Welcome to The GBU, a weekly column where I look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly on TV.
Everybody watches the Super Bowl for the commercials (except for my dad, a huge Steelers fan who was too busy weeping into his bowl of potato chips to notice them). On the field the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25 to win Super Bowl XLV. But who won off the field?
Last year a simple Super Bowl commercial for Snickers helped launch Betty White back into superstardom. What magic did this year’s crop of Super Bowl commercials bring?
Here’s the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the 2011 Super Bowl commercials.
The Good: Doritos, Bieber, Dinosaurs and More
Best FOX Promo Featuring Dinosaurs: Terra Nova. The highly-anticipated new FOX series Terra Nova, about a group of future humans traveling back in time to live with the dinosaurs, premiered during the Super Bowl and gave us our first look at DINOSAURS!
Best Use of Comedy: Doritos. I learned that Doritos are so delicious that you’ll rip a fat man’s pants off to lick the cheese dust off of them, and that Doritos possess the power to bring the dead back to life.
Best Use of Celebrities: Best Buy. This commercial with Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber included my favorite dialogue of the night where Ozzy asked “What’s a Bieber?” and the response was “I don’t know. Kinda looks like a girl.”
Best Use of Animals: Bud Light. The dog sitter commercial had dog waiters and a dog DJ at a house party. Dogs acting like humans are always funny.
Best Movie Trailer: Super 8. The J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg film Super 8 looks amazing, though I still have no idea what it’s about. But when those two forces combine for a movie that might be about aliens in the 1970s, I’m there.
Fan Favorite: Volkswagon. Based on the comments, I decided to add in this commercial where a kid runs around the house dressed as Darth Vader trying to use the Force. If you’re into this kind of thing, then I understand the appeal, but personally, it combines two of my least favorite things: kids and Star Wars.
The Bad: Snickers and Tibet
Last year Snickers was the big winner with a commercial where Betty White was tackled hard by a football player. This year, Snickers used the exact same joke, only it was Roseanne Barr getting hit with a giant tree. First, it’s impossible to make Roseanne as beloved as Betty White. Second, shame on Snickers for a total lack of originality.
But the award for most offensive commercial goes to Groupon.com where Timothy Hutton talked about the difficulties in Tibet, and then it turned into an ad for a coypon to a Tibetan restaurant. Using Tibet to sell coupons is like using starving Somalians to sell skinny jeans, it’s just tacky.
The Ugly: Silly Movie Trailers
A fifth installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise? That’s silly enough, but it’s nothing compared to the new movie called Cowboys and Aliens, which is exactly what you think it is. That might be the dumbest idea ever, especially since Firefly and The Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr. already perfected the genre of sci-fi westerns. Come to think of it, why the hell isn’t there a Briscoe County, Jr. movie? That would be awesome.
(Images and videos courtesy of Hulu)
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