Special Super Ad Bowl Blog

Here it is, my opinion of the ads during the Super Bowl, the annual event of television. Anyone not interested in my thoughts on Super Ads should skip to my last Random Thoughts post.

I won't be blogging about CBS "in-house" ads, and if something is particularly boring I may not bother listing it. My goal with this blog entry is just to mention the best ads, and give thoughts on them as I watch them.

I turned on the game shortly before the kickoff, in time to catch a couple of good ads, so that's where I'll start.

Pre-Kickoff:

• Tostitos - Coat room. Guys in coat room at weeding, bride comes in and starts to watch the game with them. The groom is told he's a lucky man. Got a giggle from me. C+
• McDonalds - Dryer sheet. Guy distracted by game uses wrapper from burger as dryer sheet instead of fabric softener, then goes after wife because she smells good. First McD's commercial I've liked in ages. B-
• Cialis - What's with the outdoor bathtubs?
• Pizza Hut - Muppets. Nice combo of muppets and product placement. No difficulty in remembering that the product was 4 for all pizza, and loved the muppets. A-

During Game:

First Break (after missed field goal):

• Bud Light - Fetch. Typical beer commercial, with a bit of nastiness. Nice anti-yuppy attitude. C
• FedEx - Alien. "Why don't we use FedEx?" Funny. Heh. B+
• Dodge Magnum - Monkey on back. Guy living life with monkey hanging onto his back. Nice zinger at the end with the shot of the dealership infested with ex-on-back monkeys. B-

Second Break:

• Pepsi - Bears in cabin. They trash the cabin, then go buy Pepsi because the cabin doesn't have any. C+
• Schick Quattro - Boring. F
• AOL top speed - Motorcycle jump. Attached to a motorcycle, which then jumps trucks farther than intended. D

Third Break:

• Van Helsing - Nice trailer. I haven't been paying attention to this movie, but now I may just have to. Looks like a good one to watch late at night with lots of popcorn and somebody to cuddle with. B-
• Bud Light - Bikini wax. Another commercial that indicates that beer makes men stupid. D

Fourth Break:

• Troy - Nice Trailer. I'm interested, but again, it looks like a good late night movie. I wonder if it will inspire more interest in Age of Bronze? B-
• H&R Block - Willie Nelson doll. Heh. Not the kind of tax advice you want. B
• Chevy Aveo - Elephant/Basketball players. I like the ending shot of the players in the car. It makes the point, and was cute. C+

Fifth Break:

• 50 First Dates - Not so nice Trailer. Not interested. At all. D
• Budweiser - Training. That was a fairly insulting ad. Then again, comparing an NFL coach to a nagging wife might be contrued as insulting to the wife. D
• Monster - I Dig You. Cute ad comparing the no-so-completely different lives of an executive and the guy trying to get hired by him. C+

Sixth Break (end of First Quarter):

• Sierra Mist - Where's Wallace. Piper leaves place in parade to stand over an ice blower and enjoy cooling off. B
• Miracle - Trailer. I suppose it's about time that a movie was made about that hockey team. B-
• Levitra - Football versus Baseball. Boring talking commercial about a product whose use they can't explain on TV. D

Seventh Break:

• Budweiser - Donkey. Very cute. The donkey isn't impressive as a Clydesdale, but it's still cute. B-
• The Alamo - Trailer. There's a movie ad just about every break. This is another one I would want to wait and see at home. B-

Eighth Break:

• Pepsi - Free Downloads. That one I liked. A lot. It led up to a very nice conclusion. B+
• Levitra - Free Trial. Please, make these go away. F
• Mitsubishi - seewhathappens.com Ok, I'm intrigued. Two cars avoiding things being thrown out of a truck at them, the last item being cars. B+

Ninth Break:

• Bud Light - Farting Horse. Typical beer commercial. The zinger line at the end was mildly amusing ("Cool, a rocket sled.") B-
• Philip Morris - 1 out of 5. Another "teach your kids not to smoke, so they'll live long enough to give us money" ad from the tobacco company. C+
• Charmin Ultra - Switch. Heh. Funny. Stupid, but funny. I would have liked to see the bear actually go down. C+

Tenth Break:

• Starsky and Hutch - Trailer. Uh, what? I'm going to pretend I didn't see that.
• Pepsi - Break-up. Predictable from the first moment. C+
• LINUX - Shake Up The World. Muhammud Ali and little boy. I had no idea what the commercial was going to be for, but I enjoyed it overall. A-

Eleventh Break (after first touchdown):

• Visa - Beach volleyball in snow. Ouch. That's what I'm thinking. Ouch. B

Twelfth Break:

• Secret Window - Trailer. Somebody stop it with the trailers. C
• Chevy - Soap in Mouth. Not as good a payoff as I was hoping for. The various kids with soap in their mouths was funny, but the ending didn't live up to the build. C+
• Lay's Potato Chips - Old folks fighting. Cute. C+

Thirteenth Break:

• AOL Top Speed - Scooter. I was hoping for something more like a roadrunner cartoon. Oh well. C+

Fourteenth Break:

• NFL - Join the team. Nice little ad of a bunch of football players yelling at me. C

Fifteenth Break (Halftime):

• Not seeing much worth writing about. Lots of CBS ads, which I already decided not to blog. A boring car ad. The best thing before the halftime show started was a motorola ad for a camera phone.
• I like the "Choose to Vote" promo right before the halftime show started.
• NFL - Undefeated Again. Ok, seeing all the football players singing "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow" was fun.
• An "omen of raw naked football" is seen on the field as the players want to kickoff to start the second half. The close-up on a player's face was all you needed to know that what you thought was happening was, indeed, happening. Has there ever been a Superbowl streaker before?

