The day is upon us. Madison Avenue rejoices.
Super Bowl LVI airs tonight, and with it comes the commercials. And, probably, heartburn – though I suppose that depends on what you’re eating.
I’ll be posting YouTube links of every automotive (and auto-adjacent) commercial pretty much as they air. Come join the conversation in the comments.
Regarding the game, I have no real dog in the fight (I’m a Packers fan) but as a lifelong Ohioan my heart leans toward the Bengals.
PREGAME
How long has the Top Gun sequel been in production? Porsche started the film with an air-cooled 911 (check my math on that one) and now they make SUVs.
Next, caveman Jason Bateman drives a Hyundai IONIQ 5.
First Quarter
Toyota shares the story of a Paralympic pair of brothers.
Next, we have the Governator and Salma Hayek selling BMW EVs.
Polestar goes minimal. After all, a 30 second spot is expensive – gotta keep the production cheap.
Carvana talks about great customer service with an annoying voice.
Second Quarter
Chevrolet wins the night with a shot-for-shot remake of the intro to The Sopranos with the Silverado EV.
Weathertech shows everyone that experts flying in from helicopters are needed to install floormats.
HALFTIME
Toyota puts several Joneses (Tommy Lee, Rashida, Tom, and Leslie) behind the wheel of the new Tundra.
And holy crap the Impalas on the halftime show.
Third Quarter
Kia has a dog chasing a car. Of course, the car is electric and the dog is robotic.
Dr. Evil returns for General Motors.
Fourth Quarter
Vroom with some lovely vintage metal.
Eugene Levy drives a Nissan Z and becomes a different person.
FINAL
Heck of a game, honestly. Commercials..meh. Like I said earlier, Chevy wins with the Sopranos. I’m a Z fanatic but I don’t love the Eugene Levy spot. Everything else…kinda meh.
Good night, everyone.
[Main image: Africa Studio/Shutterstock.com]
superwhat? The Munsters are on Cozi Tv
Looks like the American Freedom Truckers were too busy watching the game to disrupt it.
@Lou–Looks like the bridge is going to be reopened tonight and the remaining protesters arrested and their trucks towed. They have bigger problems to worry about than vaccines and masks.
I saw a couple of these earlier in the day or before, like the Hyundai and BMW.
The BMW one is too long and not so great.
FYI, I was rooting HARD for Cincy, if for no other reason than the Rams deserve eternal, horrifying fail as long as that pig Kroenke owns the team. Watching them lose to a small-market Midwestern team in their own stadium would have been too delicious. Alas, not to be.
It was close! Slight dud of a halftime show there.
The lowriders were a nice touch, though.
But Salma Hayek looked amazing in it so all is forgiven.
Do Canadians even watch or play football?
This year’s Canadian Football League Grey Cup between Hamilton and Winnipeg was a million times better than this Super Bowl. No stupid commercials. No trash halftime show. No awful calls by the refs. Just a great football from beginning to end.
#1 Hockey #5 CFL
#2Baseball #6 Soccer
#3NFL
#4NBA
Yes… we do watch Football !!!!
Not only do Canadians play football, we also invented it. Just like a Canadian invented basketball.
https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2015/05/14/history-may-14-1874-how-canada-created-american-football/
I think Nissan wins: That Eugene Levy Nissan Z Ad was one Dominic Toretto short from pure greatness. Give than man a role on the next F&F
Gotta hand it to GM for being self-aware enough to know that a lot of people think that Dr. Evil has always run GM.
I’m good with Dr.Evil running G.M. As long as my pension cheques shows up !
Dr. Evil would be more competent than the current GM leadership.
He’s hold the world ransom for a million dollars….
I read an interesting interview with Daniel Craig. The Austin Powers franchise did such an effective job of spoofing all that was James Bond that when Craig started as Bond the whole new direction of Bond was based upon distancing themselves from all of the cliché’s.
That Silverado ad confirmed what I always knew: Meadow Soprano would have been one hell of a mob boss.
Loved the Silverado ad, as I used to absolutely love Sopranos. Let’s see what we have there: NJ as the industrial backwater of financial NY, check. Sexy woman in a big car, yet ostensibly unthreatening since she’s “accounted for” by her man at the end, check. The old (Italian) ethnic tribe and its spatial equivalent in an orderly urban order of the industrial city, check. The EV may not be rolling coal, but the message I see out of these ingredients is: The Future Is the same as The Past. May be a banal, conservative, and ultimately misleading message… but it is a terrific ad.
all electric is an attempt to control the world, and it is evil.
Ottawa would have not been possible.
@NIck “since she’s “accounted for” by her man at the end”
that was her brother on the show, not sure what you mean
I know that and you know that, but the ad creators can’t have made that assumption for most people. At any rate, this is introducing something very new in conservative cloak, and within that world, women are always associated with men in some shape or form (father, brother, etc). So it’s another element that differs (it’s a woman, not burly Tony in the gangsta Cadillac), but not that much, as the audience is offered assurances that she is “accounted for” in those traditional ways. And finally, no matter who she is now, personally and professionally, the ad depicts her going back to her roots, whether “family” or “shady business,” however you want to think about it. Hope this makes more sense!
Well, Meadow and AJ had to bond after their dad got clipped in front of them over onion rings that night…or maybe he ended up in jail. It’s all rather ambiguous.
(BTW, Tony’s ride for most of the show was a Suburban, not a Caddy. It was his “average suburban dad ride.” Emblematic of his split personality.)
Correct Mike! It was a Suburban – my bad.
The ending was genius and did not leave me wanting. Only Mad Men ended better, in my view.
The Sopranos ending was ambiguous by design, according to the show’s creator. But Tony’s two alternative fates – jail or death – were clearly laid out in that last scene, and either way, his family would be dragged along for the ride. It was a great ending.
Loved the “Mad Men” ending too. You KNOW Don was going to use his “OMMMMMM” moment of clarity for business, not to change his life. As he said…people show you who they really are, whether you want to see it or not. Don was an ad man.
Mad Men went on about two seasons too long!
I could have done with another four seasons of it…”Mad Men ’70s”. Lots of mutton chop sideburns and plaid outfits. Groovy.
No one I was with had any idea at all what Polestar was and after I explained it no one cared.
A little interest on the Silverado EV though.
The most fantasy part of all those EV ads was that you find your parking spot right in front of where you are going and there is a working charger!
I liked the Robo Dog in the Kia ad. Got your attention it was heartwarming even if Robo Dog wasn’t real he finally got a charge and a home with an electric Kia.