or whatever, yes, I think that is a valid point.

Sarah: What I’ve been thinking about the way that things have played out in Minneapolis and how many—and across the country, and how many of these confrontations are happening in cars, with cars, car windows being smashed, people’s cars being run off the road, people in cars being shot, that of course fascism is car-shaped in the United States, because everything we do is car-shaped. And so cars are the tools for everything, and they’re gonna be the tools for implementing terror. So I guess it’s sort of inevitable that whatever is happening, you could project onto these car ads, because everything we do, we do with cars.

Doug: Yes, absolutely. All right, here’s the next one. This one’s for the Nissan Rogue. I actually didn’t see it on the air, but I am told that it did run last night. It’s called “Dip Seat.”

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Nissan ad: Are you as serious about game day dip as I am? Does your perfect dip …]

Doug: You see dip going all over the back seat of the car. That’s Matty Matheson from The Bear, who plays Fak. So it’s kind of played like an infomercial.

Sarah: It’s like a child seat for dip.

Doug: I actually would buy this if I owned a car.

Sarah: Get flames.

Doug: Yeah. Emelia Hartford, if you don’t know, she’s a YouTuber, actress, race car driver, big internet personality. And we see her driving this Nissan Rogue with the dip in the backseat, and it’s totally fine.

Ian Chillag: Can I just say, for those of you that saw this ad of the dip car seat, it’s really important your dip needs to be rear-facing for the first two years of the dip’s life.

Sarah: [laughs]

Doug: Yes.

Ian Chillag: Okay?

Doug: See, would you—what would you ask the dip or the dip seat on Everything is Alive about? Yes, exactly. Like, why aren’t you facing backwards? Yeah. You’d think that would help.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Sarah: I would just like to say, I would like to thank that ad for not providing an occasion for me to project fascism onto it. Like, that was just kind of cute. And he’s cute. And that was kind of fun.

Doug: He’s great. When he shows up on The Bear, I always love it. Also, the fact that his name is Fack, and they just, like, are playing with the word “fuck” all the time. Like, I kind of love it. He is great. And yeah, it’s a great personality. So that one did to me break a little bit of a pattern of, like, it’s silly, it’s juvenile, but it’s just like innocent fun. I kind of liked it.

Sarah: Right. And, like, snacks and dip. I mean, like, I felt, like, remotely okay after I watched that one.

Ian Chillag: Wow!

Doug: All right.

Doug: There was an ad for Volkswagen. It’s called “The Great Invitation: Driver Wanted.”

Sarah: I think you mean “Folksvagen?” [laughs]

Doug: Folksvagen!

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Volkswagen ad: Life. If we’re not living it, what are we doing here?]

Doug: And we all know this song if you’re of a certain age. This is House of Pain “Jump Around.” And so far we have not seen a car. Then we see an ID. Buzz. And it’s just like a bunch of Gen Z, millennials, younger—whatever they’re calling themselves now—in the rain dancing. We only see little snippets of cars. We don’t see the full thing so much for a while. Reflection in a mirror.

Sarah: It’s like, come on. Come on out of your house.

Doug: Yeah, it’s like it’s just a bunch of people having fun.

Sarah: Come on out and touch grass in a car.

Doug: Yeah. Just people having fun in the city. There’s the ID. Buzz again. Ice cream truck. Now we’re seeing more of the car. Car on the highway. Yeah, so at this point we actually are seeing full-on cars, different Volkswagens.

Sarah: [laughs] Oh, a dog!

Doug: Another dog. Just people having fun. Just people having a good time.

Sarah: In the parking lot.

Doug: And it says “Drivers Wanted.” So this is a reboot of an old campaign from the ’90s, also called “Drivers Wanted.”

Ian Chillag: Oh!

Sarah: Yeah, I remember that.

Doug: My reaction to this ad is that it’s Stephen Miller’s second biggest nightmare after the halftime show, because it is an incredibly diverse group of Americans just celebrating and having fun, walking dogs and partying in the rain and doing all this kind of stuff like just, you know, sharing. Someone kicks a soccer ball to a group of kids, like just being good, fun-loving Americans. Exactly the kind of thing, like, we are told should not exist in this country. I will admit I have one guilty pleasure, and that is the ID. Buzz. If I ever needed a car for a cross-country trip—don’t ask me about the range or anything—it just—like, it feels and looks like a good-looking car. I think they’re skipping a production year, I believe.

