Build-up to the Super Bowl was a bore

When even Donald Trump can’t say something to fire you up, you know something’s gone wrong.

So it went with the build-up to Super Bowl LIII between the New England Patriots and LA Rams on Sunday, an hours-long snoozfest that bored even me. And that’s saying something.

Thank heavens for the commercials — something I haven’t said in years. Or, more accurately, two commercials. Sigh. I’m a sucker for the hype. But seriously, the pre-game coverage (and early play) of Super Bowl LIII finally may have broken even me. I watched hour after hour of coverage beforehand (mixed in with a little Phoenix Open channel surfing). I watched heartwarming features. I watched prognosticating and analysis. I watched an interview with notoriously reticent New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick (he said more than five words!). I even watched a five-minute interview with President Donald Trump.

There was more politics in the “Handmaid’s Tale” commercial they ran

during the game. Come on.

Is it possible that, despite my love for bright shiny objects and the flavor of the moment that it’s become too much even for me?

No. Of course not. But color me unimpressed. Things picked up with a Bud Light-“Game of Thrones” crossover commercial in the first half of the game itself — that was the first time in years I’d genuinely been surprised by an ad, and actually yelled, “Whoa!”

You could pretty much catch some kind of pre-game coverage all day, were you so inclined. CBS, the network covering the game, started its formal pre-game show at 1 p.m.

One of the problems with cable-news networks is that they have all those hours to fill. That’s how you end up with someone like Sean Hannity on the air. Filling time is also the problem CBS — or, in truth, any network that airs the game — runs into. When you’ve got three-and-a-half hours to fill, not everything is going to be gold.

A bit with Hank Aaron was good. (Yes, he was a baseball player, but he set the home-run record while playing for the Atlanta Braves.) Ian Eagle hosting a segment on Atlanta as the cultural center of rap and hip-hop was kind of odd, but at least it was different.

Trump, of course, should have been the big-ticket item. When’s the last time he got ignored on TV? (The last few seasons of “The Apprentice,” despite his fibbing about ratings, that’s when.)

In a pre-recorded interview with “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan, Trump said … not much. He thought the Patriots would win (he’s friends with owner Robert Kraft and quarterback Tom Brady, among others). He doesn’t like players kneeing during the national anthem to protest police brutality against people of color. He thinks the Patriots will come to the White House — if they win, of course. (He mentioned Clemson players visiting after the NCAA football championship, but didn’t talk about the Big Mac feast.) This lasted all of five minutes.

It’s was way too little in an afternoon that was all too much. (CBS aired the bulk of the interview on “Face the Nation” earlier in the day.)

A commercial for “The Handmaid’s Tale” was pretty stunning, starting out as a “morning-in-America” style ad before morphing into the horrific tale that Hulu’s version of Margaret Atwood’s book is. (“Wake up, America. Morning’s over.”)

The one jaw-dropping moment, and that includes the non-action on the field — what a horrible first half — was the Bud Light-“Game of Thrones” ad. It began with the “dilly dilly” theme Bud Light uses, starting with a jousting tournament.

In a shock, the Bud Light knight lost, got his head squished by his enemy — and then a “Game of Thrones” dragon swooped in and burned everything to the ground. (Including the dilly-dilly campaign? We’ll see.)

It was a rare highlight in an afternoon that could have used far more of them.