Before we begin: remember what I said earlier about a dominant theme for Super Bowl ads signaling the height of a bubble? That doesn't affect the year we're about to talk about, but it WILL affect this coming year's game. Can you guess which overblown, overhyped, inescapable tech trend has at least ten guaranteed ads about to air during Super Bowl 59? And can you guess which same tech trend is already showing signs of weakening in the market? Eeeeeyup. As you sit and scowl through so many ads for AI products this year, just remember this is the beginning of the end. There's no surer sign.
Also, I think you'd have to be pretty stupid or terminally nonobservant at this point to consider Super Bowl ads good advice on what to do with your money (Ooh-ooh Temu!)
Now let's go back to 1997...and as for what appeared the most times THEN, that would be this one shot of Mulder and Scully opening a trunk.
Some networks have barely promoted what they will run after the trophy is awarded, and then some were Fox in 1997. This clip appears at least seven times throughout the game, and you WILL be sick of it before the end.
| Here's an inside secret: it's a toss-up whether I count the "Kickoff Show" ads as part of the game ads or not. Usually it depends on whether they're interesting enough (yup, that's the criteria). This time they were, so I left them in. I almost never include anything from the pregame, but I will make an exception for this one because it has Corinne Bohrer in it. Corinne has actually appeared on the Super Bowl more than once, and there are many A-list celebrities who can't make that claim. | |
| Jason Alexander was still getting
Super Bowl placement in '97. Unlike his chips ads (well,
this one is sorta also for a "chip" of sorts)
this is the kind of thing I can see George Costanza
doing, had he the resources. Those early-CG "muscles" look hideous, even if they're on candy. I wasn't aware the Bud Bowl was still a thing by this point. Well, barely -- the bottles themselves only appear for a few seconds in this spot. If you'e going to do it anyway, why spend so little effort on it? And the "I Love You Man" guy gets to appear, but not the Frogs? This ad takes place in their swamp! In fact the Frogs never appear in this Bowl! What were you thinking, Budweiser? |
|
| We had the Muppets last time...and we
have the Muppets this time! Not bad for Bowls seven years
apart. It's kinda just Piggy though. In 2004 she sold
pizza; in 1997 she sold potato chips. In 2004 Piggy
kicked the tar out of Kermit for drooling over some other
woman, and in 1997 we see that she's a hypocrite...though
one with a lot of dealbreakers. Piggy would REALLY be upset if she knew the very next ad was for Pork, The Other White Meat. |
|
| Pepsi's latest mutation of their
classic slogan is "Generation Next." It was
five years ago they made a big scene out of abandoming
that slogan at the 1992 Super Bowl. Evidently they
changed their minds, and started chasing youngsters again
with as many strobe lights and freaky circus performers
as they could find. The ad that follows is one I distinctly remember, because the gimmick of a completely black screen coupled with the sound of someone repeatedly dialing the same number and getting a busy signal seemed to stick in my mind. I did NOT remember what the ad was for. Two years later, my parents would get Compuserve as their first internet service provider, and we found out quickly what a lie this ad was. That connection dropped out ALL THE TIME. The last ad is the debut of "Dogs Love Trucks," the side-slogan Nissan adopted alongside "Enjoy The Ride." |
|
| I just got done mouthing off at Bud but to be honest, this "power company" ad is pretty great. Hope they keep this up... | |
| Jason Alexander and Cindy Crawford
don't have much in common, besides this: they appeared in
lots and lots of 1990s Super Bowl ads. We'll see Cindy
again in the second quarter, for a different product. "Dante's Peak" is advertised twice. We were in the midst of the Disaster Movie craze. Next year we'd get Armageddon, Deep Impact, and American Godzilla. |
|
| The original Star Wars trilogy would
come back to theaters in March of 1997, not without
controversy: it was the "Special Edition" that
had all those added scenes and CG embellishments. It
actually wasn't THAT controversial at first, until months
later when people found out seeing the unedited versions
was no longer an option, and then they got
irate. A lot of Millennials have fond memories of seeing the OT this way. I was stupid for skipping it. |
|
| We've already established that Pepsi
is once again a Youth Product, but some species aren't
getting the message. Silly cow, Pepsi is for kids. Now
you have to die! Jim Carrey plays this lawyer who always lies, until his kid wishes that he can't lie, and then the next day he distorts his face and twists his body while yelling statements of brutal honesty at everyone. I'll give Liar Liar this: I had no idea how Carrey was going to defend his client without lying, and it was a clever weave how he got around it. Also, I'm glad Sega was able to convince Carrey to do his schtick again in Sonic movies; even as an old geezer he's still got it. |
|
| I mentioned before how quickly the
"Enjoy The Ride" campaign deflated, and this
was the start of it. Following up that popular
stop-motion GI Joe In A Toy Nissan ad was no easy task,
and the whole thing with the pigeons, while being
elaborate and expensive, didn't set the public on fire. Here's a SECOND company promoting a Star Wars-related giveaway. Were you seriously supposed to press the game tickets to your forehead? Was there no other way? I'd feel foolish. For a new N64 though... TACO BELL: APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD |
|
| I don't have anything to say about
much of this (and it's way too early for an ad to be
repeating itself) but that Dirt Devil thing...that was
the second "tampering with classic movies"
scandal of 1997. It was very controversial to make Gene
Kelly and Fred Astaire hold something they weren't
originally holding, and to sell something they couldn't
sign off on. Later referenced on The Simpsons when Homer says "When you're dead, you'll be dancing in commercials with vacuum cleaners." |
|
| Okay, this Nike ad....I didn't get it
then and I don't get it now. Am I supposed to know who
"Little Petey" is? Is that actually Chris Rock?