Ian Chillag: Yeah.

Sarah: Wait, so they’re—you can’t buy the thing that they’re selling to us?

Ian Chillag: I think you could, but then I think when the demand for electric cars evaporated, they suspended it, right?

Doug: I believe so. Yes. So I think there will not be a 2027 model if I’m correct.

Ian Chillag: Okay.

Doug: Yes. But I have been asked what’s your, like, urbanist guilty pleasure? And I would say that car.

Sarah: Okay. All right. I’ll allow it.

Doug: Yeah.

Ian Chillag: I found that ad very disappointing.

Doug: How so?

Ian Chillag: Because I think Volkswagen has a long history of making ads that make you feel something. Like the classic Nick Drake ad. Do you remember that?

Doug: No.

Ian Chillag: Oh, they had this ad with a Nick Drake song and a Volkswagen convertible driving around at night. And it was like—it was so beautiful. I literally just got goosebumps thinking about an ad from 20 years ago. Yeah, I expect—I expect Volkswagen is gonna probably make me cry, and this ad kind of made me feel nothing.

Sarah: Yeah. I mean, it was fun, but there was something generic about it. But I can see why this is appealing. And again, at least it was fun. At least it gave the idea that, unlike some of these other ads that we talked about earlier that, like, our lives in the United States of America are just incredibly painful and they just always have to be painful. At least it was this idea that, like, “Hey, just get out with your friends and have a good time.”

Doug: Yeah, go chase an ice cream truck in your car.

Sarah: Yeah. I mean, it would be better if you did that on the subway or something, I guess. You know, like it just—I’m sorry that people feel like they can only have fun if they get into a car, but at least they’re having fun, I guess.

Doug: I think this ad to me, I’m with you, Ian, in that it was kind of boring in that this could have been an ad for Pepsi. Like people dancing with Pepsi cans in the rain and, like, standing outside of a park with their dog or whatever it is. It didn’t feel specific to Volkswagen in that sense. Yeah. Okay. So the other big carmaker that ran ads was Toyota. And they ran two. The first that we’re gonna talk about is called “Superhero Belt.” And this is for the RAV4.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Toyota ad: Hey, let’s go for a drive.]

Doug: And we see a man and a little kid going out of their house, getting into a RAV4, like a ’90s-era RAV4. “Put your superhero belt on.” And then we flash forward, it’s that same kid, now an adult, taking his grandfather for a drive, repeating the superhero belt line. And they’re having a good time. And it says, “People are the destination.” And that’s right, people are the destination, because we’ve destroyed anything worth driving to in this country.

Sarah: [laughs]

Doug: You just drive around. There’s no place to park, there’s nothing worth seeing, but you can have a nice time with your grandfather and return the favor. So it’s a little nostalgia for the old RAV4 and now the new RAV4.

Sarah: Yeah. And that really touches into this thing that I think so many people experience, which is that a lot of the most meaningful interactions you have with your family members happen in the car, that, you know, a lot of big talks happen in the car, a lot of—you know, that that’s just a big part of how people spend time together—especially family time—and that, you know, they have a lot of emotional memory with the car. And I think it evokes that really nicely. And it’s definitely a little depressing to me, the infantilization of the grandfather.

Ian Chillag: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: That kind of disturbed me a little bit. But I guess it was a better mood than a lot of these other ones.

Ian Chillag: There’s definitely, I think, probably some aspiration in that ad that the child does not resist the car seat at all.

Doug: [laughs]

Ian Chillag: There’s no conflict.

Doug: Total work of fiction there. Yeah, exactly.

Sarah: Right. And the grandfather does not feel infantilized. You know, he smiles at the joke. And it’s also worth mentioning that these are Asian actors playing these roles. and so it does sort of include a demographic that there are some people in our government who, you know, maybe don’t think that that should be the face of America. And it’s the face of America here, and that’s a good thing.

Doug: Yeah, I—again, I’m just gonna write fan fiction for all of these ads. I want to have seen the part of this story where they have to talk to the grandfather about not being able to drive anymore. And so your grandson is gonna take you to the market today, Grandpa. And, like, what that conversation was like, because clearly now he’s okay with it. But I can imagine there was a very tough conversation. That would have been a much more interesting ad and more realistic in that sense. Okay. So there was another Toyota ad, and it’s called “Where Dreams Began.”

