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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Baltimore Ravens Win Super Bowl; Missing American Found Dead In Istanbul; Most Memorable Super Bowl Ads
Aired February 04, 2013 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: What was going on with the lights at the Super Bowl? What caused it and how it influenced the game itself.
ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, President Obama is speaking out about the boy scouts and whether or not they will decide to allow gays into their organization.
BERMAN: And we find out today if the remains of a king were found in a parking lot in England. King Richard III ruled more than 500 years ago. Of course, "now is the winter of our discontent, a glorious summer by the son of York."
SAMBOLIN: Wow!
BERMAN: Shakespeare, man.
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.
SAMBOLIN: And I'm Zoraida Sambolin. Thirty-one minutes past the hour. Glad you're with us. And our top story, the Baltimore Ravens and their fans. They're celebrating the victory over the San Francisco 49ers and Super Bowl XLVII. The game will go down in the books as the longest Super Bowl ever, four hours and 14 minutes, and it had help.
A power outage at the Superdome delayed the game for 34 minutes. As it turns out, the blackout may have prevented a blowout. At the time, the Ravens were actually up 28-6. When the lights came on, so did the 49ers, but in the end, they fell short, losing 34-31. But at least we got to watch them.
BERMAN: That was a dramatic -- that was like a dramatic week after the game.
SAMBOLIN: I know. It really was. CNNs Carlos Diaz is live in New Orleans, and Carlos, I'm going to make up a word here. A bazillions or bazillions of people watched, and really, there was a glitch with the power? How is that even possible?
CARLOS DIAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is an official figure, by the way, bazillion. Yes, you know, back -- football fans, you know, will always remember Dandy Don Merediths singing "Turn off the Lights, The Party Is Over" at the end of a game. Well, this kind of happened in halfway fashion at the Superdome.
The official statement from the Superdome was this: "Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl, a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened the breaker, causing power to partially be cut to the Superdome."
So, basically, the Entergy, the company that provides the power to the Superdome, tweeted out during the game, hey, it's not on our end. We're providing power to the Superdome. The breaker fell and that's why the Superdome was out of power for half of the stadium.
Now, Oreo was a big winner during the power outage. They immediately tweeted out an ad that said, "You can still dunk in the dark," showing an Orea and kind of a dark background. That was kind of a highlight as far as advertising goes.
But Joe Flacco, the MVP of the game, quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens, said he's never seen anything like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE FLACCO, SUPER BOWL XLVII MVP: Unbelievable, but just one of those things you have to deal with. You know, it -- you know, I'm sure down the road it will just make for a little bit better story.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIAZ: So, basically, Joe Flacco, you know, was -- and his team were forced to come back after that power outage and try to perform as well as they did before. They were up 28-6 when the power outage happened. Not so much, by the way, afterwards. The San Francisco 49ers went on a tear after the power outage, having a surge of their own, if you'll say, cutting the lead to two points before the Ravens actually came away with the victory -- Zoraida.
SAMBOLIN: OK. So, walk me through some of the highlights.
DIAZ: So, basically, you know, it was all Ravens in the first half. They looked amazing, and in the start of second half, yes, Jacoby Jones with an 108-yard kickoff return, and Ravens fans were going insane, then the power outage happens. So 34 minutes, and I can see all my friends in Baltimore going, oh, conspiracy theory! They're trying to take away our momentum! And that's exactly what happened with the Niners, cutting the lead to two points, 31-29 at one point.
Then, a late field goal by the Ravens, put the Ravens up for good and Baltimore comes away after holding the San Francisco 49ers out of the end zone with four plays from inside 10, the Ravens come away with a victory, 34-31, their second Super Bowl victory, the first time the Niners ever lost in the Super Bowl.
SAMBOLIN: Yes, no kidding. Sad moment in time. And those Harbaugh brothers, they couldn't hug it out?
DIAZ: Yes. You know, like I said and I knew this is going to happen. If John won the Super Bowl, which he did, and him being the older brother, the after-game handshake/hug was very brief.
SAMBOLIN: Yes.
DIAZ: And John said after the game, the win was bittersweet.
SAMBOLIN: I bet. Carlos Diaz live for us. Thank you.
BERMAN: Thirty-five minutes after the hour right. And a tragic end to the mystery of a missing New York woman who disappeared in Turkey last month. Her body was found Saturday in Istanbul, and Turkish authorities say she died from an apparent blunt blow to the head and shown signs of stab wounds.
