Sunday, February 06, 2005

My Review of the Super Bowl Commercials (oh yeah, and the game!)

I suppose had I been more enthusiastic about either of the teams in the Super Bowl this year, the game overall would have been more entertaining to me than it was, especially since it was a close game the entire time and who would prevail in the end came down to the last 9 seconds of the game (or was it 6 seconds? See, I didn’t pay THAT close of attention…HA!) Either way, I did watch the entire event from 6 PM till the game clock hit double zero (no desire to watch the pre- or post-game shows).

So my favorite part of the game you ask? That would have to be the Tom Brady fumble. No, it wasn’t the actual fumble or even the fact that he fumbled it, it was the incident of ball recovery and the officials trying to determine whose ball it was. How funny was it when the Eagles player came running out of the pile of the bodies with the ball and the officials all continues to dive on top of the pile trying to dig to the bottom and find the ball. It literally took them forever to realize that the ball wasn’t even at the bottom of the pile anymore that and the Eagles player had already emerged from the pile with the ball in hand and was halfway up the field in celebration. HA! I was crackin’ up that the officials were still digging. HA!

Soooo, when that is my favorite part of the entire game you must be aware that I wasn’t into watching the game so much for the game, so what was I and so many other Americans camped out in front of our televisions for hours for if it wasn’t to cheer on our hometown team? The commercials of course!

So, what did I think of the commercials this year? Well, actually, I wasn’t all that impressed, I’ll admit. I have to be honest. I watched the halftime show hoping to see some sort of a funny joke/gesture made in reference to the Janet Jackson incident last year, or even a public apology for it on it’s one year anniversary, but of course if you watched you are aware that none of that occurred. So my last hope was in the commercials. I was sure some brilliant multi-million dollar company out there would have advertising merchants on top of a HILAROUS commercial produced for Super Bowl debuting with a humorous Jackson/Timberlake reference, but once again, I found myself disappointed (similar to the fact that I was disappointed to be sitting at home watching the Super Bowl with four little kids running around me all night and just them, no one else here with me. That’s a hard change to accept when I’m coming off the past two years of GREAT fun Super Bowl parties with fun “bring your own meat” BBQ cookouts involved at the GATA Super Bowl party! Oh how I miss the days of Billy Bob!)

So, if there were no costume malfunction spoofs for commercials this year, what were the commercials? Well, I don’t know…maybe it was just me, but I don’t think I’ve seen so many movie previews for movies that won’t be out for MONTHS since having gone to a theatre. I thought there was some sort of rule on television about not showing a movie trailer till it is at least the season of the year that it is coming out; apparently not! What else was there? Uhh…enough car commercials to last me a while (though I do think it is cool that Honda has put out a pick-up truck. That’s cool!) Well, I don’t know about you, but when I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials I’m waiting in anticipation for FUNNY commercials. I could care less about movie previews and commercials showing cars driving over big mountains and other forms of rough terrain or taking sharp curves on windy roads at top speeds (isn’t that what EVERY car commercial is like?! Let’s come up with something new folks!) So, even in the midst of a rather not-so-good year for commercials, I still managed to come up with a Top 5 list of the best commercials, as well as have two who deserve Honorable Mentions in my opinion.

Honorable Mention:
--the Emerald Nuts of California commercial = this was the one with the dad and daughter sitting on the couch and the dad is eating the nuts and the daughter asks if she can have some and the dad is like, “Honey you know if you eat Emerald Nuts all the unicorns will disappear forever.” And then the screen immediately shows this huge unicorn standing on the other side of the couch and it goes, “Now you know that isn’t true!” And then Santa Clause and the Easter bunny get into the fun as well.

--the CareerBuilder.com commercials = I remember seeing two different ones of these, but they were the ones with the business man and all the Chimpanzees dressed up in business suits. One of them was where the Chimps placed a whoopee cushion in the business man’s chair and he sat on it and the Chimps all cracked up. And the second one the Chimps did something funny and then they made fun of the business man by gesturing that he was “kissing butt”….HA!

