2009 Superbowl Commercials, Part 1

With a new round of $2.5 million advertisements just around the corner, let's see how many you remember from last year's Super Bowl. Some of them lasted longer than just the first week. Many were forgettable.

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head promoted Bridgestone tires. As she nagged him on the winding mountain road, a herd of mountain goats required a sudden stop. Her mouth fell out and down the cliff, and he drove away in silence with a smile while she switched to her angry eyes.

Bridgestone later used astronauts. After a little fun on the moon, they return to their rover to find it on concrete blocks and the tires removed.

Budweiser had three spots. In one, a dalmatian fetches sticks; jealous of the attention, the Clydesdale horse fetches a log. In another, a white circus horse falls in love with a Clydesdale, and the Bud horse chases the train through city and country to find her. The final Bud ad showed a horse immigrating to the U.S. in 1933 and trying several jobs before finding his calling in the Budweiser hitch.

Bud Light aims for humor instead of sentiment. One showed Conan O'Brien doing an outrageous and embarrassing ad for Bud Light in Sweden that is shown on the big screen in Times Square. Another was so uninteresting, my only note was "skiers." Add a little lime, though, and you get a bubble of summer in the middle of winter.

Speaking of Conan, NBC promoted his transition to the "Tonight Show" with celebrity endorsements. NBC also previewed their Thursday night schedule as a cause of LMAO Syndrome. And since Super Bowl Monday's episode of "Chuck" was in 3-D, a three minute block during halftime featured 3-D ads for Sobe Life Water, "Monsters Vs. Aliens," and "Chuck."

Pepsi used some video clips from then and now to show how generations are similar (especially in their love for Pepsi). On the other side of the spectrum, SNL's McGruber took a break to drink Pepsi, which he called "Pepsuber." The commercial for Pepsi Max said that men can take anything except the taste of diet cola (until now).

Coke Zero played on the classic "Mean" Joe Greene ad from 1979 with Troy Polamalu limping down the hallway when a kid hands him a Coke Zero. Executives stop him. Polamalu tackles the executives and throws a white button-up shirt to the kid. During other spots, Coke presented their "Open Happiness" campaign and showed insects stealing a bottle of their product while a man sleeps at a picnic.

Doritos put on a contest to get their commercials. #1 - A man's snow globe is his crystal ball. He throws it at a vending machine to get free chips. Asking it, "Will I finally get that big promotion?" he throws the crystal ball and hits his boss in the crotch. "Promotion? Not in your future." #2 - The power of the crunch causes a girl's clothes to fall off, an ATM to spew cash, and a cop to become a monkey, but the guy is hit by a bus when he runs out of chips.

Some quick hits:
+Pedigree showed odd pets--an ostrich, a cow, a boar--and suggests, "Why not get a dog?"
+H&R Block showed Death going through a second review on his tax return.
+Teleflora hand delivers flowers because you don't know what flowers in a box might say, including "Go home to your romance novels and your fat, smelly cat."
+For Priceline.com, William Shatner fed lines to a husband as he convinces his wife on a vacation idea.
+Hulu.com (where you can find videos of the ads) kicked off their campaign "An evil plot to rule the world...Enjoy!" with Alec Baldwin.
+E-Trade kicked off their series of commercials featuring a baby getting rich from online stock trades.
+Nextel showed how their walkie technology would help roadies or delivery people run the world.

There were trailers for the following movies: "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," "Year One," "Land of the Lost," "Star Trek," Pixar's "Up," Race to Witch Mountain," and "Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen." The other common advertised products were automobiles with seven ads from Hyundai, Audi, Toyota, and Nissan (without counting Bridgestone, Castrol Oil, and Cars.com).

Five other commercials deserve more space for full descriptions. While the Doritos and Bud/Bud Light commercials received high ratings from me, but these last five were my favorites.

After I get these last ones written, I hope not to take a full year to discuss the 2010 commercials.