I talk about football and movies and humour (EDITOR: If that's what you call it) on my blog, and one thing in America is about as close to a combination of all those things as I know of. That's the annual Super Bowl TV ad parade (more or less). I did not see many of the Super Bowl ads at the time, because I like to eat during the Super Bowl, my team was playing, and that left the ads as the only time to refill my metaphorical snack tray. And there were other things too.
But I'm going to watch and rate all of the Super Bowl TV ads as listed on ChiGoogle Video, on a scale of 0-15 yards, 0 being the best commercial, and the worst commercials. . . well, it might get even worse than 15 yards, if it's flagrant enough.
(ChiGoogle arranged these in alphabetical, not chronological order - not the way I would do it, but I don't know chronological order, so this is what you're gonna get. Sorry.)
(EDITOR: These reviews are almost as boring as the ads themselves. You'll want to skip quite a few of them.)
Bud Light - Hidden Bud Light. Some white-collar slob worked all weekend hiding Bud Lights all over the office to improve morale, and a riot breaks out because of course everyone loves Bud Light. This should warrant a 15-yard penalty for trying too hard being mostly boring, but the penalty is reduced to 10 yards because I enjoyed the boss getting tackled at the end of the ad. It wasn't intelligent or original, but I enjoyed that one last shot.
Blockbuster Online - (no title). A man stands there and tells you about the product/service. This is a revolutionary idea for a Super Bowl ad. But it is a boring revolutionary idea. 10 yards from the spot of the foul.
Bud Light - Save Yourself. Some hikers are being chased by a big, scary bear, and the blond guy says "Save yourself!" and then, cornered by the bear, digs a Bud Light out of his backpack (I guess he packed it "to replenish his electrolytes"), and he opens it and offers it to the bear, who of course is touched by this peace offering, and no longer guided by her animal instincts. Then, out of nowhere, the other guy runs by and snags the Bud Light, and runs away. The bear's animal instincts kick back in. Then we get to see Bud Light being poured into a glass. Woo-wee. The blond survives somehow (we don't get to see how) and his clothes are torn, but he appears to be unharmed (except he's dizzy - that would have been interesting to see); the other guy says "Did you see my moves" or something like that, as the blond stumbles towards him. 15 yards and loss of down.
Burger King - Whopperettes. Wow, what a weird ad. Women dressed as burger toppings (and the burger itself) dance, sing, and imply naughty things, while the now-tired King Burger, fires a cannon. The women all wind up on top of one another (like real burger toppings), and guys around the world who have food fetishes, I guess get turned on. The rest of us are supposed to find it funny. I don't. 15 yards, and the touchdown is called back.
Bud Light - On the Roof. Some guys pretend to do chores and go up on the roof to drink Bud Light and eat, except that some chump actually is up on the roof to actually to do actual work, in all actuality. He falls through the roof, and his toolbox, which is foolishly not rigged to conceal Bud Light, hits him on the head after he tries to get up. His wife is drinking a Bud Light. 15 yards, loss of down, and loss of possession.
Cadillac Escalade - (no title). Fashion show theme, with the twist that it has beautiful women in ugly makeup and clothes, instead of women who are so thin that they are grotesque, in ugly makeup and clothes. The models are coming up out of a pool of water. Then, instead of a woman, there's the new Escalade coming up out of the water, and o' course the people want to photograph that, never mind the fashions. Except, even if they hated everything besides the Escalade, they still would have photographed it. This ad lacks the simpe elegance of just telling the viewer what you want him/her to know, and yet is just as boring. 15 yards.
Bud Light - Secret Fridge. I'm sick of these #*%$ Bud Light ads. Another flaw in the alphabetical ordering. From now on, every consecutive ads for the same product or company will be divided by an ad for a different company. In fact, I'm making it retroactive. There. Now the secret fridge ad is slightly better than the other Bud Light ads, but it is still not all that good. 10 yards, repeat third down.
Cars - (no title). I like Pixar movies and I like Owen Wilson, though this does not look like the best of either. Still, it's not so bad as to warrant even five yards. After further review, no penalty will be assessed.
