With Superbowl XLIII fading in everyone’s rear view mirrors, it may seem pointless to write anything of substance about the game. But it’s not. It must be said, must be printed, must be shouted from the Foss Hill dorm rooftops that the U.S. economy owns all, including the greatest game in sports.
Yes folks, the all-mighty NFL is far from recession-proof and nowhere was this more apparent than the usually top-of-the-line Superbowl commercials. From what I can tell, advertisers treat the Superbowl like Television channels do Sweeps week. It’s when everyone puts on the ritz and glitz. These ads can make, break or drastically shift a company’s appeal. This year, no one came to play, probably because these spots cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a second and most of the big SB advertisers are feeling less like C. Montgomery Burns and more like Eddie Murphy in the beginning of Trading Places. Even Anheuser Busch couldn’t fork over beer money for their usual slew of ads. Needless to say, they weren’t fantastic, but some gems stood out, a fuller analysis follows:
The first ad to catch my eye was the Bud Light ad where a guy in a meeting suggests his associates and he should stop drinking Bud Light at their meetings to cut costs. He is then seen being toss through a glass window from a few stories up. This was quick and funny, and the last time I laughed at a beer ad all night. The Conan O’Brien Bud Light ad had massive potential but fell flat and the 20 or so Clydesdale horse ads, which I usually love, were lame. Especially the ‘my grandfather from Ireland one’ in which a Clydesdale named Jake explains how he followed his immigrant grandfather’s footsteps in coming to the United States to work for Anheuser Busch. My main question: Why did Jake have an Irish accent? Makes no sense, I mean Al Pacino didn’t have an accent in the Godfather part I, II, or III and his granddad immigrated just like Jake’s. I hate that I remember this damn horse’s name.
Another thing: the whole ‘drinkability’ campaign from Bud Light is the worst. Anheuser Busch has the distinction of making me laugh at almost anything they do, but the ‘drinkability’ slogan immediately following every ad leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. It’s like waking up the morning after and mistaking a solo cup of dip-spit for Coca Cola. Rough.
I really liked the Castrol Oil ad with the gang of monkeys. A guy walks into a garage to find another guy there with about eight monkeys all doting on him. The second guy tells the first he gave the monkeys some Castrol Oil and they made him their king. “Strange days,” the new king says and starts making out with a monkey on his lap. The other guy follows with, “strange days indeed.” This was hilarious. My friend TJ pointed out that monkeys make anything funny, and it’s true. Soon after, TJ gave me the quote of the night. In a pensive tone he remarked, “You know sometimes I just think about how these are just big, powerful men slamming their bodies into each other.” I’ll go ahead and let that sit.
Into the second quarter, Pepsi advertised its new ‘Pepsi Max’ product with footage of guys getting knocked out and beat up, to which they all respond “I’m good.” The punch-line, “guys can handle anything but the taste of diet cola,” provided a perfect backdrop for a furious argument about Diet Coke. My friend, Shakedown, was upset at TJ and few others for referring to Diet Coke as “DC”. I have to agree with Shakedown. Not only can I not handle the taste of diet cola, but I definitely can’t handle calling it “DC”. So this ad taught me first, that people getting senselessly beat up is easily one of the cheapest and funniest laughs, and second, that “DC” shouldn’t stand for anything but District of Columbia.
Heading into the second half of the game, we were treated to a number of real blockbuster movie previews, including a Will Ferrell movie called Land of the Lost and a movie called Escape to Witch Mountain, featuring none other than the Rock. The titles of these movies alone doom them to box office failure. Have production studios really grown this desperate? They think they can just put Ferrell anywhere (i.e. the center of the Earth) and its going to be funny? Stay tuned.
A Cash 4 Gold spot featuring the recently bankrupt former late night TV host Ed McMahon and perpetually bankrupt MC Hammer delivered. Both were planning on selling different gold items including gold pants, a gold hip replacement, and even a gold toilet bowl. Very Funny.
Two things stood out in the 4th quarter. The first was that NBC must have eaten half its ad time. Almost every other commercial was an NBC show promo. (Better luck next year.) The second was a hulu.com ad featuring Alec Baldwin. It was only funny because Alec Baldwin is funny in general, and very funny in this ad. This got me thinking, Baldwin has experienced a remarkable career resurgence starting with the Departed which has continued through “30 Rock”. Seriously, very impressive and rivaled only by Doogie Howser himself, Neil Patrick Harris. I’m just saying…
So all in all, a depression-ing onslaught of ads during the game. Hopefully, President Obama will bail us out soon so next year we can laugh more instead of changing the channel, or fighting about Diet Coke.
