And Now, The Five Best Commercials Of Super Bowl XLVII

5) Audi S6, "Prom":



A very subtle spot which, I believe, aired early in the game.  I don't think people thought it was great.  Neither did I.  But its storyline -- and it's rare for a commercial to have an actual storyline -- has kind of stayed with me ever since I saw it.  I was a scrawny kid in high school, and I was always jealous of the popular and beautiful kids at school.  The protagonist in the ad represents all of us.  He's just hoping to enjoy what seems to be a memorable night until his kind, understanding father lends his son his kick-ass Audi and (wittingly or unwittingly) gives him the confidence to make his prom truly memorable but having the balls to go up and plant a smooch on the prom queen.  So what if he got his ass kicked?  He had the balls to make a memory for himself.  And he survived the consequences because he's driving an Audi.

You know what?  I think I like Audis more now.

4) Kia Sorrento, "Space Babies"



It's the punchline that gets me.  This has your typical Super Bowl commercial foofooraw, and I usually hate that.  Neither do I like an ad that doesn't tell me where it's going, especially if I don't care for it.  But it gets me in the end when the child cuts through the father's bullcrap and starts to tell the truth about how babies are born.  I can sympathize with the cowardly way he weasels out of telling his son the truth about the birds and the bees by putting on "The Wheels On The Bus," even though I don't have kids and am not even close. And the tag line is perfect: "It Has An Answer For Everything."

3) Tide, "Miracle Stain":



I appreciate the story this commercial weaves.  Many ads for the Super Bowl try to be so outlandishly funny that they become unbelievable, at which point I just get turned off.  But this spot precisely parodies all those stories where the image of Jesus comes in the form of, say, a chip or a pattern on tree bark and takes the steps the guy who spilled the sauce that turned into the shape of Joe Montana in very plausible fashion.  And although the "secretly roots for the enemy" punchline is something I'm sure I've seen in other long-form commercials, this storyline was done so well that I didn't see it coming, so the tag felt organic and funny.

2) Anheuser-Busch, "Brotherhood" (extended online only version):



Tender, so tender that, I have to admit, it wanted to make me cry.  The passage of time is what gets me about this spot.  It's been about a year since my parents threw -- OK, maybe I should say took -- Grandmother out of the house and into a nursing home.  You want to spend every waking second with the people you love, and yet it still doesn't seem as if you spent enough time with them.  Because inevitably, they will leave.  You just hope they remember you -- and at the end of this beautiful commercial, the Clydesdale did.

I must say, however, that there are two glaring weaknesses with this ad.  First is the resolution, which is very sentimental but also very implausible.  When the Clydesdale (does he or she have a name yet?) goes running back to the trainer who raised him/her, we are anthropomorphizing (that's not a word, but go with me) the horse.  I half expected it to lift one of its legs to embrace the trainer with.  In fact, it kind of felt like the last episode of Friends, when Rachel decided not to leave for Europe and came back to Ross.  The other question I have is the music.  The advertisement is bittersweet, but isn't Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" too sad a tone for it?  There is nothing happy about that song (although don't get me wrong, it's a great song when you want to sit alone and pity yourself), but there is a hint of happiness at the end.  Nevertheless, these two drawbacks are substantially outweighed by the emotional wallop.

1) Dodge Ram, "God Made A Farmer":



OK, so this may not be realistic.  Esquire political columnist Charlie Pierce hated and in fact lambasted this commercial as woeful, anachronistic hackwork (at least I think that's what he said; I like the guy and his views on how idiotic and crazy Republicans are nowadays, but 55% of the time I can't understand a word he writes).  But I would rather cite Ken Tucker (late of Entertainment Weekly, where he rose to prominence, left, came back to when he wrote this piece and then has left again, I think).

I want to believe in the romanticism and the Middle-America-is-the-engine-that-runs-America, stiff upper lip/martyr image that this two-minute (now that's an epic commercial) visual poem, with a famous speech by radio legend Paul Harvey running underneath it like the infrastructure of a sturdy barn, wants to impart (and, let's be real, lash with a domestic truck).  But I am certain that Dodge's intentions are good.  And even all those cynics have to appreciate the beautiful shots (some of which, upon further viewings, is actually film; the birds, for example, slowly flap their wings).  Dodge commissioned ten photographers to capture high definition, even psychedelic, shots of farmers and their residences.  Honestly, my TV has never shown better images.  Also, the construction of the visuals combined with Harvey's powerful defense of the farmer (originally created for a convention of the Future Farmers Of America, which Dodge has pledged to donate money to for every view of this ad), tugged at so many viewers' heartstrings that the spot, as quiet and noble as our stereotypical image of the farmer, lingered even after play resumed.

This is the second straight year that a car commercial (it was Chrysler last year), featuring American iconography, pro-American values, narration by an American icon (Clint Eastwood, remember?) and a hushed, mournful but proud last stand to recognize what makes this country great, was the best ad of the Super Bowl.  The best commercials used to be funny.  But American commercials have done a good job of being funny in the last ten or twenty years.  Now, the best ones aren't funny but dare to carry a serious tone and message.  And that is absolutely awesome.