Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel ask "What is the Internet?" for BMW's Super Bowl ad

It's official: the '90s have finally ripened into full retro. Break out those Hypercolor t-shirts, find a hairstylist who knows what a Rachel is and pop open that case of Surge cola you've been hoarding for the apocalypse. Thankfully (or regrettably, depending on how the '90s went for you) much of the decade was preserved on video, so that we could go back and poke retroactive fun.

That's the conceit behind BMW's Super Bowl ad for its i3 electric car — the Yahoo Autos Green Vehicle of the Year — which reunites those pillars of '90s morning television, Bryant Gumbel and Yahoo's own Katie Couric. Twenty-one years ago, the NBC "Today" show duo puzzled over the meaning of the @ symbol and asked the timeless question "What is the Internet, anyway?"

BMW's hoping it will be even less time before carbon-fiber electric vehicles move from oddities to everyday use. It's a bold choice for BMW to advertise a low-volume, odd-looking EV in the biggest spotlight of the year; we may look back 21 years from now and see the car that changed transportation — or a different kind of electrical Surge.