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Toyota ad: All right, Big Me, this is where the dream began.]

Doug: And just to set this one up, it’s gonna show NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, LA Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua and Paralympian Oksana Masters being urged on by younger versions of themselves. And we see a big Toyota truck parked in the football field and a kid driving, like, a toy version of that. And it’s the little kids cheering their older selves on. This didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, because the kid’s saying, “I’m the you that never gave up.” No, the adult is the you who never gave up. That’s why you’re in the Olympics. But, you know, it definitely tugs at the heartstrings a little bit.

Ian Chillag: When she says, “I’m the you that never gave up,” I definitely—I got misty.

Doug: Yeah, it was very cute.

Sarah: This one left me absolutely cold.

Ian Chillag: [laughs]

Sarah: I just—there was something too AI about it. Like, it felt really fake. And it also—the pacing wasn’t such that I could get emotionally involved in it. When I was watching the Olympics in Canada, there was a similar ad that I saw that was a Paralympian hockey player. And there was his younger self. It showed him being diagnosed with cancer and having to have his leg amputated, and this sort of teary teenage boy standing looking at the hockey player standing at the edge of the rink. And really looking kind of ill and teary, and the hockey player doing his thing, and he’s got a beard now, and he’s, you know, like, very, very tough looking. And he looks over to that younger person and basically says the same thing, like, “You’re gonna be okay.” And that one got me because it was just—it stayed on that one story for the whole ad. This, it was just too much.

Doug: It was a lot to cram into 30 for seconds. Sure.

Sarah: Yeah, Jesus would say that we don’t need that much. We just need one.

Doug: We don’t need more.

Sarah: We just—we don’t need more. We—just one story. Yeah, I might’ve responded differently.

Doug: Okay, there was one more from another car company, Cadillac. But this was the debut of their new F1 car.

Sarah: Ah, yes.

Doug: And the ad is set to John F. Kennedy’s famous speech about putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. We do these things because they are hard, et cetera, which is like, we just make a car go faster? That’s our ambition now is like that’s all we could …

Sarah: We put a car in Times Square.

Doug: Right. And so this is the thing. The ad just showed the car coming together, but part of what they did was they parked a car in a glass box in Times Square. And then when the ad went live, they revealed from behind this frosted glass the car. And all I could think of is, like, you’re advertising a car on a world-famous pedestrian plaza. There’s something—I don’t know.

Ian Chillag: [laughs]

Sarah: All of these cars just don’t seem that interesting. I mean, it seems like what they don’t have to sell is an interesting car. That they—that cars are just inherently uninteresting to people at this point in history, and you can’t get people excited about it.

Doug: We were on tour and someone said to me, you know, “What do you say to a person who says a bicycle is this, like, 100-year, 150-year-old technology that hasn’t changed and it isn’t the future?” And I say, “You know what’s another 100, 150-year-old technology that really hasn’t changed? The car.”

Sarah: Yeah.

Doug: Cars have not changed substantially. There are new safety features and cameras and things like that, but we’re really just talking about four wheels and some sort of motor or engine and a steering wheel and headlights and a windshield. Like, in form and function, it hasn’t changed significantly. And I think yeah, we are—this has been a theme for the last few of these that we’ve done that, like, the car industry just seems to know that it has a really shitty product and there’s not much more they can sell other than, like, do you need to bring dip to a party and want to make sure it gets there in one piece? Like, do you have too much stuff so we can add more—a hitch to your car for all your luggage? Like, there’s nothing innovative or new about the product itself.

Ian Chillag: I mean, as someone who is currently in the market for a Formula One vehicle, this did help me make my choice.

Sarah: [laughs]

Doug: Cadillac. I was going to get a—I don’t know, does Ferrari make a Formula One? I don’t know.

Sarah: I imagine they must.

Doug: Right. Yeah.

Ian Chillag: What you said just now, though, I do like picturing that very svelte Cadillac racing car with all the WeatherTech technology mounted on top of it.

Doug: Do F1 drivers need floor mats? Like, do they get their shoes dirty?

Sarah: And the dip seat.

Ian Chillag: Oh, yeah!

Sarah: Yeah, you put that in the back seat of an F1.

Ian Chillag: See, that’s a race I would watch, is everybody gets a very loose guacamole on the back of their F1 car, and whoever can make it to the finish without spilling it wins.