SAMBOLIN: Terrible.
BERMAN: Thirty-three-year-old Sarai Sierra was traveling alone through Europe. She went missing the day before she was supposed to return to the states, prompting her husband and brother to fly to Turkey to look for her. CNNs Ivan Watson has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Turkish police made the grim discovery on Saturday, a woman's body hidden behind the old stonewalls of this ancient city. Within hours, police identified her as Sarai Sierra, a 33-year-old mother of two, a native of Staten Island, New York. Sierra had been missing for more than a week after disappearing during what was supposed to be her first foreign vacation. Turkish police suspect she's been murdered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It has been determined she was killed with a blow to the head. For us to get concrete details of the case, we need more time to investigate. It's not right to say anything about the ongoing interrogation of detained people. She was a tourist traveling alone.
WATSON: These are the last known images of Sierra. Security cameras caught her on the night to January 20th, walking alone inside an Istanbul shopping mall. Sierra flew from New York to Turkey on January 7th solo, because a friend canceled coming along at the last minute. She was an amateur photographer who shared her photos of Istanbul's mosques and skuline with friends she met on Instagram.
Sierra is believed to have met some of these Instagram acquaintances during her stay in Turkey and during a short side trip to Amsterdam. Sierra's husband, Steven, sounded the alarm after she failed to board her flight back to New York on January 21st. Days later, Steven and Sarai's brother, David Gimenez (ph), flew to Istanbul to help Turkish police with the investigation.
In an interview with CNN last week, it was clear Steven, a New York City transit worker, was beginning to fear the worst. STEVEN SIERRA, HUSBAND OF MISSING AMERICAN WOMAN IN TURKEY: The long with her missing, um, you're hoping that she's OK, wherever she's at. That she's not hurting. That she's not cold. That she's being fed. That she's not consumed with fear.
WATSON: The shocking news of Sierra's death devastated her family who have tried to protect her two sons from news of their mother's disappearance. As friends and family grieve in New York, police in Istanbul have an urgent question to answer, who killed Sarai Sierra?
Ivan Watson, CNN, Istanbul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SAMBOLIN: Thirty-eight minutes past the hour. The president hits the road today. He'll be in Minneapolis promoting his 35-point plan to combat gun violence in America. The president will meet with local law enforcement and political leaders before speaking this afternoon that is scheduled at 2:30 eastern.
BERMAN: On Sunday, the president sat down with Scott Pelley from CBS News for a live interview ahead of the Super Bowl. The president addressed several topics from football players' safety to the economy. He was also asked if he agreed with the recent announcement by the Boy Scouts of America that they may be lifting the band on gay members. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAMBOLIN: Dead men tell no tales or do they, Mr. Berman? Scientists are expected to announce today whether or not this battle scared skeleton found under a parking lot in Central England belongs to the lost British king, Richard III. What do you think?
BERMAN: How can you tell? How can you tell? I mean, how would you know? I mean, it looks like Richard III from this picture. He's also known as the last English monarch to die in combat (ph) way back in the 15th century. That's a long time ago.
SAMBOLIN: Yes, it is.
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: I mean, this is like 600 years ago.
SAMBOLIN: Yes, I know. Interesting to find out, though.
BERMAN: I can't wait. From Beyonce to the lights going out in the game itself, it was one strange, bizarre Super Bowl. But some of the biggest earners were the companies who pay millions and millions of dollars for their commercials to air. We're going to dig through the big winners and losers of the ad wars, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: So, it's a nail-biting game and the blackout and Beyonce weren't all enough for you, there were the ads. This is such a big deal every year with advertisers paying up to $4 million for a 30- second spot. They sure better be memorable.
SAMBOLIN: So, how did they rate? Richard Kirshenbaum is an advertising expert and the author of the advertising memoir, "Madboy: My Journey From Ad Boy To Ad Man," and he joins us now to tell us which one actually scored. So, overall, how did you feel they did last night?
RICHARD KIRSHENBAUM, ADVERTISING EXPERT: Overall, it was typical Super Bowl, you know, slate of commercials. Most were wallpaper. A few stood out.
SAMBOLIN: All right. So, let's talk about some of your favorites, because you gave us a list.
KIRSHENBAUM: I did.
SAMBOLIN: So, let's start with Mercedes.
KIRSHENBAUM: Mercedes was a class Super Bowl commercial. It had the celebrity, William Dafoe. It had Rolling Stones. It had the music. The message was really great. It was well-produced. It broke through. It related back to the product and the price. It was a great commercial.
