The Twisted Eight Years Since NBC’s “Brotherhood of Man” Super Bowl Ad
It’s a masterclass in aging poorly.
On February 5, 2012, Super Bowl XLVI between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants kicked off. That year, NBC had the rights to air the biggest event in sports and they took full advantage of the opportunity. Rather then scatter ads for all of their programs throughout the broadcast, they went all out with a showstopping number at the outset of the big game.
NBC rounded up all of its shows to sing “Brotherhood of Man” from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The message was that NBC was happy to welcome viewers to the Super Bowl and that they were hoping those viewers would stick around for all of the network’s critically acclaimed and criminally underwatched programming. The ad began with a 30 Rock (arguably the most synonymous with NBC show, so a perfect choice) inset before leading into a medley of NBC shows singing the song that Jack Donaghy began. Eventually, the ad crescendos in New York at the GE Building with all of the Manhattan-based/live NBC shows at 30 Rock’s network studios joining together to belt out the closing chorus.
However, what begins as a harmless attempt at persuading viewers to check in on the great comedies NBC had in their repertoire at the time quickly dissolved into something that has arguably aged worse than any other piece of media from the past decade. It’s genuinely mind-boggling how the torrent of insanity barrels throughout the entire ad in the second half. When I came across the ad the other night, my jaw dropped at the dominoes that fell when the ad was picking up pace rapidly. The things you see in this commercial are insane and have aged so poorly in the past eight years. It’s such a representation of where we were at in 2012 that there is no way NBC could re-air the ad now without being shut down. Just watch it for yourself.
When I saw all that, I had to write about it.
I’ve concocted a guide to everything that happens in it and where all of the people featured in it have since ended up. 2020 looks very different from 2012.
The First Shot of the Ad
The first thing we see in the ad is the GE Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Right out of the gate, this is a major change. It’s now known as the Comcast Building! It’s no less corporate, but it does sound a little less magical.
Over the footage of the building, we hear Al Michaels’ voice talking about Eli Manning and the New York Giants taking on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. This was the second Super Bowl matchup between these teams and these quarterbacks. New York would wind up winning it and Brady would never get another chance to defeat Eli in the Super Bowl. Eli has since retired and been replaced by Daniel Jones. Brady left the Patriots this offseason to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but not before winning three Super Bowls with the Pats since 2012. Jarrett Stidham helms the Pats now. Football has changed drastically.
30 Rock
The acclaimed series anchors this commercial from start to finish. We see Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon, Tracy Morgan’s Tracy Jordan, Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy, Jane Krakowski’s Jenna Maroney, Jack McBrayer’s Kenneth Parcell, and more.
On the perimeter, Judah Friedlander (Frank), Scott Adsit (Pete), John Lutz (Lutz), Sue Galloway (Girl Writer), and Keith Powell (Toofer) all appear. Since the ad, Friedlander appeared in a Sharknado film and a Star Wars film. Adsit was a lead voice in Big Hero 6. Lutz writes for Late Night with Seth Meyers. Galloway turned up on Girls. Powell follows me on Twitter. All pretty minor stuff.
The leads had a bit more major experiences since the ad aired. McBrayer has become an Emmy-nominated character actor. Krakowski carried her momentum to both Broadway and to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt for a four season run. Fey also took to Broadway, adapting Mean Girls for the stage as a massive success. Baldwin has had an Emmy-winning recurring guest turn on Saturday Night Live for the past four years (more on this later).
Morgan had the biggest headline and a massive scare when he was a part of a life-threatening car accident that killed his friend, James McNair. Many feared that Morgan would never be the same, but it was inspiring to see him at both the Emmys in 2015, about a year after the crash, and hosting SNL that October.
On a lighter note, Liz makes a reference to Betty White. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. Betty White is still alive, still beloved, and still working!
The Office
The song kicks into full from Donaghy’s intro when it shifts from TGS to Dunder Mifflin. Back in Scranton, the gang’s all there. Well, the gang minus Steve Carell. The ad aired in the first Michael Scott-less season of The Office. But fortunately it aired in time to include Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak still!
