by Kevin Cody
One day after her first birthday, Sequoia Macko, of Manhattan Beach, spit out her binky in front of 113 million Super Bowl LVII television viewers. Sequoia expressed her displeasure with her binky during a Kia Telluride commercial, late in the third quarter of Sunday’s Eagles versus Chiefs game.
The Kia commercial began with a young couple, and their one-year-old daughter checking into a ski chalet. The one-year-old in the opening scene is by Sequoia’s twin, Serenity. She is squirming, prompting her mother to ask dad for her binky. Dad sheepishly acknowledges he forgot to pack the binky. He then embarks on a heroic dash home in the family’s all-wheel drive Telluride SUV.
Police and military helicopters escort him though freeway traffic, beneath overpass banners that read,“We Love Binky Dad.” He drives off road in the snow, across a football field, and into a culvert that launches the Kia airborne.
Finally, he returns triumphantly to the ski resort, and places a green binky in Sequoia’s mouth.
Sequoia makes a sour face as she spits it out.
“You brought the wrong blinky. She only likes the blue one,” the mother scolds her husband, sending him on a second mad dash home.
Sequoia’s real life dad Nick Macko said it was natural for Sequoia to spit out the binky because she doesn’t like them. But Sequoia couldn’t be counted on to make the sour face the script called for. So the director of the estimated $12 million, 60-second commercial ordered the green binky to be dipped in lemon juice.
The twins’ performances earned the Kia commercial one of only nine A’s awarded among the 59 Super Bowl LVII commercials graded by the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management.
Sequoia and Serenity aren’t new to television. Last fall the twins were cast as Muriel, the infant baby of Erica Goldberg (Hayley Orrantia) and Geoff Schwartz’s (Sam Lerner), stars of ABC’s “The Goldbergs.”
But the Super Bowl LVII roles were seen by their dad as something approaching a cosmic convergence.
“The Goldbergs” is set in Philadelphia.
Macko is from Philadelphia.
He is a leader of the South Bay Eagles Alliance fan club.
The Philadelphia Eagles were in the Super Bowl.
His twins were in a Super Bowl commercial.
And the soundtrack for the commercial was the theme from “Rocky,” the Sylvester Stallone film about a Philadelphia boxer.
Unfortunately, there was just one star out of alignment on Sunday.
Macko and fellow members of South Bay Eagles Alliance filled American Junkie, on Hermosa’s Pier Plaza, to its 150 capacity limit. Fans wore T-shirts with the American eagle perched on a Hermosa Beach Street sign that read Philadelphia.
The fan club was founded in 2010 by Philadelphian Kiernan and Kirk Harrington, owners of Chelsea’s Pub in downtown Hermosa. Chelsea’s was the Eagles Alliance home bar until the Eagles 2017 Super Bowl victory, when the fast growing fan club moved to American Junkie, the largest bar in town
Sunday morning, in anticipation of the favored Eagles defeating the Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia authorities greased the city’s lamp post. Eagles Alliance organizer Pete Eisenmann explained to non Philadelphians that Philadelphians climb the city’s lamp posts after their teams win big games. The grease was to reduce the height from which they fall.
Throughout the first half, the pole greasing look warranted. At halftime, the Eagles were up 10 points, and Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes left the field limping from what looked like a game-ending ankle sprain.
Eagles quarterback, Jalen Hurts, by contrast looked unstoppable. He would rush to a Super Bowl record three touchdowns. But Mahomes did return to the field, and was also unstoppable. By the end of the third, the Eagle’s lead was down to six. With 5:15 remaining in the game, the score was tied 35 to 35. Then with just six seconds left, the Chiefs kicked a game winning field goal.
Macko and Eisenmann, who had been leading Eagle cheers throughout the game, rallied Eagles fans to get ready for next year with a final cheer — E-A-G-L-E-S.
