Super Bowl 50 and those commercials

How about Super Bowl 50 at San Francisco yesterday?  It's one for the books now with the AFC Champions Denver Broncos (led by Payton Manning in his 200th and final game of his Hall of Fame bound career) winning the game and the Vince Lombardi trophy over the NFC Champions, Carolina Panthers.  24-10 yesterday.  This was Manning's second Super Bowl championship ring. Super Bowl 50 was the most watched TV broadcast ever with an estimated 161 million TV viewers who saw part or all of the game (not including live streaming).


Of course the game sometimes takes a backseat to those commercials and there were plenty of them, some good, a lot of bad and some that really stand out from the crowd.  Here are my personal favorites of a select few which stand out, in no order of preference.


1. Kevin Hart Hyundai "First Date":  Mr. Hart is very funny and this commercial is a howl.  Hart plays an overprotective father who lends the family car for his daughter's first date then follows him all over the place.  Clearly the best commercial is a mostly so-so crop

2.   Doritos "Ultrasound Baby":  Expectant wife has ultrasound procedure while her husband looks on as he is eating a bag of Doritos,  He starts taunting the baby.  I won't give away the ending of this ad but I can say I was floored when I first saw this.    Doritos seems to produce the best SB commercials because they know two things that work all the time in the cuteness and laugh factors:  babies and animals .

3. Doritos "Supermarket Dogs".  Like the baby commercial, dogs bring the cuteness then the laughs.  Watch as these three dogs try to elude the supermarket manager (who keeps chasing them out) in buying a bag of Doritos.

4.  Toyota Prius "Longest Police chase":  It takes a lot of imagination to produce a commercial about a bunch of bank robbers who use their Toyota Prius as their "getaway" vehicle and go all out in eluding police on a long chase that captures the world.  And if you wondered who played the bad guys - - the corrupt Sobokta family from the critically acclaimed (and IMHO, the best police procedural show ever made in the history of television), The Wire.  Not only we have a well made commercial, but we also have a mini-reunion of a family from The Wire.  

5.  Steve Harvey's T-Mobile redux:  Gotta hand it to Steve Harvey - - he can make an embarassing mistake in announcing the wrong winner in the 2015 Miss Universe pageant into a funny  T-Mobile commercial tat takes aim at Verizon;s colored balls.

6. Baldwin, Marino and Missy's Amazon Echo:    The in-jokes and sarcasm go big time as NFL Hall of Fame player Dan Marino trades verbal shots with Alec Baldwin while Missy Elliot chimes in, Really cool stuff to watch.

7.  Bud Light Amy Schumer/Seth Rogen party:  I don't watch these two comedians but I was impressed at the way this commercial was handled -  with a direct reference to Bill Pullman's famous speech in the original blockbuster Independence Day,  

8.  Mountain Dew PuppyMonkeyBaby.:  Another howl - - just watch this and see the head of a puppy, the tail/midsection of a monkey and legs of a baby - - hence PuppyMonkeyBaby

There were others which were either good or bad.  You can watch all of them on You Tube - - but the highlights of yesterdays game was Lady singing the best National Anthem ever while Beyonce, Chris Martin and Bruno Mars put on an excellent halftime show with flashbacks from old shows of previous halftime Super Bowls, including Michael and Whitney - - two artists whose lives ended too short.  It was a good night for football and some entertainment.