Quiz #114. False Advertising
Five days later, why am still I upset about a Super Bowl ad featuring "The Sopranos"? Steve's Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz for February 18, 2022.
Super Bowl LVI is in the books. The game was good–-not great. In part, I blame the playoff games that led up to the Super Bowl-–each one more exciting than the last. How could this “Super” game possibly top what we’d seen in each and every playoff game in January?
In his blog (which is on Substack and a fantastic read), the brilliant sports writer Joe Posnanski compared it to something that happens during the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament.
… this was a weird Super Bowl, wasn’t it? I mean, the whole week felt weird. There’s something that sometimes happens during March Madness that you might call “the Cinderella Hangover.” What happens is that there are a whole bunch of thrilling, electrifying early-round upsets — down go Duke and Kentucky and North Carolina and Kansas and all of those superpowers — and everybody loves it, everybody’s buzzing.
And then you look up and the Final Four is filled with inspiring but not-so-great teams that you don’t really care too much about, and the games aren’t all that great, and it’s like: Ah, well, that didn’t work out quite as well as I had expected.
Posnanski is clear that he didn’t mean that as a diss against either the Rams or the Bengals. (He also has a rant on the odd officiating in the game. It’s great stuff.) For him, the game–-and the lead-up to the game-–seemed off. To me, the game itself just lacked electricity. Sadly, in the end, things aren’t great just because we want them to be. The Super Bowl is only super when it is.
Of course, we also had the Super Bowl ads. For Sara and me, one of our favorites was the GM ad which recreated the iconic open to “The Sopranos” with the Meadow Soprano character (actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler) driving an electric vehicle to familiar sites in New Jersey, ending up at Bahrs Landing Restaurant in the Atlantic Highlands.
Bahrs is one of our favorite restaurants. We’ve gone there for years. Sara and I planned our wedding over dinner at Bahrs right after we got engaged in 2006. In 2010, Sara and I took my father, my step-mother Judy and Sara’s mother Sally to Bahrs for lunch. (Never let a Thode get hungry.) After, we all rode on the Seastreak ferry from the Highlands to New York City. We stayed on the ferry the whole time as it made its stops along the New York Harbor and headed back to New Jersey. It was the last time my father was out “on the water.”
In 2012, Sara and I had an early Saturday dinner at Bahrs when there was quite a scene on the dock behind the restaurant as some fishermen pulled in to measure a shark they’d caught out in the Atlantic. I took photos from our table overlooking the water.
Ironically, the day before the Super Bowl, Sara and I had even gotten lunch from Bahrs. That Saturday was mild in the Northeast and we took advantage of the sunshine to head to the Jersey Shore. We walked the boardwalk in Long Branch. It was crowded and almost no one was wearing a mask. When we were outside walking, we also didn’t wear our masks.
February. Covid. Isolation.
There was a feeling that someday soon, the worst of all this might be over.
After our walk, we phoned in a takeout order to Bahrs and picked it up on our drive home. We wore masks to go inside and pick up the food. (We had to get home to pick up the dogs who’d been at the groomer. I was hungry—never let a Thode get hungry—so Sara drove and I ate my lobster roll in the car. Sara ate hers after we picked up the dogs and were home.)
As predicted, Super Bowl Sunday was weather-whiplash in New Jersey. Two inches of snow Sunday morning–-and a reminder that February wasn't over just yet. The sunny Saturday was an illusion-–which brings us back to that Super Bowl ad.
The ad was for GM’s new electric Silverado and when Meadow parked in front of Bahrs, she was reunited with her brother, AJ (actor Robert Iler). The ad showed electric vehicle charging stations in front of the restaurant.
The only problem—there aren’t charging stations in front of Bahrs. We knew. We’d been there the day before.
This week, the local New Jersey media reported on the ad, interviewing the owner of Bahrs, Jay Cosgrove. He talked about how much excitement the ad had generated for the venerable restaurant with people stopping by after the Super Bowl to snap a photo to match the ad. In the NJ Patch article, the fact that there aren’t actually charging stations at the restaurant was mentioned as almost an after-thought.
The funniest thing? There are actually no electric vehicle charging stations outside Bahrs. Those are fake.
"Everybody is calling to ask if we have charging stations! Those are props; GM brought them in," said Cosgrove.
Cosgrove told Carly Baldwin of the NJ Patch that he’s looking into getting charging stations installed this summer, but if you know me, you know this bothers me-–a lot.
To me, one of the reasons not to get an electric car is because there aren’t enough charging stations around. Sara and I talked about it. We can only remember seeing them once.
So, yes, the GM ad did a great job of making us fall in love again with Tony Soprano and the big GM Suburban he used to drive around the Garden State. It was wonderful to see that Meadow was still around to drive in his footsteps and the electric GM Silverado looked new, smart and exciting.
And yet, it was false advertising. There are no electric vehicle charging stations at this most iconic of New Jersey locations.
(Before I continue on my rant about the false advertising in this ad, I have to recommend a great article in Rolling Stone from a Sopranos expert who did his own deep-dive into the ad.
Among the takeaways from Alan Sepinwall, we now know that Meadow and AJ survived whatever might have happened in that final scene at Holsten’s. In addition, there is a scene in “The Sopranos” in which AJ tried to get Meadow into hybrid cars, telling her they’re the future.)
Back to my rant.
Am I crazy to think that if the folks at GM were going to spend all that money to hire the original actors from “The Sopranos,” —plus Director David Chase (a long-time fan of Bahrs, it turns out)—they would have been well served to kick in a few extra thousands of dollars to put in the charging stations themselves?
The fake charging stations are even in the Behind the Scenes video that GM created for this ad which is called “New Generation.”
Surely, people who come back to take a picture in front of Bahrs aren’t expecting to see Meadow Soprano. Maybe they’re secretly hoping to spot the Soprano’s shiny blue electric Silverado parked outside. But if and when people come to Bahrs, does GM want their takeaway to be, “Hey! There are no charging stations here!”?
You can’t pretend something is there when it’s not.
Wanting to have electric vehicle charging stations at iconic locations across America doesn’t mean they’re there.
And as for those governors rolling back mask mandates because polls clearly show people are tired of wearing them, I understand the frustration and I understand stepping back from telling people to do something they clearly don’t want to do-–but none of that means Covid has gone away.
You can’t pretend something is gone when it’s not.
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What did not happen with my various Super Bowl leagues, pools and quizzes?
A. In all, I ran 5 different Super Bowl/Playoff leagues, pools and quizzes. I also played in another 5–-many of those so-called “box” pools. I had 8 different sets of numbers from those boxes for the Super Bowl and did not win a single one;
B. I invested a total of $376 in these various contests, but won $499.40. In the tradition of fantasy guru Scott Fish, I add a charity component to every sports contest I now run–-with a portion of the prize pool going to a charity of the winner’s choice. After the Super Bowl, I sent $350 collected from various entry fees to Feed America;
C. In Quiz #113 Worst Ball, I told you about the 28-Question Super Bowl Quiz that I was running. 38 people “took” Steve’s Super Bowl Quiz–-and I am sorry to say that Steve finished 37th. I was all in on Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. These things happen;
D. Former colleague Marian finished 38th;
E. On Super Bowl Sunday, Scott Fish tweeted that he was looking for someone who had put together a list of prop bets that he could give to his 9-year-old son. I sent him a DM with a link to my Super Bowl Quiz and the 9-year-old submitted a quiz, clicking the option “Just for Fun” set up for those who chose not to play for money—which, to me, doesn’t seem like fun.
Want the answer?
Answer #114. False Advertising.
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Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #113. Worst Ball.
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
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