As the football game interrupts the commercials, which will be your favorites?

(From syracusenewtimes.com)

(From syracusenewtimes.com)

I remember when everybody loved to talk about the football game. Like way back in the third Super Bowl, before it was one big league that decided this yearly get-together deserved Roman numerals, when upstart renegade Joe Willie Namath stamped his guarantee and his and my New York Jets of the American Football League beat the big, bad and burly Baltimore Colts of the traditionalist National Football League by the score of 16-7.

An important things to learn, kiddies: Quarterback Namath, from Beaver Falls, Pa., but who’d done his college quarterbacking for Alabama and thus spoke with somewhat of a drawl, wore a fur coat around Broadway, was known as a darling among the woman and a hero to them men, and was hired to star in a TV commercial to sell pantyhose by wearing them.

A tie between the big game and over-the-top commercial breaks to hawk products had been established forever and ever.

And haven’t there been some doozies over the years as companies from around the world fork over millions for dollars per 30-second slot to buy the eyeballs fixed upon the screens. This is our big party, you know? Have you ordered your pizza and wings ahead of time yet?

I’m always a goner for the Budweiser commercials. Yes, the zany ones are good for a chuckle. But it’s the sentimental ones of late, the spots that feature the reunion of the devoted dogs and horses, that get me every single time.

So my eyes opened wider as I read my Film News sites for today’s weekly blog post on the Syracuse New Times site and caught one reporter’s opinion that there are 10 trailers that deserve being shown during Sunday’s big game between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots.

Good idea, that.

You can read my piece and find links to that story by clicking the link below.

http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/super-bowls-commercials-could-bail-out-certain-films/

Also included over there today is my take on the heated speculation that Chris Pratt may be the man wearing the fedora in the next sequel in the “Indiana Jones” franchise.

Now that’s a career gone Joe Willie Namath-hot.

What are some of your favorite Super Bowl TV commercials? Are you going to be rooting for the Seattle Seahawks and uncharged balls or the New England Patriots and balls that had to be investigated? Which trailer would you most like to see Sunday, “Mission Impossible 5,” “Entourage,” “Point Blank” or “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”?

45 thoughts on “As the football game interrupts the commercials, which will be your favorites?

  1. You know I love my commercials, but to me, Super Bowl ads jumped the shark about 10-15 years ago when they suddenly became an even bigger part of Super Sunday than the game itself. The ad execs try too hard, and when you try too hard, you often fail.

    That said, my all time fave is e*Trade’s “Money coming out the wazoo” ad from the 2000 Super Bowl. I sill laugh at it every time I watch it on YouTube…

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  2. I won’t be cheering for anyone….though I love football. Or the idea of it. I get mad I can’t play. Therefor I do not watch. Anyway…. I would watch for the commercials. But I won’t even do that. I’ll youtube them all the next day. And there’s going to be movie trailers too????? I can’t keep up!!!

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  3. I like all of the above, especially the beer commercials! I loved Joe Namath, Mark! He was one of my star ‘crushes!’ I love the way you mentioned Super Bowls when they ‘were new’ like this was the 3rd one when Joe N. won with his team! I may only stay up until I get tired but I hope to get a nap in. I love hot wings, blue cheese dressing and celery sticks. I may end up with a sub from Subway. I enjoy and savor half during the game and the other half at work the next day. I like football and snacking. I will be alone since it is a Sunday! I am a New England Patriots’ fan! Woohoo!

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    • I am a blue cheese and celery stick man with my wings, too, Robin. Some people these days go for ranch instead. Not me. Traditional blue cheese!

