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Last updated on February 12th, 2022
Another Super Bowl has come and gone. As usual, here’s my thoughts on the commercials and halftime show during the Big Game.
If wondering, the game itself was actually competitive. I’m also OK with the outcome, as I was rooting for the Eagles to beat the Patriots. The Eagles won, 41-33.
Commercials
Best ads
My favorite ads from this year’s Super Bowl:
- The Han Solo film’s ad.
- The Australian tourism ad, disguised at first as a fake sequel to 80s film “Crocodile Dundee.”
- A Jeep ad where Jeff Goldblum chased a Tyrannosaurus rex in said vehicle.
- The Sprint ad where the various robots laughed at their human creator/”coworker.” Oddly, one of them resembled Pintsize from “Questionable Content.”
- The Bud Light “Dilly Dilly” series of ads that depicted a medieval-style battle over the light beer.
- A Lexus ad with Black Panther.
- Coca-Cola had an ad emphasizing diversity, including the use of a gender-neutral pronoun (“them”) to describe someone.
- I’m not sure if it’s national (given it’s a regional/west coast chain), but Jack-in-the-Box had a decent ad where the chain’s mascot faced off against Martha Stewart.
Worst ads
My least favorite ads:
- That M&M “eat me” ad.
- Those Tide ads grew tiresome quickly. The recent fuss over the danger of eating Tide pods didn’t help.
- That GroupOn ad (someone hit in the gut with a football) reminded me of Hans Moleman’s film in that “Simpsons”/”Critic” crossover episode.
- The least popular ad this year, based on Twitter’s reaction, was a Dodge Ram pickup truck ad that featured as a voiceover one of Martin Luther King’s speeches. Many felt it was tacky to use one of Dr. King’s speeches to sell cars. Not helping is that the speech he used was a critique of the worse aspects of capitalism; it even specifically mentioned car ads. Someone on YouTube dubbed the speech’s dialogue over the ad itself.
Halftime show
This year’s halftime show was Justin Timberlake. Much has been written online (mostly critical) about how Timberlake has been invited back to the Super Bowl, but not Janet Jackson, 14 years after the infamous “wardrobe malfunction.” As such, the hashtag #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay prominently trended on Twitter Sunday.
As I’m not a boy band or Timberlake fan, I can’t say I enjoyed the concert much. The fact he referenced Prince during the concert (a singer I liked better) doesn’t help.
What’d you like or dislike about this year’s Super Bowl?
“Front Side of Six Vince Lombardi Trophies” by daveynin is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (Flickr / cropped from original)
