Amen to that, plus the kid’s hog-tying his brother and the mom just stands there clapping and cheering? Not to mention he needed a real haircut … (get off my lawn, hippies!).
I thought that was one of the worst of the five submitted Doritos ads. I was very surprised to see it actually make the broadcast.
I have questions about the Volkswagen “an engineer gets his/her/their wings” ad. Am I remembering correctly that every engineer who sprouted wings was a man? If so, does that strike anyone else as being weird?
I don’t think of myself as being particularly sensitive to stuff like this and it really stuck out to me.
The car and beer commercials in particular were terrible. The only decent one in the bunch was the Bruce Willis/Fred Armisen one for Honda, which you have to pay fairly careful attention to in order to realize it is actually a car commercial rather than for the next buddy movie. Not going to sell cars with that one.
The Johnny Galecki one was particularly bizarre. Who thought he would be a good person to have in turbo-charged-explosions-chasing-the-girl ad? Was Nathan Lane busy? And to have Richard Lewis in the back seat. Man, he looked awful. Throwing in Lewis in an ad 20 years ago might have been cool. 2014? Why?
The Radio Shack one: Bizarre. Had to pause, rewind, etc. to catch all the people (and other beings). Who was the woman with the slanted hair supposed to be? But what was the point? Driving home the message that RS is dying and no one cares anymore? (I’m a computer/electronics geek who repairs things. I don’t go there.) Focus on what you sell now, folks. Not on what you sold then. Sheesh.
I loved the Radio Shack ad and the Doritos ads! Those were the only ads I thought were funny. All in all, both the game & the commercials were pretty disappointing.
To be honest, when I first heard the language change, I sort of felt the same way that the “xenophobes” did - then I heard the remaining lines being sung in different languages.
My only problem with songs like “America, the Beautiful” in languages other than English is, it reminds me too much of the time there was a call for to make a particular Spanish version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” an “official” National Anthem (the way the French version of “O Canada” translates to nothing like the English version).
I watched the game on KTVU, and saw both the Radio Shack and Scientology ads. Maybe you saw the RS ad but didin’t realize it; it was the one with Hulk Hogan, Mary Lou Retton, ALF, and other 1980s celebrities.
One commercial I haven’t seen much mention of was the Intuit commercial for GoldieBox (apparently, it’s a company that specializes in toys for girls). If nobody remembers the ad, it kind of defeats the purpose of making it, doesn’t it?
When I first spotted the Maserati trident, I blurted, “What?!” Maserati sells, what, 150 cars a year in the US? Maserati is a well-respected small-volume marque, but why would they shell out $3 million to tell Americans they still exist?
No, you remember the Maserati ad too. Because when their logo came up on the screen after their heartfelt vignette about being small and working hard and keeping your head down, you were all “What? Maserati?!”
I will admit that I had that reaction at the time, but can honestly add that – had you asked me even one hour later which car it was for – I would’ve said, Um. Might have been Ferrari? No, wait: Porsche. Or maybe it was Lamborghini. I agree with ZipperJJ that it was something that made no sense.