I hope everyone had fun watching the big game and had successful parties on Sunday night, and congratulations to all of the Steelers fans out there on another Super Bowl win. I was pulling for the Cardinals, but at least they put up a good fight for what I believe was their very first Super Bowl. Hopefully my Browns will be equally good (and win it) when they get there, although I’ll probably be waiting for a while before that happens. Anyway, the Super Bowl is the one time of the year where everyone actually wants to watch the commercials, and that is what this post will be about. That’s right, there will be a very minimal amount of amusement talk, because there was only one resort with a commercial, Universal Orlando. So without any more hesitation, dive on into my favorite (or not so favorite) Super Sunday commercials.

The Super

Let’s start off with the most super of all the Super Bowl commercials, Universal Orlando’s super hero promotion. I mean, who can possibly resist a cute little kid running around in mismatched clothing and a cape? To top it off, they have a rather super deal going on if you were one of the first 100,000 to visit their promotion website and sign up; a 2-park 7 day unlimited ticket. In addition they’re giving away twenty eight all expenses paid prize packages for four to the resort. That’s a really massive giveaway, a super giveaway if you will. Overall a great commercial with a great ending if you acted quickly enough. And like I said earlier, who can resist a little kid who thinks he’s a super hero? I sure can’t.

Next up on the good list we have one that I find extremely hilarious, to the point that I was laughing all throughout the commercial following it. The job search websites like Monster and CareerBuilder have been putting out some very funny commercials during the past few Super Bowls, and CareerBuilder really hit the nail on the head this year with theirs. The first clip of the woman screaming in her car is funny by the second time, the coworker saying “Hey dummy” gets you paying attention, the dolphin scene is catchy, and punching the koala is where I absolutely lost it! If you weren’t rolling on the floor laughing, then you probably didn’t see it. In fact, my friend just described it to me as Office Space condensed into one minute. Quite honestly, I think this may be one of the best Super Bowl commercials, ever. I mean, punching a koala, with glasses, who is holding a cup of coffee!? Hilarious!

Joining my “Super Five” is a commercial from Coca-Cola, featuring little bugs that we all like to squish, but that they manage to somehow make tolerable for a minute. It’s a fantasy land where all bugs work together to get a bit of happiness known as Coke, taking it from a napping, unsuspecting picnic-er. It really is kind of enjoyable, and I think much better than 2007’s dispenser commercial that was a bit too much of a departure from reality to be good.

E-Trade’s talking baby commercials have become a big hit, and they didn’t disappoint the masses with this year’s commercial with not just one, but two talking babies. The “cute” factor is just over the top, and you can’t help but love it and laugh. A baby giving financial and trading advice is just too good to be true, and it really doesn’t happen. E-Trade has found it’s Gecko, and hopefully they continue to make good use of it.

Does anyone remember the “old days” of great beer commercials? You know, back when Budweiser had the bullfrogs? Well I do, and I really wish they would bring them back. The Clydesdales, however, have made a very positive impression in the past few years, and this year’s Generations commercial was a superb ad. The ever-classic story of immigrants coming to New York, seeing the Statue of Liberty, and trying to make their way is always a touching one. Budweiser managed to capture that and give everyone a warm fuzzy feeling inside with the Generations commercial.

There are of course, several more that deserve mention for being great, but I’m moving on, because I really don’t want to stay up much longer writing this.

The Super Bad

If you like them, I’m sorry, but I’ve really come to dislike the GoDaddy commercials. I realize that trying to sell domain names is probably pretty hard to make into an interesting commercial, but the sex idea is one that a monkey could come up with. There’s enough of that in every other commercial out there, let’s be imaginative with the Super Bowl ads, please. Like we talked about in my marketing class, sex is really a dumb marketing idea, because any bum on the street could come up with that kind of idea for an ad. But I digress. I really don’t like them, and they make my not so good list as usual.

H&R Block had an interesting, but ultimately not that great commercial with their Death and Taxes attempt. Everyone gets bent out of shape, but I really doubt showing a very realistic looking Reaper helps everyone’s fears. It really struck me as a “meh” commercial. Of course, if you liked it, you’re welcome to your opinion. It was forgettable, I thought.

SoBe disappointed again with their new Life Water lizards commercial. The 3-D honestly didn’t help it much at all. I once again found it unentertaining, lacking in humor, and the 3-D gave me a headache really quick (just watched it again on Hulu, and the 3-D worked). Someone call me when SoBe does a Life Water commercial actually worth watching.

Pepsi really took a dive with their “Pepsuber” commercial this year. If you found it entertaining, then you may wish to not read the following comments. I didn’t find it a very appealing commercial within the first ten seconds, so I automatically started to tune it out. The second half of it on the boat seemed like a different commercial, but was equally unentertaining. It was probably the most predictable commercial of the night, and really didn’t do anything to help the Pepsi brand, I think. Overall, a waste of a commercial and one I really would not mind never airing again.

The last bad egg of the group was one that I was actually looking forward to, the Coke Zero remake of the classic Joe Green commercial. It looked decent off the bat, but once the Coke lawyers came into the scene, it really ruined it. Sure, it may have provided a laugh, but they really failed at pulling off an effective remake of one of the top Super Bowl commercials of all time.

In all, the commercials for this year’s Super Bowl were about average, with a few being better than some. The amusement industry got a big nod with Universal’s promotion (hoping to get my free ticket!), and hopefully that works out well for them. It really was a super night, with great commercials and an amazingly close game at the end. Hopefully you enjoyed it all with a group of friends, and maybe some less hated enemies, had a laugh and took a break from the bad news that covers the front pages and morning shows. Until next time, so long and good night.