Slate.com Table of Contents foreigners What Is There To Laugh About in Gaza? foreigners ad report card Remembering How To Cope The Super Bowl Special gabfest Advanced Search The Lack of Stimulus Gabfest architecture green room That Dogma Won't Hunt Date Local books green room How Good Are We, Really? Vulture World change-o-meter hot document Two Days Since Last Accident Like Daughter, Like Father change-o-meter human nature Strings Attached Vaginal Innard Course change-o-meter jurisprudence Tax Distractions I Need a Hero change-o-meter jurisprudence Homer Simpson's Washington Law! Law! Law! corrections medical examiner Corrections Dying To Play dear prudence moneybox Whack Off While You Work The King of Madison Avenue dispatches moneybox Come Hell or High Water, the Burmese Junta Endures Economic Know-Nothingism dvd extras moneybox Return to Waterworld Three Strikes and You're Bailed Out explainer moneybox A Snake the Size of a Plane Searching for an Optimist at Davos explainer movies You're Trashing My Scene! Button Eyes explainer music box Olympic-Size Bong Hits Great Composers, Lousy Reviews explainer my goodness Who Decides Which Drugs Athletes Can Take? All for ONE family number 1 No, You Shut Up! Monster Truck fighting words other magazines Farewell to a Much-Misunderstood Man Good Morning, Afghanistan foreigners poem Israel Has Already Decided "Paradise" Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC 1/101 politics the chat room Morning Joe Withdrawal Symptoms politics the dilettante Bipartisalesmanship He Should Have Played "The Wrestler" politics the green lantern Commercial Break Clean Jar, Clean Conscience? politics the has-been Tom Cries Uncle So You Had a Bad Day politics the oscars Tomfoolery The Batman Goes Bananas politics today's business press He's Lincoln! No, He's FDR! No, He's Polk! A Slimmer Stimulus? press box today's papers What Would Ann Landers Advise? Centrists Take Knife to Stimulus press box today's papers Who Should Replace William Kristol at the Times? Obama: No More Mr. Nice Guy press box today's papers Alms for the Press? Obama: "I Screwed Up" recycled today's papers Hard-Core Fans Senate Takes Over Stimulus recycled today's papers Let Si Get This Obama Wants Grand Bargain To Tame Deficit Science today's papers I'm Plunging to My Death ... Now What Do I Do? A New Era In Iraq? slate v today's papers Science News: Eco-Friendly Bombs? Daschle Forgets To Pay His Taxes! slate v tv club The Bike Valet Friday Night Lights, Season 3 slate v war stories Dear Prudence: Sexpot Daughter-in-Law What Are We Doing in Afghanistan? sports nut webhead The QB That Saved Pittsburgh The 10 Things We Want To Know About "25 Random Things About Me" technology what's up, doc? Shop Till Everyone Else Drops Crib Notes technology xx factor xxtra I Can Digg It More Stimulating television 43 Observations on the Super Bowl the best policy Privatize Social Security?! ad report card The Super Bowl Special Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC 2/101 Were the ads any good? him to appear in a beer commercial by promising it will air only By Seth Stevenson in Sweden. I adore Conan, but I didn't love this ad. Jokes about Monday, February 2, 2009, at 4:45 AM ET American stars making ads for foreign markets are old hat. And the imagined Swedish beer spot was just a jumble of stale Welcome to the annual Ad Report Card Super Bowl Special. clichés. What's more, I've had quite enough of celebrities With rates this year running as high as $3 million for a single 30- attempting to mitigate their "sellouts" (which may be regrettable second spot, the $100,000-per-second barrier has at last been but don't warrant an apology) with meta-joshing about the fact smashed. What did we get for all that marketing money? that they've sold out. The late great David Foster Wallace once described a tactic he dubbed the "Carson Maneuver." This refers First quarter: We're off to an inauspicious start, as the first to Johnny Carson's habit of inoculating himself against making commercial break comes on a stoppage for a video-booth bad jokes by letting on that he knew darn well the jokes were review. Dig that breakneck NFL action! bad. Conan—perhaps inspired by the fact that he'll soon be taking over Johnny's old show—has apparently been studying this technique. Our leadoff spot involves a team of co-workers in a conference room, looking for ways to trim the company budget. When one fellow suggests they stop buying Bud Light to drink at all their Second quarter: Steelers up 3-0. That's already more points than meetings, he's immediately defenestrated, still sitting in his were scored in the entire Liverpool vs. Chelsea match earlier leather office chair. 