Beukey on Pop Culture

This blog will focus on pop culture, with an emphasis on views outside, overlooked, or ignored by the mainstream. I may veer off-topic. We are all grown-ups, so don't act shocked at occasional bad language. This blog is not the place for those of you who stood in line to see "The Lake House".

Monday, February 05, 2007

Stupid Bowl Ads

Get the title? Isn't it funny? I took the common name of "Super Bowl" and changed it into "Stupid Bowl". It was the first thing that came to mind, so it didn't take a lot of work to produce. And it wasn't very creative, so I didn't have to worry anyone coming across this and not understanding what I meant. In fact, I could probably use the same concept year after year and people would still laugh at it because, even thought it really not that funny, it's comfortable, it plays on what people expect.

In other words, it's exactly like a Super Bowl ad.

(If you would like to read one person's detailed summary of this year's (s)ads, click the title.)

For years, we have had it forced down our throats that the Super Bowl is the pinnacle of advertising, and every year we watch the same concepts and gags recycled. (Except a few years ago when they went in full adolescence mode with the farting horse and the crotch-chomping dog. The unwelcomed appearance of Janet Jackson's floppy tit brought that type of (bowel) movement to a halt.) So again we get animals doing cute things (awwww!). Or guys that love Bud Light and will do anything to get it except buy the $4 bottle of beer. Or guys making gawking at women until they do something stupid (the prize-winning Doritos commercial).

Speaking of which, why did this commercial that was designed by an amateur look so much like every other commercial on TV? Was it because the contestant watched thousands of commercials to design one that looked like every other commercial? Or is it that designing a commercial is so easy that anyone at home can do it, and the results are indistinguishable from an ad designed by a professional? At least when Iron City did that routine 15 years ago, the commercials that people designed looked somewhat different that what was on TV.

The "edgy" ads were even worse. Ian Michael Black continues to prove he cannot be funny on any network other that VH1 (and that well ran dry at the end of I Love The 80's Part 1).

The only ones I found funny were K-Fed's (and what does that say when K-Fed turns in the best performace of the day?) and Sprint's "Conectile Dysfunction".