For people who are not sports fans, the Super Bowl is not about winning or losing. It’s not about which player is named MVP or which team lifts the Lombardi trophy at the end of the fourth quarter. It’s not about which coach dips into a Gatorade bath. It’s about one thing, and one thing only: commercials. Without the commercials, the television that broadcasts the Super Bowl could also be turned off, or worse, move to Lifetime.
Super Bowl commercials are expensive to air; a thirty-second place in last year’s game cost 2.5 million. This makes them great: Advertisers don’t want to waste their money, so they burn more midnight oil, get more creative juices flowing, and order a lot more Thai food for those office nights. Some of these advertisers succeed with glossy ads, others leave us scratching our heads and asking, “Really?” The good, the bad, and the ugly find their way onto our televisions on Super Bowl Sunday. The following is a list of five of the best commercials generated over the years.
Apple “1984”: A commercial that aired in, well, 1984, this Apple commercial is still revered as one of the best of all time. A parody of George Orwell’s novel about a man living in a world marked by totalitarianism, this ad was directed by Ridley Scott of “Blade Runner” fame. IBM plays the role of “Big Brother,” a euphemism used for “dictatorship” in Orwell’s novel, and appears in the commercial as a giant television screen that rings out to an emotionless drone audience. Out of nowhere, a modern-looking woman walks into the room and throws the new Macintosh at the screen, smashing it in the process. The voiceover reads: “On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh and see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”
McDonald’s “showdown”: In 1993, this commercial featured a “call your shot Horse” game between two of basketball greats: Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. The winner won no less than a Big Mac. Each shot was followed by an even more spectacular shot and preceded by the phrase “nothing but net.” As the players dueled, taking shots from the rafters and from the floors, it was clear that no winner was to be decided. The commercial ends with Jordan and Bird sitting outside on top of a building as Jordan tells Bird: “Off the highway, over the river, outside the billboard, through the window, outside the wall, nothing but network “.
Budweiser “Clydesdales Play Ball”: In 1996, this commercial proved that Clydesdales, despite popular belief, can actually play soccer. During a snowy pickup game, two men watch one Clydesdales team score a field goal against another. In 2004, Budweiser updated the ad to parody the NFL video replay. This ad featured the game’s referee, a zebra, reviewing a play under the reference tent.
Nissan Maxima “Paloma”: America loves talking pigeon commercials, especially when those pigeons sound like Cliff Clavin from “Cheers.” In this 1997 ad, three pigeons see a new Maxima emerge from a car wash. They immediately feel that it is their duty, well, to scribble on car windshields. As the “Top Gun” theme plays in the background, two pigeons miss their target and let their leader, the bird Cliff Clavin-esqe, fly toward the Maxima. Despite his confidence, he only ends up colliding head-on with the closing garage door.
Budweiser “Cedric”: Based on the theory that Budweiser generally has some of the best Super Bowl commercials, 2001 was a year they didn’t disappoint. This commercial is pretty simple: Cedric the Entertainer is seen in an affair with a pretty woman. He goes to the fridge to get two Bud Lights and proceeds to do a “happy dance”, showing his joy and unknowingly shaking the bottles in the process. Their date quickly comes to an ill-timed end when Cedric opens the Bud Light, only to have it explode all over their very annoying date.
