Let's skip the appetizer and go straight for the prime rib, and if you're a vegetarian, I'm sorry for your loss of meat, but I thank you for leaving more for us. You're all champions in my eyes.
My favorite commercial from the Super Bowl is...
Not this one:
It was my favorite, but after watching it again, I realized the humor came more from the shock of the last few lines, the "no one wants to see you naked" and then Captain Creeper's line. But, since I saw this commercial already, the shock value is gone, and so is a large chunk of the humor.
But! Luckily for Teleflora, it was more than good enough to keep their name in my head. They also did a fantastic job of actually advertising their service in a clever way, not bashing any other flower delivery service specifically (though, to be fair, I don't know a single other one, so good job not alerting us to others in case you suck, Teleflora), and having a short, cute, one-time funny commercial. Well done, Teleflora, but you only hold 1 1/2th place.
Instead, the REAL winner is:
Are you surprised? You shouldn't be. Alec Baldwin is hilarious. I'm still not fully into "30 Rock," but I do know I should be! That's a step in the right direction.
This commercial panders to my age group easily: it's random, it features the shows we watch (note how they advertise "30 Rock" in here...clever contractual move, Baldwin), and it gives us interweberly hip a service we so desperately need: downloading shows for free without being pirates. Though piratetism is pretty cool. Yar and such.
The real winner here is the editing team. The special effects and set and CGI and junk are all well and good, but the key moment in this commercial that broke me was the back-and-forth laughter. I'm going to watch it again.
Yeah, STILL hilarious.
But, for every Alec Baldwin, we have a Stephen. Someone who's had the taste of success once and feels untouchable afterwards, but learn they are not only the reason we can't have nice things, but the reason we actually have bad things.
And here's my visual/audio aid:
Note: it took me a bit to find a non-3D version of this. The headache you can get from the ad itself is bad enough. I didn't want to ruin your entire day, but this...well, this may just do so anyway.
Because there is SO MUCH SHIT going on here, I'm going to break it down by the seconds once again, for your sake, my sake, and sanity's sake.
0:00-0:03- Lizard Lake. Get it? Instead of Swan, which is an animal, you get Lizard, which is ALSO an animal! We're already on the Clever Train. Next Stop: Smartsville.
0:03-0:17- Football players doing ballet. It's not uncommon. Apparently a lot do take it for the coordination it teaches and flexibility it enhances. Performing Swan Lizard Lake? A little more uncommon, but a lot of potential, to be fair. This could be funny.
0:17-0:26- Or not. With that little rattlesnake-handshake thingy, we begin our journey down past Hell into what can only be described as "The Thing Nightmares are Made Of, Only We Had To Through These Parts Out Because They Made Nightmares Too Wretched." It's a long description, but very accurate, as evident by the pointless Superman-type leap...and less-than-comedic crash, and another unfunny crash because the dancers were looking at your feet. If you were real dancers, you would know not to do that, assholes! We would have been able to avoid this upcoming mess (yes...would have been able to avoid this future you haven't seen yet) if you weren't idiots. But, then again, if you weren't, this may have been an enjoyable experience.
It's not, though.
0:26-0:32- Oh, joy, those fucking lizards. DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING. This is where the Stephen Baldwin analogy comes into play. Last year's ad with the hot gal was pretty good in the sense that it was new, and there was a hot lady. This year, it's a bunch of football players...and lizards...and characters from a movie that was still 2 months from being out. I liked the trailers for "Monsters Vs. Aliens," but this may be enough to change my mind.
0:32-0:38- Well, the director of this ballet's gotta be pissed. This isn't Swan Lake at all! Who's the joker that put on this cah-razy music, with all these wacky characters? And who said all the lizards could turn into piss-poor Heisman trophies? "Not I," said the ballet director.
0:38-0:41- Okay, one thing that makes sense: a dancing behemoth accidentally punting a small lizard. It's a liiiiittle logical. Another football player trying to bite him mid-air? Not so much. Unless he was trying to express shock and awe with that face, which, in that case, F minus, sir.
0:41-0:45- More dancing, but now that the vocals are in, we get a good sense to how out-of-tune it is. Great use of vocal effects, guys. Greater use of ruining the music from Swan Lake by associating it with this shit. Oh, and now there's a giant lizard. Will it be in the movie "Monsters vs. Aliens," or does the director of that movie have more sense? At this point, anything shitty could happen.
0:45-0:52- More dancing. I'm thinking of calling the cops and filing a noise complaint. I don't want to be "that guy," but I don't want these people to be anywhere near me. You make personal sacrifices for these situations. Oh, and what would a shitty party be without some jackass who Bedazzled his from teeth? Yeah, that's a good grill. Who needs gold teeth when you can put Sobe there instead? All I want for Christmas is to break their four front teeth. Their four front teeth. Their four front teeth.
0:52-1:00- Shitty dancing continues. Lizard cheerleaders do nothing but induce more barfing. Football players remind us they belong on the field and off the dance floor.
1:00-1:01- And there you go. You're left with a very disturbing transformation from man to lizard. Is it cool? No. Is it well done? No. Is it creepier than every horror movie that came out within the past 5 years? Yes, but that's not saying much. We don't need any more "Saw" movies, thank you.
Now, I could've picked a lot of different ones for the worst commercial of the Super Bowl. Pick a beer one, and you'll realize: they were all bad. But, even though I hate the idea behind the "drinkability" slogan (IT MEANS YOU ARE ABLE TO DRINK IT, ANHEUSER-BUSCH), two things: I already did a segment on that, and, even combined, they weren't nearly as bad as this Sobe one.
The absolute worst thing about this, though? Sobe tastes like shit. Pretty much every bad ad I've reviewed has a service/product that I enjoy. Beer, fast food, snacks, cell phones, furniture...but Sobe is awful. Just awful. It was what prisoners shower with. Yes, they end up stickier than when they go in. It is an awful prison, mind you, but they aren't forced to drink it, at least. That's cruel. Too cruel for even me.
No ratings. I feel you've gone through enough having to watch that 1-minute tragedy.
We will get back to our normal ads Friday. "Normal" in the sense that nothing will be normal and everything you see will be horrible. Well, I guess that is on par for this blog.
Get out!
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