Satvika Ananth
Staff Writer
Yes, I watched the Superbowl. No, I don’t know what made the Saints come through in the second half. And though I may not be able to tell you much about the Superbowl winners themselves, I certainly can figure out the winners and losers when it comes to commercials.

Winners

The Baby E-Trade commercials never seem to get old. Maybe it’s just me, but the adorable little faces with the awkward voices are just about the funniest things on television. The fact that I almost believe the babies are talking? A little freaky. But amusing, nonetheless.

You can’t really mention Superbowl commercials without mentioning beer commercials, which are always a hit, and this year, we got a double dose of the funnies. Bud Light caught my attention first with the House of Beer commercial, and the T. Payne commercial. Both were snappy, outrageous, and exactly what I expected.

Budweiser was also a success, with a twist on its classic horse commercial, bringing a longhorn into the mix. I must admit, that one almost had me tearing up. Their other commercial was equally humorous, featuring a human bridge.

Flo TV entered the scene with one fantastic commercial featuring a montage of significant events from our lifetimes, and managed to captivate my attention for an entire 30 seconds while I remembered what has come to pass in the last few years. Though their other commercials made little sense to me, this one was simply fantastic.

And the top winner of the night: Google. This commercial captured the essence of our technologically-minded generation, without ever saying a word. I was captivated, amused, and of course, inclined to say “aww” at the end. It was essentially life, in a Google search bar. Fabulous and characteristic of Google, simple.

Losers

The Denny’s Grand Slam chicken commercials were in a lose-lose situation. When you’re already scarfing down junk food at a Superbowl party, watching another food commercial isn’t exactly what you want. Additionally, screaming chickens? Really? If I want loud and obnoxious, I’ll just listen to Ke$ha for a long period of time.

Car commercials are always the losers in a Superbowl , mostly because you can’t do anything too outrageous with them.

Ties

Doritos had its good and its bad moments. The good: A little boy tells his mothers date, “Don’t mess with my mama, and don’t mess with my Doritos.” Adorable? Absolutely. The bad: Everything else. One commercial featured a fake funeral, and another characterized Doritos-lovers as fanatical and insane. Maybe it’s just because I prefer Cheetos, but I found these advertisements unnecessary and not up to par with the rest.

CBS’s personal advertisements for television shows and the network itself were, in a word, bland. Not to mention the fact that they ripped off the Ford F-150 commercial style in the process.

Coke would have been better off sticking its normal smiley-happy-musical commercials, instead of employing The Simpsons for one of them. To be sure, animated characters must cost significantly less as  endorsers, but their other commercial, which featured a sleepwalking man in the middle of the wild finding a coke, was much better.