Sixteenth Break:

• Microsoft - Fiona. Another of their "drawing" commercials, where you see a kid with lots of drawing around them representing their possible future. C
• Sierra Mist - Dive from Balcony. Predictable. C-
• Expedia.Com - Magique. Follows the same pattern of recent Expedia ads. Nice "terror fantasy" this time. C+

Seventeenth Break:

• Bud Light - Talking Monkey. Again, another commercial that says beer makes guys stupid. C+
• Staples - Randy the supplyfather. Heh, cute. B

Eighteenth Break:

• Cialis - Ok, the warnings were priceless. "Erections lasting more than four hours, though rare, require immediate medical attention" Oh-Kay. C
• Monster - Old Donna Summers song, lots of rapid-fire images of happy people. Boring. C-

Nineteenth Break:

• Hidalgo - Trailer. Looks like another good late night movie. C+
• Gillette: Mach Turbo - Best. Black and White images, old and new, with a theme of being "at your best", as if a good shave will put you at your best. C+

Twentieth Break:

• McDonald's - Be On Your Game. Might be a rerun, the other two this break were, but I hadn't seen it. Guy getting to work early so he could use the company computers to play a video game. C+

Twenty-First Break:

• Cadillac - Water. Cool effects. Not much else, but the effects are cool. B-
• Budweiser - Forgot something. Yet another beer commercial that implies that beer makes you stupid. C+

Twenty-Second Break:

• Annheuser-Busch - Must Be Tough. Stars coming up the red carpet, it's the designated driver that has all the girls. C
• Honda Pilot - Raised By Wolves. I think I've seen this one before. Guy raised by wolves, but the SUV makes it easier on his family. D
• MasterCard - Simpson's. "Having more time to spend with your family: Priceless" A-

Twenty-Third Break:

• AOL Top Speed - Added to Car. Back to the Future homage, as car goes so fast it vanishes, then when it returns, the driver says he was in the Renaissance (and is dressed for the part). B+
• Nextel - Walkie-Talkies. Dale Earnhardt enters football game. In his car. C+
• Annheuser-Busch - Check IDs. Girls change from tame clothes to more adult clothing in their car, but decide to not get beer because of sign that says store checks IDs. C

Twenty-Fourth Break:

• Truth - shardsoglass.com. A company sells popcicles with shards of glass in them, and admits that the only way to be safe with their product is to not eat it. What if all companies advertised like tobacco? C+
• 7UP - Slam Dunk contest. Another dumb commercial with the dumb 7UP guy, this time driving a truck and announcing a million dollars to anyone who can dunk off the basket on the back of the truck. Whatever. C

Twenty-Fifth Break:

• Anti-Drug - Life Doesn't Rewind. Typical anti-drug ad. About standard. C
• Cadillac - Soundless. No, you didn't hit mute. The idea is that the sound has to catch up to the car. An effective use of sound. C

Twenty-Sixth Break:

• Cadillac - Soundless... repeat. Sigh.

Twenty-Seventh Break:

• The Ladykillers - Trailer. Tom Hanks? Funny. Might want to see it someday. C+
• AOL top speed - Motorcycle. Repeat.
• Pepsi - Jimmy Hendrix. Pepsi machine was near a guitar shop, the Coke machine near an accordian shop. Young Jimi chooses Pepsi, thus chooses guitar. Cute, even if it didn't look a thing like Seattle. B-

Twenty-Eighth Break:

• AIG - Game Plan. Boring. D

Twenty-Ninth Break (after end of game):

• Subway - Being Bad. I like the Wang Chung bit. C+

No more ads... The game is over. I don't even know which ones technically qualify as being SuperBowl ads.

Other thoughts:

The tribute to the Columbia astronauts made me cry. I had somehow buried the emotions, but the one picture of them on the ship in space brought back the many nights watching them do experiments and ham it up for the cameras. Seeing the new crew for the next shuttle mission also made me want to scream "when!? We can't let the deaths go in vain."

As for the game itself, Carolina definitely made it a game instead of the expected runaway. Tying the game with a minute left was rather unexpected. Too bad they couldn't hold the Patriots back and force OT. It would have been pretty cool.

Ok, best ads: The Muppets Pizza Hut (which was before the game), the Simpsons MasterCard, and the LINUX commercial with Muhammud Ali. Overall, it was a poor showing of ads. Maybe not as bad as last year's but definitely poor. Maybe one of these years we'll get a good showing of ads again.