If you were lucky enough to be watching the telly for the correct 15 seconds on CTV during the latest Superbowl you also got to see a teaser trailer for Corner Gas:Animated!!! Corner Gas fan's across Canada tuned in to the channel who weren't even interested in game, they sat glued waiting for television history to be made. No doubt just before the moment arrived they thought they were safe to pop to the toilet for a second and missed the whole darned thing.
If you did miss the searing, red hot Superbowl advert action, fear not. I, your intrepid reporter, stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to keep an eye on proceedings. Whilst all my loved ones were tucked up in bed, I sat staring at my t.v., with nothing but a huge jar of coffee and half a packet of Oreo's for company. Don't forget, here in the U.K. you have to allow for time difference. When it is 8pm in Vancouver it is roughly 1987 here in England.
Certain things went through my mind whilst I waited. It occurred to me that the plain fact that Corner Gas Animated got a Superbowl trailer is a pretty big deal. It put's in perspective how important it is to the network. It's up there with the big studio projects that will be dominating the screens in the next few months. They are putting Corner Gas in with the likes of the previously mentioned Star Wars and Cloverfield. These are pop culture juggernauts that our chums from Dog River are hanging out with. Then there is the likes of the mighty Deadpool 2 that didn't even get a Superbowl advert...but Corner Gas did, take that Wade Wilson! I would imagine the reason a Deadpool trailer didn't happen was between The Last Jedi not quite making a gazillion dollars and their buy out of Fox, Disney are probably feeling the pinch a little bit. Mickey Mouse is probably having to save his bucks up at the moment and is having to buy value brand frozen peas and everything!
Anyhoo, two hours in to my vigil, I realised that I can't watch CTV here in the U.K. and I had been watching a marathon of re-runs of The Antiques Roadshow. Now, there maybe readers all around the world who may not be privy to the televisual experience that is The Antiques Roadshow. Let me tell you, it is so chock full of red hot action and wall to wall excitement that it is very easy to mistake it for the showdown that is the Superbowl. So hardcore is The Antiques Roadshow it is amazing that they do their thing every week. Superbowl is only once a year. We are talking serious intensity here folks! You will just have to take my word for it.
So now I start to panic. I have to see the announcement, there are probably at least two people who are relying on me to bring them an up to date report and frame by frame run down of this moment of history. It was in fact realisation of the historic nature of this occasion that suddenly added to the urgency for me to reach for my IBS medication. I am going to miss it! It's the blogging equivalent of if Samuel Pepys had forgotten to buy an ink refill for his quill the day the baker also forgot to turn the gas off that fateful day on Pudding Lane*.
I needed a quick solution. I checked through my collection of AV leads to see if I had an HDMI cable long enough to reach across the Atlantic. The plan was to give it one good swing hard enough that one end would reach to Nova Scotia then I could tweet someone there to plug it into to their cable box so I can watch the game. I was lucky, I found a cable just long enough by an inch. I tied a rock to one end to give it some weight and threw in the rough direction of Kentville. The cable flew majestically through the air. As it came to rest I bent down and realised I hadn't plugged my end to the t.v and it was now dangling somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Blast. I also heard a distant "oww" as my rock bounced off the bonce of the mayor of Kentville.
It was too late to set up an elaborate network of mirrors that would reflect the broadcast from inside a branch of Best Buy into my living room.
I couldn't start digging a tunnel to Saskatoon because I lent my shovel to next door who needed it in a big hurry. He wanted to put a patio down in the back garden apparently, which is odd this time of year don't you think? He has a lovely wife, haven't seen her for awhile, not since all that shouting that was going on.
Then, as I had almost given into to the fact that my goose was well and truly basted, covered in bacon strips and roasting nicely in the oven at 200 degrees with a lemon up it's parts, my phone went "ping." It was an alert from The Buttpod entitled "Corner Gas Superbowl Promo" I was saved!
It's fifteen seconds of Corner Gas joy! I needn't have worried, the work speaks for itself. I don't need to rip it a part bit by bit and over analyse the drawings and the contexts. I don't need to hypothesise about possible hints at over arching story lines. I won't have to scratch around with the footage on maximum magnification trying to look for Easter Eggs that tie the show into the last season of Rick and Morty.
It's short. It's sweet. It's funny. Enjoy.
*I know they didn't have gas at the time of the Great Fire. I am well aware that by then most of London had converted to electric.
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