Budweiser - The Wave. Anhusen-hausen tries to make an awesome spectacle of a crowd in a football stadium holding up colorful placards, and then changing the colour they're holding up to make a moving monochromosaic of a Budweiser bottle pouring budweiser into a glass. I'm sick of seeing their unusually disgusting beer poured into a glass every five minutes, but the penalty is mitigated by the halfway interesting concept. I don't watch enough television to know for sure that this has not been done, but it seems original enough to me. Then again, they stole those frogs from Rainier Beer (in Seahawk territory, no less). 10 yards.
Degree - Stunt City. The name says it all. A city full of stuntmen doing stunts, all the time. Talk about trying too hard. Would be a good satire of stunt-laden action movies, if only it were good. I liked their action-figure ads. 15 yards.
Budweiser - Superfan Cowboy. Some horses line up to play football, and a shorn sheep "streaks" out onto the field. One cowboy says to another "Didn't need to see that." "Nope," the other replies. Not as bad as the Bud Light commercials. 10 yards.
Dove - Campaign for Real Beauty. Elementary school girls share their insecurities about their appearance, and Dove (the soap, not the chocolate) encourages us to see inner beauty or whatnot. The problem is, none of the girls is outside the norm for typical tv ad cuteness, at least as far as I can tell. As for the whole "campaign," I have yet to see any morbidly obese women featured (maybe they did, and I just missed it). I think they're saying, "It's okay to be a little chubby, but at some point, being really unhealthy is disgusting to more of us than just your doctor and your personal trainer." And they're right: at a certain point, it's not just quirky, unrealistic and sick male fantasy; it's a biological digust reflex to protect future generations from inheriting "no self-control" genes and "lazy" genes that will threaten their well-being. How about this: focus on being healthy, eat mostly healthy foods, and get lots of exercise, and people of the opposite sex will find you more attractive, whether you're a man or a woman. Nevertheless, Dove isn't helping by saying we need to tell our kids that they're beautiful. We need to engender healthy habits in our kids. When they're adults, then other adults will tell them whether or not they're beautiful, and won't have mattered much whether we pumped up their self-esteem, it will only matter whether we have prepared them to be physically, intellectually, and above all, spiritually strong. And the ad was boring. 15 yards.
Budweiser - Clydesdale American Dream. This is a misleading title. An adolescent Clydesdale tries to pull a beerwagon, and can't get it to budge. Then, miraculously, the cart starts to move. Then we see two full-grown horses pushing it from behind. The beer farmer says to his dog "I won't tell if you won't." And (surprise!) we don't see beer being poured into a glass. This ad really touched me, deep down in my liver. 15 yards, from the spot of the foul.
Emerald Nuts - (no title). In this ad, eagle-eyed machete enthusiasts recognize a little druid networking under the stairs. I know what you're thinking. Ouch. But it comes across on screen better than it sounds, and it takes a second viewing for the unpleasantness of the stupidity to fully sink in. 5 yards, reapeat second down.
FedEx - Stick. A caveman ties a stick to a pterodactyl or a pteranodon, or whatever those dino-birds are called, and it flies away. Then, it is suddenly snatched out of the air by a scarysaurus. The caveman is then berated by his caveman boss for not using FedEx, though, as the caveman employee points out, FedEx hasn't been invented yet. The employee is fired, walks outside the cave, and is stepped on by an ginormosaurus. This will be too much for nine-year-old future archaeologists, who will point out that dinosaurs died out jillions of years before cavemen tried to send send stick to each other via pteranomail. I don't care what you think, I enjoyed it. TV commercial breaks need more cavemen, not less. No penalty.
Ford - Escape Hybrid. Kermit sings a snatch of "It's Not Easy Being Green" and then sees the Ford Escape Hybrid and is forced to conclude that it is easy to be green, after all. This ad is not only unfunny, it offends the sensiblities by having a muppet and still failing to be funny. Maybe it's supposed to tug at my heartstrings, and it does bring a tear to my eye, but it's a tear of rage, with a little bit o' bitter anguish. 87 yards, touchdown is called back, and opposing team gets the ball on your 1-yard line. How do you like them apples?
Full Throttle Energy Drink - (no title). A bunch of men see a Full Throttle Energy Drink truck go by, and they go to absurd lengths to follow it, and a Red Bull truck is forced out of the way. This is like the Degree "Stunt City" ad until the very end, where it says "Let your man out," a blatantly sexist tagline. I have never seen a tagline so blatantly sexist in many years. No penalty, despite being an awful ad for all but the closing screen. We need far more politically incorrect ads on TV and elsewhere.
