Super Bowl ads: Intel, iguanas, and irony

You may be surprised to find out that some strange things have happened this week. The Broncos not only beat their pathetic point spread, but won the Super Bowl. Even more amazing, perhaps, was the fact that the football game that took place during the Super Bowl was more exciting than the commercials. Since there is no way this incredible series of events could occur naturally (especially with Venus in John Elway's house of finance), conspiracy theory is on the menu.

First, there was no Bud Bowl this year. In past years, I relished Bud's thrashing of Bud Light. Especially when it is clear that any rag-tag bunch of delinquent beer bottles, with or without Emilio Estevez as coach, could easily defeat the AFC's "champion." But instead of the annual debate over how exactly a bottle can hold a football, this year I argued with my television about why exactly I should buy a really crappy beer because of the zany hijinks of a bunch of ugly-ass swamp creatures.

In case you missed it, a couple of fairly articulate iguanas, envious of the success of the ubiquitous, irritating Budweiser frogs, tried to kill the ribbitting freaks with the help of a ferret. They failed. So did the commercial. Although, as a commentary on the nature of artistic jealousy, it was only slightly less pointed and truthful than Martin Amis's The Information.

Following the precedent of Budweiser's commercials featuring wild animals who love tasty beverages, one of Pepsi's ads starred a goose competing with a sky surfer for a swig of the frosty brown brew. The goose was cute, but sky surfing? Wow, extreme, dude. That'll really get those hip kids in "Generation Next" sucking down Pepsi as they listen to Marilyn Manson CDs and pierce their genitals. On the whole, though, this Pepsi ad wasn't as awful as the one starring the mosquito with the big lips who sings "Brown Sugar" with the voice of a tracheotomy patient.

The second running commercial narrative was Intel's campaign. In what is ostensibly a mystery, a private detective searches for the radiation-suited knave who has nabbed some precious Intel hardware. Inexplicably, he narrows down his list of suspects to two in 10 seconds (in the tradition of the LAPD school of investigation). He then asks his viewers to determine who is guilty by voting in an online poll. The last time this happened, you may remember, Pontius Pilate washed his hands of the matter. Presumably, Intel wanted to demonstrate just how advanced their technology was--evidently advanced enough to orchestrate grotesque perversions of justice on a scale never possible in the pre-Internet world.

Oh yeah. And then there were the ads on the oh-so-clever ironic tip. I assume they were attempting to appeal to jaded fans who wouldn't get suckered into consumerism by frogs or the opportunity for a spot in a high-tech lynch mob. Isn't it ironic that it didn't work? These meta-commercials, which recognized the viewer's innate distrust of advertising, showed up occasionally during the broadcast, with "Wow, we paid $1.6 million for this TV time!" spots for FedEx and some German tire company shown during the first and third quarters. The FedEx ad, involving a commercial for a business not being broadcast because someone didn't send it to NBC via FedEx, was slightly funnier than the damned iguanas. The German tire commercial, which involved a scary German guy talking about tires, wasn't.

This year's crop of ads wasn't anything special. But compared to the spots for Bob's Discount Furniture that I would have seen had I watched whatever the hell was on the other channels, they really weren't so bad. After all, they're just commercials--if they've placed the product names inside my head, they've done their job.

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• Miss the Intel Ads? Check them out at Intel's Super Bowl Page.

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