Best Super Bowl Ads

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In general, most of the long-awaited ads featured during the Super Bowl this year were considered a disappointment.

The New York Times' advertising columnist Stuart Elliot icily noted:

In recent months, Americans have been disappointed and appalled by Wall Street, banks, the big-budget film "Australia," investment counselors, Detroit, the governors of at least two states, hedge fund managers and even the geese at La Guardia, which used to know better than to interfere with those metal birds they fly among.

After Sunday, you could add Super Bowl advertising to that lengthening list of letdowns.

And the Washington Post's Tom Shales felt that the economic recession didn't seem to impact this year's cavalcade of ads:

If corners were cut in the presentation of Super Bowl XLIII, it was hard to spot them. Maybe the commercials overall were a little less lavish, maybe less beer flowed and fewer luxury cars tooled along sleek and sylvan superhighways, but if pulled out of context and shown to an impartial audience of creatures from outer space, it's unlikely the game would be labeled the First Super Bowl of the New Recession.

Here are some of the most-praised ads:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And to see 25 years of Super Bowl ads, click here.

Comments

[NASCARLiberal]

If I never see another e-trade ad with the bug-eyed puking baby, I'll be happy. Adding a stereotypical black baby doing music riffs was NOT an upgrade. Ditch this crazy ad campaign, it's for mental midgets only. Best ads were the Clydes, with the one where the Clyde is dating a circus horse being the very best of those. Though I'm not into their product, Budweiser is always a class act.

[yodaveg]

Most of the ads were trying way too hard. Traditional advertising is dying and the desperation is visible in every one of these awful commercials.

[kennydarter]

Which ones did you really hate? http://hateonme.com/

[NASCARLiberal]

E-trade babies ad, worst I've ever seen. I now flip to another channel when these obnoxious ads run.

[WorldBetter]

Commercial­s/sketches with straight guys posing as gay have not been funny for a long time, we've seen it a thousand times before.

[whateverlolawants]

The soft drink ad (was it Pepsi?) about the guys getting hurt made me cringe. Those injuries seemed pretty painful, and they were shown in rapid succession. Then they go spouting that obnoxious garbage about men not being able to stand diet sodas. I'm so tired of marketing companies trying to "genderize" foods. You see it in diet ads all the time- "I'm a man! I don't want to eat sissy salads while I'm losing weight!" "You don't have to- you can still eat Man Food and lose that gut!" Hardees has been doing it for quite some time. And yogurt commercials are probably the worst! The truth is, I see lots of guys drink diet sodas, while my dainty feminine hands won't touch them.

While I didn't think it was particularly hilarious, I was delighted to see SNL pushing one of its skits into primetime. I think Lorne is realizing they need to do something new to keep people watching after the election.

Oh, and I have to give props to Alec Baldwin's Hulu ad. And Conan's Bud Light commercial... priceless. I want to see a full version of the "Swedish" ad! Vroom vroom partystarter!

[whateverlolawants]

I've watched almost all of the non-movie ones again online, and here are my verdicts. You'll notice a lot of ads paired together in my mind for one reason or another (both stared celebrities, both were animated, etc.)

The Careerbuilder.com and Monster.com ads were hilarious. I could watch them again and again. The Coke ad with the bugs stealing the drink and the electrical ad with the Scarecrow singing were sweet, visually appealing, and whimsical. The Bridgestone ad was similarly appealing. And I absolutely loved the Bob Dylan- will.i.am ad. As someone else said, it's 2009 and the concept of selling out is obsolete. The ad was a piece of art.

The Pedigree adoption drive ad was funny ("You bad, bad bird!"), as were the Budweiser Clydesdales. The Doritos ad with the "crystal ball" was really funny, while the second one with the guy getting hit by a bus was quite unappealing. GoDaddy.com made me never want to visit that site. Ever.

[kennydarter]

Can't believe Magruber is mainstream now. I feel robbed...

[Propagandhi]

Maybe you can put your thoughts together for a Pepsi. McGoober's treat. ::pause for endorsement::

[Propagandhi]

Yes drown your sorrows in this Pepsi. ::pause for shameless endorsement:: McGoober's treat.

[kennydarter]

http://hateonme.com/

[Suzieknowsbest]

Did anyone see the commercial with this guy?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coyote2012/3249810852/

[walk0nwalls]

I am watching a commercial FOR hulu

...ON hulu.

How meta.

[Clare53]

And meta-modern.

[ScottL]

How about the SNL "MacGoober" ad !! .. oh man, that skit is hilarious !! .. great move by Lorne Michaels to bring this great comedy skit to prime time Super Bowl !! ... wow ... never get tired of "MacGoober ... MacGoober !! .. " Hahahaha , oh, funny stuff. That Will Forte shows his comedic genius !! .. and how about Kristen Wig ... she was hilarious. What range she has ... More MacGoober ! How about an entire hour of this ?

[hairyhuman]

Yeah, McGruber was awesome. You do realize that was the real MacGyver standing next to Kristin Wiig? Richard Dean Anderson baby!

[JustLeftOfRight]

Terrrible is general response I got from people I talked to. One couldn't tell if it was pro Pepsi ad or a plant by Coke. It was that bad.

[ChaosTChoir]

Best minds in our country make ads to sell us stuff. Hire all these companies in the PsychOp department of the govt.to make ads that show the "enemy" how great the USA is...Drop TV's with continuous running ads and no off buttons instead of Bombs. Sell the USA stuff.

However it will be probably be seen a cruel and unusual punishment and not a humintarian effort to stop needless bloodshead around the world.

[Clare53]

I've never uttered this before, but right on, Chaos.

[celtics]

For those of us who aren't great football fans, there was an alternative...the Australian Open at the same time with Federer and Nadal. One of the great matches, 5 HOURS of one-on-one; no pads, helmets, or pushing, shoving or crashing against one another; no time outs or half time show or ads...just pure skill, finesse and athletism. On the other hand, maybe a pushy, shovey game with the illusion of protective gear was what people needed, what with the economy and other frustrations. As for the ads I do find them funny, but I'll catch them the day after on Huffington Post.

[spiffarino]

"5 HOURS of one-on-one; no pads, helmets, or pushing, shoving or crashing against one another; no time outs or half time show or ads..."

To a football fan like me, that sounds really sad. :)

[NASCARLiberal]

Well, a couple of days earlier there was a huge mob scene, pushing shoving, fighting at the Australian Open ... among the FANS, footage did make CNN. And, my friend was there for all the days, she said the heat was around equivalent of 112 F. That's pretty brutal.

[Judyisacutie]

Those talking baby ads just aren't funny to me. A baby with a computer generated mouth and a grown man's joke-free voice over? I fail to see the humor in that. Seems just plain weird to me.

[Clare53]

The babies -- ahahahahahaha.

[quixoto]

Hey I laughed the first time I saw that baby... but that was over a year ago.
Seriously, there's running a joke into the ground, and then there's this.

[4State]

Totally agreed!!

All talking babies with grown-up voices should be ELIMINATED!!

Not cute. Not clever. Not funny.

Direct outgrowths of the stupendously awful Ally McBeal "Dancing baby". Ohh, the horror....the horror...

[IndyReader]

I've always like, and only sought out to review, the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials and I loved all of them.