BERMAN: We'll play a little bit of it here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure is. If you can deal with me kid, you can have the car and everything that goes along with it.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So, I got say I love this ad too. I think the production value was higher than anything else, but I had seen it several times before it aired. So, I'm hesitant to put ads that I've seen again and again and again on my top list. I don't know. It's that just me?
KIRSHENBAUM: In terms of social media or --
BERMAN: I saw it everywhere, and they put it out in social media and previewed it.
KIRSHENBAUM: I still think it's an amazing commercial. I really do. And I think that, you know, great is great. SAMBOLIN: I loved it. I love that the devil explodes at the end. That was fantastic.
BERMAN: Now, the GoDaddy ad is one that everyone is talking about.
KIRSHENBAUM: Absolutely.
BERMAN: We have a disagreement here, so explain. Good ad, bad ad, and why?
KIRSHENBAUM: I think it's very smart ad for GoDaddy, because that's their whole, you know, sensibility. You know what I'm saying? The idea here was that beauty and brains. You know, mostly they've got used hot women before.
SAMBOLIN: Right.
KIRSHENBAUM: So, this one, even though it was controversial and had the ick value, it still stood out and that's important.
SAMBOLIN: It had a high ick value, and Berman made a good point, his boys were still up because it aired so early during Super Bowl. So, I dont know. You got to kind of explain that to little ones --
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: What else do you like, Taco Bell?
KIRSHENBAUM: I thought Taco Bell was really interesting. It was entertaining, it was unusual. They pushed the limits. It really -- I love the fact that they -- the music was done in Spanish. And I thought it was -- you know, a very, very, very, very exciting spot.
BERMAN: Told the story, too.
KIRSHENBAUM: Absolutely.
SAMBOLIN: And a demo we normally don't see, so I love that. How about Audi and --
KIRSHENBAUM: You know, that was a spot that I think men and women loved for different reasons. It was a smart spot. I was with a group of people and everyone seemed to like that. It was universally well- received.
BERMAN: And kissing. My boys also --
(LAUGHTER)
KIRSHENBAUM: Exactly. It's a theme this year.
BERMAN: And then the farmers ad too, which in some ways, we have few of the very sentimental ads.
KIRSHENBAUM: That was a very -- it was like almost came late, and everyone was really surprised. It was great. It was so (INAUDIBLE). And it really related back to Ram, the product. That was all about authenticity.
BERMAN: How objective is it and how subjective is it when you decide what ads are good?
KIRSHENBAUM: Well, I think that -- here's the thing. If you're paying $3.8 million or $4 million worth 30-second spot, the biggest sin is that nobody remembers it.
SAMBOLIN: Right.
KIRSHENBAUM: OK. So, for me, the one that are really important are the ones that stand out, and that's -- and everyone talks the one who said out.
SAMBOLIN: All right. Richard Kirshenbaum, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.
KIRSHENBAUM: My pleasure.
SAMBOLIN: All right. It is 47 minutes past the hour.
As if the Super Bowl couldn't get any better, we bring you the Puppy Bowl. That's coming up later this hour on CNN.
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SAMBOLIN: Welcome back. Fifty minutes past the hour. Let's get you up to date with this morning's top stories.
The Baltimore Ravens are the Super Bowl champs. In case you didn't stay up all night watching, they beat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 to win Super Bowl XLVII. The Niners staged a furious second half rally after being down by 22 points. So, that come back began after the lights went out. The power outage stopped the Super Bowl calls for 34 minutes. Raven's quarterback, Joe Flacco was the game's -- Flacco -- Flacco.
BERMAN: Flacco.
SAMBOLIN: You know, Flacco is thin in Spanish. So, I get confused, sometimes.
(LAUGHTER)
BERMAN: Well, Flacco is going to be rich in America, because he is a free agent.
(CROSSTALK)
SAMBOLIN: Now, I'm going to get that right. Flacco.
BERMAN: All right. Some developing news overnight. A violent tour bus crash reportedly kills at least eight people just east of San Bernardino, California. More than 40 others were injured. The Los Angeles (ph) describes a violent scene. The crash involving a bus, truck and a car. Some people ejected from the bus while others were trapped inside. The accident was so severe that rescue workers could not immediately identify how many people were killed.
SAMBOLIN: There were some children on board as well.
