Amazon Echo Super Bowl 2020 TV Spot, 'Before Alexa' Featuring Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi

On their way out the door, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi use their Amazon Echo to turn down the thermostat, a modern convenience that prompts the duo to ask the big question during Super Bowl LIV: what did people do before Alexa? Of course, there's a storied history of cross-stitching couples prompting the maid Alessa to lower the temperature (by tossing firewood out the window), jesters like Alexine trying (and failing) to regale their royal monarch with a joke and newsboys like Alex peddling (fake) news on a street corner. Because what would the Old West be without the dulcet sounds of Al and his jug? How would old-time washer women know that a pants-stealing witch is at large in the flat world without Alexie's insights? And how would the food chain of the Middle Ages be sustained without Leximus the pigeon carrying a message to Prince Constantine? But really, who cares what people did before Alexa? Nowadays, a jug-laden remix of Usher's "Yeah" is only a command away.