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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2012 > February > 08 > Entry
That “Halftime in America” Super Bowl ad? It was written by UT grads
Did you catch the moody, dramatic “It’s Halftime in America” ad during the Super Bowl, the one featuring quintessential tough guy Clint Eastwood?
Turns out, it was written by three MFA alumni of the University of Texas’ prestigious Michener Center for Writers.
Kevin Jones, a 2009 MCW graduate, is now a wordsmith with an ad firm in Portland, Oregon, oversaw the project and he subsequently pulled in Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer Smith Henderson (MCW 2010) who moonlights as an advertising copywriter. And poet Matthew Dickman (MCW 2005) was asked to pen an alternate script.
The unusually-long two-minute commercial immediately sparked controversy and chatter, with conservative critics, including GOP strategist Karl Rove, suggesting that it was a plug for President Obama’s bailout of the Detroit auto industry.
Nevertheless, the script has been praised for its plain-spoken eloquence.
“One of the greatest pleasures of my job is waiting around to see what wondrous things these ex-students of mine will do next,” says MCW director James Magnuson. These three guys are immensely talented, but I never expected to see their work at half-time in the Super Bowl.”
Jones, Henderson and Dickman join a list of noted writers who have turned their talents to copywriting over the years including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Salmon Rushdie, Don DeLillo and Elmore Leonard .
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