The Rundown: Guy Fieri Did Something Incredible On Super Bowl Sunday

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — I am still not over this and won’t be for a while

The cool thing about the Super Bowl is that it’s one of the only events we have where everyone decides to just go as massive as possible with everything. We put out more salty/fatty snacks than any reasonably sized group of people could ever eat, we turn the whole event into a week-long party that celebrates… something, and we watch a halftime show that costs as much to produce as most mid-budget Hollywood movies. Sometimes the halftime show features Prince performing “Purple Rain” in the driving actual rain as though he and the heavens had worked out an agreement about it all. You wouldn’t want to do it every weekend, but once a year, it’s pretty cool.

There are also the commercials. The commercials are often kind of dumb and lowest-common-denominator-y garbage because there’s so much money involved that it lowers people’s tolerance for risk. There were a lot about crypto this year, which was… weird. But there was also this one.

I’ve said this before, many times, but I’ll say it again now just to drive it home: It’s fun to pretend that Flavortown is a real place. Like that when Guy Fieri says things like “they teach that at Flavortown University” and he shoves an entire handful of nachos in his mouth, that he is being serious. That there is actually a Flavortown University. And a Flavortown Hospital. And a Flavortown Parks Department that is responsible for filling the local fountains with queso every spring. Let your mind wander a bit on that one. It makes for a fun 10-90 minutes.

But that’s not the point here. It’s a pretty big step toward the point, and I like saying it all a lot, so it’s not, like, nothing, but it’s not the point. The point is this:

There is so much going on here. Starting with Martha Stewart at the Super Bowl. Do you think Martha watches football? Do you think she knows anyone on the Bengals? (Editor’s note: she does.) Do you think she was just there to support her dear friend Snoop Dogg? I could go on. Especially about the thing where Martha is in a luxury box and Guy is down in the concourse with the people and how this one fact sums up their personalities better than any collection of words I could type.

But look closely. Look at what Guy is wearing at the Super Bowl. And then go back and watch his Super Bowl commercial again. Look at this.

LOOK AT THIS.

Guy Fieri wore the exact same outfit to the Super Bowl that he wore during the commercial he was in that aired during the Super Bowl. That is… it’s incredible. I froze at my computer when I realized it. You know those scenes in a movie where a detective notices something on a computer screen and then shouts “ENHANCE” and then stares at the screen for a second before mumbling “My God…”? It was like that. I literally shouted at someone and made them come look at it. They were not as impressed as I was. This deflated my excitement about all of it exactly zero percent. As you can tell, seeing as I’m still talking about it today, almost a full week later. I feel great about it.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, there are about three possibilities here, which I will rank from most to least likely:

• Guy Fieri did this on purpose because he is committed to his brand and is a good corporate partner who gives the people what they want
• Guy Fieri has a walk-in closet in his house that is just stuffed with like 50 of these exact jackets and he grabs one and puts it on every day like it’s his uniform or something
• Guy Fieri filmed the Super Bowl commercial live at halftime in a special studio they built just for him in the bowels of the stadium

I can’t decide which option I like more. No one tell me how it actually happened. I’m having too much fun over here.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Television is honestly so good right now

I don’t know if you are watching The Righteous Gemstones. I hope you are. It is silly and deranged and just about perfect. I love it very much. One of the reasons I love it very much is pictured above: Walton Goggins as Baby Billy Freeman, a singing and dancing charlatan televangelist who, when we pick him up here in the story, has run out on his second wife and unborn child and is selling something called a “health elixir” via infomercial. It’s really just a fantastic piece of business all around. And it gets better.

How much better?

This much better.

So, spoilers, I guess, but let’s be clear about what is happening here: In yet another attempt to flee his wife and unborn child, Baby Billy hauls off through a parking lot and tips over the entire trailer of health elixirs that he is towing behind a BMW convertible.

This is… perfect. It’s perfect. It’s one of those little character details that tells you everything you need to know about a character without adding a single line of dialogue. This whole show is operating at such a preposterously high level right now. Please watch it if you’re not already. For you, mostly, but also for me. I need more people to talk about it with.

