Super Bowl Commercial Reviews

Todd Behrendt, Dave Doyle, Zack Faigen and Steve Miller of FOXSports.com presented the following comments about the Super Bowl Commercials:

The Super Bowl itself is only part of the pageantry that is Super Sunday. Of almost equal importance (OK, so that may be pushing it a little) are the ads that play when the teams are not.

And we wouldn't be doing a very thorough job of covering the big game if we ignored the big money ($2.6 million for a 30-second spot) being spent on these commercials. Below, we broke down the best and worst of Sunday's commercials. Now it's time for you to vote on your favorites.


Pre-game

Pizza Hut, "Cheesy Bites"
Todd: Disappointing on so many levels. For starters, trying to pass off a Jessica Simpson-esque model as Jessica Simpson is just plain wrong. Equally wrong is trying to convince us that the model in question has ever consumed a "cheesy bite" in her life without immediately purging herself.

Editor's note: Apparently, that was, in fact, Jessica Simpson. But if we weren't able to immediately identify Jessica Simpson as Jessica Simpson (and believe you and me, we know Jessica Simpson), then something has gone horribly awry with the commercial.

NFL Network, "Sweet Party"
Todd: So it's the first official Super Bowl-esque ad and the star is ... David Beckham? It's FOOTBALL, not FUTBAL. Come on NFL Network. Get it right. But aside from that one little quibble, it was actually a pretty good ad. Even if it'd be a cold day in hell before we'd invite Martha Stewart to our Super Bowl party.


First Quarter

Doritos, "Live the Flavor"
Todd: The buzz word missing from this commercial (for the record, "cheesy," "bold" and "crunchy" were among the ones that were used)? "Boring." This was one of four ads made by amateurs, proving it's much better when Super Bowl commercials are left to the professionals.

Salesgenie.com
Zack: Congratulations, salesgenie.com. You are the early frontrunner for worst Super Bowl commercial. Did you really take out a $2.6 million ad for that?

Sierra Mist, "Bad Decision"
Todd: So to sum up, drinking Sierra Mist Free is a good decision, a seriously brutal combover and cutoff shorts are both bad decisions, and continuing this lame ad campaign for yet another Super Bowl season...the worst decision of all.

Sierra Mist, "Self Defense"
Todd: See above entry (although this one in which Michael Ian Black tries to teach strategies for defending one's Sierra Mist from being stolen was slightly more amusing than the previous effort).

Bud Light "Rock, Paper, Scissors"
Dave: There's something comforting about Bud Light commercials. They're dumb, they're aimed towards the lowest common denominator, and they're good for a chuckle. This one features two guys playing rock, paper, scissors over the last Bud Light, and one guy winning when he throws a rock at the other. Good for a quick giggle.

Blockbuster, "Click a Mouse"
Dave: I want to know what goes through the minds of execs who devise these types of ads. So, your client is Blockbuster, and you've been losing market share to Netflix. Did they sit down and think, "I know, we'll have a rabbit and a guinea pig in a pet store torture a mouse! That will get customers to switch back to Blockbuster!" Back to the drawing board.

FedEx, "Moon Office"
Zack: Our best guess is that at some point during the making of this commercial, the project manager must have realized how bad it was and decided, "If we're gonna save this ad and not start from scratch, there's only one thing to do: Final Countdown."

Bud Light, "Wedding Auction"
Todd: I would say I enjoyed this typical offering from Bud Light in which an auctioneer speeds along a wedding so that the groomsmen can get to the reception quicker (where there's a mountain of Bud Light waiting for them). But my wife may be reading this.

Schick, "Quatro Titanium"
Zack: Can scientists focus on curing diseases before they start devoting all their time to the razor? Are we asking too much?

Toyota Tundra, "Desert dog"
Dave: Remember, boys and girls, next time you need a full-sized truck to go hurtling through the desert at a breakneck pace, only to stop just short of an abrupt plunge into the Grand Canyon, Tundra is for you. If only they put this sort of creative energy coming up with ways to reduce our dependence on foreign oil instead of clever ads...

Chevrolet, "Sing a Song"
Todd: Got really excited when I thought the whole commercial was going to be Mary J. Blige. Got really disappointed really quickly when I found out that wasn't going to be the case, and instead, we were going to be featuring a bunch of people who Simon would have ripped to shreds if they'd auditioned on American Idol.

