The Weekend in Superbowl Ads.

Abe Vigota is not fucking amused.

For the first time in a while the two teams in the big game were number one seeds, and as far as I’m concerned, for the second year in a row the vast majority of civilized America didn’t care at all about who won.  What we do care about is getting more stuff. And how do we learn about stuff so we can get it after the game? Commercials, that’s how! So, lets recap some of my favorite commercials, and also a few that I completely disprove of (I got your back Abe).

So, one popular theme that seemed to be prevalent this year is cartoonish violence. More than ever advertisers are showing that simply by showing the viewer something that is stupidly funny for 30 seconds and affixing their clients logo to the end of it that you will buy their product.  Its sad really, and some of the commercials were just bizarre and kind of cruel.  However, one that I found particularly funny was the VW punch-buggy commercial.  VW has the serendipitous honor of having a stupidly violent name attached to their brand, so its OK for them to have a spot pretty much focused on people hitting people. On top of that, we’ve got a little Stevie-Wonder-is-blind humor and that never gets old. Throw in Brian Fellows for good measure and you’ve got yourself some good television.

The Superbowl is also a huge platform for movies and TV shows to advertise.  There were two huge trailers and a few forgettable ones this year.  Specifically, the trailer for the HBO Miniseries The Pacific, which is a spinoff of Band of Brothers has been pretty quiet during its long and expensive production. We got to see a peak last night and it doesn’t look like its going to disappoint.

There were a slew of car commercials, as is expected every year.  One of my personal favorites was Kia’s robots spot, depicting a group of life-sized toys going all out in Vegas Hangover style. I won’t ruin the ending, but it has just enough sentimentality to be fun and not too much to be cheesy.
Dodge also threw in for a minute long spot hearkening back to Burger King’s Manthem campaign a year ago.  I cant decide if this commercial is so manly its kind of insulting, but the Charger is a pretty cool car, and I have nothing bad to say about anything that Dexter voices.

And now, on to the black sheep.  These people shelled out millions of dollars to talk to people who either didn’t want to listen, or are completely confused/insulted or possibly the worst: indifferent about their ad.

First Failure: I do not for the life of me get why companies like Intel advertise? I cant even bring myself to watch this spot again because I remember just being perplexed.

Second Failure: Charles Barkley should go away. I have no idea why he is still incessantly featured on TV, especially in a spot that makes him ramble on incoherently about tacos. I just…I don’t know.  Moving on…

Third Failure: What the fuck snikers.  I know the advertising industry makes mistakes, but handing over the most important advertising slots in the history of the fucking universe to the spots you fielded this year was the superbowl of suck.  Case in point, why, why, why am I relating Betty White and Abe Vigota to your candy bar? Have you ran out of similarly unrelated basketball personalities who’s names easily lend themselves to your stupid puns? Abe Fucking Vigota, really? Hasn’t the man done enough to earn our respect? He almost single handedly dismantled the Corleone family for god’s sake, and you have him getting tackled by some everyman jagoff. Score one for Milky Way, idiots.

Oh, and “Puxatony Palomolu” might be the worst fucking combination of two proper names in the history of the world. God help us all (till next year).