43rd Game

This year the Superbowl commercials and half-time show were largely mediocre (while the game was surprisingly interesting). A few commercials were worth remembering, however. The CareerBuilder.com commercial was particularly entertaining. I have noticed that the most entertaining commercials have running punch-lines, rather than a single one at the very end: CareerBuilder.com featured a long, building sequence of examples of unacceptable employment situations that provoked a laugh at every stage. Coca-Cola also employed this technique in a non-humorous way in their "Bug's Life" commercial. The ad featured (filmed in a haze of yellow summer light) a sleepy picnic-goer whose Coke is stolen through the combined efforts of ingenious insects. Doesn't sound like much? You should have heard the audience's exclamations of delight when a tower of butterflies masquerading as the missing Coke shattered before the sleeper's groping hand, or the audience's speculation on how the bugs might open the bottle. The ad kept the roomful of college students riveted to the TV with constant stimulation and a progression of development.