The 2010 Super Bowl was no different from any other Super Bowl in the last 35 or so years in that the commercials which were slated to air during the game received almost as much hype as the game itself. Some were right on target and delivered big time while others floundered a bit. A few flat out stunk the joint up, but even those stinkers are going to get exposure just for being bad so to some degree they accomplished something. With that in mind, here are the best - and worst - Super Bowl Commercials from the 2010 New Orleans Saints 31-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts.
Whether it was the best commercial or not is hard to say, but Bud Light delivered again with their "Light House" ad depicting a house made entirely from Bud Light cans - and a couple bottles if you look closely. A couple shows up at a friend's home only to be amazed that he build it out of Bud Light cans. To their shock they find out the cans aren't empty to which one guest exclaims "oh, it's on!" At that point the visitors along with a growing crowd begin drinking their way to total home destruction. They find Bud Light on ice in the refrigerator made of Bud Light, and best of all a woman in the shower while drinking their way through making a window in the wrong location.
Snickers comes through with a hit if for nothing else working the always hilarious Betty White into a football game. It opens up with Betty Getting tackled to the mud. Her teammates - calling her Mike incidentally - begin giving her grief for playing like an old lady. She shoots back at her QB "aww c'mon man you've been riding me all game!" The best zinger is when Betty is called out for playing like - Betty White - to which she says "That's not what your girlfriend said!" She eats a Snickers and Mike is back, but another teammate is suddenly playing like Abe Vigoda.
Hyundai had the world watching and they dropped the ball with their ad for the Sonata. Their commercial wasn't awful if they planned on running it during the View or something else nobody watches, but to run a drab "birth of a Sonata" themed commercial during the Super Bowl guaranteed one thing was going to happen for sure - people got up and went to bathroom, fridge, made a quick phone call, nodded off to the way too mellow classical music, or maybe even whispered "man that sucks" before nodding off into a Hyundai induced coma. This was so bad Hyundai should get a two year suspension from the league for violating some policy or another they should have in place against massive suckage.
Boost Mobile gets points not for reviving a new version of the Chicago Bears Super Bowl Shuffle, but for getting Mike Ditka to say "That's Fresh." Anytime you give the world a reason to talk about Ditka you've done it a favor. Seeing a rather weighty and out of shape ex-tight end with a cheetah print thong hanging out of his britches was even okay. Give it up for Jim MacMahon though for poking fun at himself by riding around on a rascal scooter and looking silly. The rest of the Bears were okay too, but the one thing to take from the ad is Ditka is still a God of some sort.
Doritos scores big with the animal lovers for their "shock collar" commercial. The premise is simple - man on a bench eating Doritos demands a random dog wearing an no-bark collar speak to get a Dorito. The dog walks away while the Dorito munching fool has a good laugh for denying the dog a treat. Out of nowhere mystery paws unlatch the collar which allows the dog to sneak up behind the Dorito munching moron, place it around his neck, bark once inducing a shock, and take possession of the whole bag of Doritos.
The trailer for the upcoming Ridley Scott remake of Robin Hood starring Russell Crow and Cate Blanchett was a yawner. Usually fire and explosions work for the average Super Bowl crowd, but everyone is pretty familiar with the Robin Hood thing by now. While the movie may in fact wind up being excellent, the trailer was more of the same. The only thing anyone seemed to take away from it was Russell Crowe lost weight, Cate Blanchett is hot, and that movie trailer commercials are a good time to discuss another commercial that was better.
Coca- Cola teamed with the Simpsons to deliver the message that although Mr. Burns may be the latest billionaire to feel the economic crunch, it's nothing a Coke can't fix. After watching his empire carted away at the bargain price of 2 items for .99, Burns takes a long lonely walk away from his home as it is incidentally airlifted away. Apu being a gentle soul offers Mr. Burns a Coke and suddenly he is one of the guys playing ball and smiling as if he is on top of the world. It's an old Coca-Cola hook, but the twist of adding the Simpsons makes it work.
GoDaddy.com had a chance to do something memorable- and they did. The problem is they will be remembered for a letdown. You've got Danica Patrick laid out on a massage table with a smoking hot blond and there is no rubdown. There isn't even implied "nekkidness" as Larry the Cable Guy would say. All they do is talk about where the blond hottie knows Danica from and whether or not she too can be a GoDaddy girl. Just when you think it's about to get hot and the blond rips open her shirt the commercial ends. This is a commercial that left more potential lumber on the bench than the Pittsburgh Pirates the last fifteen years. People will talk about this ad, but not for anything good.
Some of the better 2010 Super Bowl commercials that just missed making the top picks include:
Monster.com's fiddle playing beaver. Beavers are funny animals and seeing one play the fiddle is good, but they could have gone farther.
Pick a Denny's commercial out of the batch that aired and you're onto something good. The storyline with animals is nothing new which means this just misses top ranking, but you've got to love seeing chickens dressed up like Secret Service agents complete with shades and earpieces.
E*Trade would have made it if the premise was a little fresher. That notwithstanding, babies talking like grownups is just funny. Watch how many people talk about that "milkaholic Lindsay" today or mention taking care of business like a wolf - wolf style! It was close, but just missed.
Motorola comes through just for having Megan Fox in a tub. The results of her sending a picture out to everyone via her Motorola phone are expected and kinda mundane, but the real key here is Megan Fox was in a tub looking very, very hot.
And now for some that missed the mark:
Bridgestone missed with their "orca killer bachelor party." The idea was okay, but they did zilch with it.
"The lifecycle song" from Dove soap. One word review - no. Just no. It's been done before and done better.
The best thing about the Dodge Cars "Promise to my wife" commercial is that it lasted a full minute which is enough time to go to the bathroom. It's been done, it's tired, we get it. Men make a lot of promises they mean to follow through on in their head that never make it to reality. Try paying an ad consultant next time.
Dr. Pepper Cherry should have had a winner by putting gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss in a commercial with "Little Kiss" a Kiss cover band made up of little people, but they managed to blow it. You've got a pair of rock icons, the song Dr. Love, and a really entertaining cover band in full makeup and still you screw it up. It's unbelievable.
Charles Barkley trying to do some sort of weird Taco Bell rap was just painful. In fact it made me want to gouge my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon and jam a screwdriver in each ear, and maybe have some kind of experimental memory erasing shock therapy to get this out of mind and protect me from ever seeing it again. Sir Charles, you'll always be the "Round mound of rebound", but if you're dropping so much money at the tables in Vegas you need to do some endorsements, go back to schilling for Right Guard and telling the world about your odoriferous emanations.
What is really the best or worst is subject to each individual, but that is half the fun of Super Bowl commercials. In a day or two talk of the game will be all but dead and fans will be looking toward next season, but the commercials will stay with us and keep being laughed at, cringed over, and talked about. Decide for yourself who did and didn't score.