BERMAN: Terrible.
SAMBOLIN: A 25-year-old Iraq war vet is facing two counts of capital murder this morning in the shooting death of a former Navy SEAL sniper. Texas investigator say Eddie Ray Routh used a semi-automatic hand gun to kill. Chris Kyle and another man at a gun range in Texas over the weekend, but they still don't have a motive. They don't know why.
BERMAN: Former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry kicked off his first week as the nation's top diplomat by speaking to leaders in the Middle East. The new Secretary of State John Kerry sat down with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and spoke about the country's recent elections. He also talked about top Palestinian authority, President Mahmoud Abbas about the relationship between the Palestinians and Israel.
SAMBOLIN: Did you hear we have some good news?
BERMAN: Excellent. I can't wait.
SAMBOLIN: I think it's great news. It is in the world of weather today. Meteorologist Indra Petersons joins us now live. Deliver. Deliver for us.
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right. Finally, John and Zoraida, I actually have good news for you. All of us that have been so cold, we're slowly going to be warming up. Now, it's not a fast warm-up, but nonetheless, New York, you're below freezing right now at 30. And a couple of days, you're so close to the average at 40.
Meanwhile, D.C., look it down, going to start these temperatures go above average 47 degrees by Wednesday. Now, here's the story, we're going to be seeing a pattern change as we go throughout the week. So, we're going to be talking about the jet stream pulling out in the northeast and warming us to up here on the eastern half of the country. Meanwhile, almost like a little pay back, right?
Out towards the West Coast, all that cold air is going to die down of the south, cooling them off. Obviously, we're going to be warming much more down in the south. Look at these temperatures. Houston today well above normal at 75 degrees out towards New Orleans. We're looking at temperatures in the 70s.
Just want to mention, though, even though we're going to be warming up, it doesn't mean we do not have a threat for showers. So, showers out towards Mississippi Valley and even some snow in the Ohio Valley.
SAMBOLIN: All right. Indra Petersons, thank you very much.
BERMAN: All right. You want the best tease ever?
SAMBOLIN: Yes. BERMAN: All right. Coming up for you, two words, Puppy Bowl. That's next.
SAMBOLIN: Aw.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: Welcome back, everyone. Fifty-seven minutes after the hour. I'm Jon Berman along with Zoraida Sambolin. We are taking a looking at the top CNN Trends on the web this morning.
SAMBOLIN: And Michael Oher is celebrating the Super Bowl victory with the rest of his Baltimore Ravens teammates. The Super Bowl spotlight has given Oher a chance to show the world he's very different from the character depicted in the movie, "The Blind Side." Oher's life story inspired that film, but he does not like. He says primarily because it portrays him as someone who didn't know the basics of football, when in fact, he is a student of the game.
BERMAN: Absolutely.
SAMBOLIN: Yes.
BERMAN: So, the Ravens and 49ers were not the only ones battling for glory on the grid iron yesterday.
(INAUDIBLE)
BERMAN: -- excessive drooling and a tiny bit of biting, but that's not what caused the ref to throw his penalty flag. Oh, no!
(LAUGHTER)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: no, no, no. Excessive cuteness, you two. 10-yard penalty. You know what, 15-yard penalty. It's that cute.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAMBOLIN: Oh, my goodness. Can you eat them up?
BERMAN: Big penalty. A lot of violations there. Sixty-three puppies participated this year from shelters around the country, and PetFinder.com makes sure, this is great, every single one of them gets adopted.
SAMBOLIN: I didn't know that. That is really fantastic. Are they too cute or what?
BERMAN: We had one on set last week. They actually smell a little bit, let's be honest.
(LAUGHTER)
BERMAN: But they are very cute. SAMBOLIN: They do. I have to get my dress dry-cleaned, but he was adorable. he was adorable. All right. Fifty-eight minutes past the hour.
BERMAN: So, the new "Iron Man" movie. Take a look at this. Disney and Marvel debut their new trailer for the superhero's next chapter "Iron Man 3." I am excited. This happened, of course, during the Super Bowl. Everyone is talking about it, especially my friends.
The trailer shows are, you know, diving the rest, group of passengers blown out of an airplane and descending to their deaths. Seriously intense. "Iron Man 3" hits theaters on May 3rd. I'm ready. "Star Trek" -- there's a new "Star Trek" coming out. I'm only going to the movies --
SAMBOLIN: The geek, the geek. All right. EARLY START continues right now.
