Not a lot of great ones to choose from, that's for sure. And there was the added distraction of a sensational football game, but here are few I liked:
The HOUSE Mean Joe Green commercial parody.
The Tim Hutton Tibet Groupon spot.
And the little Darth Vader for some car commercial.
The sitcom montage was kind of interesting but I had no idea what it was for, and I don't think I get royalties.
Otherwise, ugh! Lots of stunts, lots of effects, short on laughs. People getting clocked with Pepsi cans. Yuck yuck (although I did enjoy seeing Roseanne get pummeled). It seems like every movie coming out has a spacecraft.
A lot of the commercials I just didn't get. What was Coke trying to sell with that elaborate spot with dragons and creatures? Is their new campaign that Coke is the official cola of imaginary characters?
And can I just say it -- I am so fucking sick of seeing the GLEE people. Stop it already! I don't want to see them!
I noticed that there were a lot spots for high end automobiles like Mercedes Benz and BMW. But the only people who could afford those cars were actually at the Super Bowl.
Budweiser commercials are never funny anymore. Bring back the frogs. Or the Bud Bowl even.
And I know it's off the subject, but never NEVER NEVER let Christina Aguilera sing the National Anthem.
Congratulations to the Packers.
From Green Bay, thank you.
ReplyDeleteAnd she didn't sing the national anthem...in that middle part, I don't know WHAT she was singing!
The beer commercials were beyond the pale.
ReplyDeleteLoved the Audi using Kenny G for riot control. And the Bridgestone ad with the beaver was cute. Otherwise, meh. Oh, House was very good too.
ReplyDeleteYou really liked the Groupon ad? Timothy Hutton seemed so random and the tone was awkward.
ReplyDeleteI thought the CarMax "Kid in a Candy Store" was fun.
Total crap commercials. But the little darth vader was fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI can never, ever, hear the National Anthem (US or Canadian) without thinking of your post. Christina certainly hit all the wrong notes on that one today.
ReplyDeleteKeep it handy. I'm already requesting it for Canada Day.
Ken, I would have thought lots of writers and show-runners in Hollywood would have appreciated Rosanne getting hit in the head with a log. Though I would have thought the log would not have been the immovable object in that case.
ReplyDeleteAlso, regular Bud turns you into Elton John? I think since the Dutch bought Anhauser-Busch, the company is apparently targeting a different audience during the Super Bowl.
And did GoDaddy.com really think people were going to go to their internet website to watch the uncensored version of their ad with Joan Rivers? Not even if they stuck her face on Brooklyn Decker's body in that "Just Go for It" commercial.
@Jan - You should really check out the Audi spot on Youtube with Kenny G Riot Suppressor - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXE6L2gUDKQ
ReplyDelete@Ken - re: the Hutton groupon ad. There was also a Cuba Gooding Jr. spot about whales during the preview show. But not everybody agress: http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/06/groupon-clueless-as-kenneth-cole/
I pretty much agree-- I also thought the first Doritos ad with the guy taunting the little dog was cute (especially since their ads are made by fans not agencies) and the Coke ad with the guys walking the border post was good.
ReplyDeleteDarth Vader and House were also good. I thought Groupon was all over the map-- no small feat in 30 seconds, I wasn't sure what their point was.
The AUDI ad could have been really good with better editing and I liked the attitude of the Eminem / Chrysler ad.
After that--crap. The Coke Dragon was the lamest thing since the polar bears, which means CAA will probably be all over that. (THIS was the last great Coke ad.)
The Pepsi and Go Daddy ads were extra bad.
I agree-- bring back the Budweiser Lizards.
Imported from Detroit was my favorite. Hell yeah, Motor City!
ReplyDeleteNothing came close to the google genius of last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cekQrMEh1wY
The Groupon ad was the most offensive ad I've ever seen in my life. Nothing like making light of millions of brutal deaths.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's because I'm a Michigander (nowhere near Detroit, mind you, but still), but the Chrysler spot with Eminem I thought was absolutely fantastic. Not funny, not selling any specific product, but just spot on perfect for a city which has had way more than its share of crap over the past decade or so. It gets my vote for the best of the day.
ReplyDeleteI saw the Darth Vader spot online a couple days before Sunday, but it was still fun to see during the game. The "Rich People Prison" was pretty funny, but not particularly effective.
Otherwise--yeah, lots of expensive craptasticness.
And I'd always wondered what a halftime show would look like if it were produced by Tron.
Ken, I concur with you on the commercials. Little Darth Vader goes right at the top. Liked the House tribute to Mean Joe Greene even though I'm not a fan of the show. The Eminem/Chrysler ad was well produced, showed super attitude and kept my attention. I got fooled by the Groupon ad. I was expecting Tim Robbins to pop up.
ReplyDeleteAs for Miss Xtina butchering the National Anthem, all I could think of was Maya Rudolph's parody version from Saturday Night Live. Can we all agree to just play Whitney Houston's 1991 version every year and call it done?
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ReplyDeleteThe Eminem/Detroit/Chrysler ad had a line like "from a city that's been to hell and back" in it. The collective reaction of our room was, what do you mean 'and back'?
ReplyDeleteFrom Jan:
ReplyDeleteI liked the pug commercial--probably just because I have a pug, and they ARE food oriented. Someone said pugs were very trainable because they'd do anything for food.
