Super Bowl Ad Watch: Picks And Pans

For one of the more exciting Super Bowls in NFL history -- and definitely the best halftime show in Super Bowl history in my slightly biased opinion -- the commercials, as highly touted as priced, were quite a letdown.

The result was not unlike that of a drinking man's response during previous boring Super blowouts -- at least there was Budweiser.

I was joined by my brother Brent (a.k.a. B-Trayne, for reasons of which even I am not entirely certain) for this year's Super Bowl- and ad-watching. We made predictions prior to kickoff as to which advertiser's commercial would be the first in-game ad: I chose the perennial and aforementioned sponsor Budweiser, and B-Trayne went with the computer monopoly Microsoft, which I thought was a decent bet considering its vast umbrella of products such as xBox, Windows XP, MSN or Bill Gates' own, exclusive, soon-to-be-introduced mark of the beast.

Here's how the ads within the big game played out:

12:13 First Quarter -- And the first in-game ad is brought to you by . . . Budweiser. B-Trayne gives up props with a high five. This Bud ad is a fictitious TV show called Robobash, which is a takeoff of those recycled robot demolition shows and pits a menacing, killer robot against a mini fridge. But the mini fridge has a bottle of Bud in it and, when the opposing robot goes to take it, a huge hammer catapults from the fridge to destroy the robot. To me, it's only memorable because I called the shot.

8:15 -- We see the new Britney Spears Pepsi commercial, which is a multi-generational medley of musical eras/jingles: 1958, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1989 and the present. The 1989 segment had Spears' reprising the Robert Palmer "Simply Irresistible" bit with a Brenda Warner-like 'do. I'm not quite sure if that is more, less, or equally disturbing than her previous ad with the Bob Dole ending, "Easy boy." I think it's a push.

3:10 -- More lackluster ads -- if we don't get some good commercials this Super Bowl, the terrorists win. Anyone else sick of these mlife ads yet? I refuse to log on to their website to find out what in the world is mlife.

1:59 -- Finally our first laugh-out-loud ad: Bud Light's raptor commercial. One man's bird of prey is trained to retrieve bottles of Bud. Much to the man's ignorance, the bird terrorizes patrons who are dining on the sidewalk below in Hitchcock-like fashion. The ad ends with the bird returning with a lady's undergarment, which is "a first," according to the man. Maybe it was funny -- maybe we are starving for good ads -- but we found ourselves laughing at this one nonetheless.

15:00 Second Quarter -- Finally our first truly ingenious ad: Visa's six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Bacon tries to make a bookstore purchase with a check but, of course, it can't be accepted without some ID. So Bacon parlays his famous six degrees of himself by retrieving five individuals through whom Bacon can link himself to the checkout guy, making them "practically brothers." You gotta love celebrities who don't take themselves too seriously -- at least for the right price.

13:12 -- Lipton continues its series of claymation Brisk ads with Danny DeVito leading a puppet strike against the company. The clay DeVito seems about the same height as the real life DeVito. B-Trayne gets a kick out of the Al Roker sighting in the spot as a TV reporter.

8:49 -- I believe we have a Super Bowl first -- the first triple-x movie trailer in Super Bowl history. No, not that triple-x. It's the new Vin Diesel ("The Fast and the Furious," "Boiler Room, " "Saving Private Ryan") movie entitled, "XXX," in which he stars as "the new breed of secret agent."

Budweiser strikes again with an ad that is indeed so "True." A girl agonizes over choosing just the right greeting card to express her love for her guy; the guy has an afterthought of buying a card at the cash register of a convenience store. He breathes a sigh of relief when his girl deems it "perfect."

Apropos of the last play before the commercial break, New England's Ty Law, who just returned an interception for a touchdown for the first TD of the game, appears on behalf of the Patriots and the NFL to thank our armed forces for their service to protect America. Timing is everything.

2:00 -- Levis debuts its online poll winner for which ad should air during the Super Bowl with "Crazy Legs." With no small help of computer digitization, a guy struts down the street with his lower extremities defying all normalcy.

9:52 Third Quarter -- Budweiser strikes again. A guy is fixated on the television while his gal is enticing him to join her with lingerie, satin sheets and Bud, which finally gets his attention. He dives onto the bed but slides across the satin and through the second-story window. A tree branch manages to snag his boxers on the way down, and he scrambles in the buff to get back into the house, but not before he runs into his bewildered neighbors.

9:31 -- It was only a matter of time before Subway thrust Jared upon the nation during the Super Bowl. Did this guy marry into a Subway executive's family or something? In possibly his most annoying ad yet -- although Clay Henry has a firm grasp on that honor -- an eavesdropping Jared keeps interjecting how low-fat the subs are to the guys at a neighboring table. In this time of patriotism and civic duty, why couldn't these guys do America a favor and punch Jared out? Is that too much to ask?

6:40 -- Yeah, baby! The trailer for the third Austin Powers movie, formerly known as "Goldmember." Apparently the intellectual owners of the James Bond property felt that title encroached a little too much on the 007 classic "Goldfinger," so "this film is not yet rated" -- nor titled. Nothing one "meellion" dollars shouldn't solve though.

6:03 -- Blockbuster presents the funniest "Flashdance" spoof of "Maniac" since Chris Farley in "Tommy Boy." Two animated bunnies in a pet shop across the street from a Blockbuster store try to one-up the wall-to-wall entertainment Blockbuster offers by dancing to the song and shaking their money-makers.

10:28 Fourth Quarter -- Fox has been teasing this special, one-hour "Malcolm in the Middle" all night, and I've been finally persuaded to tune in. However, I doubt the actual show can be any funnier than the promos -- that poison oak bit kills me every time.

9:33 -- A company called Roche boasts that its prescription medication can shorten the duration of flu symptoms. And its web site is igotflu.com. Couldn't they at least have gotten creative and had a Sonny and Cher spoof, "I Got Flu, Babe"? I mean, this is the Super Bowl. Get creative, people!

9:31 -- In a "Field Of Dreams" voice over a stadium's PA system, all-time homerun leader Hank Aaron tries to persuade all-time single-season homerun leader Barry Bonds to retire before further challenging Aaron's career mark. When Bonds calls him on it, Aaron says, "Hank who?" This ad is for Charles Schwab and asks, "Want retirement advice from someone you can trust?" It's good to see Aaron, who in recent years has been slightly aloof in relation to the modern game and ballplayers, in a light-hearted ad like this.

Postgame -- Surreal moment of the night: "Patriots fans, your team just won the Super Bowl! And now, direct from the NFL shop, you can own the Patriots Super Pack -- the official championship cap and T-shirt worn by players and coaches during the postgame celebration . . . " Simply amazing. I wonder if any of the production folks putting this ad together -- just in case -- had any inclination that it would be necessary. Incredible.