Basketball bubbling (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Not one person in the entire history of the world has ever hated bubble gum.

Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but it's no stretch to say that a lot of important people have been known to bubble.

Politicians bubble. Singers bubble. And famous athletes bubble with extreme dispatch and frequency.

Athletes even bubble in commercials:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXCNN-FlkQU

That's a Bubblicious ad featuring basketball legend LeBron James. I never even heard of James until I saw this ad during the 2005 Super Bowl, but he must have already been mighty famous.

A sports website called that commercial one of the stupidest ads to appear during that entire broadcast. Because ads shown during the Super Bowl are often insufferable, that says quite a lot. Contrast that ad with another sports-themed gum commercial: the Big League Chew ad from the early '80s. Which one is more entertaining?

This is another indicator of how much commercials in general have declined since a generation ago.

LeBron James loves bubble gum. (The photo with this entry is of James bubbling at a different event.) He's given interviews in which he's discussed bubbling in detail, and he's even presided over bubble blowing contests.

Bubble gum and sports. They're almost inseparable!