Here at Overthinking It, we’ve been talking about a disturbing trend in advertising for several years. We saw several (nine, to be exact) instances of this in last Saturday’s Super Bowl. Here’s an example:

Advertiser: Doritos

Message: “Eating Doritos will get you shocked by a dog.”

Huh? Why is this a good thing? How is this supposed to sell Doritos? Well, we’re not really sure, but we’ve coined a phrase that aptly describes this perplexing phenomenon:

“Bad Things Happen To You When You Use Our Product.”

Let’s explore this trend further with some more examples.

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Josh McNeil, and John Perich to overthink Super Bowl XLIV, especially its downtrodden, misogynistic commercials and its geriatric halftime show.

→ Download Episode 84 (MP3)

For the second time, we were livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return next Sunday at 9:15pm ET/6:15pm PT).

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Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.

Is it cold in here, or is it just the bitter windchill cutting across the American Northeast? Or did I just answer my own question? Maybe I should shut the window and OPEN up a THREAD, perhaps?

Two items of note this week: first, the 2010 Oscar Nominations were announced on Tuesday. Avatar and The Hurt Locker both have 9 nominations, ranging from Best Sound Mixing to Best Picture and Best Director. James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow going head to head – talk about drama. Fortunately, they’re at least on speaking terms; Will Ferrell and Mo’nique have yet to reconcile.

Question: A movie about a Hollywood couple who divorces, then goes on to direct two movies both of which are nominated for Oscars, gets nominated for an Oscar: too meta, or not meta enough?

Oh, Jimmy; it's so funny when you pretend you can hurl lightning.

Second, a big game of American (that is to say, “padded”) football will be played this Sunday: the AFC/NFC conference championships, colloquially known as the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl ads, typically some of the most expensive commercials sold throughout the year, continue to draw controversy, with Tim Tebow’s anti-abortion ad, as well as ads from CareerBuilder and GoDaddy, already making headlines. Even more shocking? The two teams with the best regular season records are playing in the Super Bowl! You know how rarely that happens?

Question: Do you know how rarely that happens? Without consulting Wikipedia?

You think they'll let me star in commercials if I win this Super Bowl, Peyton?

In a postscript, can someone explain what’s going on with Overthinking It’s Facebook page? We’ve gained 800 fans in the last week and it’s just not slowing down. We don’t want it to stop, but we’re sort of scared of where it’s leading us. Anyhow, if you want to say that you were a Facebook fan of Overthinking It “back when it was still cool,” join soon. At this rate, we’ll have 35,000 fans by the end of 2010 and then it’s just going to be a mess.

Do you have answers regarding Facebook? Perhaps you can share some Oscar predictions? Care to lay a wager on the Super Bowl? Or have we once again missed that important news that you crave so much? Sound off in the comments, for this is your … Open Thread.

The day after the game, when our “Superbowl” podcast hit the site, I noticed that our editor had chosen to spell it in one word, as opposed to the standard “Super Bowl.” At first I thought nothing of it; I just attributed the variance to his self-professed ignorance of all things football.

But then I noticed the “Superbowl” spelling popping up all over the internets, from Cinematical to the Belfast Telegraph. Even the Wall Street Journal got in on the act.

Fear began to overcome me. If the all-powerful media, with its copy checkers and style guides, was getting it wrong, what, then, of the general public?

Google Trends (an infallible source of knowledge) confirmed my worst fears: as a search term, “Superbowl” has pulled ahead of “Super Bowl.” America officially can’t spell.

(Note: The above charts use Google Trends from the US only to minimize the impact of non-English speakers sullying the results.)

Yes, I realize this is teh inturwebz, where mangling the English language is par for the course. But I had faith that Americans would at least take the time to spell “SUPER BOWL,” that most sacred of all American days, properly. I was wrong.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a new American Spelling Crisis, just another case of language evolving, or somethingmuchworse?

Overthinking It salutes this year’s Super Bowl champions with some totally unnecessary Excel.

As the series of graphs below demonstrate, the Pittsburgh Steelers perform better when the US produces more steel, but the Denver Nuggets perform worse with increased gold production, as do the Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers) with increased oil production.*

Click on any of the graphs for larger versions.

*Yes, I know that extremely weak (i.e., virtually non-existent) correlation does not equal causation.

Go Steelers, and go steel producers.

One of the videos that made it into our Super Bowl ad roundup was the Conan O’Brien ad for Bud Light, in which his agent/manager/ambiguous guy in a suit convinces him to make an embarrassing Bud Light Ad  by assuring him that it will “only be seen in Sweden”.

The message of this spot seems to be “Drink Bud Light because it is a beer for awesome-non-Eurotrash-American Dudes!” In the world of the commercial, the only way that the effete Swedes could be convinced to drink Bud Light is with fire, mesh tops, and cheesy techno.  But does anyone really still hold this view of Europeans?