Hey, speaking of deranged shows operating on a high level, let’s check in with Pam & Tommy, the Hulu series in which Seth Rogen and Nick Offerman steal the infamous Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape and release it on the internet, and which we last discussed after the thing where Jason Mantzoukas voiced Tommy Lee’s talking animatronic penis. I do not take for granted that I get to type sentences like that for work. Anyway…

I could provide context here. I could. It wouldn’t even be hard. But I’m not going to. This is too good on its own as a little slice of art. Just accept it as is if you’re not watching the show. And come over to my place this weekend to talk about it if you are watching the show. We’ll have fun.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — This is … cool

The fact of the matter is that I will not shut up about Abbott Elementary and have no intention of stopping anytime soon. It’s great, sweet and fun and silly and everything a network sitcom should be. And it’s set in Philadelphia, which is important to me because, among other reasons, Go Birds. Really just a Perfect Brian Show.

It’s got a great story, too. Creator and star Quinta Brunson named the fictional school where the show takes place after a real-life teacher she had in elementary school, Joyce Abbott, who is still working in the Philadelphia school system today. Did the local newspaper catch up with Abbott? Did she deliver a slew of heartwarming quotes and stories? Did I eat it up like a Wawa hoagie and maybe get a little watery-eyed about it?

Let’s see!

Though they talked and texted regularly, they haven’t met up in person — yet. But they had a virtual meetup on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday, with Abbott in Philadelphia surprising her former student in Los Angeles. Brunson wiped tears from her eyes when she saw Abbott on the screen.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m so proud of you,” Abbott told Brunson. Kimmel later surprised Abbott, who has plans to retire soon, with a five-day vacation. (Abbott and Brunson plan to meet in person the next time Brunson is in Philadelphia, Abbott said.)

This is sweet. It gets better. This is really just a wonderful way to phrase the next point.

It’s been overwhelming but lovely. And she’s still trying to wrap her mind around inspiring a pupil who went on to write and star in a TV show about Philadelphia schools that she named for her.

“It means a lot,” Abbott said. “It’s not that I do the work to be recognized — I’ve never done the work to be recognized. The kids know, the students know, and that’s all that matters.”

And then there’s this, which is somehow cool and powerful and fun in about six different ways and which I fully expect to see happen in an episode of the show in the near future.

When Brunson was a sixth grader, students held pretzel sales and assembled hoagies to earn enough money for a stretch limo ride and gourmet dinner at the swanky Chart House at the end of the school year. Abbott coached them on what a salad fork looked like and how to talk to and tip the limo driver with class funds set aside for that purpose.

Abbott rejected suggestions that they aim a little lower, take a school bus to the Olive Garden or TGI Friday’s.

“When you work hard, you get the best,” Abbott said. “When you see the best, you’re going to strive.”

A good teacher is really something. It is amazing what kind of impact they can have on your entire life. Not all of us will turn that into a beloved sitcom that people like me keep yammering about, but that’s fine. There’s still a legacy there, even if it’s just in your head. Take a minute today and think of a teacher who had an impact like this on you. There’s probably at least one. I can think of about four off the top of my head. Shoutout to Mrs. O’Connor.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Let’s check in with Michael Bay

Michael Bay sat down with Empire for a profile about making action movies for about four decades now and also about blowing things up. Mostly that second thing. The man rarely if ever disappoints, provided you are expecting him to do and/or say some Extremely Michael Bay stuff.

Stuff, for example, like this.

There’s one explosion Bay is particularly proud of – an especially ferocious fireball during the attack sequence in Pearl Harbor. “Jerry Bruckheimer showed Ridley Scott the movie,” recalls Bay. “And the quote [from Scott] was, ‘Fuck me.’ No-one knows how hard that is. We had so much big stuff out there. Real boats, 20 real planes. We had 350 events going off. Three months of rigging on seven boats, stopping a freeway that’s three miles away.” While Guinness World Records has the destruction of Blofeld’s base in Spectre down as the current record holder, Bay’s having none of it. “James Bond tried to take the ‘largest explosion in the world’,” he says. “Bullshit. Ours is.”

I could not possibly love it more. Everything about it, starting with the amount of pride he takes in blowing stuff up and continuing to the fact where he keeps tabs on things other people are blowing up. And also the thing where he made a huge epic movie about an important moment in American history that resulted in tons of deaths and launched us into a war with Hitler and his biggest takeaway from it was “we blew up stuff real good.” He is a uniquely American figure. I would read an entire book about him.

