Paramount Plus

It’s sometimes confusing to me that some people tune into an hours-long sporting event just to watch the commercials. People who do this tell me the ads are funny, but sometimes I see one like the 2024 Paramount Plus ad and think, “Are they funny, or are they just expensive?” This TV spot shows several people and characters featured on the streaming service’s programming, including Knuckles as voiced by Idris Elba from his bad self-titled show, and Master Chief from the Halo series. The group of characters, hosts, and Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa are stuck on a snowy mountaintop and need to throw a rope high enough for them to climb up and escape. Tagovailoa can only throw a football, though. So he’ll need to throw something football-shaped….like the head of Arnold from Hey Arnold. However, it is Patrick Stewart who ends up throwing the classic Nickelodeon character, and then butt-rock band Creed shows up and sings their soaring, vaguely religious anthem “Higher.” Stewart and Arnold sing parts of it, too. This is the kind of shit you dream of when you take an edible before you go to bed.