The Flag of the World

[Hey, click here if you’re looking for liveblogging of Superbowl XL, which I do care about.]
I neither know nor care enough to comment on the actual game today, like Captain Ed is doing–but I do know commercials. So, I’ll be blogging those! Enjoy!

3:37: The Ford commercial with the frozen guy was amusing. Not earthshattering, but amusing. The early commercials that I’ve seen so far are remarkably dissapointing. The Blockbuster Online commerical is quite lame–ooh, look, you can get movies mailed to you! Gee, I haven’t been having Netflix do that for the last year, or anything. And the Muppet-Pizza Hut commercial? Just sad. Somewhere, Jim Henson is immensely annoyed.

3:43: So, the pilot jumping out the plane after Bud Light was amusing–good old fashioned alkie humor. Not groundbreaking, but certainly solid. The breathable lenses were not very interesting, but they didn’t really try. The “Constantine” trailer was not any better than it was when I saw it in the theater. Why are these people wasting money? Hopefully we’l get better as things go on.

3:50: Gee, all the hip kids drive Diet Pepsi trucks. Wooo.

3:55: “The Pacifier.” Haven’t I seen this movie before?

3:56: I like Cedric the Entertainer, so I’ll forgive that mediocre Bud Light commercial.

4:00: Ooh, now the hip kids drink Diet Pepsi too.

4:01: You know, poking fun at last year’s “wardrobe malfunction” could have been amusing. The GoDaddy commercial, however, was not. Were they going for dead-pan, or just dead? I was disappointed.

4:10: That Bud Light commercial was the best use of a photo phone I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile, the McDonalds Lincoln Fry commercials are the best I’ve seen so far.

4:16: The Visa Check Card superhoero commercial was pretty good. But the Ameriquest commercial, where the jerk who’s talking on his hands-free cell phone gets beat up because it sounds like he’s robbing someone? Golden! It passes up the Lincoln Fry commercial easily. As for the Quizno’s baby/beautiful woman commercial? Does no one else find that babies being portrayed as sexual beings is really, really disturbing?

4:24: So… Gladys Knight and rugby… it’s certainly… different. I wanted to see more pain, though. I mean, come on! It’s rugby. As for the Honda commercial, it seems to me that Superbowl car commercials are just regular car commercials with lower voiced announcers.

4:33: Remarkably, the game so far has been better than the commercials. This pleases me. I’m glad to see the Eagles are making a game of it.

4:37: A nice Budweiser throwback to last year’s donkey commercial–but the Lays commercial takes the “best mockery of an early 90’s icon” award. How did those kids know enough about MC Hammer to throw him back? They weren’t even born when he was so popular he had his own Saturday cartoon show. The Quizno’s commercial was disturbing in an amusing way. The musical Pepsi bottles were funny, too.

4:40: In-Action heros rule! I want one!

4:43: So… the first singing Pepsi-bottle commercial was amusing. But that second one… were we supposed to take that seriously? Very odd. Meanwhile, the Cadillac commercial was a little too subtle. We think perhaps the tunnel was supposed to represent the inside of a rifle barrel… but the thing with the lights made that pretty unclear. When I see lights in a tunnel, I don’t think, “hey, that’s a rifle barrel!”

4:54: I missed a couple there. My compatriots tell me the Bud Light commercial with the Mexican parrot was “cute.” Meanwhile, you can go watch the ads themselves here.

4:59: I’ve always liked the “rich, but not smooth” Michelob Light commercials. That was a good one. Superbowl caliber, though? This year, maybe.

5:11: So… NASCAR=Pirates? Interesting…

5:14: The fold-up apartment phone commercial was clever. The band-camp McDonalds commercial wasn’t particularly. But here’s my question: have truck commercials ever been anything other than trucks driving around in the mud? It’s like there’s one guy who makes them, and he stopped innovating twenty years ago…

5:20: “The sun will come out tommorow” sung by football players was quite amusing. The NFL doesn’t really even have to try, but that was a very amusing commercial. Meanwhile, Paul McCartney is busy reminding all of us that half the Beatles are dead. It’s way more depressing than it’s supposed to be. It’s like watching Costello do solo standup.

5:33: Well, it got better by the end. But what was with the Statue of Liberty during “Hey Jude?” The Qwest commercial was just terrible… if you’re going to spend millions of dollars on a Superbowl commercial, please, have something better than a pun on the name “Moore.”

5:49: A camera that’s an MP3 player? Coming next from Olympus–a toaster that washes your feet!

5:52: Very, very, very cool commercial from Anheuser Busch, with soldiers returning from Iraq to a standing ovation in the airport terminal. There may be fewer Beatles, but we sure do treat our soldiers better these days. Thank you, indeed.

6:00: That’s a clever Staples comercial, but overshadowed by Ameriquest–they’re 2-2. Those “don’t judge too quickly” commercials are just great. Meanwhile, careerbuilder.com has learned the secret to comedy: monkeys, monkeys and more monkeys.

6:04: “War of the Worlds” is the most intriguing trailer I’ve seen so far. Hopefully they won’t do to that what was done to “Time Machine.” It seems like it should be a no-brainer, but we’ll see-hopefully “the common cold” won’t be replaced by “Tom Cruise’s super kung fu action!”

6:15: Verizon’s shrunken stars made me chuckle. They should have closed with mini-Aguilara getting blown off the desk, but it was funny anyway.

6:17: Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

6:21: Ok, seriously, these cloned truck commercials are driving me nuts. How do you buy a Superbowl commercial, using the exact same commercial you’ve been using for twenty years.. Jack-in-the-Box continues to be my favorite fast food commercials ever with the “Easy Jack” do-it-yourself restaurant. And then a stunning innovation in truck commercials: lets list all the features! Ooooh, edgy!

6:28: There were no interesting commercials in that break. We’re obviously in the fourth quarter now. How depressing.

6:33: I thoroughly enjoyed the cartoon logo Mastercard commercial–very clever. Did you note how Mr. Clean was doing the dishes? Clever, eh?

6:40: The Emerald Nuts commercial was great–I wanted to see Santa start roughing that guy up, though. And, again, monkeys are just plain funny. Hooray for monkeys!

6:58: IFilm has now put up most of the commercials mentioned here.

7:15: And that’s the game! Quite a good game–I would have enjoyed a good drive at the end there more, but that was thoroughly enjoyable. Congrats to New England. They got spanked in the election, but sports-wise they’ve done pretty well.

7:22: A couple amusing late entry–the eloping Cadillac commercial was amusing. The Verizon snake commercial was really very funny.

7:36: My crack team of commercial critics has made the first annual Flag of the World Superbowl Commercial Awards:
Best Serious Commercial: Anheuser Busch’s salute to the military
Best Funny Commercial Series: CareerBuilder.com’s monkeys
Best Funny Single Commercial: Ameriquest’s “Don’t Judge Too Quickly” dead cat commercial

Our lucky winners go home with a warm feeling and maybe a few more customers. Congratulations to them and all our contestants!

Posted by Timothy Goddard at 3:37 pm 2/6/2005 | Pop Culture| Sports

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