Doug: Like those races where waiters have to carry a big tray, and whoever can get it without spilling the water or the wine or whatever? Yes. Yeah, I just—everything about last night left me cold except for the halftime show. The ads, the game, even the national anthem at the start, it was just fine. It, like, wasn’t a standout. This was not like Whitney Houston, Gulf War, singing the national anthem. It was just fine. Everything felt fine.

Sarah: Except for Bad Bunny, who felt awesome.

Doug: Outstanding.

Sarah: Yeah.

Doug: Outstanding.

Sarah: Yeah.

Doug: Yeah, any final thoughts on sort of the game, where we stand as a nation as a result of the Super Bowl?

Ian Chillag: I felt like this year, the Super Bowl—except for Bad Bunny—it snuck up on us more than usual. Like, we were talking about Bad Bunny for—since it was established he’d be the guy, but I’m accustomed to sort of the hype rising and rising until Sunday night. But it didn’t feel that way this year. I don’t know why that is. Maybe because there’s other things going on.

Sarah: Yeah, I think it’s that there’s other things going on. And I think, you know, that playing at violence also may not feel the same if there’s real violence happening. And that I do think that there’s a deep disturbance in the American soul right now. And this thing that’s supposed to be where we can just, like—you know, even if you don’t like football and even if you don’t normally eat junk, and even if you don’t normally think about mass-market advertising, that you just kind of are like, “You know what? Now I’m gonna be a big sloppy, smelly American, and I’m gonna just get into all that for one day.”

Sarah: I don’t know that we have the bandwidth or that that seems like fun right now. And maybe that’s part of what you experienced, Ian, and sort of like the lack of anticipation. But there was such anticipation for Bad Bunny.

Doug: Yeah.

Sarah: And I gotta say that that was one thing that even coming home on the train, like, it broke through. Because when I was riding the subway back from Penn Station, some young people got on the train who had just been at a watch party, and they were a little tipsy, and they were waving Puerto Rican flags. Turned out they were Mexican and Spanish, but they were like, you know, “Oh, we’re Puerto Rican.” I’m like, “We’re all Puerto Rican tonight and, you know, we’re all American.” Right? And as Bad Bunny pointed out, America is a big, big, big place and a big, big, big idea. And so that vision of America that he presented in that halftime show, that has some juice, that has some joy in it.

Doug: Yeah, it was fun to watch.

Sarah: And like the dancing that we saw in the Volkswagen ad is like the real dancing of the people coming out of the stadium and waving Puerto Rican flags and dancing to salsa. Like, that’s where the energy is right now, and that’s where the excitement and the sort of older, like, football vision of America seems to just—it just doesn’t appeal in the same way. And so I guess that kind of gives me hope.

Doug: I think the other thing—sort of goes against what you were saying a little bit, Ian. I agree that, like, in terms of the game itself and the ads, there was not the buildup that we saw. But the Bad Bunny stuff, actually, it’s a really good lesson, because the right was freaking out. Like, he’s gonna say “ICE out” at the Super Bowl performance like he did at the Grammys. He’s gonna make some overtly political statement against Trump. He didn’t do any of those things, actually. He just presented his vision of celebratory culture from Puerto Rico and from Latin America, and from the United States and from everywhere. Now he had some political moments of, like, the electrical utility poles, like a call-out to Hurricane Maria and the fact that the US government has not assisted its own territory in getting its power back on and reliable. And there were other moments like that that were political in nature, but not like, “F-you, Trump,” right? He wasn’t unfurling a banner that said, “Abolish ICE.” And I think it’s a good lesson in how the right-wing freakout never lives up to the reality, because it’s like, “Oh my God, he’s gonna be singing completely in Spanish.” Yes, in Santa Clara, California, he will be speaking entirely and singing entirely in Spanish. And I think it just exposed the ridiculousness of sort of like, our culture war, and that we are winning the culture war, and that’s why the right is so upset.

Ian Chillag: One of the things I felt early on during his performance is how well it worked in the light. Like, often you see those halftime shows and you’re like, “No, this—this is a concert. It should be happening under dark skies in, like—but this one, the sun was shining and, like, all these different places and sets that he was walking to, they were well-lit. And it felt like a party around sunset, like it felt right for the time and it felt like it should be illuminated. It felt a little bit like a coincidence that it worked in the light, but I don’t know. You could also see more there.

