SFist Watches: The Superbowl Commercials
SFist! You've just come back from a three-day trip to Disneyland, what are you going to do now?
We're going to watch the Superbowl!
Or at least, the Superbowl commercials.
Now, that bit about Disneyland isn't a joke; we did spend three days there, so maybe the post-Disneyland comedown, paired with an eight hour drive and a little sleep deprivation, has something to do with the utter disappointment we had with the commercials this year. But we don't think so. It felt like a turning point in Superbowl advertising, a bad turning point, when advertisers just stopped caring. We blame the popularity of YouTube, where you can find entertaining two minute bits of video on a daily-basis. No amount of CG effects, celebrity cameos, or car stunts can beat videos of sleepy kittens or indignant three-year olds, so why even bother, right?
Once again, there was more sex than violence. In fact, the only slightly sexy commercial was from perennial pervs Go Daddy.com, (but the minute we saw former "Real World" cast member Trishelle in it, we immediately lost our wood). In fact, there were more scantily-clad men than women in the ads this time around, and the only bit of sexual innuendo came in the form of some unfunny homophobia.
As for the violent bits, we're not talking bloodshed here. Just a lot of slapping, physical battles, and death threats. Even the machines weren't immune to visions of suicide.
Comedy was lacking this year, too. Which isn't to say the commercials weren't trying to be funny; they just very seldom actually were. Even old faithful FedEx fell flat in one of their two commercials. But the bit about names was fun. Sierra Mist brought back Michael Ian Black, and the first commercial with Jim Gaffigan was pretty good. The second one? Not so much. The KFed commercial would have been funnier if we hadn't been hearing about it for the last two weeks. The Letterman bit was both surprising and amusing. And that Flomax ad ("Here's to MEN...who don't want to pee their pants") felt a lot like a Saturday Night Live commercial parody.
But our pick for the funniest of the evening, and therefore, the best of the night, was actually not that great. But in an evening filled with crap, it shined like the shining superstar it featured. You can see it below.
Every year we complain that the commercials were worse than the year before, but we really can't imagine them getting much more pathetic than this year's crop. We fear for the future of TV advertising.