This year's crop of Super Bowl commercials

[Snooooopy]

I honestly haven't been bowled over. I've certainly enjoyed a few chuckles -- I thought M.C. Hammer was a real sport for showing up in that commercial where he is "returned" by the mean old man who never returns anything (and then the kids throw him BACK over the fence) -- but I haven't seen any classics yet.

[GraceTX]

I like the Mustang commercial.

[Atreyu]

So far, there have been two commercials that have made me laugh out loud. The aforementioned Lays commercial involving MC Hammer getting thrown back by the kids, and the NFL's "Tomorrow" commercial.

[Fear Itself]

Yawn. I guess I was spoiled by the horse farting in that broad's face last year.

[Snooooopy]

OK, I did also like the one where the woman walks in right as her sweetie, who is trying to deal with some spilled spaghetti sauce, looks like he bloodily slaughtered the cat.

[JoeSki]

I was hoping the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galxy trailer would have been revealed. The game's not over yet, but I'm doubting we'll see it if it hasn't been shown yet.

[Antigen]

All the channels up here switch to Canadian feed for commercial time, so I don't get to see any of the new ads. :(

[kunilou]

I liked the FedEx commercial featuring the 10 things needed for a great Super Bowl commercial.

[Diceman]

I loved the first Pepsi ad, where P. Diddy hitches a ride in a Pepsi truck, and all of a sudden Pepsi trucks are latest hot vehicle. That, the Mustang ad, and the Lays ad with MC Hammer got me to laugh out loud.

[DrFidelius]

Spaghetti Sauce Cat is the only one that impressed me this year.

My daughters think I am psychic because I said "I want to see a Budweiser Clydesdale commercial" just before "look what you started" came on.

My younger daughter now wants to see the new War of the Worlds as she likes movies where things blow up or fall down.

[UntouchedTakeaway]

I honestly haven't been bowled over. I've certainly enjoyed a few chuckles -- I thought M.C. Hammer was a real sport for showing up in that commercial where he is "returned" by the mean old man who never returns anything (and then the kids throw him BACK over the fence) -- but I haven't seen any classics yet.

Ditto on the MC Hammer one, and the AmeriQuest commercial with the cat & the spaghetti sauce. I snorted my drink. lol

VCNJ~

[pepperlandgirl]

I liked the FedEx commercial featuring the 10 things needed for a great Super Bowl commercial.

Me too. Also, a talking, dancing bear kicking Burt Reynolds in the balls is comedy gold!

I also liked the cat commercial. But other than that? Meh.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

The Batman movie looks pretty cool.

[Uvula Donor]

I loved the CareerBuilder-dot-com chimp ads. Which of us hasn't worked in that kind of atmosphere at least once?

[Diceman]

I loved the CareerBuilder-dot-com chimp ads. Which of us hasn't worked in that kind of atmosphere at least once?
I work in that kind of atmosphere now. I didn't LOL, but I did enjoy those CareerBuilder ads.

[Voyager]

I loved the CareerBuilder-dot-com chimp ads. Which of us hasn't worked in that kind of atmosphere at least once?
I saw three (I was in and out) and that was too many. The only one I really liked was chimp one kissing the butt of chimp 2.

The hot chick testifying in Congress was not nearly as funny as the premise - the one guy taking oxygen was the only good part - until we saw a football player taking oxygen IRL.

[Voyager]

My younger daughter now wants to see the new War of the Worlds as she likes movies where things blow up or fall down.
If the Martian War Machines are as cool as in the Gene Barry version, I'll be surprised. That's something that requires talent, not SFX $$.

[Phèdre nó Delaunay]

Nobody else liked the parachute commercial? I laughed out loud when the pilot jumped out and the other two guys were looking at each other.

The frozen guy in the mustang looked too much like Christopher Reeve to me. The first time it aired I was just horrified. Then I realized it was just someone who looked like him.

The Fedex commercial was hilarious.

I also liked the one with the guy in the convenience store talking on the hands-free cell phone. He was talking to someone about how much they were spending on their deck and he gets to the counter and says "you're being robbed." Heh.

[Wolfian]

You know what I didn't see? During the NFC/AFC title games there were these very brief spots featuring people in cold locations with horrified looks on their faces. At the end of the spots a black screen would come up with the words "They're coming." on it. My friends and I thought it would be a lead-in to a Superbowl commerical, but we saw nothing. I tried Googling to no avail.

My personal favorite was the "slaughtered" cat one, though the parachute one made me chuckle for a bit.

The hot chick testifying in before Congress, what was that advertising?

[mobo85]

The hot chick testifying in before Congress, what was that advertising?

As she pointed out in the commercial, the advertisement was for GoDaddy.com, a website that lets you register website addresses.

