Which Super Bowl commercials were your favorites on Sunday?
I loved Christopher Walken in BMW's "Talking Like Walken" ad, in which everyone from the valet to the guy at the drive through to his tailor offers their own impersonation of his unique voice.
"There's only one Christopher Walken and one ultimate driving machine. The rest are just imitations," the announcer says, in his own Walken-esque style.
The ad reminded me of one of my all-time favorite Saturday Night Live sketches about a Walken family reunion. Every single cast member walks in with his or her own Walken impersonation and it's hysterical.
Any husband and wife can identify with the "DunKings" ad starring Jennifer Lopez and hubby Ben Affleck, from the eye rolls to the "We talked about this" comment from Jo Lo when Ben shows up at her work to perform. My favorite part? Matt Damon was there, too, unwillingly supporting his friend.
I missed Beyoncé's "Can't B Broken" ad (probably while I was in the kitchen refilling my plate). But I've seen it since and love the BeyoncAI and BarBey puns.
NFL Sunday Ticket's "Migration" commercial with Ravens, Seahawks and Eagles flying through the air and perching in trees cracked me up for its sheer corniness. The Nerds "Flashdance" commercial, Kate McKinnnon's talking cat in the "Mayo Cat" ad and the E-Trade babies playing pickleball amused me for the same reasons.
A couple of ads really pulled on the heartstrings - Budweiser's "Old School Delivery" commercial (who doesn't love Clydesdales and dogs - and did you know that lab belongs to Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell?) and Google's "Guided Frame," showing how a blind man can use the feature to take photos. (This did raise some questions for me.)
One of the best parts of watching the commercials was waiting to see which celebrities would have cameos and what they would do. I enjoyed Jelly Roll's bit in the Uber Eats ad, Jane Krakowski in Tina Fey's booking.com commercial, Jason Momoa dancing in T-Mobile's ad and Danny DeVito showing up in Arnold's State Farm commercial.
I didn't realize until this week that Super Bowl commercials really weren't a big deal prior to the mid-1980s. Saul Austerlitz, a writer for The New York Times, credits Apple's "1984" commercial in Super Bowl XVIII for starting the trend we see today.
The commercial was directed by Ridley Scott, who had just made "Blade Runner," and it introduced the new Macintosh computer without ever showing the product.
"It also helped to kick off - pun partially intended - the Super Bowl tradition of the big game serving as an annual showcase for gilt-edged ads from Fortune 500 companies," Austerlitz writes.
At the time, according to his article, commercials sold for $1 million a minute. Now it's up to $7 million for 30 seconds.
The Apple ad made Entertainment's list of the 20 best Super Bowl commercials (No. 2) of all time.
My favorite ad of all time, a 1998 one for Tabasco, did not make the list. A guy's sitting on his porch, dousing his slice of pizza with hot sauce. A mosquito who gets past his bug zapper bites his leg and, as it flies off, explodes in a burst of flames, bringing a satisfied grin to the man's face.
To see if your favorites are on the list and to relive some Super Bowl memories (remember the Budweiser frogs?), go to http://www.ew.com/tv/best-super-bowl-commercials-of-all-time and watch them all.
- Pamela Lannom is editor of The Hinsdalean. Readers can email her at [email protected].
