The TV Zone

It's now official: Former strippers CAN'T win "American Idol." Producers have to be happy about last night's results; Coke has to be happy too; as I think I pointed out before, "The Coke Side of Life" does not, under normal circumstances, include lap dancing. And most viewers - certainly the granny vote - aren't gonna warm to this past, ummm, vocation either. So it goes.

Oh, and how DID Coke - AI's most important sponsor by far - feel about our departee? Go to "American Idol's" site and check out the "behind the scenes" photo slide-show "Presented by Coke:" Not one, I repeat, there is not one shot of Hernandez (he appears off to the side in one picture). But there are half a dozen out of twenty with Brooke and Kristy.

Coke may not "cast a vote," but it's a more important presence on this show than any judge (Simon included) or producer. Money talks on TV, and Coke is the biggest money of all. They wanted Hernandez gone.

Nevertheless....nevertheless, Hernandez deserved another shot. Maybe another two shots. He massacred "Saw Her Standing There" on Tuesday, but oddly enough, did a pretty good rendition during the exit routine. He was a very good singer, and up until Tuesday, was maybe a top-sixer. But here's the thing: This top twelve - now eleven - is so good that one bad turn (with the exception of Archie) means that just about anyone can land in the bottom three week to week. David just happened to pick a bad time to be bad.

Gone. Too bad.

How about those Super Bowl ads, eh? Our very own colleague Verne Gay registered his judgments here, but viewers are having their say, too.

AOL’s sixth annual Super Sunday Ad Poll ranks these Super Bowl XLII commercials as viewer faves, voted by visitors to AOL Sports as of noon Monday, Feb. 4:

1 Budweiser: "Rocky"
2 Bridgestone: "Squirrel"
3 Coca-Cola: "Balloons"
4 Life Water: "Thriller"
5 E-Trade: "Baby"

The tally keeps getting updated because viewers can still register their votes (through Feb. 10) at AOL’s Super Bowl Ads page, where you can view the dozens of contenders and leave comments, too.

What commercial do viewers like most this month? And which do they recall best?

Advertising Age lists some different kinds of TV Top 10s here.

The most-liked spot streams here -- after you watch a “real” commercial!

OK, so it's just a parody of a TV commercial.

But still the smartest, funniest thing I've seen in ages.

Check out Microsoft's forthcoming (not) ZunePhone.

How surprised are we to hear ABC’s ad-spinoff comedy pilot “Cavemen” described as “astoundingly awful”? That’s the verdict by an Ain’t It Cool News spy who’s seen the thing.

This is one of those brilliant ideas that just isn’t -- adapting the witty GEICO insurance spots into full-fledged, astoundingly obvious social satire. Not only that, they replaced the actors who made the campaign fly.

Their commercials do the job in 15 seconds. Which might be about as long as this show lasts, if it ever hits air at all.

Watch the original commercials here and here.

So this is the year every website operator and his brother is linking to all the big Super Bowl ads.

And this is the year nobody wants to see them.

What duds, eh? All those lame ads almost made you long to get back to the lame game being played in a Miami monsoon between the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. Of course Indy won. But who won the commercial contest?

Hard to say. Whoever’s ad wasn’t a complete snooze, or an utter what-the-bleep mystifier. The Bud spots were so bland as to make last year’s farting horses seem inspired. Ford, Toyota -- zzzzz. Lots of movie trailers, none of which came off as must-sees. Loads of guy-centric pitches, spotlighting violence, mayhem, busty babes, and such “manly” behavior as guys ripping their chest hairs out. Where were the cheeky, witty commercials? MIA. (My kingdom for a cool Mac vs. PC meet-up.)

The few standouts might include the pre-game’s NFL Network spot at Chad Johnson’s Super Bowl party, with a mad mix of mismatched guests including Janet Reno, Jimmy Fallon, Rascal Flatts and Martha Stewart. The Coke animations were nifty, but hardly classic, while GM’s laid-off robot and Bud Light’s Carlos Mencia ads were at least creative enough to be worth another watch. Those you-design-’em spots by contest winners were at least as good.

The big winner in the Super Bowl commercial race? HD set owners. The predominance of spots presented in high definition this year was the game’s biggest wow. Sunday’s CBS broadcast delivered roughly 110 national spots (including CBS promos), and more than 90 were in HD (nearly every CBS promo).

That left the standard-def laggards looking about as potent as the equally meager Chicago Bears offense. Advertisers like Blockbuster, Salesgenie and Taco Bell were essentially telling big-spending HD households: Don’t buy what we’re selling. We’re cheap, cheesy and behind the curve.

First bet of the next football season: All the commercials of Super Bowl 2008 will be in HD.

Some Super Bowl ad links --
This year’s spots
Viewers vote on faves
Critiques by ad professionals
Classic Super Bowl commercials
Super spots through the years