My favorite was also the FedEx Reynolds-Bear partnership.

I was disappointed by the MasterCard ad featuring the food icons. The premise sounded good, but the actual ad was disappointing. At least the Morton Salt girl is still getting work.

I did like the ad with the Marvel Super Heroes (and Underdog) for Visa Check Card.

[Oslo Ostragoth]

So, anybody got a site yet to view this year's collection?

[AskNott]

Didn't MC Hammer show up later in somebody else's ad? I reeeeeeeeally liked the P. Diddy-in-a-Pepsi-truck ad, because I've seen Pimp My Ride a couple of times. (OK, so I was starved for entertainment a couple of nights...) :rolleyes:

[Marley23]

There were a couple that were funny. My favorite was "Tomorrow."

[Wolfian]

As she pointed out in the commercial, the advertisement was for GoDaddy.com, a website that lets you register website addresses.

That's right. The problem with commercials like that is the images stick in your mind, but not the names. Outpost.com had a few years ago had two commercials like that (one featuring an inaccurate hamster gun and another in which a marching band is attacked by wolves) which were memorable for the laughs, but not for the names.

[JThunder]

The hot chick testifying in before Congress, what was that advertising?
She was testifying before a network, not Congress.

[Slacker]

So, anybody got a site yet to view this year's collection?
www.ifilm.com has 'em.

They list an add for "Wynn Las Vegas" that the powers that be apparently wouldn't run. I watched it three times and can't for the life of me figure out why.

They also have another godaddy.com ad that apparently got cut after the first one ran. The godaddy people explain the situation <a href="http://www.bobparsons.com/>here</a>.

[Slacker]

I shouldn't post this late. The link is www.bobparsons.com.

Carry on.

[ussentinel]

Nice thread.

I guess I didn't like the Fed-Ex commercial as much as the others. I thought it was good, not great. If you tell me it's gonna be the best commercial beforehand, I think I inherently get soured at the boast. Just me.

I liked the Diet Pepsi ad where the guy was walking down the street with "Stayin' Alive" in the background. Girls drooling over him including Cindy Crawford ... and then Carson Kressley from "Queer Eye" looks over him. That one got the biggest laugh at the place I was at.

[merrily]

The frozen guy in the car was just eerie. And they had to show it 3 times!

Remember that ad from a couple years ago in which it becomes clear the girl was conceived in the car? The frozen guy was kind of like that: it sticks in your mind, but doesn't really make you want to sit in the car.

[RumMunkey]

You know what I didn't see? During the NFC/AFC title games there were these very brief spots featuring people in cold locations with horrified looks on their faces. At the end of the spots a black screen would come up with the words "They're coming." on it. My friends and I thought it would be a lead-in to a Superbowl commerical, but we saw nothing. I tried Googling to no avail.

They ran that in the pre-game show as well. The best I can figure is it may have been teasing the "War Of The Worlds" trailer. "They're coming" kind of eludes to alien invaders, but the connection wasn't clear (probably because the teaser was so short).

[chique]

I missed the original, but the Today show just re-ran an Anheuser-Busch ad that made me get all weepy. I'm turning into a wuss in my old age, I think, but that one's my favorite.

[Trunk]

Did anyone else think that the commercials felt like a trip to the ZOO?

The monkeys were on every other commercial break.

There was the one with the unicorn and easter bunny.

The "Clydesdale" tryouts had a pig, a girafe, a donkey and other stuff.

The Slaughtered Cat (the best commercial).

The dancing bear.

I'm sure I'm missing something.

Overall, pretty lame. No one being risque at all.

[Cheesesteak]

I really liked the Tabasco ad. It uses sex to sell, but in a clever way.

I can't believe they're remaking The Longest Yard.... that'll suck, and hard.

My vote for worst ad, it's gotta be the "scary" Ford trucks. GoDaddy was stupid, but Ford had my eyes rolling.

[Khadaji]

The cat one made me laugh out loud. A few others made me chuckle, but this may be the worst year for commercials. Maybe the second worse year.

[Beadalin]

My favorite part of the "slaughtered" cat ad was that the cat lets out this grumpy little meow at the very end. It's probably the only time I have ever heard an authentic animal sound in a commercial. Or on TV as a whole.

[ITR champion]

Best ad: Federal Express wins by a mile. Oddly my first reaction was "Hey, that looks like Burt Reynolds, but younger".

Runners up: Slaughtered cat, various animals wishing to be Budweiser Clydesdales (references the best ad from last year's Super Bowl), car that drives while other cars stay in place with their wheels rotating

Worst ad: First bud light ad where a guy dives out of an airplane to catch a pack of Bud Light. How many times has that been done before?