Snickers, "The Kiss"
Dave: Ahh yes, homophobia, the last surviving prejudice that's apparently OK to exploit in American pop culture. Two mechanics start eating the same candy bar, then accidentally kiss, then do manly things to pretend they didn't just kiss. Har, har, what a side-splitter.

Bud Light, "Mind of Mencia"
Dave: Comedy Central's Carlos Mencia teaches a classroom full of people of various cultures of ethnicity how to ask for a Bud Light in various dialects and ethnic speak. Punchline is, if you get asked for your Bud Light, you don't speak English.


Second Quarter

GoDaddy.com, "Marketing"
Zack: You gotta hand it to the folks who understand their target demographic. As they say: Sex sells.

Coke, "Give a Little Love"
Dave: I'm not sure what to make of this one. An animated ad, possibly a takeoff on the Grand Theft Auto video games, in which a man in a convertible zips through a crime-ridden city scene and makes everything better through Coke. And yet, the only thing that really stands out is that the minorities standing around on the street corner scattered out of the scene when the convertible pulled over, and a little white grandma got her purse back from the white hero. Interesting messages Coke is sending out, there.

Garmin, "Mapzilla"
Steve: The power of GPS. It will turn you into Ultraman and enable you to single-handedly defeat the giant map monster. Ad didn't do a whole lot for me, but the metaphor is apt. I can never get those damn maps folded up. Man, I wish I had GPS in my car.

Budweiser, "Dalmatians"
Dave: An adorable white doggie is having a real bad day...first he gets shooed away from the butcher shop, then gets scared out of an alley by an angry mean-looking mutt, then longingly watches a dalmatian in a parade. Then he gets splashed with mud, looks like a dalmatian, and life suddenly gets better. Cute, funny, well-done. How that's supposed to make you want a beer, I'm not sure, but it was definitely clever.

Chevy, "All-male car wash"
Zack: While this one would appear to be Chevy throwing a bone to the female viewers, I think it was actually a way to make all the fat men watching the Super Bowl feel better about their own bodies. Shout-out to the naked, guitar-playing cowboy who pops in at the end. Did they have to fly him in from Times Square?

Careerbuilder.com, "Bad day in the office"
Dave: An office situated in what appears to be a forest in the Northwest is overrun by an apparent attack from...forest savages of some sort, maybe?...leading the workers to all go running off a cliff in a panic, presumably plunging to their deaths. OK, I guess if your work situation is this bad, you probably need something like Careerbuilder.com.

Doritos, "Cleanup on Register 6"
Todd: So the many flavors of Doritos caused the checkout girl in this ad to get excited to the point where it's quite possible some organization designed to protect the American family is going to file a complaint with the FCC. And it really didn't make me want to buy Doritos. At all.

American Heart Association, "You Gotta Have Heart"
So the personification of a heart is an old, balding white guy? (Associated Press / Associated Press)
Todd: A bunch of bad guys wearing signs like "high cholesterol" and "diabetes" beat the ever-living crap out of a guy dressed up in a big foam heart costume. Which aptly sums up exactly what's happening to millions of Americans as they gorge themselves while they watch the Super Bowl. Pretty effective ad.

Bud light, "Slap Fight"
Dave: People from all walks of life slap each other silly. Nothing more, nothing less. Fantastic. My favorite ad of the day so far. First ad that had me laughing out loud (or as the young'uns say "LOLing"). I think I'm going to pick up a case of Bud Light on my way home.

GM, "Robot Unemployment"
Dave: A robot gets laid off at GM, looks for other work, has no luck, and goes to a bridge, looking to end it all. It was pretty funny up until this point, and you were waiting for some humorous payoff. But then the robot jumped...then woke up from a dream sequence and found itself back at work. Not just a creepy ending, but unintentionally representative of the actual state of the American automaking industry.

Coca-Cola, "I Have a Dream"
Todd: It's actually nice that Coke used $2.6 million to celebrate black history, running down the highlights of the civil rights movement with a Coke bottle in the background. I don't know if it'll help sell Coke, but it was nice nonetheless.

