It’s Superbowl Sunday So Here Are Ten Superb Owls (Five Super Bowl XLVI Commercials)

(Yes, we know everyone on Twitter has made weak “Superb Owl” jokes today. We did that joke on Twitter three years ago though, so we are best.)

NUMBER SIX: The Owl From The BBC Micro ‘B’

Fluttering into prominence in December 1981, Alan The Acornsoft Owl was an instant hit in computer labs around Thatcher’s Britain. Named in honour of former QPR, Crystal Palace, Charlton and Brighton midfield general Alan Mullery, there’s a long and complicated history behind the dotmatrixed hooter’s genesis.

It all began in 1962 when OH WHAT THE HECK HERE ARE FIVE GREAT TV COMMERCIALS FROM THIS YEAR’S SUPERBOWL INSTEAD.

NUMBER FIVE: WHERE’S PEP-BOY?

(Reader’s voice: “Buh?”) That’s right. the only reason anyone could possibly have for watching the Super Bowl – the adverts – can now be done hours earlier, without having to stay up until a billion clock in the morning and negotiating dodgy video streaming sites that are so blocky they may as well have been displayed on a BBC Micro Model ‘B’. All on YouTube, which is such a fantastic thing we hardly even mind that YouTube have now removed the excellent Johnny Carson video we uploaded to it several years ago for ‘copyright infringement’.

First up, this:

Wait, not another Terminator movie? Well, as long as McG’s not bloody directing it this time.

Oh shit! Is it FALLOUT 4? Holy crap, it’s FALLOUT 4! We’re only now finishing up the DLC on Fallout 3, this is going to be AWESOME.

Aah, it’s about the Mayans. So, what is this advert actually for? A new Michael Bay film? Volcano insurance? What?

It’s for whatever the US equivalent of a Chelsea Tractor is. Namely a Chevy Silverado, which is the kind of thing Proper Men drive. Hey, nothing says “I am comfortable with my genitals” like spending about $130 a week on petrol. Erm, gasoline.

Anyway, back to the ad. Truck Drivin’ Guy trundles his way through what’s left of the freeway, and meets up with his buds. Well, most of them. Not the one who drives… a certain rival type of car. D’ya know what? That’s something we’ve always liked about American TV commercials, that they’re not afraid to name their rivals as they’re pissing on their wailing faces. Not for them the sniggering “we’re better than ‘them lot’” you might get in British ads, as anyone who saw Pepsi’s infamous, swiftly-pulled and entirely just-made-up-by-us commercial from Superbowl XVI (just the words COKE IS FUCKING SHIT flashing on screen in Helvetica Bold for 150 seconds) will attest.

BONUS FACT: Ford have officially asked Chevrolet to pull this advert. Good luck with that.

NUMBER FOUR: PRS PAYDAY FOR YELLO AHOY

You know films that everyone has seen and makes endless references to but which you’ve never actually seen so you only really get the references from the times Family Guy riffed on it? Well, for us, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is one of those films.

As a result, lots of this is probably searingly clever and well-observed, but we don’t know it. This advert for the Honda CR-V sees Matthew Broderick calling his agent to “phone in sick” for the day, so he can slope off an embark on lots of Honda CR-V-related tomfoolery.

Partly involving visiting funfairs and pretending to be a dinosaur.

All very good, we’re sure. Though we’d prefer if it’d all been heavily based on WarGames, because we’ve seen that. We’ve also seen Godzilla, but, yeah, y’know.

NUMBER THREE: ANYTHING YOU CAN DO…

Not a full ad, but rather a teaser for Volkswagen’s biggie.

In a BROKENTV EXCLUSIVE we’ve found a leaked version of the full commercial. And here it is. Don’t tell The Man.

NUMBER TWO: PIZZA CURTAINS

Uh-oh. This advert for the ‘reinvented’ Toyota Camry (YES WE KNOW ITS ANOTHER CAR ADVERT. Hey, at least it’s not the sodding Go Daddy advert, though eh?) seems gallingly formulaic at first. Geek Chap arrives home with groceries…

Only to find he’s now somehow the owner of a ‘reinvented couch’…

Yep, looks like it’s going to be a fuckawful Lynx advert, doesn’t it? However, Geek Chap doesn’t look too impressed, until the voiceover announces that it also comes in ‘male’.

Ah, them The Gays, eh? Luckily, it gets better from there, taking in other great new inventions such a pizza curtains, robot time travelling non-pooping babies and crime-fighting potplants.

All in all, not quite as good as an infomercial of Reeves and Mortimer products, but not too far off. And only a shot of the expensive vehicle right at the start and right at the end, which is the way car adverts should be.

NUMBER ONE: GOLD, JERRY! GOLD!

Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t really got a great record of appearing in entertaining television commercials. There was the Microsoft advert that riffed on the idea of Bill Gates ‘doing’ comedy in pretty much the most joy-free manner imaginable. There were the American Express commercials where Jerry appeared with Superman (voiced by Patrick Warburton doing his Joe Swanson voice), which again were pretty much laugh-free, though presumably a bit of a fantasy come true for J Seinfeld.

This commercial however – YES IT’S FOR ANOTHER BLOODY CAR – is on much safer ground.

See? The plot, such as it is, sees Jerry beaten to the punch on buying the first Anuncio Acura available on American soil. In order to get it, he makes the new owner of the car a number of offers he’ll hopefully find impossible to refuse. These range from slipping him twenty bucks, offering to tell dirty limericks at family gatherings, dancing holographic monkeys, all the regulars you’d expect.

And so on, and so on, right up until the point where the plan very nearly comes off. Until, well, yeah. Best just imagine the whole payoff didn’t really happen, but still! Seinfeld doing something much better than The Marriage Ref!