[rowe]

When I first saw that McDonald's Abraham Lincoln fry ad (it's part II according to iFilm.com), I thought the guy at the end said "I don't have to tell you what this looks like" as he holds up a chicken finger that looked like a penis. Then his wife takes it and eats the whole thing. Guess I heard it wrong, he says "WHO this looks like" then says something about Benjamin Franklin that I must have missed. Not as controversial as I first thought!

[brix11]

Didn't MC Hammer show up later in somebody else's ad?

He was also in a Nationwide Insurance ad going from fame and fortune to being thrown out on the street.

[Dob]

The bud light with Cedric and his fantasy was my favorite. Laughed my ass off on that one. I was kinda suprised not to see any Miller Light commercials. With the whole referee thing I figured something would be there...

[Chronos]

I did like the ad with the Marvel Super Heroes (and Underdog) for Visa Check Card.That was my favorite, too, and there were a number of chuckles. But overall, this was a weak year for commercials. We also had:
The same Dell ad that's been running for months
Some beer commercial consisting of a picture of the glass of beer and a voiceover telling us it's a revolutionary new innovation in beer, it's LOW CARB!
The stupid GoDaddy commercial, which had nothing going for it besides a big chest and a tight shirt... Congressional hearings are boring, people.
The utterly boring Honda pickup truck (a half-ton truck is not impressive, and I'm not sure it's even a truck)
And did any other markets show the incessant adds for "Everyone loves Zantrax, America's favorite diet pill!"? Gah. If I were in the market for a diet pill, I know what I sure wouldn't take.

One that I didn't see anyone else mention was the car commercial at the end, with the daughter eloping. It was funny, but it didn't really make sense... The father was driving Mom's car, right? And didn't he manage to get there first? I want that car.

[Voyager]

She was testifying before a network, not Congress.
Well, a Congressional Committee, not Congress. The point of the ad was a satire of how the network execs got dragged to Washington to apologize for nipplegate. I suppose it was also a flashback to dot.com days when the ads didn't really talk about the product .

I thought the McD's commercial was satirizing the Virgin Mary on a sandwich farce of a few months ago. Again, maybe a good idea, but poor execution. I was surprised they risked offending the yahoos, though.

[Shodan]

I thought the Budweiser commercial with the returning vets was touching. And the Ameriquest Mortgage "don't judge too quickly" ad with the cat was the best of the rest.

Not much else.

Regards,
Shodan

[rjung]

USA Today's list of Super Bowl commercial rankings. (http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2005-ad-meter-results-chart.htm)

[yellowval]

And did any other markets show the incessant adds for "Everyone loves Zantrax, America's favorite diet pill!"? Gah. If I were in the market for a diet pill, I know what I sure wouldn't take.

No, but we did have a really cheesy "11% off at Menard's" ad that ran about 16 times. It was terrible.

I liked the spaghetti sauce cat, P. Diddy's Diet Pepsi truck, and "Tomorrow" (Go, Daunte!).The Diet Pepsi one with Carson was cute, too.

[jsc1953]

The bud light with Cedric and his fantasy was my favorite. Laughed my ass off on that one. I was kinda suprised not to see any Miller Light commercials. With the whole referee thing I figured something would be there...

I think Anheuser-Busch had a monopoly on beer ads.

Dittos on the Frito-Lay MC Hammer spot and the slaughtered cat. The first working-with-apes commercial that just set the scene was meh; the whoopee cushion one cracked me up.

I missed the Tabasco ad somehow.

[Slacker]

Well, a Congressional Committee, not Congress. The point of the ad was a satire of how the network execs got dragged to Washington to apologize for nipplegate. I suppose it was also a flashback to dot.com days when the ads didn't really talk about the product .
I'm wondering if it's going to be a flashback to the dot.com days when the companies wasted a ton of money then went belly-up. $2.4 million for that?

[mobo85]

I think Anheuser-Busch had a monopoly on beer ads.

I saw a Miller ad. I don't know if it just ran in certain areas. It was commenting on the stupidity of Bud Select, commenting "Doesn't Budweiser already have a light beer? If they wanted something better, they could have just called us."

[mobo85]

Apparently, based on a news article I just found, Fox pulled the Miller ad. And yet it aired here. Strange.

[The Big Cheese]

i saw maybe 3/4 of them, i thought the better ones wre on in the 2nd half.

1) Chimps and the guy sitting on a whoopee cushion. Chimps is funny enough, farts are funny, but you combine them?? Oh my!
2) bloody cat
3) I like Cedric, so i liked the one where he's signaling he's the designated driver and the crowd starts dancing like him.
4) the Fox ad for 24. They talked about how expensive the commercial was, and how it as worth it because the show is so good.

They guy jumping out of the plane, no. Not funny to me at all.

[Idle Thoughts]

I liked the FedEx commercial featuring the 10 things needed for a great Super Bowl commercial.


