Super Bowl XXXVI Ads
What's the enduring appeal of Super Bowl commercials? Of course, there's the obvious answer — it's the time that advertisers flaunt their self-proclaimed Very Best Stuff, and we want to see what they've got — but there is a major unspoken assumption behind that message that, though it's been commented on before, bears repeating: Commercials have established themselves to us as a viable form of entertainment.
No great shakes, to a certain extent. But the first thing it has to make you think is that the medium (the gag, the story) has become more important than the message ("Buy this!"). And then you have to ask yourself if that's really true, or if the advertisers, being well-schooled in manipulation, suspect that if they keep blurring the line, then there won't be any distinction — the medium becomes the message. It would be like sponsorship: "Because we have provided you with such an entertaining robotic refrigerator, you should feel obliged to buy our beer." At a certain level it's a capitulation to the fact that there are only so many ways you can sell someone a beer, but it's also a little bit insidious: "Our product can't be sold on its merits, but we've provided you with a lot of entertainment."
On that end, how did they succeed? Flak answers that question with individual reviews of each Super Bowl commercial. It's a time-capsule look at what we were being sold at this precipitous time in our culture, an instant-gratification anthropological expedition into our mlives.
Pregame and First Quarter
1. All About the Benjamins
2. Visa — "Verified"
3. The New 2002 Saturn SL1
4. McDonald's — "Catch"
5. "Boston Public"
6. John Q
7. AOL
8. Pizza Hut — P'ZONE
9. GMC Envoy
10. Charles Schwab
11. Bud Light — "Battlebots"
12. E-Trade
13. Pepsi
14. The Scorpion King
15. Monster.com — "Rudy Giuliani"
16. truth — "Squadron"
17. mlife — "Farm"
18. Quizno's — "Dart"
19. FedEx
20. Collateral Damage
21. mlife — "Accountants"
22. Yahoo! — "Dolphin"
Second Quarter
23. Visa — "Six Degrees"
24. H&R Block — "Tax Man"
25. mlife — "Frogs"
26. Signs
27. Anheuser-Busch — "Clydesdales"
28. Hart's War
29. E-Trade Halftime Preview
30. Lipton Brisk — "Puppet Insurrection"
31. Visa — "Official Games"
32. GMC Cadillac
33. "Malcolm in the Middle"
34. Triple X
35. Dockers — "Little Black Dress"
36. mlife — "Grandfather"
37. Philip Morris — "Talk to Your Kids"
38. Monster.com — "Sports"
39. Levi's — "Crazy Legs"
40. "That 80's Show"
Third Quarter
41. Smirnoff Ice
42. United Way
43. mlife — "Bellybuttons"
44. Budweiser — "How you doin'?"
45. Bud Light — "Honey?"
46. 40 Days & 40 Nights
47. Hotjobs.com — "Repeat"
48. Universal Orlando
49. Subway
50. The Next Austin Powers Movie
51. Taco Bell Steak Quesadilla
52. truth "Ratman"
53. Blockbuster — "Pet Shop"
54. GMC Cadillac Escalade
55. Office of National Drug Control Policy
56. "Andy Richter Controls the Universe"
Fourth Quarter
57. Blade II
58. M&M's — "Hotel"
59. Philip Morris — "Reaction"
60. Budweiser — "This Bud's for You"
61. Quizno's — "Guillotine"
62. Roche — "Anti-flu"
63. Volkswagen — "Rocket Science"
64. "Greg the Bunny"
65. Bad Company
66. ONDCP — "I Helped"
67. GMC Cadillac CTS
