SportsCenter commercials are some of the funniest on TV, but this ad had me laughing harder than any of the others. Who had the creativity to relate Brett Favre’s return to the Vikings to the movement of the British Army before the battles of Lexington and Concord? Someone was probably waiting for the right moment to use New England’s mascot in this role. I would show this short commercial at the beginning of the class period as a preparation activity before teaching SOL USI.6c about the key individuals in the American Revolution. After the viewing, I would start a discussion to find out what the students already know about the history reference in the commercial.
As a side note, back in 1999 I wanted to use a current Nike commercial for an English 101 presentation. In order to record the commercial, I set my VHS recorder to tape six hours of ESPN on a Sunday afternoon. After the recording finished, I fast forwarded the tape until I saw the commercial, and luckily, it did air during the six hours. What would I have done if I wanted to use an older commercial? Finding this SportsCenter commercial was much easier, and I am thankful for how far the Internet has come in the past decade.
After Mr. Woodward’s comment, I searched for the old commercial on YouTube and it took me less than one minute to find. The quality is obviously VHS-era, but the process was much easier than what I did back in 1999. Just for fun, here’s the video (my presentation in English class was about the misunderstandings of West Virginia):
That is awesome. I hadn’t seen that.
The crazy thing is I bet you could find that old commercial on youtube if you looked around some.