Until that gets written, though, I will settle for profiles like this one, and the one in GQ from a few years ago where he delivered a quote that still lives in a nice little duplex inside my brain a decade later.

Hodenfield: Michael was saying he was gonna go about the movie differently—he was gonna hold shots longer, he wasn’t gonna move the camera as much. This was gonna be like a classic movie. The first day we started shooting, he wasn’t using his fast-moving, fast cuts, low shots—his bag of tricks—and it was like watching an Italian speak without his hands. By lunchtime, we’re making a Michael Bay movie, in the Michael Bay style.

Bay: I don’t change my style for anybody. Pussies do that.

We should interview Michael Bay once a year. About anything. Put it on every channel of the television like it’s the State of the Union. Let him blow something up at the end. These are good ideas.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Oh look, a tweet just for me

Two of my favorite things in the world, in no particular order:

• People bring harmless rascals on the internet
• The music of the Beastie Boys

That is why this video, which mashes together the song “Intergalactic” with the thing from the deeply troubled Death on the Nile movie where Gal Gadot says the phrase “enough champagne to fill the Nile,” is so great. For me. Maybe for you, too. I hope so, at least. But I’m the one with the weekly goofball roundup column here so it’s getting posted no matter how you feel about it. This is just how things work out sometimes. It’s fine.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at brian.grubb@uproxx.com (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Justin:

BRIAN

WE’VE GOT A “NOT SO DIFFERENT” IN THE TRAILER OF THE ELVIS MOVIE

AND TOM HANKS SAYS IT

ARE YOU OKAY?

I need to be clear about something: So many people reached out to me about this. The trailer dropped on Thursday and within an hour I had received texts, emails, tweets, and direct messages alerting me to the fact that Tom Hanks — in layers of makeup and with a borderline indecipherable accent — delivers a variation of my beloved “not so different” line of dialogue. Look at this.

To recap:

• Baz Luhrmann is making a movie about Elvis Presley
• The trailer gives off just massive amounts of Walk Hard energy
• Tom Hanks does the thing

This is all quite magnificent. As is the thing where a million people saw it happen and decided to reach out to me about it. We’re all doing great. Especially me and Tom Hanks. The rest of us, too, though.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To the open seas!

An abandoned cargo ship packed with cars is adrift in the Atlantic Ocean, after a rapidly-spreading fire on board forced the crew to escape.

The 656 foot-long Felicity Ace roll-on/roll-off car-carrying ship caught fire in the North Atlantic on Wednesday as it carried cargo, including Porsches and Volkswagens, from Emden, Germany to Davisville, Rhode Island. At the time of the fire’s outbreak, the ship was sailing 90 nautical miles southwest of Portugal’s Azores, according to a statement on Wednesday by the Portuguese Navy.

A few notes here:

• There is a flaming zombie boat floating around the ocean with millions of dollars worth of luxury cars on it
• This is like the setup for a movie where a crew of thieves takes to the seas to steal the cars before the boat sinks
• Felicity Ace would be a great name for one of the members of the crew, probably played by, like, Florence Pugh

Moving on.

Porsche confirmed to CNN Business that a number of its cars were among the cargo and that customers with cars on board the burning ship are being contacted by their dealers.

“While it remains too early to confirm what occurred and next steps, we are — along with our colleagues at Porsche AG — supporting our customers and our dealers as best we can to find solutions,” said Angus Fitton, Vice President of PR at Porsche Cars North America. “We are in contact with the shipping company and the details of the cars on board are now known.”

“Hey, is this Randy?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, Randy. I have some good news and bad news about the Porsche you ordered.”

“Okay…”

“The good news is that it departed from Europe on time and is currently on the boat.”

“Great. What’s the bad news?”

“The boat is currently engulfed in flames and floating through the ocean without a crew like a ghost ship from a movie Orlando Bloom plays a pirate.”

“Ah.”

There was also this tweet on the subject, which went viral as hell this week for reasons you will understand immediately.

I don’t know if this last part is true. I kind of don’t want to look it up to check. All I know for certain is that you can say almost anything after the phrase “under maritime law” and I would probably believe it.

Please do not use this information to scam me. Thank you.