      Enjoy your Subway sub and the game as long as you can last. Sorry, we’re rooting for different teams. 😦

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    • That sounds like a plan, Apple Pie. I’m a football fan, too, and I will be concentrating hard on the game. But I like the halftime music spectacle for the cultural pop aspect, and I want to see what Katy will come up with to be as daring as the NFL will allow, you know? Anyway, cocktail weenies is pretty great with pizza. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  4. i’m rooting for the pats, have to be loyal to my former wolverine, t brady. and i love the commercials, the doritos ones done by regular people, and man from uncle, all the way, one of my all time favs )

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  5. As a Seattle fan, I’m rooting for my beloved Seahawks. I’d rather listen to the game on the radio than watch TV, and view the commercials at my leisure on the internet. If the Seahawks win, you might be able to hear me in Syracuse. 🙂

    It’s hard for me to pick a favorite commercial. I miss the Bud Bowl commercials and love the dog and horse commercials. And the Carl Sweeney, Pepsi lover for life still makes me laugh.

    Enjoy the game!

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  6. I am not go to pay attention to any of them in protest. I thought it was disgraceful that only one ad made any reference to our troops fighting overseas or in remembrance of those killed and wounded last year. Nothing in the halftime show either. The Miami Dolphins will win the Super Bowl 24-10

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  7. Um, I’m with Marissa. *ducks to avoid pie thrown at me* I don’t watch football either. And I’m with Cindy too. Great title, my friend, which shows your unique creativeness. (((HUGS))) from your cousin to the west *Amy*

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  8. I’m with Marissa on this one. Although I don’t think poorly of anyone who chooses to watch a bunch of grown men all fight over one ball made, of all things, out of the skin of a pig. I think they should each have their own balls then they wouldn’t have to fight over one.

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  9. More important, what will be on the buffet alongside that pizza and those wings 😉 Some years the commercials seem duds–too much build-up that nothing, no matter how clever, could possibly live up to. Hope that is not the case this year. Half-time shows can be fun, too.

    How about you, Mark: Who are you rooting for? Will decide who I want to win once I see the teams play. Underdog always for me 😉 Michael Jackson had some good Pepsi commercials back in the day. And Whaazzzzzup sticks with me. I had a friend who teaches advertising copywriting and she treats the Super Bowl like a research project–taking notes on all the commercials.

    Wishing you fun Super Bowl watching. Will you have friends and/or family over?

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    • I will be rooting for the Seattle Seahawks, Liz. I, as a devoted New York Jets fans (see the lead to my story here) will root AGAINST the Patriots and FOR the quite likeable Seahawks squad.

      Last night my dear wife Karen and I decided we will phone Twin Trees Too in East Syracuse early, around 3 p.m., with our order of medium wings, pizza and an antipasta salad, to be delivered. We haven’t had wings in a while. Two years ago, we ordered the same from the same joint, which is only three miles up the road from the Little Bitty, and although I called two hours before game time and said I’d like to pick it up 45 minutes before game time, I stood waiting and waiting and waitng with 25 people in the restaurant who’d done the same and watched almost the first quarter of the game on the overhead TV there before our order was ready. So this time, the call will go in 3 1/2 hours before game time, and it will be delivered. And if it comes early, we have an oven.

      It will be just the two of us.

      Your family plans for the big day? Do you have a rooting interest? What’s on the menu?

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      • Wings will definitely be on order. Made them for the first time last year’s Superbowl and fell in love. Thinking I may have single-handedly emptied the entire crockpot. For sure making them again. Though it will probably be just for our family of four. Sunday night is a horrible night to socialize with families with kids. Am sure there will be bedtime scuffles with the youngest. Had a party last year, but it’s maybe easier without kids on a school night. And I’m not sure that I care who wins. Maybe not the Seahawks as they already won last year. Let’s give someone else a chance 😉 Though I did read that the Seahawks coach figures meditation as important to his team as physical training and that impressed me mightily.

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      • Yes, Sunday night is easier for family time with just the kids, I’m sure, Liz, and a tussle with the youngest at bed time is a given because she sees mom still eating wings, you know? 🙂

        Yes, the Seahawks won last year, but the Patriots will be worried about people thinking they cheated with their balls again, so the heck with them, I say. The Seattle coach used to coach my N.Y. Jets back in the day, before he was so brilliant and a meditator, I believe. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

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