GlaxoSmithKline - Asthma Control Test (feat. Jerome Bettis). An expansion of an ad that ran a week or two before the Super Bowl, in which Bettis discusses how he had an asthma attack in some game or another. This time, he helps a little white kid who has asthma, and the kid gives his jersey to Bettis, in what is apparently a humourless rip-off of the MasterCard ad in which Peyton Manning is a huge fan of everyday people. 15 yards, loss of down.
GM - Live Green, Go Yellow. GM montages beautiful people at us to tell us how green they are for making cars that run on corn instead of petrol. No word on many miles per ear they get. If they had come up with a real technological breakthrough, maybe this ad wouldn't have been so boring as to get flagged for 15 yards after the end of the run.
GoDaddy.com - Steamy Car Wash (not shown on television). Just as it sounds; it looks like they hired Hugh Hefner in place of a marketing firm. Still, there's nothing in this ad any worse than anything else you might see on prime time television. (A daisy-dukes and bikini top-clad model washes a classic car for a guy who looks like he won a small-town Freddie Prinze Jr. look-alike contest.) Not really all that entertaining, even from a depraved, immoral point of view. Since they're advertising a website, their target audience could presumably go get real porn if they want. Very personal foul (nyuk, nyuk): 15 yards.
Honda - Ridgeline Mudflap. A "silver shapely babe silhouette" mudflap decoration checks out the Honda Ridgeline, and hops in with - get this - Yosemite Sam! And he's wearing a "Back Off" hat! Isn't that great! 15 yards, loss of down.
GoDaddy.com - Okay, these ads don't deserve their own review for each of them. "Window Washer" is just like it sounds, with the "GoDaddy girl" in the titular role. "Can't Refuse" take 2 redeems the first take (they are shown together), and "Kissing Booth" is almost indistinguishable from the ad that actually aired, which was a boring rehash of last year's ad. Not counting the car wash one, to which I've already assessed a penalty, there are four here. Each except "Can't Refuse" gets 15 yards, with that one getting only 5 yards, for a total of 50 yards.
Hummer - Monsters. Godzilla's cousin and a robot are rampaging through a city, meet, fall in love, and the lizard gets preggers. It's not clear whether or not they got married first. Anyway, liz gives birth to a micro-machine, and it turns out it's a Hummer H3. 10 yards, because I thought it was neat to see a man in a pregnant mutant lizard suit.
MasterCard - MacGyver. They make their own 30-second "MacGyver" ending, and they give the prices of the various things that MacGyver uses to escape from whatever. Yawn. 15 yards.
Michelob Amber - Touch Football. A pretty woman lines up against a guy in a "friendly game of football" and trash-talks him. She catches a pass, and he lays her out. It's kind of funny, because I think feminists are going to be way more upset about the FTED ad than the man abusively tackling a woman who is not wearing any pads. In fact, if anything, they're obligated to be happy about this commercial because it portrays women as being exactly the same as men, which is what feminists want (for other women) even more than they want (them) to be treated well. But then again, we're subjected to a beer being poured into a glass. 5 yards.
MI3 and MI3's making-of "featurette" - Tom Cruise gets another 10 mil (US) (EDITOR: I think Bob just made up that figure.) to make another stunt-laden, plotless movie. Woo-wee. Illegal motion picture, 15 yards.
MLB - Face the World. MLB players appear with flags on their faces. They're going to play baseball against each other, each one representing his country of origin, because if they represented the country where they can make lots of money, the U.S. would win everything in the first period, quarter, inning, et cetera, regardless of the sport. Boring, but brief. 10 yards.
Motorola - PEBL. A meteorite crashes to earth, and glacial drift and other things happen as the ad elapses kazillions of years per second. Finally, some feet appear, and someone picks up this phone that appears to have been the meteorite. Boring, but brief. 10 yards.
Nationwide - Gondola (Fabio). Fabio appears to be selling an eponymous shampoo as hear steers a woman through Venice via gondola. All of a sudden, he's an old man, and Nationwide reminds us that life comes at us fast. Similar to MC Hammer finding out life comes at you fast last year. Loss of 5 yards for repeating themselves. Good writers never repeat themselves.