It sounds a lot like Chris Rock. But why is he a
marionette instead of himself? What's going on? The next Bud ad is okay but not on the level of the hamster ad. |
|
| This is part of a series of ads by Visa where celebrities were asked to "show some ID" even though the average person should've known who they were. Bob Dole had just run an entire presidential campaign the previous year, so he seemed like the logical next step. Weirdly this would not be the only Super Bowl ad Bob Dole would star in. | |
| Ah yes...."SURGE." If there was ever a more 90s drink than this, I don't know what it could be. "Crystal Surge X-Treme With Real Shaq Sweat" maybe. The fact that a spot for the drink got on the Super Bowl proves it must've been a strong seller at this time. Now Crawford is a princess rocking thigh-high boots who pals around with a wizard that is also an animated red bird. This is not her wildest moment as a fantasy character though. For that you have to watch a different ad, which only aired in Japan... |
|
| And the third Bud ad is just meh -- I
guessed what was going on before I saw it, and they're
usually good at surprise gags. Not much to say about the
Tostitos ad either, which is a repeat from the pregane. The second Pork ad, though, is a step up from the first. |
|
| Every decade has someone who's famous
just because they're a jerk. In the 1990s that was Howard
Stern. By 1997 it had gone far enough to result in an
entire Howard Stern movie. Stern and Quivers played
themselves. The man has since mellowed out and dropped
the misogyny, but of course, other jerks have taken his
place. An ad for a dot-com business -- it starts! And it had my immediate attention in 1997 for using animation, something you didn't see too many Big Game ads do at the time. |
|
| The halftime act was Blues Brothers, James Brown and ZZ Top...something for everyone. I usually don't post the halftime ads since they're entirely local, but I have the Portland airing of this one and...we got Garfield. Not every affiliate got Garfield, but we did! | |
| If you haven't already figured this
out, King of the Hill was brand new -- it had
only been on the air for a few weeks. Fox was doing a
VERY good job promoting it....we see Hank almost as many
times as we see Mulder, Scully and their umbrellas. We
even get a full song...and they provide the words so you
can sing along. Boy howdy, I tell ya hwat. Now bears want Pepsi....silly grizzlies, Pepsi is for---GAAAHHHH GET AWAY FROM ME |
|
| Alright now, Pepsi's getting a little too "SNL, but actually it's a real ad" for me. You know, I don't really believe that basketball player is actually there. Something just tells me this is fake and he might not actually be doing that... Yes, the car was called the Porsche 911 (nine-eleven) and no, I don't know if they had to change the name eventually. |
|
| It's official...Bud's a dud this year. We started out strong with the hamster but we're ending with these really bad caveman ads. What were they thinking? | |
| There's another specific memory I have of this Super Bowl and it's the fact that by the time Columbia / Sony put out this combo ad for all their upcoming films, my family had sat down for dinner. My stepdad burst out laughing at the "You may now return to your nachos" part. In retrospect it's curious the Fifth Element preview doesn't even let you know Milla Jovovich is in it, let alone that she's playing a character central to the whole plot. | |
| Remember emoticons, the forerunner to emojis? I guess you have to be old enough. There was a time when smiley faces didn't come standard with chat windows and we had to cobble together whatever we could think up through ASCII art. You have to admit, it allowed for more creativity. | |
| "Skunky Beer Alert," huh? No, you have skunky ad writers! Do better next time, I know you can! Where were the Frogs? Where were the Clydesdales? | |
| Time for the remainders! Here are all the fourth-quarter spots that aren't worth talking about. At least, I'm REALLY not gonna bring up the punchline to that Holiday Inn ad, woof. |
By the end of the game, the Green Bay Packers had dominated the New England Patriots 35 to 21. Was there a dominant winner in this year's ad bounty? Nothing I noticed. This Bowl is the very definition of average, but it gets extra points for just being from the 90s.