Super Bowl commercials, as we all know, exist in a realm of complete and utter decadence. We’ve all heard the random figures of how much a 30-second piece of ad-time costs, how many millions of zillions of dollars it takes to broadcast a clip of a dancing monkey designed to move your product. It stands to reason that companies must think that the cost is worth the exposure.

It still goes to gross levels. I was talking with my mother on the phone the other day, and she said that she had seen “Super Bowl ad-previews”.  Think about that for a second. Previews of ads? Are we really, as a society, that dependent on the mass media to pitch products at us, to the extent that we LOOK FORWARD to it?

I watched the Super Bowl ads this year and made notes on some of my favorites and the ones I disliked. These ads come from the first half of the Super Bowl, as I was dealing with the catastrophic failure of my computer’s hard drive during the second half. (It’s okay, I think we can save it) So now, I present to you:

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Super Bowl 42 Ads: (First Half)

I thought it was kind of funny that the first ad of the entire Super Bowl that I saw was for the O’Brien Auto Park. They’re really pulling out the big guns, eh? Reach for the sky, O’Brien Auto Park!

Note: Because the national anthem apparently doesn’t take long enough to sing, this year we have NFL players inexplicably reading aloud the Declaration of Independence. This section cracked me up, because there was a definite feel of some of the players having no idea what they were reading, or what it meant. They propped the speakers up in such interesting and random locations as abandoned railroad-yards, the decks of aircraft carriers, and halfway up staircases, and the like. What was the point, exactly? I don’t know if you’ve ever read the Declaration of Independence, but it’s basically America stating its reasons for revolting against British rule. Were we feeling anti-British all of a sudden? Does America’s current war tenuously link to a bunch of founding fathers who didn’t want to pay taxes to King George?  Who knows?

But on to the ads!

Good Ads:

Pepsi Max: I almost hated myself for liking this one. A bunch of sleepy looking people bob their heads and try not to fall asleep parodying the “Night at the Roxbury” SNL skit. Then they all drink some Pepsi Max, wake up, and bob more. You realize when you see this ad that this product must be strictly marketed to people who are about 20+ because, for one, children don’t need to wake up, and for two, nobody any younger than that would remember the SNL skit they’re parodying.

Fed Ex: A silly ad where a company replaces their current parcel delivery service with massive carrier pigeons. The pigeons wreck havoc, destroy buildings and break trucks, and cause general panic. Naturally, the solution is to use Fed Ex. Why didn’t I think of that?

Cars.com: A guy strolling around the used car lot demands a fair price on a car, which he gets through cars.com. He tells the salesman that if he hadn’t gotten it, he would have made the salesman fight “A stone circle death match with ‘Klondor’”, who appears to be a beefy, Samoan-type guy with fearsome rock knives. I just appreciate the morbidity, and the name “Klondor”. My first child, regardless of gender, will be named “Klondor” now.

T-Mobile: A continuation of the Charles Barkley and Dwayne Wade commercials that they’ve been doing. Wade gives Barkley his phone number and Barkley won’t stop calling about the most trivial things. Every time Wade picks up the phone he says, increasingly exasperatedly, “Hey Chuck.” I just think it’s funny to call Barkley “Chuck,” especially considering that I have a feeling if you really walked up to him and said that, he’d smack you in the face.

Doritos: My favorite commercial of the night.  A man sets a mousetrap, using cheese Doritos as bait. He sits there, waiting for the mouse to come out of a crack in the wall. He leans back in a chair, selects a Dorito out of his bag, and crunches it. Suddenly, a large man in a mouse suit bursts out of the wall and tackles him, and proceeds to basically kick the crap out of the guy. I like it because it wasn’t what I expected, which is more than you can say for a lot of commercials. Try something different!

Bad Commercials:

Bud Light: Bud Light has promised me “superior drinkability”. This suggests that other beers are not “drinkable”. I’m pretty sure they’re all liquids, Busch. What does “drinkability” even mean? More drinkable than what, wood? Steel? Calling your beer “drinkable” might be the laziest way in the world to market it. Hey, why should I drink your beer? Because it’s drinkable! It’s capable of being swallowed and has attained a liquid state! Whooooo!

“Wanted”: This is a movie trailer, and a completely ridiculous one. Morgan Freeman is in it. What does he play, you ask? A wise sage? A kindly old man? No, no. He’s an assassin! Yeah. First of all, Morgan Freeman couldn’t assassinate a goldfish, even provided with a toilet and a flush. It also stars James McAvoy, who is actually a good actor, but not well-enough known. I had hoped that being in “Atonement” would open some doors for him and forward him towards good projects, but instead he’ll be stuck in a movie about assassins with Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. I wonder who will be the most convincing assassin among them. I’m guessing the one who manages to keep a straight face about this ridiculous movie they’re in.

Go Daddy.com: Ever since this internet start-up appeared, their ads have been simple. They’ve utilized a primal human concept: breasts apparently sell web domain names. While I’d call that a tenuous link, they probably know better than I do. This year? Not really much in the breast-area during the actual commercial itself, but it promises that “DANICA PATRICK REMOVES CLOTHING ON OUR WEB DOMAIN SELLING SITE, COME SEE!” So if you’ve got the hots for the only well-known female race car driver and need to register a domain name, you might consider checking that out.

Dell: Man walks down the street. People congratulate him. Women throw themselves at him. He is fondled by all. He walks into a cafe and opens up a Dell laptop. End commercial. Moral? Dell will get you laid. Apparently.

Busch: Why is the new Busch mascot a dalmatian?  Am I missing something? This one was training the famous Busch Clydesdales. I guess dogs know how to be horses better than the Clydesdales? The “Rocky” theme gets played just so you will know that this is a training montage.

Life Water: I think this is my least favorite commercial. A lizard drinks some life water and then performs the dance from “Thriller” with other lizards and a foxy human dancer. It is useless to look for a link to reality, logic, or sense. Just give up. I did.

And there you have it! As for the second half of the Super Bowl, I expect it was much the same as the first. If you want to view the Super Bowl commercials for yourself, (there’s a thought, you’d be actively seeking out product pitches, you consumer whore, you.) you can see them on Myspace.