Super Ads

RUDI - After the long wait, hype and anticipation, the Super Bowl can actually be fairly anti-climatic. For years, the boring-blowout played on the field has taken a back seat to the commercials. This year was no exception.

Who can forget the famous Super Bowl ads from years past? 1984: The first commercial for the iPod directed by Tony Scott; Showdown: A McDonald's spot featuring Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan playing a game of "Horse" that alternated between dance moves and basketball marksmanship; and of course the trailer for Crimson Tide. What follows is a list of some of the best ads from this year:

Bucho and a Burro Joaquim de Almeida reprises his role as Bucho from the 1995 film Desperado in this ad for Sprint. Bucho is having trouble finding his cell phone and angrily questions several lackeys in regards to its location. There is a cut to a donkey eating some grass as the camera pans to reveal a cell phone on the ground. The donkey eats the cell phone just as a lackey comes running to retrieve it. The lackey then returns, whispers something into Bucho's ear and is shot. Moments later, in a send-up of the famous line from the movie, Bucho angrily inquires, "What is the number to the phone in my burro!?!"

The DUI Bud Light scores another hit with its take on a drunk driving stop. A man is pulled over by a police officer on a dark highway. The officer asks the man why he was speeding and shines a light on his front seat, revealing a case of Bud Light. The officer then asks if the man has been drinking and we cut to a view of both cars from above. Two gunshots ring out and the man speeds off. He returns home to some friendly razzing and is asked what took so long. "I really had to gun it to make the second half," he says. His smile can hardly mask the fact that he is visibly shaken and forever changed by his incomprehensible actions.

yeahifigured.com This eerily minimalist spot simply featured the text "yeahifigured.com" in red, on a black background with mariachi music playing for 15 seconds. In an advertising landscape cluttered with animals and special effects, this is the spot that stuck out in the minds of many polled after the game. Marketing savvy or happy mistake? An anonymous source with the company stated that there were originally plans for a large-scale, big-budget campaign. However on the day of shooting, the individuals involved never got the ad off the ground. According to the source, "The co-CEOs couldn't stop fighting about something from 1994. They weren't even fighting about the spot - in fact I think they were in agreement and had everything meticulously storyboarded and scheduled for the day. Of course the bickering led Grease to cowardly take a cab home at the first sign of conflict. Hennessy? Hennessy did not show up."

In closing, I think Jean Baudrillard summed it up best when he said, "Super Bowl ads have become the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl has become the Super Bowl ads."