Rounding out the group that appears are John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, Craig Robinson, Phyllis Smith, Angela Kinsey, Kate Flannery, Oscar Nunez, Paul Lieberstein, Brian Baumgartner, Ellie Kemper, Zach Woods, Ed Helms, and Creed Bratton. Yup! The office!
Since then, there seems to be a split between the workers in the office and the trajectories of their careers. Some have become character actors and others have become major stars.
Lieberstein appeared on The Newsroom, Nunez, Flannery, and Baumgartner have appeared on a number of various sitcoms and game shows. Bratton’s gotten back into his music. Smith had a dynamite turn as Sadness in Inside Out. Wilson launched into his own series, Backstrom, but that had the plug pulled after one season.
On the other side, Helms is still a major comedy film star, helming franchises like The Hangover and Vacation, as well as appearing as a lead in Tag. Robinson had his own show, too, with Ghosted. That met an early demise, but has freed him up for killer guest turns on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and What We Do in the Shadows.
Kemper and Woods found success with Kimmy Schmidt and Silicon Valley, respectively. Kaling has produced a number of wildly successful shows, from The Mindy Project to Never Have I Ever to Four Weddings and a Funeral. She also starred in Ocean’s Eight and A Wrinkle in Time. Her feature film writing debut, Late Night, was met with immense praise last year. As for Novak, he is currently shooting a new movie for Blumhouse and an anthology series of his was just picked up to series by FX.
Krasinski’s the one who really exploded into the stratosphere. He directed and starred in A Quiet Place, which vaulted him onto the A-list. And he’s helped keep the world sane with his Some Good News YouTube series. The rumors seem strong, too. He might just be a Marvel superhero any day now.
As for Kinsey and Fischer? They’ve had their own projects and shows, but their work has been perhaps the noblest. They’ve kept the whole gang together with reunion orchestrations and a rewatch podcast, Office Ladies. They’re the glue of Dunder Mifflin, seven years after it closed up shop.
Parks and Recreation
Speaking of glue and Ghosted and Inside Out, the ad transitioned to Parks and Recreation after The Office. Everything’s been sunny in the intervening years for the Scrantones, but the same is doubly true for the Pawneeans.
The entire prime cast of Parks and Rec is featured in their segment. Aziz Ansari, Retta, Rob Lowe, Jim O’Heir, Adam Scott, Amy Poehler, Aubrey Plaza, Rashida Jones, Chris Pratt, and Nick Offerman. We didn’t even have to worry about seeing a Paul Schneider appearance that would’ve aged poorly.
Since the ad, everyone has had extreme success beyond their Parks legacy, save for O’Heir, who has maintained the same streak of character acting. (Perfect for Jerry, though, no?)
Aubrey Plaza threw out a stellar, award-nominated turn on Legion, as well as leading two big films of her own, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and Ingrid Goes West. Poehler also double dipped in movies back in 2015 with Inside Out and Sisters after Parks and Rec aired its finale. She also starred in The House and saw her directorial debut, Wine Country, hit Netflix in 2019. She’s become a comedic icon with legend status.
The same has become true of Offerman! It was a bit surprising for me to realize, but his turn as Ron Swanson vaulted him into all-time status right under our noses. So much so that his cameo on The Good Place’s series finale was treated with the utmost secrecy. He also just nailed a starring role on Devs, Alex Garland’s new Hulu series. As for Rob Lowe, though, he was already a big star and he’s only maintained his television presence. Granted, 9–1–1: Lone Star is no Parks and Rec, but it still draws Nielsen boxes.
The rest have all had their own series. Jones had Angie Tribeca, Scott had Ghosted, Ansari had Master of None, Retta has Good Girls. Life is good when you’re a Parks alum.
It’s especially good when you’re Chris Pratt, who has become one of the biggest cinematic superstars in the entire world. Lego, Jurassic, Guardians, Avengers. He’s in them all! He churns out billion dollar movies like it’s nothing. And to think, he was a chubby background idiot in a Super Bowl commercial just eight years ago.
