On Super Bowl Sunday, the big game is only half the fun. Companies fight tooth and nail for the opportunity to spend hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, for a one-shot thirty-second ad during the game, and they put everything they've got into selling viewers on their product.
The Super Bowl telecast featured more than 50 national advertisements, some of them awesome, some of them terrible, others entirely forgettable. We've pulled out the five best and the five worst ads of the night, in case you missed 'em - or if you're just jonesing for another dose of big-budget hail-mary advertising.
:::THE BEST:::
1) Doritos House Rules
One of the most badass commercials ever. A beautiful woman answers the door for her date, introducing him to her young son before heading into the other room to finish getting ready. The man tries to break the ice with the kid, who's having none of it. He sets a few house rules of his own, establishing that there's already a man of the house. Sure beats Jay Leno's "Crunch all you want - we'll make more!" schtick from back in the day.
2) Snickers: Betty White & Abe Vigoda
Betty White is forty shades of awesome, and further proof is evident in this Snickers commercial. The "Golden Girls" star takes to the field and gets sacked, hard, landing in the mud. A taunt from White’s teammate resulted in a classic granny burn, and Betty wins in the end. Who knew she was a rugged twenty-something dude underneath it all? That's one weird-ass case of hypoglycemia.
3) Denny's: Terrified Chickens
The anthropomorphic approach wins points right off the bat, and the depiction of chickens losing their shit in terror after hearing about Denny’s “free Grand Slam Breakfast” promotion this coming Tuesday is hilarious - particularly the silent scream of the chicken in outer space. It was only a moment, but it was glorious.
4) Coca-Cola: Mr. Burns Loses Everything
How many times have Simpsons fans - and the Simpsons themselves - wished that the incorrigible billionaire Mr. Burns would lose his fortune and be forced to fend for himself in the real world like the rest of us? Well, it finally happens, and after seeing how happy everybody else is while drinking their favorite bubbly beverage, Burns finds solace in a bottle of Coca-Cola.
5) Google: Search Romance
This is the way commercials should be done. "Search On" spot follows a man's Google search journey through a trip to Paris, where he finds a cafe, a woman, a way to impress her, a gift to give her and a place to take her as rom-com final-scene piano music plays in the background. We follow the narrative as he searches for ways to make a long-distance relationship work, before searching "jobs in Paris," an airplane ticket, churches in Paris and, finally, a crib. Poetic, simple and sentimental.
THE WORST (on page 2)