I think that one had to be the best. I never laughed so hard.

[Exapno Mapcase]

When I saw the thread title I honestly thought it read : "This year's crap of Super Bowl commercials." They were that bad.

In the "what were they thinking?" department:

Budweiser Select, with no aftertaste. So you're telling me that all your other beers have aftertastes? Why would I want to drink them now?

McDonald's sells deformed french fries? Another good reason to avoid them.

Cadillac. Who buys a Cadillac to go from 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds? And what was with that noise at the end? Sounded like pieces were falling off the car.

I am Diana Pearl. No you're not.

Gladys Knight vs. rugby players. For affinity charge cards. Now, I realize there's no way in the world to sell affinity cards as a concept, but I have much more respect for Gladys Knight than wanting to see a stunt woman-double's pudgy thighs being tackled.

Olympus. A camera that makes people wiggle oddly. Was this the War of the Worlds promo?

Budweiser Clydesdales. I have to remember last year's commercials to decipher this year's? Do drinkers really have memories that long?

Subway/Quiznos. You have an appealing product. So why are your ads so creepy?

I'm glad the ad agencies have their finger on the pulse of America. America deserves this.

[rjung]

You forgot Napster's. Not only is the fifteen-seconds-of-dead-silence-in-the-middle-of-a-commercial lame, but the whole "online music subscription" scheme is so 1998.

[Cheesesteak]

I saw a Miller ad. I don't know if it just ran in certain areas. It was commenting on the stupidity of Bud Select, commenting "Doesn't Budweiser already have a light beer? If they wanted something better, they could have just called us."So THATs why the ad wasn't on the iFilm list... It was a brilliant ad. Mocking the introduction of lowcarb Bud Select before the Select ad airs. I'm starting to like Miller, they've got moxie.

[Max Carnage]

Cadillac. Who buys a Cadillac to go from 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds? And what was with that noise at the end? Sounded like pieces were falling off the car.




It was comparing the Caddy to a bullet. Loaded into the chamber/tunnel....bang...zooom...casing falls to the floor (hence the noise at the end.)

I've seen a lot of talk about "Tomorrow." What was that one? I missed one set of commercials (the set with the Gladys Knight spot) because I was cooking so maybe it was shown then, but I can't see it in any of the other lists of Super Bowl ads.

[Enright3]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the ad where the two guys are at the football game, and decide to take a picture of themselves to rub it in their other friends nose. The friend who receives that picture pulls out his camera phone and takes a picture of the apartment, a beer, and a girl standing behind him. The two guys at the game get the pictures and say something like "Hey, he's at your house!.... He's drinking your beer!.... Hey, isn't that your girlfriend?"

Funny as hell to me.

I liked the jumping out of the plane ad. It cracked me up.
Ford ad was just weird, as was the Cadillac ad where the car shoots out of the tunnel.
The "Little People" ad was just stupid, although it would have been better if they showed Shaq dunk the ball!

[mobo85]

You forgot Napster's. Not only is the fifteen-seconds-of-dead-silence-in-the-middle-of-a-commercial lame, but the whole "online music subscription" scheme is so 1998.

Also, the ad is supposed to trick you into thinking it is part of the telecast, but it fails. About a decade ago, Rold Gold Pretzels had an ad in which Jason Alexander ended up being pushed out of an airplane. IIRC, this ad aired twice during the game- the second time, it was followed up by a brief capper in which it appeared that Alexander had landed at the game. Since the capper used the official Super Bowl logo, it appeared that it really was part of the game.

Apparently, Napster couldn't get permission from the NFL to use their trademarks, so they end up with an ad with coverage of "The Big Game-New England vs. Philadelphia," and an announcer is heard to say "The 39th..." before the Cat appears. I have never heard anyone call it "The 39th Super Bowl."

[mobo85]

I've seen a lot of talk about "Tomorrow." What was that one? I missed one set of commercials (the set with the Gladys Knight spot) because I was cooking so maybe it was shown then, but I can't see it in any of the other lists of Super Bowl ads.

This ad from the NFL Network aired either before or after the halftime show, and had the same theme as one from last year. Various football players from teams who didn't make it to the Super Bowl are seen at home, bowling, vacationing, etc. singing Tomorrow ("The sun'll come out tomorrow...") At the end is the message "Come tomorrow, we'll all be undefeated again."

[Snooooopy]

I am Diana Pearl. No you're not.

When I saw that, I thought it was some kind of identity theft advertisement.

[Exapno Mapcase]

It was comparing the Caddy to a bullet. Loaded into the chamber/tunnel....bang...zooom...casing falls to the floor (hence the noise at the end.)
Thanks for the explanation. Now you know it and I know it. That makes two people in America. Cadaillac may have some work to do.