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Budweiser – the King of Super Bowl ads

Fried Rice
Heidi Rice
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado

“I can’t wait for the Super Bowl this Sunday!” I said with excitement while husband-head and I were having dinner the other evening. “It’s going to be so much fun!”

Husband-head about spit up his peas.

“What are you TALKING about?” he said with surprise. “You know you don’t have a clue about football or what’s going on. Why would you possibly care about the Super



Bowl?”

“Not the game, silly,” I said, dismissing the idea with a flick of my wrist. “That’s boring. I’m talking about the commercials. That’s the only part worth watching.”



Husband-head just rolled his eyes

“And that’s the only part where you’re allowed to talk,” he reminded me.

And the only part I actually I understand.

Apparently, this year’s Super Bowl advertisements are supposed to be taking a “milder, sweeter approach,” according to a story in the New York Times.

Unlike the mudslinging going on between the presidential candidates as they near Super Tuesday, we might add.

But last year’s Super Bowl ads were quite aggressive and included a lot of rather aggressive behavior, including the Bud Light commercial in which a variety of different types of people are shown slapping each other – hard.

The Sierra Mist ad featured a man teaching a karate class and when he asks the students how they would react if someone tried to take their Sierra Mist, they all respond in a most violent manner.

Then there was the Snickers commercial in which two mechanics are working on a car and somehow both end up with the same Snickers bar in their mouths which ends in a kiss when they come to the end – kind of like the spaghetti scene in the Disney film “101 Dalmations.” Looking horrified, the Snicker-eating men each try to re-establish their masculinity by pulling their chest hairs out.

Husband-head insisted the commercials were good when I recounted them, but then he also thinks the “Three Stooges” are funny.

Personally, one of my favorite Super Bowl advertisers is Budweiser. Back in the early/mid 1990’s, I thought the Bud Bowl between Budweiser and Bud Light was cute and infinitely more interesting than the real game.

Around that same time, Budweiser also came up with the infamous frogs in which the three of them are sitting in a swamp at night. “Bud” keeps repeating his name over and over again until “Weis” pipes up, followed by “Er.” They each take turns saying their names until it forms the word “Budweiser.” However, I initially thought it was saying “Butt-Wipe-Er.”

Now 15 years later, husband-head still yells out “Bud!” whenever I start a question with the word “why.”

“Isn’t it awesome that after all this time I still do that?” he asks proudly. “You’ll NEVER forget that commercial!”

Then of course there was the 2004 Bud Light commercial in which a man and woman are taking a ride in a sleigh and in an attempt to create a romantic mood, the man lights a candle. The horse lifts its tail and farts, shooting the flames all over the

woman.

However, we should note that wasn’t the only offensive offering in the 2004 Super Bowl. Janet Jackson had her famous “wardrobe malfunction” in which her right breast was introduced to millions of unexpecting viewers during her halftime performance with Justin Timberlake.

In 2007, an ad featured a crab on the beach who crawls over to a red cooler filled with Budweisers and then whistles for all his buddies to come over. Hundreds of crabs come out and they all carry off the cooler, unbeknownst to the owner. The crabs set the cooler down and begin raising their claws and bowing to the Budweiser god.

So it will be with interest that I’ll watch the Super Bowl XLII commercials this year.

Preview clips show that Budweiser will have a warm and fuzzy ad in which a Dalmation helps out one of the Clydesdale horses who was not picked to be on the hitch team this year.

“Ohhh…he’s so cute,” I said to husband-head after watching the ad. “Can I get a Clydesdale?”

“Only if I can get the blonde on the beach in the last commercial,” husband-head agreed.

Whether the Super Bowl advertisements will be more interesting than the actual game is yet to be seen.

But surely they’ll be more fun than Super Tuesday.

Heidi Rice is a reporter for the Post Independent. Her column runs every Friday. Visit her website at http://www.heidirice.com.


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