Husky sightings at Super Bowl LVII include Anna Faris, Joel McHale and Trent McDuffie
Magical avocados, an (alleged) $1.5 million hairstyle and two Huskies-turned-Chiefs took over our TVs this weekend.
Trent McDuffie earned a Super Bowl ring in his first season in the NFL, Anna Faris learned the magic of avocados, Joel McHale introduced his new show “Animal Control” and Danny Shelton relished his second Super Bowl win.
If you were one of the 113 million viewers who tuned into Super Bowl on Feb. 12, you might have noticed a few UW-friendly faces. Two Husky football players took home Super Bowl rings, and two College of Arts & Sciences grads took home checks from the year’s biggest advertisements.
Anna Faris, ’99, starred in a commercial for avocados. In a fictional Garden of Eden, Eve (Faris) takes a bite from a forbidden apple, which makes both her and Adam realize they’re naked. But thankfully, a talking rodent appears to provide Eve with an avocado from Mexico, which he promises will “make everything better.” She’s transported to modern-day New York City, where everyone is still naked, and avocados reign supreme.
This was Faris’ first-ever Super Bowl commercial, and she bared all: Her wardrobe consisted of little more than underwear and hair extensions. But Faris, who is 46, took it in stride. “There was also a lot of other minimally dressed young, very beautiful people. And I just thought, I’m just accepting this is just rad,” she told People magazine. “It felt liberating — for the first time in my life I was like, ‘maybe I could be a part of a nudist colony if I take all the hair with me.'”
Joel McHale, ’95, ’00, stars in the new sitcom “Animal Control” on Fox. To promote his new show, he held a baby cougar in his arms as if he was born to work with animals. He jokes that the 20-second ad spot cost $3 million, “and only half of that went toward my hair.”
While self-deprecating comedy comes naturally for McHale, working with animals comes even more naturally for his character, Frank. “Animal Control” follows a group of employees in Seattle’s animal control department with the workplace comedy formula viewers know and love.
Cornerback Trent McDuffie just got his start in the NFL as a first-round draft pick for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2022. Now, he’s taking home a ring as the 43rd Husky to make an appearance in the Super Bowl. Along with McDuffie, defensive tackle Danny Shelton, ’16, plays for the Chiefs but was on the sidelines this weekend as a member of the practice squad.
There have been 53 appearances by Huskies throughout all 57 Super Bowl games. Three have scored Super Bowl touchdowns: Corey Dillon in 2005 for the New England Patriots; Jerramy Stevens, ’02, for the Seattle Seahawks in 2006; and Jermaine Kearse, ’12, for the Seahawks in 2014.
McDuffie was the 34th Husky to appear in the Super Bowl as a starter.