Doug: I also just like the level of detail. Like, there literally was a kid getting a haircut.

Ian Chillag: I know! I’m so curious.

Doug: In the background of one thing. Was that like a real haircut?

Ian Chillag: I’ve been wondering the same thing.

Doug: There was a couple that got married. Did you see this? It was an actual marriage. They had invited Bad Bunny to their wedding. And apparently, he couldn’t go because he probably gets a million of these requests, but he invited them to get married on stage at the Super Bowl. You know, and there were other little details. The guys playing dominoes, which I love, which is just such, like, a universal city thing in any, like, Dominican, Puerto Rican, any sort of culture like that, which I really loved. And just like the younger version of himself holding the Grammy, all of that stuff. There was—one person pointed out a kid—there’s like a wedding at one point, which we were just talking about. There’s a kid sleeping on a couple of chairs, which any ethnicity, if you’ve been to any wedding, there’s always a kid sleeping on chairs. So I just—the artistry at that level of detail for something that’s supposed to be huge, to be down to the detail of a child was really awesome. It’s just this, like, multigenerational celebration that I really loved.

Sarah: Yeah. And then the very simple message at the end, the only thing stronger than hate is love. And then on the football, “Together …”

Doug: “Together We Are America?”

Sarah: “We Are America.” And, you know, people have talked a lot about the positive energy of Zohran Mamdani. And we’ve talked about how he won that election because he loved—he loves New York. He loves New York the way that we all love New York. And love was stronger than hate in that case. And the haters are the waiters.

Doug: [laughs]

Sarah: Anyway, but I think that keeping that simple—and even the font, it was just this very simple sans-serif font. It wasn’t in Spanish and English. It was just in English. It was just a black and white sign saying something very clear. And it was about love. And he just brought, like, a tidal wave of love onto that field. And you can’t argue with it. You can’t argue with that love, despite the fact that the president crashed out about it immediately on Truth Social.

Doug: [laughs] I love that it was like—my favorite thing about Trump’s response was that he was saying basically like, this was unintelligible. Nobody understood what it means. And also it was offensive to America. The message was offensive. Pick one, dude.

Sarah: Right. So I just think I think that that posture of, like, saying, “I know who I am, I know that my culture is beautiful, I know that what is inside of me and inside of my culture is beautiful, and I’m just going to show that with love consistently without ever showing a crack.” You know, just to say, like, this love can envelop you, too, I just found that extremely moving.

Doug: Well, that is a perfect note to end on. Thank you, Sarah. And thank you so much, Ian, for being here.

Ian Chillag: Oh, thanks for having me.

Doug: Where else can people find you? Here’s your chance to give us a good plug.

Ian Chillag: You can listen to my podcast, How to Do Everything on NPR. You can also find Everything is Alive. At this point, we know where podcasts are. I’m not going to say the thing we say.

Doug: Well, we’ll put links in the show notes.

Ian Chillag: Okay. That’d be great.

Doug: Thanks for being here.

Ian Chillag: Thank you.

Doug: That’s it for this episode of The War on Cars. Thanks again to Ian Chillag. You can listen to Everything is Alive wherever you get your podcasts, and we’ll put links to everything Ian in the show notes.

Sarah: Remember, you can support us and get exclusive bonus content, presale access to live show tickets, free stickers, and more by signing up on Patreon at Patreon.com/thewaroncarsPod. A big thanks to everyone who supports The War on Cars, including our top contributors: Charley Gee of Human Powered Law in Portland, Oregon, Mark Hedlund, Virginia Baker, and Brandon DeCoster.

Doug: And please pick up a copy of our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Our Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile wherever you get your books. You can also find us on tour and learn more at LifeAfterCars.com.

Sarah: Thanks also to our friends at Cleverhood. Listeners of The War on Cars can save 15 percent off the best gear for cycling and walking now through the end of February with code KISSMEYOUFOOL. Just go to Cleverhood.com/waroncars.

Doug: The War on Cars is produced with support from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation.

Sarah: This episode was edited by Samantha Gattsek. It was recorded by Josh Wilcox at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Transcripts are by Russell Gragg. Our logo is by Dani Finkel. I’m Sarah Goodyear.

Doug: And I’m Doug Gordon. And this is The War on Cars.