Pepsi - Hip Hop Can (Brown and Bubbly). A Pepsi can gets a record deal from Diddy, does an irritating hip hop song, and the Pepsi highlights a new domain name that doesn't sound altogether appealing. Appears to be trying to make fun of itself, but it should just leave that to the rest of us. 15 yards from the spot of the foul.
Natinwide - Swing. A man pushes his son in a tire swing on a tree on a hill, in the perfect idyllic setting, and suddenly the boy is 17 and knocks the dad down. 10 yards, and loss of down.
Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest - (no title). La-dee-da, we can't watch a half-decent movie anymore without those Hollywood jerks trying to subject us to a thin sequel. 1o yards, repeat first movie, I mean down. (EDITOR: I find it odd how Bob can complain about other folks' humour, don't you?)
Nationwide - Proposal. Some women on a beach look up, and see an airplane pulling a message banner across the sky. It's a marriage proposal for one of them. They're all very excited for her, until they look up and see banners asking her to take on all of his financial burdens and debt as well. Your worthless, slob-husband's life comes at you fast, doesn't it? 15 yards.
Pizza the Hutt - Jessica Simpson. Jessica Simpson sings and dances as she delivers a new "poppable bites" pizza to a stunned teen, who faints. Boring, but brief. 10 yards.
Poseidon - (no title). A remake of the Poseidon Adventure. As a rule, remakes are almost always 10-70% worse than the original, and I thought the original was boring and anything but brief. 15 yards.
PS - Best Defense. People in biohazard suits go around doing everyday things as though they are not wearing biohazard suits. Woo-wee. La-dee-da. 10 yards.
Scott - HalftimeFlush.com (feat. Mike Ditka). I can't tell whether or not this is supposed to be humorous. Most things about toilets in America are intended to be, but I agree with the premise that this is a serious issue. In case this is a serious commercial (or because it fooled me if it's not), no penalty.
Shaggy Dog - (no title, but feat. Chris Berman). Same thing as Poseidon. We must put an end to this, or at least find a way to limit the remaking to movies that were good. 15 yards, and a reversal of momentum (I hope).
Sierra Mist - Airport Security. This one hit a little too close to home. Most of us have had harmless items confiscated from us by greedy airport security thugs who clearly wanted them for themselves. Sierra Mist was probably never one of them, though. 15 yards and a loss of credibility.
Toyota - Camry Hybrid. Okay, the car is bilingual? When do we get hybrid children that run on dirt instead of on food? Don't push your luck, Toyota. 37 yards, to the spot of the foul.
United Airlines - Dragon. This is actually an ad for illicit drugs. But that's not allowed on television in America, so they pretend at the end that it's an ad for an airline. A man in a business suit flies on a swan's back to a round table of knights, where he magically dons armour, and is attacked by a dragon, which he slays by throwing a sword at it, and he then he is crowned king by two incredibly thin women who make Dove's executives' heads explode, and then, and then, and then. . . he comes home to his son, wearing his business suit once more, and bearing a gift of a toy dragon. Isn't that sweet? No? I don't think so either. 15 yards, and a severe beating with a helmet in the end zone.
V for Vendetta - Rated R. A president Bush/Alberto Gonzalez type is tormenting his people, and Z is for the person who seems to have been ripped off to make the hero. 37 yards, and an arbitrary declaration of turnover.
Vault - Field of Dreams. Here's a pleasantly antisocial ad about destroying your neighbors' property and using it to build your boy a foot ball field. I guess if you're the mayor, you really can do that if you want, according to Supreme Court Justices Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg, and Stevens. No penalty.
16 Blocks - (no title). Here's a movie that looks like a rip-off of the last half-hour or so of S.W.A.T. (which was a hopelessly boring, non-brief movie). Bruce Willis and Mos Def. La-dee-da. 5 yards.
Vault - Scarecrow. A man has an effete scarecrow. He retools it, adding a flamethrower, a laser, a machete; he then sends it after not only crows, squirrels, and foxes, but also hippies. All this in just over thirty seconds. How appropriate that my preselected method of arranging these reviews had me finishing with this one. Call the game, the opposing team loses automatically: this is is one of the best ads of all time.
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