Community
The first half of the advertisement wraps up at Greendale Community College. In the eight years since the ad aired, Community has lived a roller coaster. A showrunner firing, major cast overturn, a cancellation, a Yahoo Screen revival, a Yahoo Screen destruction, a surprising return to the mainstream thanks to Netflix in the past month. It’s still just as beloved as the shows that precede it in this article.
Representing the show in the commercial were Danny Pudi, Donald Glover, Gillian Jacobs, Jim Rash, Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Ken Jeong. It’s a bit of clever foreshadowing that Chevy Chase is nowhere to be seen. He’d only last one more year on Community, after all.
The streaming boom is well-represented here for the other cast members who did pop up in the ad. Who hasn’t worked with Netflix? Brie starred on Glow, McHale hosted the Tiger King after-show and The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, Jacobs starred on Love, Brown starred in and wrote the rom-com, Always a Bridesmaid. Netflix was as much in the Community alum game as all the network summer game shows have been!
As for the others, they’ve seen no less success. Jeong has a solid role in the annals of comedy films for the foreseeable future. He also led his own sitcom, Dr. Ken. Pudi plays Huey on the DuckTales reboot and Brad on Rob McElhenney’s Apple series, Mythic Quest. Rash won a goddamn Academy Award since the ad aired!
But Glover is the one who fits the mold of Krasinski and Pratt from the previous two. He’s absolutely blown up. His show, Atlanta, is one of the most critically acclaimed series ever made. He’s turned up in big name films like The Martian, The Lion King, and Spider-Man: Homecoming. His rapper persona, Childish Gambino, has exploded into the zeitgeist. He’s mega famous now. And with the show’s arrival on Netflix, it seems like Community might be mega famous now, too. (#AndAMovie.)
The Comedy Block
Speaking of Netflix, though, I have to wonder if NBC executives ever go back and watch this advertisement. They must yearn for these days. I remember when Community was perpetually on the bubble and now, it’s being talked about more than it ever was when it was on the air. Netflix would kill to have Community right now. But the same is true for all of the shows. The landscape is different now. Thanks to Netflix, The Office might be the most watched series ever. Parks and Rec has grown into a reliable enough beloved classic that it had a special at the end of April to raise money in the face of the pandemic.
In the era when networks are always combating streaming services (which have, to be honest, consumed all of television), they must miss having these reliable, all-time performers. Imagine if they could air 30 Rock, The Office, Parks and Rec, and Community all at the same time and on the same night again? They’d probably never cancel them. It’s a lineup that would have delighted the world, if only they’d discovered them before streaming. There’s no way to fight that, NBC. You just have to keep churning out the gems and let Netflix take the credit. It’s an unjust world, I know. But I’ve sure been enjoying revisiting Manhattan, Scranton, Pawnee, and Greendale over the years.
The Second Half of the Ad
So it’s all been pretty good so far, right? Hasn’t aged too poorly. It’s more just a 2012 relic. I mean, there’s no Chevy and Tracy ended up being okay. The worst things are maybe Alec Baldwin’s perpetual public outbursts or Aziz Ansari’s confusing controversy. For the most part, it’s just an average network Super Bowl ad. Until the second half.
The second half of this “Brotherhood of Man” commercial moves at a breakneck pace when compared to the show-by-show structure of the first half that warranted deliberate investigation into each of the actors’ successes in the interim period since 2012.
After a bit more interplay from Jack, Liz, Jenna, and Kenneth (including an early New Girl reference), the ad enters the one-after-the-other phase.
First, there’s Smash. Smash is treated like the big deal new show on NBC. They were really pushing it to be the next big phenomenon. The next Glee or whatever. I mean, what makes a better pair than NBC and thinking a big, star-studded musical show will be the next Lost, after all? It wouldn’t have been a true NBC ad if there wasn’t the evidence of a failed high concept series that wouldn’t have been out of place with something like Community’s “Mr. Egypt” or 30 Rock’s “Queen of Jordan.” It’s been rightfully derided by the likes of Billy Eichner, but even Smash could not be the thing that aged the worst from this ad.
