Ah, the Super Bowl, a throwdown designed to showcase the world’s best – the world’s best advertising, that is. Among the notable spots from this year’s broadcast: Doritos house-sitting, Volkswagen’s Darth-Vader-in-training, Chrysler’s Motor City spotlight (to see all of Super Bowl 2011’s ads, visit Hulu).

The "Star-Spangled Banner" is a hallmark performance for every major American event. This year, veteran performer Christina Aguilera tackled the enormous pressure of performing for millions at the Super Bowl – and flubbed it. While she showed no visible sign of being fazed, surely football and music fans won’t forget this year’s botched anthem (for more memorable Super Bowl anthem performances, visit The Daily Beast).

This year’s Super Bowl suffered musically, period. While the Black Eyed Peas (with guests Usher and Slash) put on a visually dazzling performance, their combined efforts didn’t succeed in any of the truly rousing spectacle so expected of halftime performances (for video and additional commentary, visit NY Mag).

The much-hyped “Glee” Super Bowl episode finally aired last night, after weeks of teaser promo pics and video. 26.8 million people tuned in to watch the glee kids hash it out with the footballers, with plenty of notable musical numbers in between (“Thriller!” “California Gurls!” “Need You Now!”) (see how last night’s ratings compared to other post-Super Bowl show’s at EW).

As for the actual sporting event, this year’s Super Bowl scored the biggest ratings ever, even beating last year’s whopping 106.5 million viewers (for more specific stats, visit Fox Sports).

Reach Lilian Min here.
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