If you’re like me and millions of other couch potatoes across the country, you settled in and sat through a Super Bowl that was punctuated with shitty commercials, uneven play and a few truly exciting moments. Sometime after the game, you probably stood up and uneasily surveyed your surroundings, a couch with butt-prints evident, beer bottles lying empty and powerless, chips and salsa strewn hither and yon in a semi-circle around the aforementioned butt-prints, and you wondered what possibly could have made this night of television and spectacle better.

Perhaps more Springsteen crotch was in order.

Maybe some more mention of how badly the Seattle Seahawks were screwed by the referees in Super Bowl XL.

A few more advertisements for NBC’s Monday or Thursday night sitcom lineup, maybe?

Or, maybe this was what was missing:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpKa9AioyaA[/youtube]

Are you as turned on about gardening as I am right now? For some reason, all I want to do is find myself a nice big watermelon or pumpkin, cut a hole in the side and…oh, oh sorry. I thought you had left. Whooo, that was more than a bit embarrassing.

That ad, that dirty, dirty, sexy ad, was turned down by NBC. It was supposed to air during the Super Bowl, alongside ads for beer, chips and pickup trucks. Needless to say, it would have certainly stood out, but not for the reasons that PETA intended it to. I mean, the GoDaddy.com ads with Danica Patrick, who, let’s be honest, is only considered hot because she drives a car really fast in a circle, were much more sex-filled. Hell, even the Doritos ad that showed a woman being stripped to nothing but a lacy teddy was more overtly sexual. And that was an ad for chips!

I’m no big fan of PETA. Sure, I understand that animals are people, too and that we should treat the really delicious animals with more decency before we make them into awesome burgers and steaks and jerky. But these people do go over the line more often than not. Not too long ago, they started a campaign to get people to call fish “sea kittens” so as to make us all feel bad for eating fish. Fish! Is nothing sacred?

But this ad, although more than over the top with sexual references and the degrading of perfectly respectable fruits and veggies, is nothing new. We see this kind of overt sexuality oozing out of every beer ad and, as I pointed out earlier, even a few website ads. So why did NBC nix PETA’s “Veggie Love” ad? Well, their official reason is that the ad “depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards.” Okay, NBC, okay. You’re entitled to that.

But now that I know that this ad was out there, waiting to be thrust upon the gorging, football-loving populace and you held back an ad that would have confused almost every single one of them. The sexuality and scantily-clad women would have excited the average viewership, but the pro-veggie message clearly would have confused and alienated them. The Super Bowl is a time for beer and chips and copious amounts of beef and meat of all kinds. I think NBC held back on showing the PETA ad not because of sexuality, but because it interfered with their “pro-meat” agenda. Guys who watch the Super Bowl drink beer and eat meat by rule. Vegetables are limited to guacamole, salsa and maybe lettuce on a hamburger, but that’s it.

It’s simply a case of wrong ad for the wrong event. Regardless, I don’t think I’ll be able to look at a large zucchini or a bunch of asparagus again without feeling a bit inadequate.