TVSquad

(S03E02) "If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation." - Don

What love isn't in ruins on Mad Men? We have Betty knowing all about Don's affairs, Betty's dad dealing with his girlfriend leaving him (and more), Joan with someone who raped her, Roger with new young love Jane but still dealing with his ex-wife and perhaps longing for Joan, and Peggy looking for love at a bar (with a guy who looks like Pete!). Even the Don/Roger bromance seems to be on shaky ground.

The only people who seem to be at the start of love are Roger's daughter and her fiancee' Brooks. But their wedding is scheduled for November 23, 1963. Something tells me that's going to be a problem, too.

So I hate summer and I spend most of the hot and humid days of June, July, and August sitting in front of a fan and drinking Diet Coke (and Diet Pepsi - yes, I like both). And that got me thinking about New Coke.

Remember that? It was the disastrous reformulation of the Coke taste that people didn't really like and it came and went rather quickly in the mid-80s (though you could still get it in some areas as recently as 2002!). Wikipedia has the history of New Coke (long, but very much worth the read), and here are the commercials that introduced it to the world.

It's weird to look back at the Michael Jackson Pepsi ad from 1984 (the one that actually aired) and think that it caused so many problems in his life. US Weekly got hold of the footage that never aired, of Jackson's scalp catching on fire, causing second and third degree burns to his scalp and face. The magazine claims that this accident is what led to MJ's addiction to both painkillers and plastic surgery.

This is surreal footage, and at first I thought it was footage from the TV movie made about Jackson's life, but it's real. That's Miko Brando in the hat helping Jackson. Brando has been on Larry King Live many times recently. After the jump, the ad that aired. It's worth noting that Jackson went on to do other Pepsi ads after this.

Back in 1984, Michael Jackson was filming a TV commercial for Pepsi and got severely injured when his hair caught fire from a special effects explosion. I'm assuming that the finished commercial has a body double during that scene (or they used footage from another take), though Michael can be seen in other parts of the commercial with his brothers. Some people close to Jackson say that he started taking painkillers after this incident. (Here's footage of Jackson after it happened.)

Okay, FINALLY! This is really the first, genuine Super Bowl ad of the night. And yes, I laughed out loud when Justin Timberlake got his privates rammed three times into a mail box pole. What a good sport he is to do this commercial. And of course, we get it from Pepsi. If you missed it, Justin has just chastised a friend of his for being immature for sticking chopsticks up his nose, when Justin gets sucked out of a restaurant... literally. The more the gorgeous, Marianne-from-Gilligan's-Island-type bikini-clad woman sucks on her Pepsi, the more Justin gets sucked through traffic, through playing fields, into mailbox poles...

It's an ad for winning MP3s and Pepsi and something else. I don't know-- go watch it. But it was funny, and a decently done Super Bowl ad for really the first time this evening.

The best of the night so far. It starts off innocently enough with Troy Aikmen commenting on the action in the first quarter when Joe nods off and bangs his head on his mic. Queue music ("What is Love?") and we then get a montage of people across all industries nodding off at their jobs, at dinner, at awards shows, on game shows. I'm pretty sure that's Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J and Macy Gray nodding off while they were up for "Song of the Year." This keeps up until Diet Pepsi Max comes along on a mail cart and everyone starts doing "The Roxbury," or the head bopping made famous by Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell in the recurring SNL skits. The bit ends with Troy staring at Joe as Joe bops along. But the best part is after the blurbs about Diet Pepsi Max and the slogans, we get a quick shot of Chris Kattan shopping, yelling "Stop it!" to two girls doing the head bop.

A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.

• Bill Idelson: He is probably best remembered as Sally's longtime boyfriend Herman Glimscher on The Dick Van Dyke Show. He also wrote for the show and several others over the years, including The Andy Griffith Show, M*A*S*H, The Bob Newhart Show, Happy Days, The Odd Couple, Bewitched, Get Smart, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The Twilight Zone, The Flintstones, and many others, and acted on dozens of shows since the 50s, and even played the son on the Vic and Sade radio show. He died from complications from a hip injury at age 88.

(S06E10) All season, I have been trying to put a positive spin on bad writing, poor casting choices (Sheriff Turner, remember her? Barely? We never see her, so maybe they think she was a poor choice too), episodes that seem recycled from other seasons, and others that are completely forgettable and irrelevant. But tonight was just the last straw. I have had it. I cannot think of one more good thing to say about this infomercial for Visa that is running around disguising itself as television.

I thought a lazy Sunday afternoon would be a good time to hop in the way back machine for a look at one of the Celebrity Duets finalists in their younger days. The person we're going to look on is Alfonso Ribeiro.

Before his role as Carlton Banks on the hit NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, even before his role as Ricky Schroeder's friend Silver Spoons, Alfonso was already a recognized personality. Since 1983 he had been starring in the Broadway musical The Tap Dance Kid. His talents at acting and dancing impressed media types so much that, in 1984, he was cast in a Pepsi commercial with members of the Jackson family, as well as The Gloved One himself, Michael Jackson.

In the video, which you'll see after the jump, Alfonso is decked out in full Jackson garb, circa the Thriller era. As he's showing off to his friends he runs into Michael and his siblings. Rather then getting angry, the Jacksons dance along with Alfonso in his friends, because that is what you did back in the 1980's. If you grew up in the during this time and don't remember this commercial, it will come back to you as soon as you watch the first five seconds.