The Super Bowl is the biggest annual television event and promises something for everybody. The actual game is for fans of the sport (and swagger); the halftime show and heralded ads are for those invested in pop culture. What a dream for folks interested in all of the above, especially if your team reaches that championship stage. Rihanna’s performance was a bit of a letdown—she performed all of the hits and looked very cool doing it, but the only thing she debuted was a baby bump.
The advertisements, however, were an immense letdown. There were a few good spots—Jack Harlow’s new angle for Doritos, #BinkyDad, and the Tubi joint that freaked everyone out come to mind. These commercials were put online before the big game though, which demystifies their prestige and kinda defeats the purpose of spending all that money to get a slot in the telecast. That’s another story for another day. The main story, the one you're here to read, is about the ads that were terrific failures, ranging from mind-numbingly okay to plain-ol' awful. Here are five of the worst.
5. PopCorners Breaks Breaking Bad
It should make you really, really sad that these iconic characters may have made their final appearance ever in a corny Super Bowl ad for the most confused snack in the supermarket.
4. Avocados: Still Unf**kwithable
Do avocados really need advertisements? We don’t need another one of these in 2024 unless it’s to let us know they’re going to be cheaper. Otherwise, keep it.
3. The Caddyshack Homage No One Asked For
A YouTube comment on this clip insists "The cringe was real with the commercials this year. This was a great example." That might as well have come from our burner account.
Star-studded nonsense has become a hallmark of Super Bowl commercials. Too many ads rely on this, but we’ll pick on this one because it seems particularly pointless. The perfect Michelob ULTRA ad would just play into the fact that you could drink like 90 of these things and only get a buzz, which would make it perfect for golf or a child’s birthday party.
2. C.R.E.A.M. of the Flop
Not all that bad, but it is actually criminal to feature Raekwon in an ad and write a C.R.E.A.M. joke without actually incorporating the song. What are we doing here? Arrest everybody involved in conceiving this.
1. Jesus Commercial Is an Oxymoron
You’ve probably seen these strange melodramatic commercials while you’ve been watching live television for some time now. They operate under the guise of using Jesus as a way to unite people, but this organization—with its ties to various evangelical groups and, most prominently, anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion Hobby Lobby co-founder David Green—should be viewed with a great deal of scrutiny. It’s been reported that the “He Gets Us” folks spent $20 million on these ads and plan to spend a total of $1 billion throughout 2023 instead of uhhh... just taking that money and giving it to people in need. Now, if Jesus is just like us, do you think he, with his olive skin and hair like wool, would do this? Talk the talk instead of walk the walk? Make it make sense.
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