1) This ad continues a long-running, today. Take that, non-American "football"! increasingly irritating tradition: Bud Light always buys the first commercial slot and always fills it with a not-especially-funny A Cars.com spot traces the life of an exceedingly confident ad. Next year, I'd love to see another brand get its shot at this young man. He shakes the obstetrician's hand when he's born, he prime real estate and start things off on a high note. 2) Dialogue rescues cuddly animals from fires, and he asks out girls much like "We could cut back on marketing" and "We could eliminate older than he. Yet when it comes time to buy a car, he freezes bonuses" suggests that copywriters are attuned to the country's up. Cars.com is of course the solution. With its twinkly music, fearful economic mood. It'll be interesting to see if fiscal deadpan narration, twee vignettes, and overly self-assured pessimism becomes a theme as the night goes on. protagonist, the ad's clearly striving for a Wes Anderson-lite vibe. I got roped in by the narrative, so I think the ad was a Action star Jason Statham appears in a spot for the Audi A6. He success. But I felt its payoff lacked kick: Nowhere does the careens through different decades, driving iconic sports cars consumer learn how exactly Cars.com makes the purchasing from the '70s (Mercedes), '80s (BMW), and '90s (Lexus) before process easier. at last hopping into the putatively superior, supercharged Audi sedan. I liked the grainy, washed-out film stock they used in the Cheetos airs another of its moody, countercultural ads, in which '70s bit. I enjoyed the pastel clothes, enormous cell phone, and brand mascot Chester Cheetah encourages grown adults to billboard ad for mousse that appeared in the '80s section. And I behave like mischievous 7-year-olds. The spot opens on a lady thought the '90s part was funny—mostly because the only way who's yammering loudly on her cell phone, annoying a nearby the writers could think to signal '90s was by showing a movie woman who's trying to read a book. Chester the foul-hearted theater playing Tommy Boy. (Are the '90s so recent that their feline prods the aggrieved second woman to throw some Cheetos aesthetics are not yet mockable?) One problem: What kind of car at the loud-talker's feet, thereby attracting a flock of vicious ad shows a celebrity endorser driving rival brands and looking pigeons. I loved the satisfied look on the Cheeto-tosser's face as great doing it? That '80s Beemer was pretty sweet. I think I'd she watches the cell phone shouter become engulfed in dirty, rather buy one of those bad boys (used, with low mileage) than flapping feathers. I loved even more the closing moment when fork out $50,000 for a shiny new Audi. Wintry economic climate Chester nuzzles one of the pigeons, upon which he's placed a and all. falconry hood. One quibble: When I wrote about this campaign last year, the people at Cheetos told me they were executing a A Pepsi ad boldly suggests that will.i.am is this generation's Bob two-tiered strategy. Ads for kids showed Chester as his regular, Dylan. Hmm. Not buying. Nor am I fond of the ad's contention lovable self, and they aired during kid-friendly morning and that Jack Black is this generation's John Belushi. Have we really afternoon programming. Ads like this one—aimed at adults who run out of hugely talented iconoclasts? Also, I hesitate to ask, might be convinced to try Cheetos—aired only at night, so as to but: Was Bob Dylan heavily invested in financial stocks? He's hide the more nefarious version of Chester from younger eyes. on a revenue-raking tear, as this Pepsi spot comes hot on the But this ad aired before 8 p.m., and lots of kiddies are watching heels of him allowing a British conglomerate to desecrate the Super Bowl. Isn't there a danger Chester's distinctly targeted "Blowin' in the Wind." personalities might get blurred? Another celebrity unexpectedly cashes in: Conan O'Brien shows up in Bud Light's second spot. A misguided agent convinces Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC 3/101 Halftime: Suck it, haters—Springsteen was awesome. Granted, aired tonight. I wonder if there's a risk that—like Joe Camel the Boss misjudged his powerslide and smashed his crotch into a before him—the lovable Clydesdale will be condemned as a TV camera. But these things happen as we age.