By Blair Thill, Gavel Blogger -

I hate being a cliche, I really do, but I’d be lying through my slightly disproportioned front teeth if I said I watch the Super Bowl for the football. I am the woman who tunes in to watch the commercials. I am the entertainment junkie, music enthusiast that gets inordinately excited by the halftime show. Do I know who Peyton Manning is? Sure, he’s one of the best quarterbacks in the league, nay football history. I also know that he partakes in some seriously hilarious Sony commercials with Justin Timberlake and Master Card spots with How I Met Your Mother’s Allyson Hannigan. The latter is what I’m most concerned with. I am a female pop culture consumer almost always, and football fan almost never.

Why would tonight, the night of Super Bowl XLIV, be any different then? Well, it wasn’t … at first. I watched Carrie Underwood’s vocals soar on the National Anthem, proud to be an American Idol fan (even if I didn’t actually vote for her during Season 4. Sorry Carrie!). I settled into the couch and watched the Saints and Colts take their places on the field, searching for likes of Boston College favorite Jamie Silva on the Colts kick-off team, praising Hatian native and Saint Vilma for doing his country proud, and otherwise biding my time before the first round of commercials.

The time had finally come. I sat on the edge of my seat, expecting some big laughs. Well, it’s three and half hours into the Super Bowl and I’m still on the edge of my seat … waiting for the big laugh. Honestly, the commercials just aren’t doing it for me this year. So much so, I can barely remember any I’ve actually seen.

Super Bowl spots have been sold for $3 million this year. I don’t care who you are, that’s a lot of money. That’s a new high for ad rates, and with great ad rates comes great expectation. I was expecting epic Budweiser commercials that act as a cultural touchstone for new phrases, like the “Whassup” of last decade. What about a special music campaign from Pepsi, a la Britney or the late great Michael Jackson? I hoped that GoDaddy.com would abandon their naked female motif and perhaps their Super Bowl aspirations altogether.

Absolutely none of the things I just mentioned happened tonight.

I laughed a few times. Doritos had a few prime spots, the most noteworthy of which was the man who faked his own death so he could be holed up in a coffin with his chips and his TV. Bud Light was working at a depreciated value but still showed up with their house made of Bud Light cans and their dudes crashing a women’s book club to get their beer on, which spawned the best lines of the night:

Female: “Are you into Little Women?”

Dude: “I’m not really that picky.”

The best ad had to be the Betty White Snickers spot, though. Seeing Betty White getting taken out by a fellow footballer was, in a word, priceless.

The aforementioned commercials were the best of what I saw, but does that mean they’ll be remembered for years to come, or even around tomorrow’s metaphorical watercooler? Doubtful. Creativity, I’m afraid, was in short supply this year in the ad industry. This absence thereof forced me to do something unspeakable: actually watch the football game. Perhaps Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner would have had better luck handling the campaigns and saved me from this fate, as Don Draper’s ideas are far more imaginative than Denny’s screaming chickens.

The one bright spot of the evening came during the Bridgestone Halftime Show. I will not lead you on. I am a giant Who fan. “Baba O’Riley” is my favorite song. They rank amongst the best concerts I’ve ever seen. I was bound to love this halftime show. But The Who surpassed even my expectations. A lot of people were joking about the choice catering to the London Retirement Home demographic, but Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend proved that they can rock hard with the best of them.

Roger’s voice was a bit shaky at first, but evened out by the Tommy operatic “See Me Feel Me,” and his patented scream at the end of the medley, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Pete was in tip top shape tonight, shredding his guitar from the non-synth intro of “O’Riley” through “Who Are You” and the sonic boom of “Fooled Again.” I was a kid in a mod candy store, high on classic rock. For any youngsters out there who had no idea the CSI theme songs weren’t written expressly for CSI, I hope you learned something tonight at the School of Rock lesson as taught by Professors Daltry and Townsend.

But that’s just one female pop culture lovers’ take on sports’ greatest night. Congrats to the New Orleans Saints! I can’t imagine a more deserving city.