Sprint, "Connectile Dysfunction"
Todd: Nice play on the disease which shall otherwise remain nameless, but which is usually a mainstay of sports advertising and usually features a warning about calling your doctor if something (again, remaining nameless) lasts for more than four hours. I feel we've said enough.

Frito-Lay, "Dungy and Smith"
Dave: Did Vegas place an over/under on when the first ad to play off the fact we're having the first Super Bowl with two African-American head coaches would air? If so, it aired with about 33 seconds left in the second quarter.

Coca Cola, "First Diet Coke"
Todd: So apparently, Wilford Brimley was chugging Coca-Cola during Cocoon. One swig of Coke sent what appeared to be a nursing home resident off on a bit of a bender (including a little trip to the tattoo parlor). Not bad. Not anything special, mind you. But not bad.

Honda, "The Ridgeline"
Dave: Imagine this...we actually had an ad here that shows you what the product being pushed does and why it is better than their competitors, without any bells, whistles, or pet shop animals torturing mice. What a concept!


Halftime

Bud Light, "Gossip Problems"
Zack: Carlos Mencia is the Super Bowl MVP right now. His second Bud Light commercial of the day involved ratting out his significant other to get her girl friends out of the house so he could watch the game. It's a move we'd all like to try. For now we'll have to live vicariously through a commercial.

Nissan, "Versa"
Dave: Some old guy narrates as a car full of folks zips through what appears to be the same field used for Claritin ads, while talking about the car's superior MPG. Hopefully they're not allergy sufferers.


Third quarter

E-Trade, "Bank robbers"
Dave: Great ad. Bankers don masks and order their customers to hit the deck before hitting them with fees. At home, a nation of big-chain bank customers laughs, or cries, or maybe both.

Coca Cola, "Where Your Quarter Goes"
Todd: We're not really going to assess the substance of this ad. But we are going to take advantage of our soapbox here to weigh in on this advertiser's decision to trot out old advertising during the Super Bowl. And we don't like it one bit.

Bud Light, "What'd You Say?"
Todd: Proving that men are in fact descended from apes, one simian's plan to steal some Bud Light goes awry when his would-be partner in crime is distracted by a pretty lady taking his picture. And once again we are able to voice our long-standing theory of advertising that you can never go wrong with monkeys.

Van Heusen, "Day in Reverse"
Zack: After watching this commercial, I'm 80 percent convinced that Van Heusen is a clothing company. I'm 100 percent convinced that the reason we're supposed to buy Van Heusen is because the guy in the commercial sleeps with a hot chick. That about right?

Careerbuilder.com, "Fight to the Death"
Todd: OK. We want to know when our royalty check is coming from Careerbuilder.com. Because that's exactly what happens here in the FOXSports.com newsroom on a regular basis. On a slightly more serious note, we loved what could have been an alternate ending to Office Space (or at least should have been), with office workers going all Lord of the Flies on each other in pursuit of the promotion.

Taco Bell, "Lions"
Dave: I want to do a mini-poll on the least believable premise espoused in this commercial: 1. That people would be eating Taco Bell food out in the plains in Africa; 2. That lions speak English, much less argue over how to pronounce Spanish words; or 3. That any of this will make you more likely to eat at Taco Bell.

Emerald Nuts, "Low Blood Sugar"
Todd: The Super Bowl is legendary for bringing extremely old-school stars back from wherever they've been hiding for the last decade (in most cases either Vegas or Branson, Mo.) and allowing them to star in very expensive commercials. And this year is no exception, as Robert Goulet is wreaking office havoc. Now while I normally don't approve of bringing former stars back from the dead in Super Bowl ads, the notion of Goulet causing trouble while the office is suffering from low blood sugar is pretty funny.

Toyota Tundra, "Scaffold"
Dave: Having survived a near-death experience almost plunging over the edge of the Grand Canyon back in the first quarter, the Tundra is now placed on some sort of moving scaffold, then comes to a dead halt while barreling downward, without any apparent trouble. For now, let's assume Toyota has another ad planned that will show us how the Tundra fares in any sort of application that is of tangible value to anyone who might actually want to buy it.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance, "K-Fed"
Kevin Federline has gone straight to MC Hammer territory, except for the part about having a successful run during his career. (Associated Press / Associated Press)
Steve: From the "Oh, If It Were Only True" Department: Kevin Federline goes from King of Hip Hop to fry cook in the blink of an eye. "Federline! Fries!" might not be "Where's the Beef?" but it still makes the point that "Life comes at you fast." If I could only remember what company was running the ad. What's next? Britney Spears for Arby's Roast Beef?

