Babies, Betty White, Doritos and Beer – The Stuff Commercials Are Made Of

Despite being a resident of Indianapolis, and an adopted Colt’s fan, I’ll admit I was pretty equally excited to see the commercials as I was the game. Call me a terrible sports fan, a “typical” American, or whatever else comes to mind, but the Super Bowl is the showcase of some of the best work of some of the best creative types in the business. Typically, they don’t let me down.

This year had its ups and downs, but some highlights included Snicker’s use of Betty White, the Doritos Dog, the “milkaholic” baby, Lebron and Kobe, and the High Life spot.

For the male demographic, the advertisers know they can never go wrong with a little physical humor, and seeing Betty White get tackled elicited some good laughs from the crowd in the room I was in. The Lebron and Kobe spot was actually just OK until Larry Legend came in at the end – that put a smile on my face. The Doritios commercial with the dog was the only Doritos spot to make me laugh, but it also made me wonder how many stupid American’s put their dogs’ shock collars on to see how it felt immediately following it (I know somebody did that). The High Life ad was one of the most creative, in my humble opinion, and I liked that they foreshadowed it before the Super Bowl. But, that one that made me laugh the most was the babies.

Somebody at my future mother-in-law’s place of work said you had to be an idiot to think those are funny. I think that person is an idiot for saying that. A large portion of comedy is pretty dumb stuff, but if it makes you laugh then it’s successful. I don’t know any other criteria for good comedy other than laughs. What got me is when the baby popped in at the end.

I won’t get into the ads that didn’t make me laugh, there were many, but the few that did make me laugh were pretty good. The rest of the Budweiser and Doritos commercials left me pretty straight faced, but I won’t call them dumb because I’m sure they made some people laugh, and I won’t make the same mistake as the aforementioned person.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good showing. I wish ads the rest of the year were half as good as they are during the Super Bowl. Luckily for me, the invention of DVR has made it possible to skip ads the rest of the year. If I had to vote for my favorite inventions of the past decade, DVR would definitely make my top five.

It ain't easy being green... except today!

This morning my fiancée proudly announced to me that she had remembered to wear her green in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, and therefore would not have to endure pinching as a result of not dressing appropriately for the occasion. This came as shock to me. I had never heard of being pinched on St. Patrick’s Day for not wearing green. If someone had pinched me without this prior knowledge, I likely would have had some choice words for them – she saves me yet again. I don’t know whether I’ve been living in a pinch-free bubble my entire life or she just has strange friends, but it inspired me to dig a bit deeper into the Irish-inspired, green-beer-soaked holiday.

We celebrate a lot of holidays throughout the year, many of which have taken on a whole new meaning than originally intended (i.e. Santa-centric Christmas), but we often know little about the origins. St. Patrick’s Day isn’t even an official holiday here, but we celebrate like it is! When I think of St. Patrick’s day I think of the color green, beer, shamrocks, and funny little Leprechauns doing a merry jig to Irish flute music. Don’t let those happy little Leprechauns fool you, though, some are evil, as evidenced by the Leprechaun films of the 90s! But I digress...

Similar to Christmas, St. Paddy’s Day, or Lá ’le Pádraig, started as a religious holiday in Ireland, and has transformed into so much more. Over the years it’s gone from a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland, to a reason to get drunk on a weekday. What was once the humble celebration of the patron-saint of Ireland has now become a suitable excuse to wear a t-shirt proclaiming to be Irish for a day or asking strangers to plant one on you. The original use of the shamrock was to explain the Holy Trinity, now the word shamrock inspires in me a Pavlov-like mouth watering zest for those delicious limited-time mint shakes at McDonalds. I don’t care what anyone says, adding mint flavor to a regular McDonalds shake is just not the same!

I must say though, despite our complete misconstruing of what the holiday actually meant when it was originated, I sure do enjoy the opportunity to put back a green beer with friends while wearing a green shirt and planning my next trip to get one last Shamrock Shake before they are gone for another long year. But what the heck, McDonalds is kind of an Irish name, right?