And it’s not the next show featured, either, which showed off the stars of Law and Order: SVU. Nor was it The Voice, the show that followed SVU in the ad. Actually, The Voice has aged well as the show that sort of rescued NBC from complete collapse. Back before The Voice, nothing was working on NBC. The best shows for their business were probably SVU and The Office. Every new show they tried to launch failed and instead, they saw all their other acclaimed shows come to an end. The only reason why Community survived was because it, at least, had a fan base. But still, the days of Must See TV on Thursday nights were long gone. Clooney, Aniston, Danson, Seinfeld. They were gone. And audiences had migrated to CBS.
But who knows? Maybe this ad did have an impact. Things have not gotten as dire as they were during this time. NBC is a contender in the networks again, even if their biggest foe now is streaming, TikTok, and prestige television off of the broadcast realm. But that credit is mostly due to The Voice and not a Super Bowl ad. The Voice drew in big audiences that eventually spread the wealth across the peacock network. So thank you Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, CeeLo Green, and Christina Aguilera. I may like Nick Jonas (Allegra Miles should’ve won!), John Legend, and Kelly Clarkson more, but without your early efforts, NBC might have truly died. Congrats to The Voice. It aged well.
Of course, we’re brought right back to reality when we see Jay Leno having a grand ole time. One could say that Leno has aged poorly, but it’s not the best argument. For one, he’d be off the air in two years, replaced (for good) by Jimmy Fallon. But for another, Leno had already squandered his mainstream goodwill by this point. His public usurping of Conan O’Brien did not win him any adorers. Most people watching this ad probably groaned an “Ugh” when Leno showed up.
The same people probably said, “Huh?” when the cast of Parenthood popped up on a soundstage instead of the actual set of the show? I still don’t fully get it. I get the appeal of Lauren Graham. And Dax Shephard, to an extent. But mostly I remember that this was right around the time when everyone actually stopped watching Parenthood. I’m sure the cast was just happy to be included.
Truth be told, I know nothing about Whitney.
I didn’t watch Up All Night either, but I’ll never say no to fun cameos from Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Maya Rudolph.
But then it happens. Oh, yeah, it’s the big one. Don’t you remember what else was airing on NBC at this time? Some sort of reality/competition series? Sound familiar? That’s right. Donald Trump is in this commercial. And since then, he probably thinks he’s only had more success. You know, becoming the president and all. But back in 2012 with The Apprentice, he was just some weird, Macy’s-tied, ego-inflated boob who lived at the top of New York City like a cartoon rat in a limousine made of money. Now, in 2020, he’s arguably the worst person in the entire world. He, alone, has ensured that NBC will never, ever, ever play this advertisement ever again. It’s why it’s not on their YouTube channel, I’m sure. Thanks to TheZac242 for re-uploading it!
But it doesn’t stop with Trump! As soon as he’s gone, the Radio City Rockettes step aside to reveal Matt Lauer! Yes, that’s right! Matt Lauer! And not only has it aged poorly in the sense that Lauer was accused of decades of sexual harassment and assault during his time as the anchor of Today, but he’s also standing right next to Ann Curry, who was bullied by Lauer until she departed the morning talk show. God, a one-two punch of Trump and Lauer back to back is enough to show how much life has changed since 2012. Fortunately, Al Roker and Natalie Morales save it from something that my eyes would need complete bleach from.