Bud Light, "It's a Bottle Opener"
Todd: Decent little parody of slasher films in which couple picks up obvious serial killer because he's holding a 12-pack of Bud Light, in addition to an ax. And even that guy isn't on board with them picking up the chainsaw dude.

FedEx, "Names"
Dave: A hairy guy named Harry, a happy girl named Joy, a guy who bobs his head named Bob, and a gigantic-necked boss named Mr. Turkeyneck all agree that FedEx Ground is appropriately named. Fair enough.


Fourth quarter

Budweiser, "Our God"
Todd: In the second ad of the night in which members of the animal kingdom are attempting to steal beer, a group of crabs swipe a cooler of Budweiser, then reveal their reasoning — with a pair of bottles sticking out of the top of the cooler making it look like a giant crab, they worship it as their god. And as esteemed FOXSports.com managing editor Steve Miller says, "All I can think after that ad is a case of the crabs."

Lexus, "Copter drop"
Dave: Remember, potential Lexus owners, if you're ever driving through the high desert on a sunny day and see a helicopter hovering overhead lugging another Lexus, just go ahead and gun it, because the Lexus is so fast, you'll be able to beat it out if the helicopter attempts to drop the other Lexus on you. Vital info for your purchasing decisions.

Prudential, "The Rock"
Zack: Finally we have an ad that can rival salesgenie.com for worst Super Bowl commercial. Did they really just spend 20 seconds telling us about the various uses of a rock? Listen here, aspiring young professionals, there is money to be made in the advertising industry. Prudential needs you.

Honda, "Crave"
Dave: The all-new Honda CR-V is displayed on what appears to be a rejected set from a Notorious B.I.G. video circa 1996, as music blares. Another reason why we love TiVO.

Budweiser, "Shula vs. Jay-Z"
Todd: Maybe it's just us, but the game would have had to seriously pass Don Shula by for Jay-Z to be kicking his butt, even if it was only a simulation.

HP, "Personal Computers"
Dave: Going after that lucrative motorcycle-riding, computer-buying technophile audience, an animated biker explains how HP is "making computers personal again."

Izod, "Snow Globe"
Zack: OK, so there's ice, then a yacht, then a beautiful woman in a swimming pool, then an island that spells out Izod. Then it's all not real (well, duh!), it's in a snow globe. No idea what any of that has to do with selling shirts. Although we did appreciate the beautiful woman.

Flomax, "Here's to Guys"
Todd: "Here's to guys who want to spend more time watching the game and less time in the men's room." It's like they're talking to the FOXSports.com newsroom. But I digress. It's really long past time where advertisers are permitted to shill drugs for men's health problems on sporting events. Legislation is necessary. Please call your congressman.

E-Trade, "One Finger"
Dave: E-Trade lists a bunch of things you can do with one finger, which include both "get to know your doctor," as a proctologist puts on a rubber glove, and clicking the mouse of your computer so you can do something or other to your portfolio. I'm not sure who came up with the idea of associating your financial planning product with proctology, or why that person decided on a career in advertising.

Careerbuilder.com, "Jungle Office"
Zack: Careerbuilder.com is making quite a name for itself in the Super Bowl commercial world. This latest installment earned its stripes by featuring the best wedgie we've seen so far this year. And the post-wedgie yelp was just priceless.

Honda, "Fuel Efficiency"
Zack: This commercial was clearly Honda's answer to Nike's ad with all of its basketball stars walking side-by-side in white jump suits. Also, if you were curious, the best way to demonstrate fuel efficiency in a commercial is to have cars weaving in and out of gas pumps in the middle of nowhere.

Snapple, "Quest for Snapple"
Todd: Guy travels great distances to find the elusive answer to the eternal question ... "what is EGCG?" He's told he could have learned the answer by looking at the back of the bottle. Clearly, drinking Snapple green tea makes you stupid, and we want no part of such a product.