THE DAILY MOJO by Adam Daniel

Thanks to glorious Youtube, I trawled through all the ads from Superbowl 42 to give you the best of the best and worst of the worst.

THE BEST:

1. Fed-Ex

Good special effects, a nice simple funny punch line, and no wasted time – and it didn’t rely on a celebrity guest appearance. Great ad. Plus it had me thinking about the possibility of a horror movie about giant mutant pigeons – The Birds meets Godzilla. Tell me you wouldn’t pay $15 to see this.

2. Audi R8

Anything that references The Godfather always gets big kudos from me. It’s rare to find a classy car commercial that has a sense of humour. And that car is damn sexy too.

3. Bud Light

A bit of a cheat in grouping these together, but Bud Light have to be the most consistently funny advertisers from year to year and I couldn’t pick one over the others. The punchline to the Caveman ad was gold though.

4. Jackie Moon

Great Oden’s Raven. What can I say? …. I’m a sucker for Mr. Ferrell and you add Semi-Pro basketball to that mix and I am pretty sure we are on our way to Pleasure Town. And that uniform is damn sexy too.

5. E*Trade

Yep, the talking baby thing has been done before, but I just dig “I really underestimated the creepiness.” I think everyone can agree with that.

6. Tide

Really clever use of sound. It’s hard not to feel sorry for the guy being interviewed. He’s like George Costanza with the giant piece of spinach in his teeth.

7. Vitamin Water

How can you not enjoy the sight of Shaquille O’Neal riding a horse?

8. T-Mobile

Okay, you’ve gotta know a little about the personalities of these two to appreciate this one – apparently Charles is never afraid to administer some fatherly advice to young NBA players, and Dwayne is the kind of guy who is always respectfully wanting to learn from his peers. I also love the little visual jokes, like the size of Barkley’s fridge and the how he’s always eating; pretty apt for the guy they used to call the Round Mound of Rebound.

9. Pepsi

JT is always good value. Plus I love the weird Andy Samberg cameo. The best bit however is the when JT arrives at the girl’s house and is immediately like, “hey, how you doin?” I have no doubt this is exactly how he would be in real life.

10. Doritos

Love the whammy surprise punchline. Doritos have a rep for quirky comedy, and this is definitely that.

THE WORST:

6. Wall-E

Okay, not so much for the quality of the ad which is fine, but for the simple fact that Pixar look like they basically ripped off ‘Short Circuit’. Tell me you don’t see a resemblance…

5. Taco Bell

Again, not a terrible commercial – it’s simply in the worst list because that stupid whip-crack sound effect that pops up now and then in commercials. God I hate that. It’s right up there with the double take accompanied by the record needle scratch.

Oh, and that meal looks horrendous.

4. Coca Cola

Would you like some cheese with your beverage? That last shot made me vomit in my mouth.

3. SoBe Water

Lame, lame, lame. Not only is the animation piss poor, but I am sick of ad companies ransacking cool stuff from the 80s out of creative bankruptcy. I was bored after 10 seconds and this thing goes for a whole minute.

2. Anti-Drugs

Really convincing acting here…. And I don’t think many drug dealers actually share with total strangers their business difficulties. “Yeah, I’m having a lot of trouble moving all this smack, man.”

But it’s a very important social message. Be careful. Your kid could be getting high off a combination of panadol, blood pressure medication, and rogaine right now.

1. Salesgenie.com

Congratulations on your suckitude. Just terrible in every department. Lame writing, lame jokes, lame animation. Not to mention the predictable cultural stereotypes they think they are ‘mining for Comedy Gold’. An Indian with 7 kids! A Chinese person with a silly accent! Ugggh. I’m pretty sure a six year old could do better with crayons.

Special Mention – Bridgestone

Had to show this one too, not because it’s especially good or bad, but because it reminded me of the time it actually happened to me when I was driving to the Gold Coast one night; I ran over a giant lizard doing 100 km/h and I swear two seconds before it went under the car it stopped and screamed at me. Exactly like this ad. I knew I wasn’t hallucinating!