I don't undestand why people have to add "style" (and I use the term VERY loosely) to the national anthem (or Christmas carols). Can't they just sing the song as written??? This Christina Aguilera version was particularly bad, but so was the girl who sang the Canadian national anthem at the Olympics. Checking out CA on youtube, I noticed in one of the shots of the players one guy seemed to be trying really hard not to laugh. I'm assuming that was because of the delivery of the song, and how the rest could remain straight-faced is beyond me.
Still puzzled by the Timothy Hutton Tibet Groupon ad.
ReplyDeleteTheir way of life hasn't been threatened, it's been attacked by the Chinese. Tim pulls us in with a documentary voice over, and then we're in Chicago at Himalayan restaurant.
Maybe this was the closest they could approach making a socially conscious ad for a Superbowl audience. Mention Tibet, provoke the viewer's curiosity about the Tibetan plight, then sell some stuff.
To that extent, it worked. Let's use it for other causes:
"The people of the Gulf (wading in oil), their way of life has been threatened (by BP and Corexit dispersant), but at Big Al's Seafood in Albuquerque, Groupon got me $50 of fresh-like shrimp for just $3.50. With a deal this great, I might actually eat it!"
The Groupon ad was a huge fail, especially from a company that most viewers know next to nothing about. That's how you introduce yourself?
ReplyDeleteApology coming in 3, 2, 1 ...
I thought it was a nice touch for the legendary Packers franchise to win the last Lombardi Trophy before the lockout. So long NFL! It's been a kick. ;)
ReplyDeleteSigned,
Your Best. Fans. Ever.
"And can I just say it -- I am so fucking sick of seeing the GLEE people. Stop it already! I don't want to see them!"
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember a certain blogger saying he was finally! going to kick AI to the curb and start re-capping Glee instead. Whatever happened to that?
As an AI hater, and a Glee fan it sounded promising, but maybe that ship has sailed ...
Perhaps I am of a different generation than many of your other commenters, but just wanted to add that the Coke dragon commercial was not random, but was in reference to World of Warcraft. A niche, for sure, but it has over 12 million players, plus others, like me, who don't play, but are familiar enough to recognize the characters. I thought it was a nice way of aiming at a younger demographic without being too pandering, but maybe I overestimated how well it would transfer to those unfamiliar with the genre of these games.
ReplyDeleteThe VM Beetle commercial was excellent--and a great song ("Black Betty").
ReplyDeleteI thought the return of the Career Builder chimps was amusing.
ReplyDeleteKen- I too, thought of your previous post while the National Anthem was being butchered.
ReplyDeleteAfter a full season of Oregon Duck football, everything else is boring.
Carmax kid in the candystore, House, Bridgestone beaver and the Darth Vader kid. The rest of them were just sort of "meh."
ReplyDeleteBut really, I don't care because the Packers won the freakin' Super Bowl and that's all that matters to me!
I liked the Coke border guard commerical, but otherwise
ReplyDeleteSubaru had better commericals on the Puppy Bowl
I really liked that four hour commercial for America before the game. The one that implied that if you weren't here loving all that is great about America, you were in a mud hut somewhere wishing you were.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. Nuremberg rallies seemed kinda low-key compared to this ad.
1. Beetle commercial was really cool and fun.
ReplyDelete2. Doritos commercial where the guy brought his roommate's grandfather back to life was fun.
3. The Beaver. How can you not love a commercial with a beaver givin' props.
I used to love Coke commercials. Coke Adds Life, Have a Coke and a Smile, now... I don't get it. I just don't get it. Soda ads in general used to be so much better. Although I did like the border patrol commercial.
Someone finally mentions the Doritos commercial with grandpa coming back to life. I liked that one.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the beetle one, though I hated that they didn't actually show the new model in the ad.
Audi/Kenny G was interesting.
Darth Vader one was my favorite.
Don't remember the Groupon ad. Glad I don't. I usually space out when a commercial is trying to hit a message. It's easy to know which one is trying to be funny and just ignore the others.
Christina Aguilera has a great voice, but chooses to scream instead. I don't get it. I guess the same people that told her it's ok to wear makeup like a hooker failed to tell her she needs to stop screaming into a microphone.
Super 8. Win.
Just run the footage of Leslie Nielsen slaughtering the National Anthem. He did it deliberately, and unlike Roseanne Barr's attempted massacre, it was actually funny. And he didn't touch himself inappropriately in public.
ReplyDeleteWhy the hell did she not just lipsynch it.
ReplyDeleteThe GroupOn commercial was so bad that the business community feels that the stock opportunity value has been diminished by millions.
ReplyDeleteThe envelope please for BEST COMMERCIAL: I go with the Coca-Cola border guards -- especially in a week the world witnessed what appears to be a peaceful people's revolution in Egypt. I'd put the KIA Optima second, and Chrysler with Eminem takes the bronze. And honorable mention -- the VW spot with the mini-Darth Vader. That's remained the most talked about commercial over the course of this week.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, did "Em" set a record, as the first celebrity to pitch products from two separate companies?
Not only did every movie ad feature an alien spacecraft, but every single one of them is produced by Steven Spielberg...
ReplyDeleteNote to self: pitch alien movie to Spielberg ASAP.
The mini Darth Vader is the one that I remember still. Great concept!
ReplyDelete