There’s still another big wallop to come, but we get a little reprieve from that when the Saturday Night Live cast shows up for some bars. Kenan Thompson is still there. Jay Pharoah is just a Masked Singer alternate panelist now, I guess. Vanessa Bayer and Andy Samberg recently teamed up for a fun Brooklyn Nine-Nine arc. Seth Meyers took over Late Night. Kristen Wiig is in superhero movies now. Abby Elliott is still out there, I’m sure. Taran Killam is on Single Parents. Fred Armisen is on Los Espookys. Bill Hader stars on Barry. Nasim Pedrad was in Aladdin. Bobby Moynihan will be back on television this fall (and is also on DuckTales with Ben Schwartz and Pudi). It’s arguably the most stacked cast SNL ever had, save for when they had the exact same cast plus Amy Poehler. Very fun to see all these people hanging out, especially since we know how friendly they all were and we know that John Mulaney was writing sketches for them at the time.
But then we’re right back in the thick of it when a smash cut takes us directly to the face of Brian Williams. You know, the guy who, three years later, would be suspended from NBC for lying about what happened during his time covering the Iraq War! And Lauer is right behind him! Oh, it’s such whiplash to go from Trump to Lauer to Williams. And it was all going so well until NBC shoehorned everyone in.
So then the SNL cast joins the Today anchors and the 30 Rock gang, but it’s impossible not to notice the glaring bodies that make up Lauer and Williams. Can you really celebrate NBC when they’re standing right there? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that’s brutal.
Of course, Jimmy Fallon rounds out the whole thing with a little tap dancing segment that was definitely his idea. But I like Fallon and he’s charming and he’s what opened up a whole different world of comedy to me, so that’s why I don’t turn the ad off when Trump shows up. I still want to see Jimmy’s appearance.
But yeah, it’s definitely something that aged terribly. I’m not sure it could have aged any worse. I guess if Aubrey Plaza had stabbed Will Arnett and shot Peter Krause, then that would’ve been rougher. Still, though, it’s just such a glorious mess of an ad that could only exist in 2012. I had to write about it. In equal measure, it was a disastrous lesson in how to craft something that ages terribly, but it was also the ad that united the most amazing comedians at once? I mean, Fallon, Meyers, Fey, Poehler, Glover, McHale, Helms, Jones, Kaling, Lowe, Novak, Pratt, Krasinski, Fischer, Robinson, Plaza, Scott, Ansari, Samberg, Hader, Brie, Krakowski, Morgan, Moynihan, Jacobs, Wiig, Pudi, Armisen, Rash, Jeong, Bayer, Pedrad, and on and on and on. Yes, it has some of the worst celebrities, but it also has some of the best. (Also, I think Kathy Bates shows up? I can’t really tell.)
Ultimately, however, what I felt was an overwhelming sense of nostalgia when this commercial stumbled its way back into my life. I mean, that was a year when Community, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, and The Office would air together every Thursday night. Fallon was hitting his stride on Late Night. The SNL cast was pitch perfect. Tom Brady was still on the Patriots. The ad aired when I was in eighth grade and it was a more innocent time in my life. It was a more innocent time in all of our lives. You know, it really seemed like we were good. And we were doing well. Culture has changed, for sure, but so have our lives.
Obviously, since then our eyes have been opened to so many problems in the world. Problems many have known about for decades. Problems no one could have anticipated. Problems caused by some of the people in this very advertisement. In many ways, it’s better that we’re more aware. But it’s also harder. I do my best to ward off cynicism every day, but it just gets stronger the older I get. If this commercial came out today, who knows if I’d be enamored with it as I was when I was twelve and just discovering how much I loved comedy and sports and the wide world of culture?
The 2011–12 era for NBC is behind us and there’s no going back to it. (Someone should still do an oral history of this ad, though.) For now, it’s enough for me to remember that one network was perfect. Even if it was way more imperfect than I could have known back then. Even if we can never go back to that time. Because it happened. And the better I’ve become at compartmentalizing my nostalgia, the better I’ve become at understanding that things change. And sometimes, it’s better to just let the eras go. Community never quite recaptured the magic of its third season. The Office’s eighth season hasn’t aged too great, even if I’d defend it.
NBC won’t even advertise for itself anymore. The marketing department is in full force for Peacock. And if you ever do venture into Peacock, you’ll be able to see all of these shows and more. I think I’d sooner rewatch Parks and Recreation than that Super Bowl, though.