The Top Five Commercials during the 2005 Super Bowl:

5. The NFL Network commercial = This was the one where Joe Montana was sitting with the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and he was trying to console him for not making it quite to the Super Bowl this year and reassuring him there is always next year. Then they break out into “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” from the musical Annie. And then it shows tons of other NFL players who didn’t quite make it to the Super Bowl this year singing and dancing along. (I suppose this commercial is only humorous and fun to sport fans).

4. The Lays Potato Chips commercial = this was the commercial with the little kids playing baseball and they accidently hit their ball over a huge privacy fence and then the one kid is like “That’s Mr. _____’s yard. We’ll never get the ball back now.” And then one of the little girls comes up and goes, “Give him this,” and hands them a bag of Lays chips and once they throw that over the fence the neighbor begins throwing all the stuff they have ever lost over the fence back to them, including their ball, their dog, a car, and MC Hammer, to which the kids go “Where have you been all these years?!!?” HA!

3. The Kinkos/Fed Ex commercial = this was towards the very beginning of the Super Bowl and it was with the Fed Ex employee going, “In hopes of having the best Super Bowl commercial out there this year we decided to come up with a list of the top ten most important things to have in your commercial.” And then they went on to list them and the list included things such as, a celebrity, an animal, a kick in the groin area, an attractive female, a talking animal, and some other humorous parts.

2. The Ameriquest commercial at the gas station = this commercial featured a man shopping in a gas station and was talking on his cell phone at the same time with one of those hands-free sets where it looks like he is walking around talking to himself. So he goes up to the counter to check out and the cashier and another employee happen to have their backs turned when the man approached the counter, but they see his reflection in the glass window behind the register and they hear him talking on the phone but they don’t see the head-set he is talking into so they think he is talking to them. The man happens to be telling his friend on the phone that he is being robbed in reference to some deal he is involved with with a company or something. So the gas station employees immediate thing the man is telling them that they are being robbed so they turn around and begin to beat the crap out of the customer before he can react. And then the slogan of the commercial appears and it says, “Don’t Judge to Early.”

And my pick for the #1 2005 Super Bowl commercial……

1. The Ameriquest commercial at the girlfriends apartment = this commercial featured a boyfriend who goes over to his girlfriends apartment when she isn’t home to cook her dinner and surprise her for when she gets home. He is in her kitchen cooking away and has some red sauce boiling on the stove behind him while he is on the other side of the kitchen chopping up some vegetables with a big knife. It is then that the girlfriends huge white Persian cat jumps up on the stove and turns the pot of red sauce over on the floor and all over the cat too of course. While this is happening the girlfriend is arriving home and turns the corner to be surprised and see her boyfriend cooking dinner but instead finds him picking up the cat that happens to be covered in red stuff in one hand and has the big chopping knife in his other hand. HA HA! (He looks at if he is killing her cat if you haven’t caught on yet…HA!) And yet again the slogan of “Don’t Judge too Early” pops up on the screen.

Sooo…I give my props this year to Ameriquest for their “Don’t Judge too Early” series of commercials. Heck, it was about time someone other than a beer company had funny advertisements during the Super Bowl.

3 comments:

Holly said...

Amen. I was thinking the same thing about the beer commercials giving up (or shall I say "losing") the reign. Nice critique! :)

Jennifer said...

I TOTALLY agree with your Top 5!! I really liked all of those. My favorite part of the game, you ask? You liked Tom Brady's fumble. I just liked Tom Brady. And also Troy Aikman's commentating. Oh yeah.

FeedingYourMind said...

HA! Whelp...after reading my blog my buddy Amanda filled me in that there WAS going to be a "wardrobe malfunction" commercial, but the company got a lot of slack about it so they didn't air it. Instead it is on their website. Guess which company it is? Yep, how'd you guess...a beer company...HA! Should have known they'd be up to the good humor I was looking for! ;) You can see it at www.budweiser.com and you go under "entertainment" and then under "tv commercials."